From the Rocky Mountain News this morning:
Two New Berlin West High School students in Milwaukee were kicked out of a girls basketball game last week after they chanted “air ball” at opposing players when they touched the ball after they hit nothing but air on shots. The students were kicked out after parents of the opposing team, Greenfield High School, whined, er, complained.
“Everybody does it,” Nick Roamer, one of those kicked out, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It’s not just like our school is the main soure of it.”
What’s next? No talking at Cameron Indoor Stadium?
This story is interesting on at least two fronts—both of them PC-tinged, one tied to the feminist movement. On the PC front, this kind of nonsense is, sadly, pandemic: any affront to personal dignity is treated as an excuse by presumptuous self-esteem nannies—or the more sanctimonious in the civil liberties crowd—to control the content of speech or constrain a range of actions (even if such a feel-good social movement leads to, say, enemy combatants having the “right” not to be offended by their interlocutors, a consideration that is not, naturally and ironically, extended to those who disagree with said movement).
To these petty tyrants posing as social engineers, ensuring that students say the “correct” thing (we’ll call it “content management”) is worth the attendant costs, which generally manifest themselves in either a weakening of individual speech, or else a “tolerance” pledge that must necessarily be enforced (just to be provocative and force Amanda Marcotte to take her eyes off her own vagina for a second, we’ll call it “form castration”).
I’ve written many times—most often in the context of Constitutional judicial debate—about the importance (for good or ill) of “form” as a means to reaching an outcome. In the case of jurisprudence, for instance, it is most important to reach a legal decision based on a rigorous adherence to judicial principles, chief among them, a disinterested reading of the law. The result of such a procedure will not always lead to the desired social outcome, of course, but what it will do is keep in check the template for how the judiciary is intended to function.
Unfortunately, too often these days the desired outcome is selected in advance, and legal reasoning then organized backward from that predetermined end. This, more than anything else I suspect, provides the impetus for strained “interpretations” (which are in effect re-writings) and for an advocacy of the “living Constitution” (an animal that is more a living contradiction — a living Constitution cannot be constrained, and so therefore is not so much a Constitution as it is a collection of suggestions allowed to mimic a legal blueprint). To get around fixed meaning intended to block a type of extratextual activism, then, one must naturally posit the impossibility of fixed meaning—usually accomplished with the adaptation of incoherent interpretive theories, a topic I’ve covered at great length.
However, what is truly fascinating in this case (well, to me, at least) is the subtext of Feminism. How do academic feminists, whose idea of the feminist movement proceeds from an adherence to proactive political gambits designed to bring about and enforce social “adjustments” ostensibly aimed at creating “equality” (however artificially), react to cases like this, wherein “equality” is already in play (the “air ball” chant has long been a taunt in the men’s game, so taking it out of the women’s game would bespeak a double standard, the force of which is to infantilize women as thin-skinned, easily bruised creatures incapable of being subjected to jeers)?
And the answer, it seems, is to move to eliminate such behavior altogether by labeling it “intolerant,” and—I suspect— to order it forcibly removed from both the men’s and women’s games under the pretense that it is a type of (soft) hate speech. Or to put it another way, the answer is to demand “good sportsmanship” not only from the games’ players, but from those who are merely witnesses to the game.
In sports, such a move robs competitive public athletics of one of its principle components—the home field advantage. But then, when the longterm social plan is to make every “home” equal—and, by extension, every player and every play equal—it becomes necessary, I suppose, to create strict guidelines that incrementally removes competitiveness from competition.
Which, is it any wonder that something so innocuous as keeping score is considered by many social engineers of a certain bent to be anathema to self-esteem, and so in need of “correction”?
All of which raises the question: is heightened competition a masculine thing? Is it socially constructed or biologically determined?
If it is socially constructed, why then, the question becomes, should we be working to drain it from the male socialization process rather than working to augment it in the female socialization process? And if it is a force of physiology, how can we justify tinkering with what is in effect a natural and constitutional male imperative?
Christina Hoff Sommers has some ideas. But I’m curious what many of you think—and I’m particularly curious what many academic / gender / second wave feminists think.
Similar to this post from Ace yesterday. NOt posting the honor roll in the paper because it puts the students under too much pressure. It’s absurd, because by this same token, you’d have to remove any mention of highschool atheletics from the paper as well.
Moronic, even.
Just like my spelling of the word athletics.
Why don’t the “Powers that be” just elimante high school sports altogether? One more step in creating mindless drones.
When I first hear them chant “air ball,” I felt like I wanted to throw up. But then I realized it would only prove the point that women just “can’t take it.” So I decided to whine everywhere about it and get Coach Summers fired.
