White Privilege

Post lifted from Protein Wisdom

Question: what would happen were an academic to take the actual findings of new AG Cooper's follow-up report on the Duke "Rape" case and write a dissertation based on those findings?

Or, to put it more provocatively: would a dissertation that posited "black, female entitlement"-based, as it is, on a culture of victim politics that rewards group-based grievance narratives and puts the burden of proving a negative on the accused in instances where allegations of sexual offenses against women are proffered-as a society-wide problem, one that underscores the pernicious nature of identity politics and so demands redress through a policy of consciously rolling back weighted legislation benefiting "protected classes," be so readily accepted by media and intellectual "elites"?

And if not, why not?-it being merely the flipside of the kinds of sociological assertions establishment feminists and the faculty 88 championed (and continue to champion, in many cases) before all the facts of the case came to light?

My guess? They'd call such a dissertation "racist" and "misogynistic"-and move to have its writer expelled from the university. Which just goes to show the growing inability of many academics and establishment feminists (and their "progressive" supporters and enablers) to recognize the inconsistency of their views, and to honestly face their own biases and stereotypes.




PostMo Vs MoGo

Post lifted from Democracy Project -- which see for links

Last week I was taken aback by a post by my friend Maimon Schwarzchild, law professor at Catholic San Diego University, about "Civilization, Barbarism, and the Classroom," with excerpts from Professor Steven Balch, National Association of Scholars president. Here's some additional excerpts:

"In order to suppress the new barbarism we should now be refocusing our classrooms on the serious and sympathetic study of civilizations' nature, achievements, and progress - that is to say, of its moral reasons for being.. Our civilization's peculiar misfortune is to be under a double assault, physically by the undercivilized from without, and psychologically by those surfeited with it from within. And these last own the classroom.. [T]he evolution of academic culture has implanted in many a sense of numinous superiority that spills forth in the error-has-no-rights attitude undergirding political correctness, which, in essence, is a claim to rule..

Another term for this anti-anti-barbarism is post-modernism. Balch defines post-modernism as, "the belief that people can have whatever ethics they like, an `anything goes' attitude." NAS contracted a survey that found:

73 percent of the students said that when their professors taught about ethical issues, the usual message was that uniform standards of right and wrong don't exist ("what is right and wrong depends on differences in individual values and cultural diversity"). It's not news that today's campuses are drenched in moral relativism. But we are allowed to be surprised that college students report they are being well prepared ethically by teachers who tell them, in effect, that there are no real ethical standards, so anything goes. Stephen Balch of the National Association of Scholars, who commissioned the survey, says the results show the dominance on campuses of postmodern thought, including the belief that objective standards are a sham perpetrated by the powerful to serve their own interests.

Comments John Leo:

This notion that disagreement is an assault helps explain the venomous treatment of dissenters on campus--canceled speakers, stolen newspapers, ripped-down posters, implausible violations of hate-speech rules, and many other hallmarks of the modern campus.

I asked Maimon Schwarzchild what he thought of this post-modernist theme on campuses. He wrote me back, "I must say, my own sense is of civilization committing suicide."

Another study points out:

[O]ver the past few decades the prevailing disposition among college students - today labeled Generation Y or Millennials - has slid into full-blown narcissism, according to a study released this week.

The "all about me" shift means much more than lots of traffic at self-revelatory websites such as YouTube and Facebook. It points, says the study's author, to a generation's lack of empathy, its inability to form relationships - and worse.

"Research shows [narcissists] are aggressive when they have been insulted or threatened," says Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and lead author of the report, called "Egos Inflating Over Time." "They tend to have problems with impulse control, so that means they're more likely to, for example, be pathological gamblers [or] commit white-collar crimes." .

[A]ccording to the study, 30 percent more college students showed "elevated narcissism" in 2006 compared with 1982..

[S]ays Professor Mruk. "You really do need to have both competence and worthiness. The middle point is where the balance would be," he says, "and where well-being would occur, both socially and individually."

In a follow-on interview, Professor Twenge observes:

The younger the generation, the higher their self-esteem. Young people now are much higher in self-esteem than their Baby Boomer parents were back in the 1970s. This has not led to happiness, however - anxiety and depression are also much higher than they used to be. Perhaps young people expect so much out of life that they are often disappointed. .

Generation Me is more likely to believe that things are out of their control - that what they do doesn't matter. They are also more likely to blame others for their problems. This can set them up for depression and low achievement. Adolescents in particular need to learn that their actions have consequences, and that trying hard can pay off.

I asked my psychiatrist friend Steve Rittenberg, blogger extroadinaire at Horsefeathers, for his thoughts:

Re: Post-modernism. Where to start? It's a kind of extreme relativism and is quite perverse. It seeks to undermine the foundations of Western civilization, as expressed, for example in the Old Testament. When God names and differentiates, species from one another, animate from inanimate, male from female, and lays down laws, like the incest taboo, that separate and define difference as the ground of reality.

