Because my stepfather was a bastard.
George Will (via Instapundit):
In 1997, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) adopted a surreptitious political agenda in the form of a new code of ethics, enjoining social workers to advocate for social justice “from local to global levels.” A widely used textbook — “Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and Skill” — declares that promoting “social and economic justice” is especially imperative as a response to “the conservative trends of the past three decades.” Clearly, in the social work profession’s catechism, whatever social and economic justice are, they are the opposite of conservatism.
The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), the national accreditor of social work education programs, encourages — not that encouragement is required — the ideological permeation of the curricula, including mandatory student advocacy. The CSWE says students must demonstrate an ability to “understand the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination.”
At Arizona State University, social work students must “demonstrate compliance with the NASW Code of Ethics.” Berkeley requires compliance as proof of “suitability for the profession.” Students at the University of Central Florida “must comply” with the NASW code. At the University of Houston, students must sign a pledge of adherence. At the University of Michigan, failure to comply with the code may be deemed “academic misconduct.”
Schools’ mission statements, student manuals and course descriptions are clotted with the vocabulary of “progressive” cant — “diversity,” “inclusion,” “classism,” “ethnocentrism,” “racism,” “sexism,” “heterosexism,” “ageism,” “white privilege,” “ableism,” “contextualizes subjects,” “cultural imperialism,” “social identities and positionalities,” “biopsychosocial” problems, “a just share of society’s resources,” and on and on. What goes on under the cover of this miasma of jargon? Just what the American Association of University Professors warned against in its 1915 “Declaration of Principles” — teachers “indoctrinating” students.
I seem to recall an oath of this sort getting Chancellor Sir Thomas More in trouble some time ago, but this does go a little way towards expressing why faculty in the humanities in particular are overwhelmingly “liberal.”
What if a laughing eye/Have looked into your face–/It is about to die.
As far as I can tell, bioethicists exist for the most part to do some moral chin-pulling before giving the green light to whatever consensus the rest of the elite have reached. If you believe, as the Dutch do, that it’s fine for a children’s hospital to euthanize severely disabled infants, you can always find a bioethicist to give you a stamp of approval. If you want to harvest the organs of dying people without waiting for brain death to occur, you can probably find a bioethicist to sign on to that, too. Myself, I’m with Slate blogger Mickey Kaus. In 2003, as the Schiavo controversy was raging and Yale surgeon Sherwin Nuland, author of “How We Die” and an advocate of limited assisted suicide, was pontificating on National Public Radio about her low quality of life, Kaus wrote: “If I’m ever in Terri Schiavo’s situation, and not in any pain, please follow these simple steps: Keep the feeding tube in, and keep Dr. Nuland out.”
It’s not surprising that many people have reservations about theories of “dying well” that always seem to involve not staying alive. In 2004, the Hastings Center Report, a journal that focuses on bioethics, reported that despite decades of aggressive promotion of living wills, only 18 percent of Americans of all races had them, including only 35 percent of residents of nursing homes. Those most suspicious of the talk about “dying well” are African Americans and members of other minority groups. African Americans are only one-third as likely as whites to have a living will, and only one-fifth as many blacks as whites sign DNR orders.
Zombietime has some amusing Code Pink vs Marine Recruiters pics from Berkeley, including several of the Frank Rich Trooth Bus. (h/t LGF)
Stanley Fish understates the pervasiveness of the problem, in view of such travesties as the Duke 88, but ends up saying of the documentary, “Indoctrinate U”:
Academics often bridle at the picture of their activities presented by Maloney and other conservative critics, and accuse them of grossly caricaturing and exaggerating what goes on in the classroom. Maybe so, but so long as there are those who confuse advocacy with teaching, and so long as faculty colleagues and university administrators look the other way, the academy invites the criticism it receives in this documentary. In 1915, the American Association of University Professors warned that if we didn’t clean up our own shop, external constituencies, with motives more political than educational, would step in and do it for us. Now they’re doing it in the movies and it’s our own fault.
Yes. Yes, it is. (h/t Hot Air)
Roger Kimball on Terry Eagleton, via David Thompson:
“There have always been elements of ironic comedy about the spectacle of Marxist academics fervently proclaiming their revolutionary message while safely ensconced in Western institutions of higher education. As the years have passed and another generation of young radicals has settled into middle age, tenure, and pension calculations, one might have hoped that these freethinkers would have had manners enough to mute their demands for the destruction of the middle class, the bourgeoisie, ‘the repressive state apparatus of late capitalism,’ etc. After all, blue jeans or no blue jeans, what these middle-class beneficiaries of capitalism have unwittingly been clamouring for is nothing less than their own destruction. But no, they continue nattering on about ‘the contradictions of capitalism,’ obviously having missed the vastly more palpable contradiction inherent in their own position as tenured radicals…
Professor Eagleton [is] … adamant about declaring his working-class sympathies: In a typical gesture, he dedicated his book on the Brontës, Myths of Power (1975; second edition 1988), to ‘Dominic and Daniel and the working-class movement of West Yorkshire.’ What the working-class movement of West Yorkshire (or anywhere else, for that matter) would have to say about a book that emphasizes the ‘notion of categorial structures as key mediations between literary form, textual ideology and social relations’ is amusing to contemplate…â€ÂÂÂ
How else could a buffoon such as Ward Churchill obtain tenure, than through travesties of authenticity?