If I were the parent of one of those airballers,
and if the school allows chants of ‘airball’ at boys games, I’d have my lawyer drawing up a suit right now claiming the school denied my daughter the right to be publicly ridiculed in the same manner as the boys. Title IX and all that blah blah blah. Not that I would relish the thought of my daughter being publicly humiliated, but a) she needs to learn how to fire the rock under pressure, and b)given the state of the judicial system, I could hit the fuckin’JACKPOT baby.
My brother, Matt, lives in New Berlin, and has a daughter who competes in basketball, though on the grade-school level, so this interests me from that angle, too. Was it an air ball, a whiff? Is there some less offensive way to characterize it? Should we perhaps simply award a field goal every time the ball is heaved up in the general direction of the basket? Perhaps only a single point, to avoid all those overtimes? Maybe ban spectators entirely, or provide them with devices that emit sounds that have been approved by the esteem police?
As far as the law goes, and setting aside for the moment the issue of judicial activism, it’s time that we as a society begin to determine how we weight transgressions, and undertake a complete overhaul of statutory law based on that. Probably, such a revision ought to be undertaken every 50 years as a matter of federal law, and, on the model of hate-crime and other sentencing enhancers, abuses of public trust ought to have intensified consequences.
I suppose the girls could just work on their jumpers.
First, we remove the upside of excellence. Then, we make it unseemly to strive for it. Then, we make it antisocial to do so. How far down this road can we get before we need a Handicapper General?
Let’s face it. Masculinity itself is non P.C. Actually acting in masculine manner is worse. Then again, watch T.V. and who are the only people who you can still make fun of, without fear of the whines of victimization? Dumb husbands who couldn’t tie their shoes without a smart, modern woman (that they obviously don’t deserve). Who are supposed to be male role models? Topher Grace (The dweeb off of That 70’s Show)? Michael J. Fox? Maybe Urkel?
To paraphrase Andy Warhol, in the future, all games will end in a 1-1 tie.
To the substance you raise (BTW, great post):
In my view Feminism is just an offset of Marxism, which in turn is an offshoot of Hegelianism, the end-point of both philosophies tending towards a continuous dialectic that will eventually resolve itself in stasis.
I am no Marxist but I have sympathy for the POV at that time. There were 2 elements. #1, a very unfortunate division of a small number of well-to-do or wealthy, and a large number of impoverished and terribly beaten down working class, on the verge of becoming an industrial working class. #2, an “ideology”, system of values, whatever you want to call it, that praised the smaller class, and essentially blamed the lower class for all of their own problems.
Marx looked at this and thought to himself, this cannot be right. You cannot have a majority of people reduced to poverty, and then, on top of that, blame them for their poverty, when they have no means to change their lives. Therefore, the key jump is to say that the system of values enforces the impoverishment, not that the impoverishment leads to the system of values. And thus by inverting Hegel’s idealistic conception, Marx created not only Marxism but essentially sociology (“bourgeois sociology” as the Marxists call it) as such.
OK. I do think it’s legitimate to argue for a system of values that eliminates poverty. And in the case of Britain, it helped do so, including, for example, by extending suffrage.
Now, 20th C things, including Civil Rights, and then Feminism, and now Gay Rights, are all descended from this tendency. But the mandate is ever broadening. In the 1840’s, it was about 10 year old girls being forced into prostitution and 10 year old boys getting TB working in coal mines. Today, it is about equal outcomes under all circumstances, and equal valuations of all situations. I am expecting that in the next 10 years the failure to laugh at another person’s joke will become a misdemeanor hate crime.
And that is the problem with any kind of dialectical approach to reality that insists that our perceptions and evaluations depend ENTIRELY on material relationships. It leads to this kind of nonsense. OF COURSE, our perceptions and evaluations are affected TO SOME EXTENT by our environment. But, #1, they are not completely affected thereby, #2 any attempts to control them are fascistic, #3 these advocates lack any common sense or any awareness about the basic continuities of what human life is like.
IMHO, of course.
From Ace. *sob* *sob*
It continues to amaze me that well meaning social engineers/modern liberals/progressives/culture nannies completely miss the dingy, dark side of totalitarianism in this rush for “cleansed speech.” Pardon a bit of nationalistic jingoism but the very success of our nation in so many aspects of world culture (economically, politically, militarily, athletically) are the result of our historic national competitive nature!
Geez, louise, check out the way our kids are competing world wide in the sciences compared to immigrants like Asians (who absolutely don’t give a rat’s ass how stressed their kids are) and we’re going to establish a hand holding environment free of competitive reporting or insulting cheers? Well then, let the purging begin:
No more grades
No more inter-scholastic athletic events. We’ll turn them into the equivalent of the Special Olympics.
