I’d like to know how the students would react if, after giving him money, he then pointed out “I just said we wanted to target schools and hospitals. Not soldiers and military bases. Schools and hospitals so we could kill Jews. *Civilian* targets where children are. And you just gave me money to do that.”
Would they get it and realize what they’d just done? Some maybe, but not all. And that is depressing.
Or if, after getting a donation, he then started exactly the same spiel asking for more money but this time for killing black people. Would the students be mortified by their actions then?
I really don't know if they would, and that's the scary thing. So many younger people today have been brought up to think of themselves as liberals and progressives and believe they are doing something to contribute "the right side of history" and yet they have no idea what liberalism and progressivism even mean, and their performative displays of liberalism only reveal that they actually have an utterly non-liberal, intolerant, black and white view of the world, a kind of puritanical view that people are unchangingly either Good or Evil. And the Bad Guys need to be "Cancelled" and eliminated.
As I stated in a comment last week, nowhere in any conversation or coverage so far has it been discussed: what does a college president do, and was Gay any good at the job? I read that wretched NYT op-ed this morning -- one thing he never does is offer proof to any of his DEI Agenda theories. Plagiarism is to outing college leaders what tax evasion was to imprisoning mob bosses or roadside sobriety tests are to placing anyone in jail (drunk or not). It's easy to accomplish and never resolves the issue at hand. Finally, to address Gay's horrible answers on that panel -- have you ever been "media trained"? Especially when legal counsel drafts much of your core messages to bridge answers back to? Whether with malice or over-caution to prevent litigation, they boxed Gay in -- likely insinuating if she veered off course, she would be liable for the countless free speech lawsuits that would likely be filed by Nazis and other extremists. Most likely the training was "they're gonna throw a bunch of hypotheticals at you, so always use 'it depends on context' as your core rebuttal." She should have looked up from her notes and given an honest answer to the question.
Instead of losing her job, why not give her a chance to make things right? I don't cancel my Banter subscription every time you say something I disagree with (which is often). I love the Banter because you challenge my beliefs, you inform me, and when we disagree, I'm forced to find proof of my convictions beyond what my gut tells me feels right.
You make a good point. I think that might have been a better course. Still, very hard to come back from that disaster. Many thanks for the kind words too :)
I appreciate this. Your comments more or less echo the comment I made about yesterday’s podcast. (I think Gay and Magill were railroaded, and Stefanik lured them into an ambush.) My own feeling is that DEI (like BLM) is valid as a principle. Where movements like that get in trouble is when people use them as an excuse to attack individuals and institutions inappropriately (which, of course, is a matter of opinion). Personally, I’m not in a position to see the effects of DEI in my life, so, perhaps, my perspective is not as well-informed as it might be, thus I focus on the principles, which, like I said, seem valid, while I’m not personally aware of the abuses. But I resist demonizing the movement because some of its proponents are assholes. 🤔😉😊
Some perfect examples of DEI in good practice -- bringing people with different lived experiences to the table where such perspectives are needed. Look at how many women's health rights (abortion) laws are drafted by rooms filled with men -- not a woman to be found, except on occasion an evangelical one who preaches abstinence. Minority representation is desperately needed where it is lacking -- board rooms, media, universities, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, etc. I don't think I've ever seen trans people at the table when bills affecting trans rights are being negotiated.
Hey, Ben, sounds like your school experience was right out of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.
I don’t know if this is what Jenkins actually means when he talks about “heavy” arithmetic, but it seems to me that you really need to know the basics, and that includes arithmetic; I’m not sure what kind of arithmetic Jenkins considers “heavy”. I don’t know if we still need to teach how to extract a square root by hand, just like I’m not sure if we really still need to teach cursive writing, but if you can’t handle basic arithmetic, then algebra is a lost cause, let alone something that might have future professional significance, like trigonometry or calculus.
I am reminded of a science-fiction story from the 50s or early 60s; I don’t recall the title or who wrote it, but the premise is a future in which all calculations are done by machine, and nobody knows how to do basic arithmetic anymore, because, y’know, why learn it, we have the machines? Then somebody discovers a janitor somewhere who turns out to be an important strategic military resource because he knows how to do long division. 🤔😉😊
On British schools, I left a long time ago but I do know that when I arrived in Australia as a 10 year old I was MILES AHEAD of my classmates when I got here, and in just about every single way except presentation, they were more obsessed with pretty pictures and neat writing here than the UK, but reading, writing, sums, grammar and history I was miles and miles ahead of the Aussie kids
When I got to see what my brother was doing in Australian Grade 2 (crepe paper and crafts and all sorts of fun stuff) and compared it to my memory of the very three Rs rote learning I had done at that age in England I was equal parts jealous and worried (worried he wasn’t learning stuff)
I'm a little disturbed that this video is from the gross PragerU, but even so it shows what it shows. The current puritanical orthodoxy that has suffused younger generations, disseminated through social media platforms that swaddle them in their isolated media bubbles, giving them an extremely warped view of the world and a very large tendency toward seeing everything in purely black and white terms where everyone is either a Good Guy or a bad Guy with no shades of grey, no one is ever given the benefit of the doubt, and everything anyone ever says should be assumed to be intentionally personally offensive toward you... and if you don't see it at first that means you have to dig through it until you find the true offensive meaning.
