Essay responses; the most precious knack; highly dysfunctional leaders; the Elite and the Rest; woke puzzles; NGOs do their thing; Peter Thiel stares into your soul and mumbles about Saudi Arabia
I’m a teacher in an American high school, and that piece on olds caring what the youngsters think hits close to home. The horrified looks that I get from coworkers when I say that very thing has gone from being mildly amusing to driving me nuts. I just want to scream “grow up” at every staff meeting.
I read many substacks. This is easily the best piece I have read recently. Astonishingly interesting assemblage of pieces I had not seen, woven into a coherent whole. Many thanks.
"...the implementation of the U.S. Civil Rights Act in the late 60s and early 70s, including the creation of a vast federal legal bureaucracy to enforce and expand it (and intellectual entrepreneurs to justify it), was the key structural origin of the woke revolution."
Richard Hanania has argued this persuasively and described how the EEOC is one of the most righteously powerful and heavy-handed government agencies in its drive to eliminate disparate impact (or "promote equity" in regime-speak):
"Standardized tests aren’t the only target of the doctrine of disparate impact. In 2019 (under Trump), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) settled a suit brought against Dollar General for $6 million for doing criminal background checks that disproportionately prevented blacks from being hired. The Obama administration went after schools for disciplining black and white students at different rates, with predictably disastrous results. Police departments, fire departments, and other institutions use “gender normed” tests to stop the EEOC and private applicants from suing them for gender discrimination. This is of course completely insane; criminals can’t be relied on to go easier on female cops on account of their sex, but somehow we’ve all come to accept affirmative action policing and firefighting (in 2014, a guy who jumped the White House fence overpowered a female Secret Service agent and made it all the way to the East Room)."*
Civil Rights legislation also invented the modern HR Lady and the legal concept of the "hostile work environment." The hullabaloo at the video game developer Blizzard Entertainment last year is instructive on this front. Over allegations of sexual harassment and a toxic 'bro culture,' California's version of the EEOC legally laid into the company. One might assume the solution to the alleged problem is to just fire the bad apples---but not in our worker's paradise of 21st century America:
"In reality, however, the civil war inside Blizzard is probably not very ideological at all. Or, putting it differently: behind what is likely genuinely held idealistic commitments, the actual demands being levied against the corporation all have an incredibly obvious, cynical material bent to them. Activision-Blizzard has committed many great sins, and now the only way they can atone is to hire – on a permanent basis – more and more people to serve as commissars, while also reserving the well-paying non-ideological jobs for certain protected classes. Beyond all the flowery language, beyond all the philosophical and ideological commitments, this is nothing more than a fairly run of the mill protection racket. Hire us, pay us, give us and our clients sinecures at your expense, or we will make life difficult for you."
I hate to bang on about this, because my above comment is already way too long, but it's very, very important. When you witness this insane ideology gobbling up every public institution, every government-aligned corporation, every NGO, along with the minds of everyone who works within them, and you wonder: how can we roll this back? How can we turn the tide? And then some lunatic like me comes along and says, "You have to repeal Civil Rights legislation"... y'all balk!
But why wouldn't you? It's the (now) law of the land. Helen Andrews summarizes Christopher Caldwell in her review of his The Age of Entitlement:
“'Just as assuming that two parallel lines can meet overturns the whole of Euclidean geometry, eliminating freedom of association from the U.S. Constitution changed everything,' Caldwell writes. The Civil Rights Act passed under President Lyndon Johnson was meant to address an emergency situation that most Americans, even most white Americans, recognized as a national disgrace. Over the following decades, those emergency measures would be revealed as a permanent apparatus combining 'surveillance by volunteers, litigation by lawyers, and enforcement by bureaucrats.' Civil rights offered 'new grounds for overruling and overriding legislatures and voters on any question that could be cast as a matter of discrimination. That was coming to mean all questions.'”
Fun stuff. Caldwell's writing is remarkably calm and accommodating. In TAoE he doesn't argue against Civil Rights legislation per se, but more that the people who implemented it did so without a real cost/benefit analysis of what they were getting into. Yet now we're into it. And it's effectively totalitarian.
EDIT: Forgot to mention an example of how this works in practice: Jack Phillips' cake-making services are still desperately required:
One topic that's stuck in my head RE: China is how constrained they are by population demographics. While much has been written about their birth rate and the population bubble aging out of the workforce, the part that has stuck with me is that, for many, their retirement plan is their oldest son. For families with one child, that son is their entire retirement plan and it shapes their attitudes. What I can't recall is where I read this—was it on this blog? If not, how do you take this into account?