No pep rallies
No electing student officers (the losers, oh, the losers!)
No proms (some don’t have dates *wail*)
No science fairs
No play auditions, so no more plays
Blah, blah, blah!
Next we’ll go ahead and pass a Hate Speech bill to go along with Hate Crimes.
Mr. Orwell, your table is ready! Right this way…
Sadly, this is nothing new. Not even in the particulars. I grew up in a tiny town in Ohio, so small the high school had no football team and unless you actually lived inside the town, your mailing address was for a town 15 miles away.
Back in ‘88, some incident around a basketball game—a fight, maybe, but I don’t recall it being that severe—spurred the school board and principal to declare any “taunting” during the games to be grounds for expulsion. They specifically singled out “air ball” as verboten.
In response, the students very carefully avoided saying it. They said “mmmmm ball” while the parents supplied the entire chant. I don’t think the threat of expulsion lasted the rest of the season.
In college, a friend played a particularly effective April Fool’s Day joke that brought a Usenet debate about abortion to a shrieking halt. One of those involved in the debate felt particularly wounded by the joke, complained to campus officials(!), and they responded by trying to implement a policy banning “harmful or misleading statements” online. The administrator types—particularly the “wellness” bureaucrat who wanted the policy—seemed quite stunned at the student reaction, seemingly unaware that college students gave a rat’s ass about free speech. The policy, thankfully, was never implemented.
There is an impulse to try to protect people from ANY negative consequence, particularly when they’re seen as children. While high school kids ARE children, they’re close enough to adult that we should expect them to be able to handle a bit of discouragement from the crowd.
In my lifetime we have gone from
“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” Vince Lombardi
to
“It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you plan the game” Some loser
to
“It doesn’t matter if you even plan the game. The important thing is to feel good about yourself” Barney the Dinosaur
Give me Vince anyday.
Recommended chant:
…which probably a lot more people can relate to, than, for instance:
How is it that the picked-last-for-kickball types wind up in charge of education in this country?
As has been alluded to upthread, you’ll never get to be president of Harvard talking like that, Jeff!
As for *gasp* double standards in the wymmyn’s movement, I’ve never read a more savage takedown of them than this screed, in an old BBS e-magazine.
BJTexs,
And that is why they hate us. Just ask Gwyneth Paltrow.
Marxism did nothing to end the class and wage situation described. I think unionism accomplished most of that. If we want to change China, for instance, advancing unionism might be a better idea than advocating human rights and democracy. One has been shown to flow from the other. Please I don’t wish to get into a discussion of the later negative side of unionism. All things must be measured by their successes not their shortcomings.
“Picked-last-for-kickball” types end up in charge of educational issues because they couldn’t do much of anything else with the rest of their lives. Also it’s apparently a great way to get even with all those people who didn’t pick you for kickball. (which, incidentally is outlawed in almost every school in the country because it’s so, well, MEAN)
No, they’ll end in 0-0 ties (soccer?), or else someone will feel the sting of trailing 1-0 for what might seem to be an agonizing eternity.
TW: attack26. How could you! Someone may get hurt.
The other team likely misunderstood the chant as “Hair ball” and immediately understood the underlying feline/female anatomy reference.
Makes about as much sense as the “official” report.
TW: “change39”, which luckily wasn’t “change69” which would have been grossly inappropriate.
It is dificult to truly enjoy the sweet taste of victory without first having cut your teeth on the sourness of defeat. The reverse of that is also true. If you have never tasted the sweetness of victory it is much easier to settle for the sour.
I’m a woman. I don’t know if I’m a feminist. Define that term and I’ll tell you.
I played high school basketball. It was vicious. We went to States most years. We played teams of girls who sharpened their nails to a point to draw blood on rebounds. We also had a fairly significant home court advantage–we didn’t loose for five or six years straight at home. We had huge crowds–bigger than the guys ball team. (They stunk.)
In Chiropractic college I was one of two girls who played with the guys. I also reffed in men’s leagues. I’m 5’4”. Some of the guys tried to intimidate me. They soon learned that was futile.
I’m also a nursing mother who’s had four kids. If my daughter cried after getting jeered for an air ball, we’d go practice her shots. She might cry (it is embarrassing, after all), but I’ve seen guys cry playing, too. Either way, I say suck it up.
Sports is about learning leadership, managing emotions, dealing with adversity, overcoming challenges and playing on even when you’re losing. It’s a great learning tool for life. And life, I found, ain’t always fair.
