Home » Facts vs. feelings: “Sarah Jeong’s tweets and blog posts are just a marker of the world we already live in”…

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Facts vs. feelings: “Sarah Jeong’s tweets and blog posts are just a marker of the world we already live in”… — 17 Comments

  1. In a time crunch, plan on commenting more later. For now:

    . . . Jeong’s basic point is that she believes Jackie on some gut level despite everything; and that gut feelings like hers trump evidence. . . . [Neo]

    We’ve seen this behavior before. Let me paraphrase this in a more historical vein: “The Academy believes, on some gut level that the sun moves around the earth and those gut feelings trump the equations of Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus and Brahe.”

    As in the past, believing is seeing.

  2. Hey… maybe the patriarchy had a purpose……
    keeping the bat chit crazy ladies from doing what they are told to do

    not my problem…
    im a white male…

    good thing the ladies are so bad now, who would want them or their kids for any kind of meaningful union?

    MAYBE, if you have dated a few of these, you might get MGTOW!!!

    you wouldnt believe how far the ladies go with rhetoric
    and no one can say anything about it from wanting all men exterminated decades ago, to this one, to the other stuff…..

    glad they self exterminated…
    too bad it wasnt fast enough

  3. T:

    I feel I must introduce a correction to your point about Galileo, the church, gut feelings, and facts. I wrote an article for PJ some years ago that dealt with that question. I will now quote from myself:

    The Church had initially become upset with Galileo for two main reasons, neither of them the conventional “church vs. science” objection of legend. His first offense was committing theological overreach in their eyes when he stated that heliocentrism did not contradict the Bible because scripture should not be interpreted literally. The second was a kind of scientific hubris: Galileo’s assertion that heliocentrism had been proven (incontrovertibly, as it were) rather than being a tentative working theory. In addition, many of Galileo’s fellow scientists, although split on the matter, were more against Galileo than with him, just as Rick Perry said. The reason for their skepticism was not theology, it was that Galileo’s model was inconsistent with the best empirical observations of the time — although of course, in retrospect, his theory turned out to be correct.

    The most important problem with Galileo’s heliocentric theory, and one that was widely recognized by his scientific contemporaries, was the lack of “observable parallax shifts in the stars’ positions as the earth moved in its orbit around the sun.” It was only much later that instruments were designed that were sensitive enough to detect the shifts. Therefore, Galileo lacked scientific evidence to prove his theory, and many leading astronomers of the day rejected it. The renowned Tycho Brahe was one of them; he had his own competing theory, which was a Geo-Heliocentric hybrid in which the sun revolved around the earth but the other planets revolved around the sun, a system that conformed better than Galileo’s with the lack of observed stellar parallax and which remained in scientific favor for a long time.

    I have written that Galileo’s theory turned out to be correct, but that is actually an over-simplication. Galileo was indeed correct in stating that the planets revolve around the sun. But he also believed that the sun is the fixed and unmoving center of the universe, which we now know to be incorrect.

    This error does not contradict the fact that Galileo was a scientific giant. But the story is a reminder that even the brilliant make mistakes, and that science does not advance by simple progression from ignorance to perfect knowledge, nor is it proven by consensus. It moves in fits and starts, sometimes with small wavering steps and meanderings, sometimes with great leaps. Sometimes it lingers for a while in blind alleyways. But it is always incomplete, and must continually be tested and questioned.

    So the truth is much stranger than the legend, and much more complicated. It is not “Galileo=facts and evidence” and “church=beliefs in contradiction of facts and evidence.” That simplified “narrative” itself ignores quite a few facts and quite a bit of evidence.

  4. I previously questioned whether we have a moral right insert ourselves into how the NYT runs it’s business. My premise was that if we don’t like it, we don’t have to read it (I already don’t).

    Based on new evidence, I have become convinced that Sarah Jeong truly does not have the moral commitment to the truth that a journalist should have. I am further convinced that she is racist, misandrist, and generally a loathsome human being.

    I think we have every right to condemn the NYT on their decision to hire her and retain her in light of her history and extremist views. But, other than public condemnation, I see no other recourse.

    Did you have anything else in mind?

  5. Does anyone believe that Jeong is entirely sane?

    When ideological dogma trumps reality’s evidence, mental illness is demonstrated. Rhetorical question; When will we confront the Left’s demonstrated evidence of disconnection from reality?

    My guess is not until the violence becomes intolerable.

  6. Roy,

    95% of today’s ‘journalists’ do not have the moral commitment to the truth that a journalist must have to justify their societal function.

    There is no substitute for being raised and educated in a culture that embraces in principle an allegiance to objective truth.

    Those journalists are every bit as responsible for America’s societal dissolution as any politician, academic or celebrity.

    Should they succeed in our collectivist march toward the cliff’s edge, it will not end well for them.

    Should they succeed in facilitating the continued flood of Hispanic and Muslim ‘refugees’, it will not end well for them.