“You could get a detention for having your shirt untucked, or not standing up quickly enough when the teacher came in. “
My dad told me a story from the 70s when him and his mate at school had a competition to see who could get the cane the most and got busted when they both went and owned up to breaking a window that neither of them had broken. Did leave the headmaster in a bit of a pickle about how to punish them though 😂😊
No way Gay would have any academic job based on her meager publications (not even considering her plagarism) if she wasn’t black. Not that she is a descendant of American slaves or anything. Race is the only reason she was president of Harvard. And everyone really knows this.
But it was edited and we only have his word as to how many students responded in which ways.
I took it at face value on first viewing. But now knowing PragerU was involved, the credibility drops and the skepticism rises.
Not saying the views of students that it exposes aren’t there, but wonder now how perhaps editing made them seem more prevalent and mindless than they really are.
Does it though? I had not heard of Ami Horowitz before so I checked him out. Apparently his career is built around targeting liberals in an attempt to undermine progressive causes. His "tearing down" Black Lives Matter is flat-out gross. And is an obvious deliberate misrepresentation of the movement. I have no faith in the authenticity of any sting-type, "truth on the street" video he has produced.
You may agree with him on the subject of antisemitism, but I sincerely hope you don't endorse his views on transgender children.
It does seem that this is a Prager U joint (see link), and it has the overwhelming stench of Project Veitas' techniques all over it.
That said, it's deeply disturbing, and warrants a SERIOUS journalistic investigation. As a Jew in America, I feel like I'm living in Stealers Wheels' "Stuck in the Middle With You." Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...
That last story about killing Jews just depressed me beyond belief.
Yup.
I’d like to know how the students would react if, after giving him money, he then pointed out “I just said we wanted to target schools and hospitals. Not soldiers and military bases. Schools and hospitals so we could kill Jews. *Civilian* targets where children are. And you just gave me money to do that.”
Would they get it and realize what they’d just done? Some maybe, but not all. And that is depressing.
Or if, after getting a donation, he then started exactly the same spiel asking for more money but this time for killing black people. Would the students be mortified by their actions then?
I really don't know if they would, and that's the scary thing. So many younger people today have been brought up to think of themselves as liberals and progressives and believe they are doing something to contribute "the right side of history" and yet they have no idea what liberalism and progressivism even mean, and their performative displays of liberalism only reveal that they actually have an utterly non-liberal, intolerant, black and white view of the world, a kind of puritanical view that people are unchangingly either Good or Evil. And the Bad Guys need to be "Cancelled" and eliminated.
As I stated in a comment last week, nowhere in any conversation or coverage so far has it been discussed: what does a college president do, and was Gay any good at the job? I read that wretched NYT op-ed this morning -- one thing he never does is offer proof to any of his DEI Agenda theories. Plagiarism is to outing college leaders what tax evasion was to imprisoning mob bosses or roadside sobriety tests are to placing anyone in jail (drunk or not). It's easy to accomplish and never resolves the issue at hand. Finally, to address Gay's horrible answers on that panel -- have you ever been "media trained"? Especially when legal counsel drafts much of your core messages to bridge answers back to? Whether with malice or over-caution to prevent litigation, they boxed Gay in -- likely insinuating if she veered off course, she would be liable for the countless free speech lawsuits that would likely be filed by Nazis and other extremists. Most likely the training was "they're gonna throw a bunch of hypotheticals at you, so always use 'it depends on context' as your core rebuttal." She should have looked up from her notes and given an honest answer to the question.
Instead of losing her job, why not give her a chance to make things right? I don't cancel my Banter subscription every time you say something I disagree with (which is often). I love the Banter because you challenge my beliefs, you inform me, and when we disagree, I'm forced to find proof of my convictions beyond what my gut tells me feels right.
You make a good point. I think that might have been a better course. Still, very hard to come back from that disaster. Many thanks for the kind words too :)
I don’t buy the “she was boxed in” claims. The question was pretty straightforward. She should not have had a problem answering it.