Any feminists decrying the jeering should be ashamed of themselves. The school district needs to have their heads examined. Do they ban jeering at the boys games? If not, it’s sexism, pure and simple. And, outrageous.
Also, I played in a church league and one year the pastor in charge got a bee in his bonnet saying that “competition is wrong”. He eliminated scoring and everyone had to cheer when both sides made a basket. There was a near mutiny by the end of the year. First, everyone knew who the winners were. Second, it did nothing to spare the self-esteem of those who sucked. They still sucked without a score.
Exactly. Equality being what it is.
But to at least a few of these fevered nazi feminists / neo-Marxist social engineer’s, apparently other things constitute the delicious fruits of real honest equality. And to think it took a half century to make this much progress…
PC, Schmee-C.
I think they should kick a lot more people out of high school sports games for being assholes. “Everybody does it” won’t be true anymore, and people might develop some manners.
(And I don’t care that the source of complaint was offended parents; it’s good to enforce some standards of comportment in public places even if it does appease the professionall offended now and then.)
I don’t care about players’ feelings being hurt. I want a game to not be full of shouting imbeciles, at least in principle. In practice, of course, I don’t give a damn because I don’t attend sporting events.
But I don’t have much sympathy for people whose idea of public comportment is to chant sneers, no matter whose side they’re on or what they’re getting out of it.
[/curmudgeon]
Heh. You’re sure he isn’t a priest?
Hmmmmmmmmm.
I guess I won’t be inviting you to any Philadelphia Eagles games anytime soon…
‘Cause, you know, that whole comportment thingie…
Melissa —
A while back we had a fairly extensive debate over what constitutes real “feminism” here on this site—the design of which was to come to a workable definition of feminism that could be used to further fruitful debates (rather than debates about “authenticity”).
You can revisit those here, here, here, here, and here. I found them very illuminating, especially because they incorporated the views of academic feminist bloggers and scholars.
This was back when my blog was something, and I was considered more than just a bargain basement Ace of Spades.
But no worries. THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN!
Marxism did nothing to end the class and wage situation described.
I understand what you are saying about unions, but it’s too far to say that “Marxism” “did nothing” to advance the interests of the poor. Basically, in the 19th C., you didn’t have to buy into all or even most of what Marx was saying to get some useful idea-tools from it. Realistically, all of modern socialism (including the labor movement), and all of modern “social studies” owe a debt to Marx.
Baby, bathwater, etc.
Prolly shouldn’t have let all those moronbloggers in.
Or the idiot commentators.
Good to see you back in form. (heh)
And girls play basketball now? And people watch?
..are they naked?
Sigivald —
First of all, “air ball” is, on one level, purely descriptive. Sure, it’s meant to taunt, but then, the answer to that is to silence the crowd by burying the next 5 3-pointers. This is the give and take of sport, and it is part of the thrill and the fun and the fanaticism that gives us “fans.”
Take away the participatory nature of fandom, and you take away the commercial draw of sport. And once the money leaves, that’s all the excuse necessary nannyists will need to for “re-thinking” the way sport “ought” to work.
Social engineering practiced by those most unqualified to practice it. Not a winning combination, I don’t think.
Jeez, even the charming tradition at University of Maryland games has been somewhat curtailed:
“Hey, You Suck!”
A popular saying among the students at Maryland games, and one that has created much embarassment for the university is a simple “Hey, You Suck!” directed at opponents. Students have incorporated the unfortunate saying into Gary Glitter’s popular sports anthem Rock and Roll Pt. 2 (often referred to as the “Hey Song”), leading the school to cease playing the song. They have also incorporated it into the traditional “Na-na-na Na Hey Hey Goodbye” song uttered by sports fans following a foul-out of an opposing basketball player. Currently at basketball games immediately prior to tipoff, and at football games following a Terrapins touchdown, the student section begins performing an acapella version of Rock and Roll Pt. 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Maryland_athletics
Castration is the appropriate penalty.
Thanks, Jeff. I haven’t been around here forever. So I’ll read the posts and get back to you.
Dan,
Oh, so now you’re saying some bloggers are better than others? Hmph.
If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off to visit Thirsty, who deserves just as much traffic as everyone else. But strangely enough, his old blog makes a hell of a lot more sense now that a bot has taken it over. Hmmmm…. Are bots entitled to readership, too?
At my son’s high school, one of the junior varsity basketball mom’s complained to the AD that all the players weren’t getting “equal playng time”. Of course, her son was one of the weakest players on the squad, so he got a lot of pine-time, particularly when they faced a tougher opponent. The AD completely caved, requiring the JV coach to allot equal playing time to all 11 players and attended very subsequent jv hoops game to ensure it’s implementation.
