This Is What Happens When Progressives Look the Other Way
This Is What Happens When Progressives Look the Other Way
– Peter Dorman @Econospeak
Recent events in Florida—the “Stop WOKE” Act, the rejection of AP African American Studies, the hostile takeover of New College—and the publication of an excellent op-ed about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the Chronicle of Higher Education have me returning to a topic I blogged on several years ago, but in a new light.
It was obvious, and I mean Emperor’s New Clothes obvious, right from the outset that DEI ideology was predicated on the flimsiest of foundations. The confusion of inequality and privilege, the epistemological mess known as standpoint theory, and the positive affect theory of human rights (all people, or at least people from historically oppressed groups, have a right to be free of psychic discomfort) are individually indefensible and collectively toxic. Above all, they rest on an individualized, one-consciousness-at-a-time conception of social change that obscures any role for collective action, turning “the personal is political” into “the political is personal”.
My hope was that others who value genuine, on-the-ground egalitarianism would have the courage to face down this intrinsically reactionary and authoritarian—not to mention ignorant—“movement”.
No such luck. With few exceptions, progressive people who shared my outlook looked away, at most grumbling quietly to each other. We didn’t like it, but we figured it was not worth the nastiness it would stir up.
Well, it turns out that the culture-warrior Right has no such qualms and is happy to feast on the banquet DEI-ism has served them. In most instances, the practices and ideologies they denounce are just as absurd and destructive as they say they are, but the attack comes from forces whose goal is to establish conservative political control over higher education, crushing progressive thinking wherever they find it. Our side took a pass and now it’s not up to us any more.
This is a disaster of our own making. I’m not saying people like DeSantis aren’t the dishonest opportunists they are, but billionaire donors will always find politicians like that. (They will run on whatever polls best and then cut the taxes and pad the profits of the rich.) It’s our fault for making it so easy for them.
Peter:
Backgound: I sat in a City Council meeting a couple of weeks ago where I had made commentary on HOAs and their control over public roads in subdivisions. Parking was the issue and we are not talking semi-trailer trucks either. I had written a letter previous discussing the building of two ball parks withing our development. It is a great idea if it was a public park. It is not. It is there for organized sports (kids, they called it and with a sit-down food area, etc.). I made some suggestions. It was a polite letter.
I also wrote about our HOA which donated the land to them. It is a commercial enterprise and is run by a commercial company which specializes in such things and owned by the developer.
More Background: After the three of us were finished, the council discussed everything in the motion. There were inaccuracies with the plat I had pointed out. I could not find the land it depicted because the road names were changed. I discovered the true plat in the county records. When I sat on such boards, we were sticklers for accuracy because these were legal decisions to be made based up that information. I could only conclude its inaccuracy was purposeful.
The rest: After the motion to approved was voted on, the City Manager went on a rant discussing how all HOAs in the nation were the same. I was sitting there shaking my head “no.” He then confronted my head-shaking claiming “yes, they are” and continued. We were finally pulled aside and told the city does not regulate public roads(?) in HOA ungated communities. Blah, blah, blah.
I could not answer the administrator without being declared out-of-order. No, city council member asked him to desist. My representatives purposely failed me.
Yes, it is a problem of people allowing such runaway politics and subversion to occur.
I sat in a State House Representative Committee meeting yesterday. AZ State Representative Shaver made the comment of citizens being aware of whether they are a part of an HOA at Closing and what their responsibilities are as a part of an HOA. Enough . . . I was out-0f-order when I politely stated, “I am sorry that is not true.”
The XJudge who accompanied me, put his hand on my arm to silence me. I believe my comment did have an impact. Eight others rose to speak on the issue. The proposed act made it out of committee with one negative vote being Shaver.
Not as important as your subject. My point is, we are attacked when we disagree with political and commercial interests. Many people do not have the fortitude to stand up and reply to issues which you point out. They do not like the derision either. And some are happy with DeSantis, the State House Representative, and the City Council City Manager commentary. Happy till it impacts them. Then it is why me . . .
Run:
A fine, fine comment.
Side note; on what 50 years lacking in productivity gains has meant for construction worker earnings:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=ZSvB
January 15, 2018
Real Average Hourly Earnings in Construction, * 1972-2018
* Production and nonsupervisory workers
(Indexed to 1972)
Above graph also extends through 2022.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=odNH
January 15, 2018
Real Average Hourly Earnings in Construction, * 1948-2022
* Production and nonsupervisory workers
(Indexed to 1948)
Let me get this straight: ‘I told you it was flimsy as heck with absurd and destructive practices and ideologies. But you wouldn’t listen to me and now you’ll have to deal with DeSantis.’