Ay, caramba: Heart part recall. (Haha! Too bad Cheney didn’t die).
Excuse me, my biopsychosocial problems are starting to make me very angry! Must go now!
– One nutcase bipolar raising another nutcase bipolar. Yeh, Whatever. In the mean time in places like Florida they can’t even find children they’re supposed to be protecting for years, as noted in several recent news stories about “misplaced wards of the state”.
– The whole structure is basically Nanny-state dole from top to bottom, including the universities, the social workers, and the people/children they’re supposed to help. I often wondered why social workers are not trained and licensed under the aegis of the ANA. ‘Course the schools need those tax dollars. You just know instinctively that any enterprise with the word “social” in the title will be awash in Libtard ideas ib short order. Think of all the horror stories we’ve all read about, or lived first hand, the next time some Libdork tries to pontificate on the “Marvals of Socialized medicine”.
That is the third womb-rip reference I’ve read today, at it’s not yet 10 in the morning. I hope it’s not a portent.
IMO looking at how “social workers” are educated, in essense (as Will writes) “conservatives need not apply”, this is exactly where medicine will go when nationalized. Doctors and nurses who refuse to advocate/participate in abortions and the euthanizing of disabled/elderly will be harassed, brought up on charges and dismissed. Members of the “health” profession will be, as SW’s are, just another wing of the far Left … indoctrinated with required politics masquarading as “ethics.”
Flower: Man, did you see that open letter of fascist jibber-jabber at the U.S. Warmongering office.
Janis: Yeah. I pulled out one of my floppy boobs and squirted “Stop Killing Babies!!” in breast milk right over that Magna Carta of bullshit.
Flower: RAD!!!!
Janis: Lucky that I’m still lactating after my last abortion.
Marxism is the opiate of the intellectual.
When I was in college in the mid-60’s the only classes I had that were overtly politicized were the “social science” ones. I use the quotes because as a then physics major the whole field didn’t appear very scientific. Every professor I had was an avowed and proud Marxist. The classes consisted of political lectures on the evils on America, especially the capitalist economy and the Johnson Administration’s war in Vietnam. At the time I thought this was just a aberration in one department but now it seems more like a disease that eventually infected the whole of the university system.
Any field of study that uses ‘Science’ to routinely refer to itself usually isn’t very scientific.
Think ‘Social Science’ vs. ‘Physics’, say.
But it does help their self-esteem!
Professor Eagleton [is] … adamant about declaring his working-class sympathies
Bull. They despise the working class and everything they stand for: their low taste in music (country), their love of NASCAR (must get cootie shots!), their redneck racism and bigotry, their flag-waving
jingoismpatriotism, their un-hip, unsophisticated ways. Not one of them has working-class friends that they’d bring to one of their wine and cheese parties or that they’d invite to their summer cottages in the Adirondacks.The only thing they like about the working class is their pliability and willingness to clamor for hand-outs from their “betters.” They’re props in their narcissistic dramas starring THEM as the saviors of the world.
dicentra’s on to something. Many modern liberals seem to view the middle and lower-middle classes as pets. Hillary’s a good example of that.
It followed me home, Mom. Can I keep it?
Get that filthy animal outside the house.
dicentra’s onto something.
Dicentra overheard a classroom full of MFA students rank on Monet and impressionistic painting because “you can buy it on calendars.” The implication being that it’s now too “common” to be appreciated by The Elite.
When the ugly people find their way into your super-exclusive clubhouse, it’s time to move into a new clubhouse.
lol at Al’s breast milk.
“lol at Al’s breast milk.”
Easy Matty – I’m starting a strict bench press regimen next year. Gotta toughen the nips first.
Yeah but these same people will look stricken when you tell them you don’t watch The Daily Show.
The only thing they like about the working class is their pliability and willingness to clamor for hand-outs
It helps them if you believe that.
The Leninism that is actually existing Marxism, on which the whole of modern leftism rests (whether any individual leftist knows it or not), is predicated specifically on working-class unpliability, and resistance to socialism — so the elite must silence and speak for them, in the authentic, undistorted-by-capital voice the working class would have if they weren’t as they are, so ill-bred and retarded and stinky.
It’s not for no reason that the SCHIP thing was about fake poor people. No, they couldn’t have found real ones to use. Actual poor people refuse to be used properly — and this refusal, their disobedience, is the source of their being called racist.
If you know what the everyday lives of both are actually like, you know that no accusation of racism is better directed at rednecks than it is at their all-white college-town tough-lovers.
But it helps them if you don’t believe that.
happyfeet: It’s part of the game. If the masses (and that word alone tells you what elitist scum and wanna-be aristocrats the ‘elite’ are) do not appreciate the thing the ‘elite’ do, then the masses are deplored for their vulgarity; if the masses actually begin to appreciate that thing, the ‘elite’ drop it for another thing becuase it is now too ‘vulgar’.