The team was in second place in their league, with a 10-2 record when the change was made. Under the new regime, they lost their next 8 games in a row, ending up tied for fifth out of 8 teams.
Interestingly, the AD was also the varsity soccer coach. Of course he didn’t follow his own dictates for that squad. When questioned, he stated that “varsity is different” and that no parent had complained to him about playing time.
Proving once again that modern US academia is spineless and hypocritical, as if we didn’t already know.
Actually, I just read all your posts. I had a similar discussion over at my blog about defining feminism. Your post-establishment vs. establishment feminism definitions are as good as any.
I’m often critical of feminism because I think their means often work directly against their stated desired ends. The Duke Rape fiasco is a case in point and I’ve posted regularly about that.
The problem feminists will bump into until they excise their uteri and lop off their breasts is biology. 50-50 representation cannot happen at all levels of business and politics unless women 1) wholesale chuck the biological imperative or 2) submit to a certain sect of feminism that declares that a woman is not a worthy woman unless she leaves her child and works. Essentially, a true feminist woman must embrace what it has traditionally meant to be a man.
I find that opinion anti-choice and anti-women, ultimately. Just like I find the victimology held so dear by establishment feminists offensive. A woman living with an abusive man is a victim one time. After that she is a co-participant. And this opinion of mine has got me in big trouble with lots of feminist friends and family members.
Conversely, while I’m for equal opportunity for all, the trend of men working to establish themselves as a victims group, I find equally appalling. And that has gotten me in trouble recently with some in the blogosphere who believe the answer to current unfairness in the judicial system is to march and burn their jock straps.
Ugh. I’m just tired of everyone wanting to be a victim.
And conversely, men are to eschew masculinity and the failure to do so is nothing less than criminal. In other words, they know better than God how things ought to be. Gender is a design flaw, though men are faaaaar more flawed than women.
It’s garbage ideology, particularly given the obvious ultimate outcome: extinction.
tw: should69
Not me. I just want to be a dentist.
–Herbie
TW: race72
Wow. You mean they’re enumerated?
“fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour…
my hand slipped inside the belt of my trousers
as we hit eighty, ninety miles an hour…
and as we passed the magic100 my love exploded
all over her bright pink leather interior…
And at that moment, I thought of my mother.”
Well,
What can you say after that?
“Here’s a tissue. Clean that up, please.”
From what I can find online about this incident you’re assuming a lot by finding a subtext of feminism. It’s like you’re shoehorning this into your predetermined narrative.
—-
Take a look at the quiz the vice principal made the students in question take–it really seems geared toward “you’re not allowed to do whatever you want in this school,” which is really a rather conservative message and not a product of political correctness gone wild. Offending students getting kicked out of sporting events isn’t a new phenomenon.
The flip side of people being annoying in thinking they have the right not to be offended is people thinking their free speech rights in the public sphere extend in an unlimited fashion to how they interact at school or work–they don’t. We’ll always have to take it from The Man.
My self-esteem is diminished when you de-affirm my personhood like that. You’ll be hearing from my attorney.
Turing = The fall of Western Civilization may happen this way as any other…
hubris: All of that is interesting but what I got from your link was this:
Airball? Out of hand? If the kids were wearing sexually inappropriate t shirts, then good on ya, mate. Throwing kids out of a gym for being loud and yelling “airball” because a parent complained?
Eh, not so much. It still sounds like much ado about PC nothingness.
Pablo,
Your point is exactly the one I made in this post some time back.
Extinction: a vision of the future to believe in.
Well, having had a chance to review the quiz, Mr. Krecak tends to come off as an arrogant, overly sensative jerk:
I really get what he’s trying to do and I laud him for insuring that offensive things aren’t worn or said at athletic events. That having been said, the tone of this quiz smacks of arrogance and self satisfaction.
It may be just me.
Speaking of inappropriate fan behavior:
When I was in college we were in the Missouri Valley Conference along with Wichita State. At that time Wichita had two 6’9” studs by the name of Cliff Levingston and Antoinne Carr. Both made a living in the NBA for a good number of years. When Wichita came to our place to play, during the hyped up introduction of the starting line ups, someone from the student section threw a clump of bananas from the bleachers out onto the floor and it landed at the feet of Cliff and Antoine. As I recall, the two studs got a good chuckle out of it, but the rest of us got a 10 minute lecture from the PA announcer about racism and sportsmanship. Cliff and Antoine, between the two of them, then proceeded to hang about half a hundred on our scholar-athletes on their way to a blow out vic.
If I’d had to take Krecak’s quiz, I would have been expelled with extreme prejudice.
People who take themselves too seriously eliminate the incentive for everyone else to follow suit.