Basically yes, but it wasn’t just me saying this. I really was part of sotto voce hall conversations.
Eric:
Let me get this straight: ‘I told you it was flimsy as heck with absurd and destructive practices and ideologies.
[ Please explain this passage. What precisely was flimsy? ]
Is this about ‘Wokeness’?
War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Democrats Are Radicals
NY Times – Paul Krugman – Feb 9
… President Biden was evidently feeling feisty on Tuesday. In particular, he kept baiting Republicans with the suggestion that a number of them are threatening Medicare and Social Security — which they are.
Delivering the Republican response, Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed that the United States is divided between two parties, one of which is mainly focused on bread-and-butter issues that matter to regular people, while the other is obsessed with waging culture war. This is also true. But she got her parties mixed up — Republicans, not Democrats, are the culture warriors who’ve lost touch with ordinary Americans’ concerns.
First, about Medicare and Social Security. When Biden said that “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” he was greeted with shouts of “Liar!” But last year Senator Rick Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a “plan to rescue America” that explicitly included as one of its reforms “All federal legislation sunsets in five years.”
Yes, a program that sunsets can be renewed. But what Biden said was true — and how sure are you that the modern G.O.P. would, in fact, vote to maintain Social Security and Medicare as they currently exist?
There’s also the matter of arithmetic. Republicans have pledged to eliminate the budget deficit within 10 years, and unless we raise taxes — which they vehemently oppose — that’s essentially impossible without drastic cuts in Medicare and Social Security.
And let’s not forget that these are programs for seniors — programs that are central to Americans’ long-term financial planning, the bedrock on which most people’s hopes for a decent, dignified retirement rest. Putting them on the chopping block every five years, even potentially, would create immense anxiety.
Hence the hysterical G.O.P. response to Biden’s claims. But those claims were entirely true.
But let’s talk about the Sanders response to Biden, which was even more revealing.
Sanders’s speech was a diatribe against wokeness. This is standard G.O.P. fare these days and exactly what you’d expect in, say, an address at the Conservative Political Action Conference. But this wasn’t a CPAC speech; it was meant to address the nation as a whole and rebut the president of the United States. …
,,, Sanders seemed to say (although her syntax was a bit garbled) that woke policy was responsible for “high gas prices” and “empty grocery shelves.”
So first of all, how does that work? How did critical race theory cause a global spike in crude oil prices, which raised prices at the pump all around the world? How did it snarl supply chains and cause a worldwide shortage of shipping containers?
Second, a politician who was actually in touch with real people’s concerns would know that the examples she used to illustrate Biden’s policy failures are well past their sell-by date. Gas prices did indeed surge for a while, hitting around $5 a gallon last summer. But they’ve fallen drastically since then.
Currently, my preferred indicator of fuel affordability — the price of a gallon of gas as a percentage of the average worker’s weekly earnings — is roughly the same as the average for 2018-2019. I don’t remember Republicans howling about gas prices at the time.
And the complaint about empty shelves is even more out of date. Supply chains were very messed up a year ago, but the pressure has greatly eased since then, and while there are always a few scarce items — avian flu helped cause an egg shortage, although prices are probably heading down — complaints about empty shelves are very stale at this point. …
(The comment above continues an NYT/Paul Krugman op-ed that has not yet gotten thru moderation.)
War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Democrats Are Radicals
Paul Krugman – Feb 9
(PK is being ironic. It’s really the GOP who are the Radicals.)
… the Sanders response to (Biden’s SOTU address), which was … revealing.
Sanders’s speech was a diatribe against wokeness. This is standard G.O.P. fare these days and exactly what you’d expect in, say, an address at the Conservative Political Action Conference. But this wasn’t a CPAC speech; it was meant to address the nation as a whole and rebut the president of the United States. …
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Showed That the GOP Is Truly Not ‘Normal’
NY Magazine – Feb 8
Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “President Biden is unwilling to defend our border, defend our skies, and defend our people. He is unfit to serve as commander in chief. And while you reap the consequences of their failures, the Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day.”
What on earth is she talking about? Certainly not about anything Biden said in his address or has ever said in his many decades in the public eye. But here’s the pièce de résistance of this remarkable speech: “The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy.”
Keep in mind that Sanders served Donald Trump for two years. Even if you unaccountably agree with Trump’s own self-characterization that he was the greatest president ever, there is nothing “normal” about him. He would stand out in a zoo of exotic animals. And there’s nothing “normal” about MTG, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, and a host of other Republicans who (like Sanders) are very clear about their conviction that this is a time for extremism in the defense of what they consider liberty. Are these words from Sanders a normal political sentiment? …