In terms of how it shapes behavior, if a family loses it's only and/or eldest son, there can be a media frenzy in PRC (I recall the source citing these killings: https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/killing-of-chinese-student-in-la-a-wake-up-call/). Same goes for any building that collapses killing children. Of course, losing a loved one is more than sufficient to explain the anger but this dimension gets layered on to it and explains the press' enthusiasm for amplifying either how dangerous and failed the US system is or why party leadership needs to hold someone accountable for poor construction.
Of course, this dynamic would extend to war—if Xi were to wage a war of aggression, the political cost of thousands (millions?) losing their only son would be immense. I don't pretend that the party leadership holds much respect for human life or how the people view them, so I'm trying to get a sense of to what degree it constrains behavior. Is there some threshold of casualties beneath which the reward of starting a war is worth the risk? Is there some threshold of casualties above which the people of PRC are actually ruined and you see civil unrest? I regret not bookmarking this, but it seems critical to understanding China's internal view of itself.
Certainly that threshold must be somewhere. But I think much would be forgiven as long as China decisively wins. The risk for Xi, and maybe even the CCP as a whole, if they fight a war and lose (or even end up in a stalemate) is much higher. Therefore my sense is that they are and will continue to be highly risk adverse, preferring to wait (as Sun Tzu advises) until they can be sure they have overwhelming advantage on their side before rolling the dice. Putin's debacle in Ukraine is only likely to increase this risk aversion.
On the other hand, China's very serious demographic problem is going to weigh heavily on its economic growth and potential to overtake the United States. If it begins to look like China's relative power is set to peak and decline rather than continue to rise, it may create pressure to fight to topple the US sooner rather than later.
Yes, from all perspectives, it seems unclear if time is their friend, which is a major reversal during COVID when at least Chinese leadership was sure of their global ascendancy. In trying to imagine a world where China’s power is peaking and their demographics are declining, it would be especially painful in that moment to commit to war though I feel like the more people feel like they only have one shot at success (where success is defined by the party leadership), the more likely they are to use it even if disaster is a high probability.
I’m a teacher in an American high school, and that piece on olds caring what the youngsters think hits close to home. The horrified looks that I get from coworkers when I say that very thing has gone from being mildly amusing to driving me nuts. I just want to scream “grow up” at every staff meeting.
Great selection that will need some time to digest. Thanks!
I read many substacks. This is easily the best piece I have read recently. Astonishingly interesting assemblage of pieces I had not seen, woven into a coherent whole. Many thanks.
"...the implementation of the U.S. Civil Rights Act in the late 60s and early 70s, including the creation of a vast federal legal bureaucracy to enforce and expand it (and intellectual entrepreneurs to justify it), was the key structural origin of the woke revolution."
Richard Hanania has argued this persuasively and described how the EEOC is one of the most righteously powerful and heavy-handed government agencies in its drive to eliminate disparate impact (or "promote equity" in regime-speak):
"Standardized tests aren’t the only target of the doctrine of disparate impact. In 2019 (under Trump), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) settled a suit brought against Dollar General for $6 million for doing criminal background checks that disproportionately prevented blacks from being hired. The Obama administration went after schools for disciplining black and white students at different rates, with predictably disastrous results. Police departments, fire departments, and other institutions use “gender normed” tests to stop the EEOC and private applicants from suing them for gender discrimination. This is of course completely insane; criminals can’t be relied on to go easier on female cops on account of their sex, but somehow we’ve all come to accept affirmative action policing and firefighting (in 2014, a guy who jumped the White House fence overpowered a female Secret Service agent and made it all the way to the East Room)."*
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights
Civil Rights legislation also invented the modern HR Lady and the legal concept of the "hostile work environment." The hullabaloo at the video game developer Blizzard Entertainment last year is instructive on this front. Over allegations of sexual harassment and a toxic 'bro culture,' California's version of the EEOC legally laid into the company. One might assume the solution to the alleged problem is to just fire the bad apples---but not in our worker's paradise of 21st century America:
"In reality, however, the civil war inside Blizzard is probably not very ideological at all. Or, putting it differently: behind what is likely genuinely held idealistic commitments, the actual demands being levied against the corporation all have an incredibly obvious, cynical material bent to them. Activision-Blizzard has committed many great sins, and now the only way they can atone is to hire – on a permanent basis – more and more people to serve as commissars, while also reserving the well-paying non-ideological jobs for certain protected classes. Beyond all the flowery language, beyond all the philosophical and ideological commitments, this is nothing more than a fairly run of the mill protection racket. Hire us, pay us, give us and our clients sinecures at your expense, or we will make life difficult for you."
https://tinkzorg.wordpress.com/2021/09/24/the-war-on-the-horizon/
Those two pieces are long but worth reading. Sorry to give people more homework.