    Ironically and ultimately, the only way they survive is if they lose.

    ‘Kumbaya’ collectivist true believers and liberal useful idiots are always befuddled when the totalitarians seize power from them.

  7. Does anyone believe that Jeong is entirely sane?

    See Prof. Sarah Deutch of the Duke history faculty, who seemed to think the accused Duke lacrosse players were guilty of rape when it had been revealed that the ‘victim’ had the DNA of at least four men in her various orifices, none of whom matched the 45 DNA profiles on file of the Duke Lacrosse team or the profiles of the 3 men Crystal Gail Mangum listed as ‘boyfriends’ and when the state attorney-general concluded a 4 month investigation and made an unusual declaration that the 3 players were ‘innocent of these charges’. This woman has a tenured position at one of our leading universities.

    It’s perfectly acceptable in certain circles to adhere to grotesque social fictions. Sarah Jeong fancies Jackie Coakley’s absurd yard was true, which isn’t crippling bad judgment int he eyes of the New York Times.

  8. Neo,

    Thank you for the correction. I do not remember that article nor I have never had the need or occasion to do research on that issue. While my point might be valid, it would appear that in my example I am guilty of the same sin as Sarah Jeong; believing is seeing.

  9. “Jeong’s post tortuously and often incoherently explains why it is imperative to continue believing the pseudo-victim, Jackie.”

    Now, where have I seen/heard the phrase “fake but accurate” before??

    Hmmm.

    Journalism was stabbed to death a number of years ago.

  10. As I have commented before, when you become politically correct you have to deny reality and live in fantasy land. Worst case, this is called schizophrenia. The PC also claim they are victims of oppression and persecution. Worst case, this is called paranoia. I was going to suggest that Sarah Jeong should consult a mental health professional, but the psychologists went full left long ago. They would probably tell her she is perfectly fine.

  11. Old enough to remember the dangerous period 1968 into the mid 1970s, we have been here before. However, this time the msm/dnc/hollywood lackeys are supporting the far left with all they can muster, which is funded by people like Soros. Amazingly they believe they can win when the shooting starts, and it will start if they push beyond the point of no return. It seems they and their masters are determined to push beyond that point. Stupid. NRA membership expands, several more millions of firearms will be in private hands and tens of millions of cartridges will also be in private hands before 12/31/18. Private citizens in the USA own more firearms and ammunition than the entire world’s militaries and police, and it ain’t even close.

    Granted private citizens do not possess artillery, tanks, or an air force but how hard would it be to acquire those assets? Not all of the military are PC, not by a long shot. Speaking of long shots, old farts like me can put a bullet in your eye at 800 yards.

    This will not end well.

  12. When you get rid of all empirical knowledge as a source of truth, we have a word for that: superstition. Sarah Jeong is no better than some ignorant aborigine in a jungle.

    Of course, while believing these things she’ll tell you than she’s better than you.

  13. Can Jeong write anything without using “the f word”?

    Harvard Law — not impressed. She’s an awful writer.

    In a parallel universe, she’s living in a Korea conquered by North Korea because those evil white men didn’t help defend the South. Hope her parallel universe self is enjoying it.

  14. Diversity and bigotry. Color judgments and sanctimonious hypocrisy. A tale of denying individual dignity with good intentions and progressive (e.g. generational) conditions.

  15. It would, of course, be a bad, evil thing to initiate violence against all those leftist professors and students. Nobody should do that: That way lies Stalinesque and Maoesque atrocities.

    But allow me, briefly, to channel the way that leftists (mostly for the lack of any morally-constraining religious beliefs on their part) think about THEIR ideological enemies.

    * clears throat *

    How bad a thing would it be, really, if the leftmost 30% of all tenured university faculty, and the leftmost 15% of all university students, just gradually died off (natural causes) over the course of the next 5 years or so?

    That’s a big number, so there’d be social costs. Funeral directors might be thrilled with the brief upswing. Crematoria would experience a market “bubble.” There’d be a need to hire replacement university faculty, of course. The 15% drop in recent university graduates entering the workforce would create a labor-shortage. And so on.

    But 30% and 15%, respectively, aren’t too bad. Especially spread over 5 years. And the long term social benefits would be substantial, wouldn’t they? Granted, a few of those young lefties would have matured and eventually repented and turned to sanity. But we’re talking the left-most 15%. Sarah Jeong and Trigglypuff et alia.

    No great loss, eh?

    * cough *

    If it sounds like I’m channelling not just the leftists themselves, but the devil, it’s because I’m pointing to the very real temptation.

    The leftists (to repeat: mostly for the lack of any morally-constraining religious beliefs on their part) think this way about us. Not all, not often. And I’m not talking about “liberals”; I mean leftists. Like Sarah Jeong, who we can all agree was just expressing her opinions honestly to the world, without exaggeration, sarcasm, or jocularity.

    If we are to remain morally sane, then even Sarah Jeong should be insufficient provocation to cause us to follow suit.

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