Comments on: Elite private school education: at least these parents won’t have to worry that their kids will need to be sent to re-education camp

By: huxley

huxley — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 02:24:52 +0000

“conformist” => “member of human pack/tribe”

Conformists are overwhelmingly normal humans being normal. Society could not function without them.

Group descriptors based on positions in a continuum quickly become meaningless because the continuum doesn’t hold still because the people involved don’t hold still either.

The counterculture stopped making sense almost immediately.

Even terms which seem to be based on specific qualities lose their meanings quickly too, e.g. fascism.
_____________________________________________

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless.…

Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if ‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword.

–George Orwell, “What is Fascism?”
https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

By: DNW

DNW — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 17:13:51 +0000

… the leadership caste remains the same, despite the change in costumes and political posturing. They are conformists.

Outstanding.

Now there’s a word that needs to be brought back into active use: “conformists”. The subjective fears, excuses, and sociological explanations for the craven behavior of these cowardly parents aside, “conformists” is exactly the right, if not sole descriptor.

I recently used the term “counter culture” to describe the general alignment, or at least presentation of, a particular pop musical group. A commenter or two had issues with the term itself, as inadequately encapsulating a coherent movement. If I even recall the objection correctly – having just glanced at it.

But sometimes these quasi-obsolete terms from another era, just do exactly the work that needs to be done in that specific instance …

By: Geoffrey Britain

Geoffrey Britain — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 15:43:12 +0000

I am Sparticus,

“cheese eating surrender monkey”? Not hardly. Leverage is maximized when timing is optimal.

By: Art+Deco

Art+Deco — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 14:16:47 +0000

Secondary schooling of select persons:

1. Bill Gates – local private academy
2. Elon Musk – state school
3. Steve Jobs – local public high school
4. Jeff Bezos – local public high school
5. James Dimon – local private academy
6. Lloyd Blankfein – local public high school
7. Rex Tillerson – local public high school
8. Gordon Gee – local public high school
9. Elizabeth Dole – local public high school
10. David Petraeus – local public high school
11. John Roberts – boarding school
12. Ted Cruz – evangelical schools of recent foundation.

By: Art+Deco

Art+Deco — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 13:54:34 +0000

Prep schools serve to select the elites

They encompass a low single digit share of the secondary school population and many and perhaps most of their graduates are quite ordinary people.

By: LAURENCE JARVIK

LAURENCE JARVIK — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 13:43:08 +0000

As someone who went to the Harvard School when it was just stopping being a Bircher right-wing Southern California Military prep school, I can tell you it was just as unbearable the other way round. I left after one year of hazing and bullying. Prep schools serve to select the elites—then Southern California Republicans, today woke Progressive Democrats. They ape those at the top of the pecking order and change with the times. School uniforms were replaced by blue jeans in my generation, for example. But the leadership caste remains the same, despite the change in costumes and political posturing. They are conformists. The only way to change such institutions is to change the leadership and principles of the top tier of society. Schools will follow the leader, as they did Henry VIII, Napoleon et al. Top-down system.

By: I am Spartacus

I am Spartacus — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 04:24:00 +0000

Zaphod – point taken

By: I am Spartacus

I am Spartacus — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 04:23:06 +0000

NS – hang in there. Your battle is about your son’s well being and future. The bigger battles will have to be fought by others. Life is centered on faith, family and friends. Keep close to God and he will help you with the family part. Friends is society at large. You cannot win in the context of friends if you don’t have Faith and Family squared away. You have your priority straight.

God bless you.

By: Zaphod

Zaphod — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 04:20:27 +0000

Spartacus:

I don’t think there are too many Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys here.

Also: Be sure you’re not 1915 Dardanelles Campaign Churchill or 1940 Norwegian Fiasco Churchill…

I’m a bit of a bore about Churchill, but for a more nuanced view of his strategic thinking capabilities, see Alanbrooke’s Diaries. For drumming up morale, nobody was quite like Churchill; separate issue.

OTOH, if you can manage to channel Mers El Kebir Churchill, that’s more like it.

By: om

om — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 04:20:01 +0000

I am Sparticus:

Well said!

We have a whole troop of fromageaphillic primates oot and aboot today.