*Joe Rogan had a bit about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq5iPhkyoaU
I hate to bang on about this, because my above comment is already way too long, but it's very, very important. When you witness this insane ideology gobbling up every public institution, every government-aligned corporation, every NGO, along with the minds of everyone who works within them, and you wonder: how can we roll this back? How can we turn the tide? And then some lunatic like me comes along and says, "You have to repeal Civil Rights legislation"... y'all balk!
But why wouldn't you? It's the (now) law of the land. Helen Andrews summarizes Christopher Caldwell in her review of his The Age of Entitlement:
“'Just as assuming that two parallel lines can meet overturns the whole of Euclidean geometry, eliminating freedom of association from the U.S. Constitution changed everything,' Caldwell writes. The Civil Rights Act passed under President Lyndon Johnson was meant to address an emergency situation that most Americans, even most white Americans, recognized as a national disgrace. Over the following decades, those emergency measures would be revealed as a permanent apparatus combining 'surveillance by volunteers, litigation by lawyers, and enforcement by bureaucrats.' Civil rights offered 'new grounds for overruling and overriding legislatures and voters on any question that could be cast as a matter of discrimination. That was coming to mean all questions.'”
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-law-that-ate-the-constitution/
Fun stuff. Caldwell's writing is remarkably calm and accommodating. In TAoE he doesn't argue against Civil Rights legislation per se, but more that the people who implemented it did so without a real cost/benefit analysis of what they were getting into. Yet now we're into it. And it's effectively totalitarian.
EDIT: Forgot to mention an example of how this works in practice: Jack Phillips' cake-making services are still desperately required:
https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-jack-phillips-lawsuits-colorado-denver-a589873d7c2be64d07e1dc0433b13f64
One topic that's stuck in my head RE: China is how constrained they are by population demographics. While much has been written about their birth rate and the population bubble aging out of the workforce, the part that has stuck with me is that, for many, their retirement plan is their oldest son. For families with one child, that son is their entire retirement plan and it shapes their attitudes. What I can't recall is where I read this—was it on this blog? If not, how do you take this into account?
In terms of how it shapes behavior, if a family loses it's only and/or eldest son, there can be a media frenzy in PRC (I recall the source citing these killings: https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/killing-of-chinese-student-in-la-a-wake-up-call/). Same goes for any building that collapses killing children. Of course, losing a loved one is more than sufficient to explain the anger but this dimension gets layered on to it and explains the press' enthusiasm for amplifying either how dangerous and failed the US system is or why party leadership needs to hold someone accountable for poor construction.
Of course, this dynamic would extend to war—if Xi were to wage a war of aggression, the political cost of thousands (millions?) losing their only son would be immense. I don't pretend that the party leadership holds much respect for human life or how the people view them, so I'm trying to get a sense of to what degree it constrains behavior. Is there some threshold of casualties beneath which the reward of starting a war is worth the risk? Is there some threshold of casualties above which the people of PRC are actually ruined and you see civil unrest? I regret not bookmarking this, but it seems critical to understanding China's internal view of itself.
Certainly that threshold must be somewhere. But I think much would be forgiven as long as China decisively wins. The risk for Xi, and maybe even the CCP as a whole, if they fight a war and lose (or even end up in a stalemate) is much higher. Therefore my sense is that they are and will continue to be highly risk adverse, preferring to wait (as Sun Tzu advises) until they can be sure they have overwhelming advantage on their side before rolling the dice. Putin's debacle in Ukraine is only likely to increase this risk aversion.
On the other hand, China's very serious demographic problem is going to weigh heavily on its economic growth and potential to overtake the United States. If it begins to look like China's relative power is set to peak and decline rather than continue to rise, it may create pressure to fight to topple the US sooner rather than later.
Yes, from all perspectives, it seems unclear if time is their friend, which is a major reversal during COVID when at least Chinese leadership was sure of their global ascendancy. In trying to imagine a world where China’s power is peaking and their demographics are declining, it would be especially painful in that moment to commit to war though I feel like the more people feel like they only have one shot at success (where success is defined by the party leadership), the more likely they are to use it even if disaster is a high probability.
David Brooks thinks we’ve reached peak wokeness. Maybe time for another post?
Yes I will have to. I really can't imagine any conclusion more wrong haha.
This is marvelous and a keeper in my archives of needed information.
“Like railway workers, they can threaten to shut things down and win much higher pay.”
I had to chuckle on this because it is the exact plot in Ayn Randy’s novel Atlas Shrugged.
Will there be a test on Friday? Will try to pull an all-nighter. Uff da.
Yes. Those who fail to pass will be declared out of step with the Party line and sent for remedial reeducation.