Oh, it’s not just you. Remember, this is a vice principal–where I grew up, the role was traditionally filled by someone with inflated self-worth and the thuggish impulses of a Pinkerton strikebreaker.
McGehee & Hubris.
Thanks for that. I was beginning to think that my posts were sounding pretentious and self serving.
LOL! I’ll bet just about all of us knew someone like that…
StickyB; never piss off the 2 best players on the other team. My college was playing LaSalle back in the mid seventies. There was some obscene chants directed towards Joe Bryant (yup, Kobe’s dad!)before the game. He preceded to drop about 35 points on our heads, including the game winner with no time on the clock. (Antoine Carr was a monster in college!)
Well, you can say the next few lines in the song, but that dilutes the bizarritude a little:
True, but being offended by the ubiquitous “air ball” chant is beyond ridiculous. And removing students for using said chant is even worse, and is in fact PC run amok, no matter what kind of spin you put on it.
These people seriously need to pummeled with a cluebat.
No, it’s like looking at this from a perspective that interests me, and the fact that it was a women’s game, and that men were removed, raises the issue.
If you’ll notice, my post didn’t say there was anything in the vp’s actions that favored a particular feminist ideology (though one could certainly make the argument that PC sensibilities and the kind of grievance politics practiced by a certain type of feminist are kissing cousins, and the the vp is steeped in a particular ideology without consciously recognizing it as such). Instead, I said that I wondered how academic feminists would react to a case like this—one in which students were kicked out of a women’s basketball game for yelling “air ball” when “air ball” has been a staple of fandom at men’s games for ages. It was meant to raise discussion.
So while you seem determined to find me determined to shoehorn things into a predetermined narrative, I don’t think that’s what happened here. But keep trying. You’ve been going at it for ages now.
Me, I’m curious at how this event looks when filtered through a particular lens, and as such, I invited comment on it after positing what I thought the answer would likely be. I called Feminism a subtext here because it is in light of the questions I posed. If those questions do not map on to the specifics of this case, than consider the questions hypothetical.
I remember some of us taunting one Tony Dawson (of FL State) in a CBA game (I think he was on the LaCrosse Catbirds) for missing a dunk… he flipped us the bird, screamed something unintelligible and proceeded to throw down about x5 3 pointers, take 7 offensive boards and stuff down a tomahawk dunk right at the end of the 3rd quarter… Man, were we ever quiet for the rest of that game.
Fair enough when put that way.
I wouldn’t see it that way. I’d see it as being at the discretion of the school, and it would make sense to apply the same rules to boys’ and girls’ games.
I think you’re begging the question here. For whom is that the long-term social plan, other than the real commies?
I’d say its not exclusive to either gender. As to where the normal curves for expression of uch a trait fall for each gender, I’m not aware of empirical data on the subject. For individuals, it varies (and that’s why I think it’s better to approach people as individuals for their development rather than just members of a gender or other group).
Oh come now. I suppose you’ll say unless I can produce a position paper where things are outlined in such clear cut terms, I’m not supposed to extrapolate out to the end.
Precisely the point. And yet as Sommers has shown rather convincingly, the “group” paradigm—determined by gender (often proposed as culturally constructed)—is what is gaining the most traction, to the detriment of boys.
And no, I don’t believe silencing all individuals to make things “fair” is a compromise. I find it a cop-out—one that clearly has a more debilitating effect on some groups than it does on others.
I’m not asking you to produce a position paper, I sincerely think that you’re contemplating a caricature of the concept of equality, rather than considering a genuine social aim of a mainstream school of thought. It’s like if I were asking libertarians what they thought of something and said, “now, I know that you want everybody to end up being antisocial hillbillies holed up in their own ‘countries’, trading in beaver pelts rather than government currency, and shooting at each other all day, so given that aim, how would you apply your philosophy to this set of facts?”
I really don’t think people are being silenced in any general way–a school has cracked down on a group of students for allegedly being too rowdy, an arbitrary and subjective call that a school gets to make. Your focus on disproportionate effect is interesting, veering toward an “equality of result” perspective that I thought would be the antithesis of your view.
Incidentally, I think people are getting distracted by focusing on the “air ball” issue, as it apparently was a straw/camel/back situation.
Well, I do. And having witnessed it first hand, albeit in the otherworld of the academy, I can only say that we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
If you seen nuance where I see cartoons, more power to you. But let me state for the record that I am not an unnuanced guy. So when I begin seeing “caricatures,” perhaps it’s time to start considering the fact that reality is catching up with big, broad-brushed portraits painted by partisan ideologues.
Of which I do not count myself one.