This psychological crutch through status-seeking by the ‘elite’ has been going on for at least two centuries – ever since the industrial revolution when large numbers of the citizenry could finally acquire a small luxury. The ‘elite’ has been scrambling desperately since then to differentiate themselves – somehow – from the vulgar mob, and I do not see an end in sight.
What I will never do is drive a Prius.
To me it seems that every time the left refers to “The Working Class” the example they give is someone who either is a. on welfare, or b. living with mom and dad, or c. works part-time, or d. is in a unionized government job.
Well, you say you won’t drive a Pious, but by the time that the citizenry starts driving hybrid cars, the ‘elite’ will be off picking up their next most-important thing to do to acquire distinction. Remember when recycling was all the rage and that we were going to run out of landfill space? You don’t hear much about that because every little hick town recycles. It isn’t special enough any longer, so now the big worry is carbon dioxide; in a couple of years it’ll be beach erosion or some such thing.
That is just the way it has to be.
I’d drive Prius. I’m wondering, though, how it would respond to two-stage turbocharging and a nip off the old nitrous bottle.
This psychological crutch through status-seeking by the ‘elite’ has been going on for at least two centuries
In our country, anyway. In any human society that gets large enough, there are always elites whose sole purpose in life is to distinguish themselves from the commoners by wealth, education, “taste,” ideology, and whatever other category they choose.
And it’s the elite who soften up a country, who persuade the masses that there’s nothing worth fighting for, that we can always seduce our enemies with our wonderfulness (well, the wonderfulness of the elite), and who eventually yield up control to the barbarians, hoping they’ll be killed last.
in a couple of years it’ll be beach erosion or some such thing
I’m worried that it’s circulating back to some form of eugenics, wherein the unfit are “stressing the health-care system” and need to be disposed of For The Greater Good. Your kid born with spinal bifida? Hey, that’s expensive to treat. Wouldn’t it be better  for her, of course  if we offed her right now, to put her out of
ourher misery? No? You selfish bastages! How dare you bring that kind of kid into the world!Smug alert!
Not sure. I think we’ll see a lot of nest-feathering take precedence. Enthusiastic expansions of NEA and CPB stuff, laws to force free political airtime onto broadcasting, ubiquitous public financing of campaigns, much largesse to academia, they’ll be keen on that deal where you can form a union just by turning in a stack of signed cards, that sort of thing. Rather difficult to undo sorts of things.
That’s more what I am anticipating the priorities would be.
They’ve convinced themselves of their own oppression, is what I’m keying that off of. They want to feel pretty again.
dicentra: To clarify – I meant that it has only been in the last two centuries in the west that the ‘elite’ has had to change its methods of distinction so often and so quickly because the citizenry has enough money to imitate them once they see the new fad.
Eugenics may be ready for another go round, removing the unfit to spare them pain or a life not worth living, and trying to improve humans, to make a better, healthier person. N.B.: Hitler had his Aryan Superman and Stalin had his New Soviet Man. All you need is an ideology and the belief that you are smart enough to make the earth into a heaven and Hey! Presto! Another hell is unleashed.
[…] Blast it, I completely forgot to credit Dan for the steer to the zombietime link above. Well, until now, I […]
It’d still be funny-looking, that much I’m sure of.
Electric motors are actually pretty cool, near-instant full torque, but of course powering them is the trick.
No trick; generators. Big, freakin’ diesel-powered generators.
Long extension cords, too.
My Civic hybrid gets 1/3 of its HP from a permanent-magnet electric motor, and it accelerates just fine.
I’ll wait until it’s out of warranty to start replacing stuff. :-)
I’d drive a Tesla
Truth is, no one in my family has ever bought a foreign car, so I wouldn’t get a Prius anyway, though I guess buying pre-owned would just add a little qualifier. My Prius thing comes more from this one company I worked for that gave rebates to employees who bought a hybrid. Thought that was so beyond stupid it’s colored my take ever since.
Happyfeet, I would think where you are, you could get a tax break for purchasing a hybrid as well.
I think maybe, but my deal was that, at the time, they were subsidizing a car that was wait-listed, so they were actually supporting the price premium the Prius was commanding. Also, it was economically illiterate. People were getting them not to save gas but as status symbols or to make a statement, which is the same thing. What’s stupid is that it would make more sense to increase the subsidy but target it to employees whose commutes were say, at or above the threshold distance of the highest quintile of commuting distance among employees.
Sometimes I overthink things though.
I consider my SUV to be a hybrid. It has TV and recliners so it’s part car and part living room.
I remember when, on Al Gore Worship Day, they were interviewing the ditz from Black Eyed Peas and she was making a commitment to get a hybrid and sell her Hummer. Because Gaia smiles on you when someone else drives it.
Yeah, those generators work pretty well in locomotives. The long extension cord is probably more feasible in something the size of a Prius, though.
#34 and #36.
Which is exactly what I said.
Yes! Someone agrees with me!
…..and it has all manner of snack chip crumbs in the seats, so it’s also part cafeteria. So I guess it’s a trybrid.
hey, al, um, am I supposed to beleive there haven’t been other activities in it that might make it a bedroom as well? hmmmmmm? a quabrid?