thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb If one student accepts one dollar of federal assistance his whole university becomes subject to extensive federal civil rights and affirmative action regulations. Those regulations intrude crudely into matters, like tenure decisions and the forms of expression thought to create a “hostile environment” for women and minorities, that are central to academic freedom. The public … More ...
Totalitarianism asserts its perfect goodness and power, so it naturally claims improbable triumphs. North Korean election returns have shown 100% popular participation and 100% approval for the Party slate. During the Soviet purges it was said that “the Organs [of state security] never make mistakes.” Our petty totalitarians claim achievements that are similarly startling, although … More ...
Judicial independence in Canada: Judges party with activists.
Some things, it seems, are too obvious for even a left-wing sociologist to miss. Or so one gathers from Nannyhood and Apple Pie, a review of The Commercialization of Intimate Life by Arlie Russell Hochschild. Dr. Hochschild naturally refers to feminism as a worthy but “stalled” gender revolution, and blames all problems on … More ...
When I visit the doctor I usually catch up on mass culture a bit by reading the magazines in the waiting room. Most of it’s flashy junk and nothing more, but yesterday at the eye doctor’s I ran into something worth reading, an article in New York Magazine about a distinguished professor at New York … More ...
The understanding of morality and public order that’s authoritative today holds that sex can’t have any meaning that’s publicly recognized. Freedom and equality demands that each of us construct its meaning for himself. Anything else would be institutionalized oppression that touches on the most intimate aspects of what we are. Such views are integral to … More ...
Here’s Howard Dean’s standard peroration:
… More ...This country depends on all of us uniting as a people, building a community, standing together. That’s what this country is all about. I am tired of being divided by race. I am tired of being divided by income. I am tired of being divided by gender. I am tired
A new religion needs a new holy book, so the German Evangelical Church is rewriting the bible in feminist language, getting rid of discriminatory expressions like “Lord” and “Our Father.” The effect is startling, but the effort is just an example of a general trend. Mainstream translations today always fudge things in a PC … More ...
More evidence that the modern bureaucratic state simply fails to understand family relations—how they work, what they mean, why they matter:
Trading favorable coverage for access is commonplace among journalists who cover politicians. John Burns, a New York Times reporter and apparently a principled man, complains that in Saddam Hussain’s Iraq that routine variety of corruption turned into something pretty horrible: “There Is Corruption in Our Business”. Cozy relationships are only one of the ways … More ...