Agree to disagree. Have a nice holiday season.
un-friggin believable. New Berlin is a bastion of conservatism in a sea of socialists. Yet, same as everywhere else, the Teachers Union buses in sorry sacs to teach our young. We breed, they feed. Does a teaching certificate really amount to much more than a massage therapy license? Me thinks not. Nothing but a crap sandwich, really.
I liked Melissa’s tales from Basketball team. My girl-friend played in high-school. Those gals can be mean.
I just read “The Beast in the Garden” by David Baron It’s an account of the return of mountain lions to Boulder Colorado’s fast-growing urban ecosystem.
Anyway. it was the militant, masculine response of suburban Women to the presence of this dangerous predator in their yards, on the picinic bench, eating their cats and dogs, that cought my attention.
It seems that “Feminism,” like my Madagascar Chameleon, can only survive in a covered, temperature-regulated terrarium. As soon as her poodle, Fiffi, or her tricycling toddler is threated by a natural predator, the modern women is as scrappy and militant as a Rooseveltian Rough-Rider.
Urbanized folks, detached from real physical danger are more likely to buy into chic “Feminism.” But once raw, dangerous Nature creeps into their nightmares, they suddenly militate, making Mike Tyson look like a teddy-bear.
-Steve
It’s all part and parcel of the same thing, Jeff. TSI sort of hit on it when he mentioned the picked-last-for-dodgeball kids. I’ve long thought that the psychology of these lefty, do-gooder nanny-statists is really pretty simple: They’re the kids you hated in elementary school. The snot-nosed whiners, the tattlers, the prissy little girls who were always quick to point out everyone else’s imperfections, but dissolved in tears if someone pushed back.
I’ll bet a lot of them actually had the thought, “Wait until I get in a position of power. THEN we’ll see!” And held that thought all through Junior High and High School.
I suspect that it’s significantly more difficult to get a massage therapist’s license.
I think Melissa is right: Athletics is the pursuit of excellence and naturally abhorred by the mediocre of the world. And I suppose this means I’ll have to retire my old NDSUCKS T-shirt.
TW: turned65. Not yet, thankyouverymuch.
Is it just me?
I was born in 1948 (Jeebus! How did I get so old so fast?), and what I am seeing around me bears no relationship to the country that I grew up in.
I guess I might be somewhat paranoid, but it seems that an overwhelming majority of greedy children are now in control of the USA.
The Constitution means whatever the press (who actually run things here-abouts) wants it to, and personal responsibility is oh-so-blase.
I can, and have, fucked up with the best of ‘em. But I always wonder, am I really just an old fart, or does taking responsibility for my own decisions mean anything anymore?
Sometimes I think I should make T-shirts that say “Not Responsible”. I would probably die a rich man…
Lost Dog is right on the money. You see, the Baby Boomers have this interesting self-love thing going: they know best. They knew best when they scoffed at the wisdom of the ages and supplanted it with unhinged drug use and ‘free love’. They knew best when they dismantled the respect for western civilization, became teachers, and championed all sorts of failed social engineering assaults on public edumacation. Now they tell me they know best when it comes to more substantial issues, like sanctity of life, moral absolutism, and responsible sacrifice.
We have what should be called the sell-out generation. Down with the Man… until I am old enough and wise enough to be the Man. Nannies Unite! The king is dead!
The really scary part is the that those “greedy children” believe that they have evryone’s best interests at heart.
The progressive/liberal coffee club has swallowed whole their own, pre baked notion that putting them in charge is the safe and right thing to do as, darn it, they have everyone’s best interests at heart. There is nothing more dangerous than an entire group of people who can’t see their own totalitarianism. From language to entitlements to religion to foreign policy the nanny statists are completely convinced that they have secured and fortified the higher ground due to their misery monger policy of doing the most for the least.
They are incapable of seeing the dangers in that plutocracy of the caring. The great irony of the whole NSA and Swift kerfuffle was my complete certainty that if this had happened (and related aspects did) during crowned Bubba’s administration, the response would have been muted as, after all, Bubba’a one of us! Republicans, far more focused believers of personal liberty and limited government, should be more trustworthy in these matters but lack that “little guy” caring component. Besides, it’s just unconsionable for conservatives to have that much power as they don’t worship at the altar of dependancy.
Liberal/Progressives will always exist because there will always be misery for them to broker into power. The great chase for the tweety bird utopian society attempts to mask that real desire for power. Inevitably, that power to “do good for the least” will lead to some kind of a semi-benevolent dictatorship, a wealth redistribution system that will benefit, most of all, the redistributors.
As it has always been…
Someone up thread said this was typical assistant principal schtick and I agree with that.