I appreciate this. Your comments more or less echo the comment I made about yesterday’s podcast. (I think Gay and Magill were railroaded, and Stefanik lured them into an ambush.) My own feeling is that DEI (like BLM) is valid as a principle. Where movements like that get in trouble is when people use them as an excuse to attack individuals and institutions inappropriately (which, of course, is a matter of opinion). Personally, I’m not in a position to see the effects of DEI in my life, so, perhaps, my perspective is not as well-informed as it might be, thus I focus on the principles, which, like I said, seem valid, while I’m not personally aware of the abuses. But I resist demonizing the movement because some of its proponents are assholes. 🤔😉😊
Some perfect examples of DEI in good practice -- bringing people with different lived experiences to the table where such perspectives are needed. Look at how many women's health rights (abortion) laws are drafted by rooms filled with men -- not a woman to be found, except on occasion an evangelical one who preaches abstinence. Minority representation is desperately needed where it is lacking -- board rooms, media, universities, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, etc. I don't think I've ever seen trans people at the table when bills affecting trans rights are being negotiated.
Hey, Ben, sounds like your school experience was right out of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.
I don’t know if this is what Jenkins actually means when he talks about “heavy” arithmetic, but it seems to me that you really need to know the basics, and that includes arithmetic; I’m not sure what kind of arithmetic Jenkins considers “heavy”. I don’t know if we still need to teach how to extract a square root by hand, just like I’m not sure if we really still need to teach cursive writing, but if you can’t handle basic arithmetic, then algebra is a lost cause, let alone something that might have future professional significance, like trigonometry or calculus.
I am reminded of a science-fiction story from the 50s or early 60s; I don’t recall the title or who wrote it, but the premise is a future in which all calculations are done by machine, and nobody knows how to do basic arithmetic anymore, because, y’know, why learn it, we have the machines? Then somebody discovers a janitor somewhere who turns out to be an important strategic military resource because he knows how to do long division. 🤔😉😊
On British schools, I left a long time ago but I do know that when I arrived in Australia as a 10 year old I was MILES AHEAD of my classmates when I got here, and in just about every single way except presentation, they were more obsessed with pretty pictures and neat writing here than the UK, but reading, writing, sums, grammar and history I was miles and miles ahead of the Aussie kids
Yeah, British education wasn't all bad, just not exactly inspiring.
When I got to see what my brother was doing in Australian Grade 2 (crepe paper and crafts and all sorts of fun stuff) and compared it to my memory of the very three Rs rote learning I had done at that age in England I was equal parts jealous and worried (worried he wasn’t learning stuff)
I'm a little disturbed that this video is from the gross PragerU, but even so it shows what it shows. The current puritanical orthodoxy that has suffused younger generations, disseminated through social media platforms that swaddle them in their isolated media bubbles, giving them an extremely warped view of the world and a very large tendency toward seeing everything in purely black and white terms where everyone is either a Good Guy or a bad Guy with no shades of grey, no one is ever given the benefit of the doubt, and everything anyone ever says should be assumed to be intentionally personally offensive toward you... and if you don't see it at first that means you have to dig through it until you find the true offensive meaning.
“You could get a detention for having your shirt untucked, or not standing up quickly enough when the teacher came in. “
My dad told me a story from the 70s when him and his mate at school had a competition to see who could get the cane the most and got busted when they both went and owned up to breaking a window that neither of them had broken. Did leave the headmaster in a bit of a pickle about how to punish them though 😂😊
No way Gay would have any academic job based on her meager publications (not even considering her plagarism) if she wasn’t black. Not that she is a descendant of American slaves or anything. Race is the only reason she was president of Harvard. And everyone really knows this.
The video about killing Jews is from PragerU. Is this significant?
I'm no fan of PragerU, but the content speaks for itself.
But it was edited and we only have his word as to how many students responded in which ways.
I took it at face value on first viewing. But now knowing PragerU was involved, the credibility drops and the skepticism rises.
Not saying the views of students that it exposes aren’t there, but wonder now how perhaps editing made them seem more prevalent and mindless than they really are.
Does it though? I had not heard of Ami Horowitz before so I checked him out. Apparently his career is built around targeting liberals in an attempt to undermine progressive causes. His "tearing down" Black Lives Matter is flat-out gross. And is an obvious deliberate misrepresentation of the movement. I have no faith in the authenticity of any sting-type, "truth on the street" video he has produced.
You may agree with him on the subject of antisemitism, but I sincerely hope you don't endorse his views on transgender children.
Is that a fact? Makes me suspicious. 🤔😉😊
I am no expert but PragerU is printed in the corner of the video.
It does seem that this is a Prager U joint (see link), and it has the overwhelming stench of Project Veitas' techniques all over it.
That said, it's deeply disturbing, and warrants a SERIOUS journalistic investigation. As a Jew in America, I feel like I'm living in Stealers Wheels' "Stuck in the Middle With You." Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...
God help us.
https://www.prageru.com/series/ami-horowitz
Correction: Veritas.
Well, that seems definitive…🤔😉😊