Fixing our universities is a subject of much discussion, from reinvigorating core curriculum to a more politically open or balanced professorate. That is so. But, many students are taking matters into their own hands. I'll call it the More God alternative to Post-Modernism. The New York Times reports:

At Harvard these days, said Professor Gomes, the university preacher, "There is probably more active religious life now than there has been in 100 years." Across the country, on secular campuses as varied as Colgate University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Berkeley, chaplains, professors and administrators say students are drawn to religion and spirituality with more fervor than at any time they can remember.

More students are enrolling in religion courses, even majoring in religion; more are living in dormitories or houses where matters of faith and spirituality are a part of daily conversation; and discussion groups are being created for students to grapple with questions like what happens after death, dozens of university officials said in interviews.

A survey on the spiritual lives of college students, the first of its kind, showed in 2004 that more than two-thirds of 112,000 freshmen surveyed said they prayed, and that almost 80 percent believed in God. Nearly half of the freshmen said they were seeking opportunities to grow spiritually, according to the survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Compared with 10 or 15 years ago, "there is a greater interest in religion on campus, both intellectually and spiritually," said Charles L. Cohen, a professor of history and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The Rev. Lloyd Steffen, the chaplain at Lehigh University. "My theory is that the baby boomers decided they weren't going to impose their religious life on their children the way their parents imposed it on them," Mr. Steffen continued. "The idea was to let them come to it themselves. And then they get to campus and things happen; someone dies, a suicide occurs. Real issues arise for them, and they sometimes feel that they don't have resources to deal with them. And sometimes they turn to religion and courses in religion."

Increased participation in community service may also reflect spiritual yearning of students. "We don't use that kind of spiritual language anymore," said Rebecca S. Chopp, the Colgate president.

Post-Modernism meets its match, More God. Our students aren't so easily manipulated to vacuity as many professors might preach. Their "god", like those similar false ones that came before, fails to meet mankind's sense or needs.





Head Start: Vote to hide failure

Why is this failed program still lumbering on at all?

The House dealt a blow to President Bush's chief early-childhood initiative yesterday, voting to end the standardized testing of 4-year-olds, which was at the heart of his efforts to refocus Head Start. Supporters of the legislation, which would boost spending on the program and includes provisions to improve teacher quality, said it was aimed at ending Republican efforts to shift the focus of the 42-year-old program from nurturing social and emotional development to emphasizing literacy.

"We are back on the right track," said Sarah Greene, president of the National Head Start Association, a nonprofit group that promotes the program. Head Start Director Channell Wilkins said he was pleased that the bill had passed but said he had some qualms, especially about the elimination of the testing. "I'm still concerned that we don't have any kind of assessment tool to show the progress our kids are making," he said.

Democrats said the bill, which passed 365 to 48, signaled a new approach to social and education policy in Congress after control for years by Republicans. "They tried to starve programs like this," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). "We are going to start unstarving them." The bill, which would reauthorize the program for the first time since 1998, would increase spending on Head Start from $6.9 billion for the current fiscal year to $7.4 billion for fiscal 2008 and would require that at least 50 percent of Head Start teachers have a bachelor's degree by 2013. It would also make room for as many as 10,000 more youngsters, reversing a participation decline, from 912,000 in 2002 to 909,000 last year. More money would also be directed to programs for younger children and migrant and Indian students, and the bill requires that 25 percent of the new money be used to raise teacher salaries and benefits.

Head Start, seen as the nation's leading preschool program for the poor, started 42 years ago to help children and their families prepare for school academically as well in the social, psychological and health arenas. Services include sending children to a dentist, doctor or mental health professional and teaching them how to hold a fork or use a toilet. The White House proposed a historic shift several years ago to give states broad control over their Head Start programs, but it never won congressional approval.

It also sought to place increased emphasis on literacy education, and officials created the National Reporting System, a set of mini-tests aimed at measuring verbal and math skills in preschool children. It was seen as a natural follow-up to Bush's No Child Left Behind program for kindergarten through 12th grade, which also emphasizes standardized tests. The administration began requiring in 2003 that tests be given in Head Start programs each fall and spring, saying it was the only way to systematically measure the country's nearly 2,700 programs. Before that, Head Start programs used their own assessments to monitor student progress, and they have continued to do so. Hundreds of thousands of children ages 4 and 5 were given the test annually, despite concerns from early-childhood experts that the exam was given too early in children's development and was poorly designed.

The House voted to end the National Reporting System while calling for a new, more accurate way to gauge student progress. The Senate version also seeks to end the current testing. "The tests that were given were absolutely, at best, useless," said Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.), the bill's sponsor. "We may go back to testing, but only after we get some scientific information about what to test for and how to test." The Senate is expected to take up its version of Head Start reauthorization within a few weeks, but the measure has some key differences from the House version, including the provision about teacher quality.

Efforts to reauthorize Head Start stalled in the past two Republican-led Congresses in part over proposed rules that would allow faith-based groups to consider religion in hiring for Head Start programs. Democratic leaders refused to allow the amendment to come up for a vote yesterday, and the House beat back an effort, 222 to 195, to force the legislation back to committee to consider the issue.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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