DNW on February 24, 2021 at 12:30 pm: I bought a copy of Plunkett from Liberty Fund because they were offering it on sale. When it arrived it was 2? thick (800+ pages?), wrapped in clear plastic. I will probably never get around to removing the plastic let alone reading it.

It’s an easy read. And I always say to myself “Plunkett” too. I even typed that initially myself and then had to correct it.

If you are really looking to torture yourself by wading through contorted Victorian prose on the History of law, refer to Holdsworth.

” … and we shall see that the existence of this purely judicial court, acting in accordance with fixed rules of procedure, will exercise some influence in separating the purely judicial from the administrative sides of the Curia Regis which is still held coram rege. This clause had thus emphasized the need for a stationary central court for common pleas : the eighteenth emphasized the need for the local administration of justice by delegates from the Curia Regis in
the case of certain of these common pleas. It provided that the three possessory assizes of novel dissesin, mort d’ancestor, and darrein presentment should be tried in the counties where the cases arose ; and that they should be taken in each county four times a year by two justices …”

Snore … thwack as forehead hits the oak reading table … waking said scholar.

Two completed chapters followed by a sincere Act of Contrition will effect a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.

DNW, Ref. G*d: based on conversations with a Jewish friend, I understand Jews were forbidden to say or write the name of God, so they used G-d or G*d instead. Yes, a religious thing …”

Yeah, right. But the problem is that “God” is not the name of God.

It’s His title, or His rank, or his social ID in a somewhat flippant but accurate manner of speaking. All you have to do in order to prove it is to look up the etymology. It’s not His revealed name in Hebrew, it’s not a Latin or Greek transliteration of a Hebrew name. It’s a Germanic word.

I mean we could easily get into some kind of infinite regress. First you cannot speak the name which He has given to identify Himself, then you cannot use the Germanic word which expresses the exalted rank of the creator … So, how far down in a chain of descending euphemisms describing some power or potency do we go?

There is a kind of unfortunate parallel with that comic scene featuring Bill Pullman as the village Elder referring to:

” … those of whom we do not speak …”

Old Lady objecting: “If you talk about those of whom we do not speak, have you not spoken of that about which we do not talk?”

Pullman “Do not speak of that about which we talk of not speaking!”

However as comical as that snippet is, the movie is too gross in most respects for me to speak its name …

And that is another mystery. What’s with Hollywood and the obsession of some of these braying ass producers, writers and directors with potty humor?

DNW, Ref. G*d: based on conversations with a Jewish friend, I understand Jews were forbidden to say or write the name of God, so they used G-d or G*d instead. Yes, a religious thing.

DNW on February 24, 2021 at 12:30 pm: I bought a copy of Plunkett from Liberty Fund because they were offering it on sale. When it arrived it was 2″ thick (800+ pages?), wrapped in clear plastic. I will probably never get around to removing the plastic let alone reading it. Probably a shame, really. I still have Berman’s books to get through, perhaps another lost cause.

One might say that Females are Human Beings and Males are Human Doings. And Heaven help any male who is not busy doing or becomes unable to do.

Not my original wording. Seen it around online.

^^This.

Good point.

My wooly memory recalls a brief critique of The Bell Curve on normative grounds written ca. 1994 by Pat Buchanan. Liberals complained that his argument was a ‘dodge’.

People can lose their jobs for accurately quoting something said in 1971. Or in 2021.

The painful part of IQ is that it strikes near the heart of our humanity and one’s likely success and status in life, yet there is, so far, nothing to be done about increasing IQ.

I’m much less a fan of Anne Coulter than I once was. But one of her ironic observations has stuck with me, and seems worth repeating regularly.

It was to the effect that it is due in large part to progressives’ jettisioning of all traditional notions of intrinsic moral value and respect for good character, coupled to their self-congratulatory celebration of what they imagine is their own intellectual superiority, that raw intelligence (and the power that it promises to impart), has become virtually the sole measure among them of human worth and dignity.

Of course, it finally reduces to power alone. And should for some reason or set of social conditions, IQ not conduce to acquiring power to dominate others thereby, they would quickly lose much of the esteem they currently grant it.

If the conversation actually did take place in 1971, he’d have said ‘black’ or ‘negro’.

Blacks who are hired for the orchestra on the basis of impersonal performance metrics are not on the patronage of gentry liberals. Gentry liberals dislike that. Gentry liberals fancy they define strata and distribute patronage. Black chauvinists fancy they’re an aristocratic stratum who merit benefits by breathing in and out, and any suggestion that they do not merit those benefits (e.g. rank-ordering people on impersonal performance metrics in a way that does not give them what they want) is an act of effrontery. Gentry liberals also dislike the result of impersonal performance measures which suggest that previous generations were treating applicants fairly; the self-understanding of gentry liberals is fundamentally self-aggrandizing and suggesting that previous generations knew something they did not is an anathema to them.

As for the dames, recall Glenn Reynolds’ observation that acknowledging aggregate differences between men and women is only permissible when it is to the disadvantage of men (because women have options, while men have obligations). When you cannot reframe the differences (a la Carol Gilligan), the measures themselves are a species of mansplaining.