Once when I was in High School, the whole school got in trouble for being too rowdy at, get this, a pep rally. Stupid, but par for the High School course. So as far as the PC front goes, it was probably a more case of the AD being embarassed by the chant and the inner dictator in him bubbling to the surface than any actual complaint received. The “we’ve received complaints” canard has been around since forever.
Now should femenists be pissed off that the crowd has been removed from their game? Sure, but what kind of femenists are we talking about? The femenists who are happy that the males who were belittling the efforts of females to better themselves and compete in athletics? The femenists who are already pissed off thet the girls weren’t competeing on the boy’s team? The femenists who think organized sports are just a tool used by men to objectify the female form, or the femenists who are pissed off that they gave the AD job to that Neanderthal when they were the top shotputter in NCAA Div 3 track for two years, have the trophy to prove it, and her life partner can drive the damn thing over and smash it in your face if you don’t believe her. And would if she wasn’t taking care of the kid today.
Anyway, I think the bigger question posed by this story isn’t free speech or its relation to femenism, it’s just too broad, it’s more a question of wether High School kids have rights at all. Do kids of that age have the same rights as adults and should they? And do teachers have the authority to encroach on those rights outside of class if the kids do have them?
Personally, my High School was run like a Mississippi chain gang and so will my kid’s if I have any say about it.
I agree; there’s not being silenced in just any general way; they’re being silenced in a particular way that happens to have rather wide-reaching effects.
Odd that those who scream most loudly about first-amendment rights seem to be the very first to attempt to suppress speech they don’t care for.
Argh. they’re not being silenced
Feminism only works in societies that have evolved to the point where hard, physical struggle for survival isn’t an issue anymore. Take any feminist and strip away her on-call handyman, soldier, fireman, policeman, carpenter, and all those other majority-male occupations and see exactly how “liberated” she is. Men are dominant in any society where fighting, hunting, and killing is a constant issue because only men, on a large scale, are capable of handling it. Set the United States back a hundred years technologically and leave today’s male/female gender roles, and I’ll bet you any amount of money that most of those feminists would scrounge up a male guardian quick, fast, and in a hurry.
I’ve seen the most strident and self-proclaimed “liberated” feminists physically hide behind male soldiers when there are mortars incoming. And the men let them without a second thought, because hey–that’s what tens of thousands of years of evolution have produced. I had one–I’m a woman–cover me without my asking him to because that was his first instinct when he heard RPGs coming in. Hit the ground, cover the female. It was very nice of him.
I know of female Marines that couldn’t carry their gear and got the male Marines to carry it for them. It’s not an issue of self-reliance or independence for women when their lives are on the line. Men tend to look to themselves and their own abilities. Women will take help where they can find it. There are drawbacks to both methods depending on the situation, but the heart of it is partially the competitive drive. And when it’s a life-or-death contest where physical strength and grit are the deciding factors, men are better equipped to excel and protect their own.
Point being, I’ve been in extreme situations like that and seen the most basic instincts come into play. The hardwiring is undeniable to all but the most reality-challenged.
Feminism ignores the biology that made human beings the dominant species on the planet. I can handle feminism as a means of creating equality of opportunity. Today’s feminism is all about creative reality and wouldn’t stand in any society with less tolerant men. Women forget that we have equality of opportunity today because men let us. Or they’d like to forget it. Changes in the balance of power only happen in civilized countries because the class in power willingly relinquishes it.
All that said, the drive to competition, then, is baseline what makes men what they are and in turn made us as a species successful. That’s not to say women can’t be competitive; I’ve been known to play prison rules croquet at family picnics. But men define success as beating an opponent, challenging themselves, and “winning” in a game where it’s possible to lose. This is just more feminization of the culture, and it’s based on a flawed interpretation of feminization to begin with. It’s based on the worst stereotypes of what it means to be a woman: oversensitivity, inability to cope with disappointments, and the need to be sheltered from harsh reality.
The one fun thing about feminists, though they’re notoriously humorless, is the mind-boggling irony of their goals and the ways in which they implement them.
It’s odd to interpret first amendment rights as meaning that schools, employers, etc can’t have any rules about speech.
“They won’t let me say ‘how the fuck are you’ to my teacher in the morning! I can’t say whatever I want at school–help, I’m being oppressed!” Who’s playing victim in such a scenario?
Surely not. I mean, profanity is always fair game, isn’t it?
“Air ball”, on the other hand: not so much.
But, agreed: First Amendment and public schools don’t line up all that well. Which I’ll have to remember if I ever decide to argue that they do.
Jeff, just because you’re obsessed with the dewy perfection you know is in my pants doesn’t mean I am.