“Shakespeare who?” ask Canadian students

The New Neo Posted on by

The greatest English writer who ever lived is a dead white man, and so several school districts in Canada have decided to disappear him:

The Greater Essex County District School Board in the Windsor, Ont., area is supplanting its grade 11 literature curriculum, which up to now has featured great writers of the western canon such as Shakespeare and George Orwell, with a year-long program of Indigenous writers. The change has already been effected in eight of the district’s 15 schools.

In the Peel district as well, I am informed by a reader, the same transformation is in progress. It would be naïve to assume that these schools will remain anomalies for long. The “disappearing” of dead white European male writers, however magnificent their achievements, may well be normalized across Canada before long.

And it also seems appropriately ironic that Orwell – who knew all too well the ways in which oppressive states seek to “disappear” unapproved people and their works – is going down the Canadian memory hole himself.

What is replacing Shakespeare the genius? Contemporary indigenous novels such as this one which focuses on the cruelty that was perpetrated on the Indians of Canada (Native Canadians?):

As a response to Truth and Reconciliation Commision, the public school board’s trustees passed a motion in 2016 to develop an Indigenous education protocol in response to calls for action.

Since this decision, eight of 15 high schools have replaced Grade 11 English course materials with Indigenous books including Indian Horse, In this Together and Seven Fallen Feathers.

The new course is called Understanding Contemporary First Nations, Métis and Inuit Voices.

So instead of learning the pearls of the Western canon, students in these districts are to remain ignorant of those achievements in favor of the study of literature that I think we can safely predict will not stand the test of time but will nevertheless serve the new overriding pedagogical goal of making the majority of students feel guilty about themselves and their culture.

More on NeverTrumpers

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Eva Marie” offers this explanation for the motives and concerns of NeverTrumpers:

Maybe they think of conservatism as essentially a lost cause. Maybe they think of it as that last bit of shelter from the vulgarity and crassness that is destined to seep into every part of our lives. And even though politicians like Bob Dole, Bush 1 and 2 eventually failed, they maintained a standard of behavior that heartened [them]. Switching metaphors, even though we are destined to go down with the ship we will do so as gentlemen and gentleladies. And here comes Trump. He thinks he can save the ship. He’s a fool for thinking so and we are fools for supporting him. Not only will the ship sink anyway but we will have been reduced to behaving just like the Democrats – we won’t even have the comfort of believing that we are not like them.

I wouldn’t doubt that’s what goes on with some NeverTrumpers. If all is lost anyway, why not maintain one’s dignity?

I have no idea how common that feeling is. But I don’t share it. All may be lost, but I see no reason to assume that and to give up. Meanwhile, if the ship is temporarily captained by someone who wasn’t sent by Central Casting, I don’t mind his crass style if he can steer away from the shoals and avoid a wreck. I would love for someone to come along who combines every quality I admire – eloquence, dignity, wisdom, strength, courage, foresight. But I’m not waiting around for such a paragon to appear, nor for Godot.

I didn’t start out supporting Trump, particularly during the primaries, as anyone who read my blog at the time could instantly perceive. But my objections were not especially about his style; they were about my distrust of him and what he planned to accomplish. Once he was elected, I was more than willing to give him a chance, and in terms of actions he’s exceeded my expectations tremendously as president. Even in terms of style he hasn’t been as bad as I expected, so on the whole I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

That experience obviously runs counter to the perceptions a NeverTrumper has of the Trump presidency so far. By the way, I define the term “NeverTrumper” this way: a person who claims to be on the right and who detests Trump and his ways so much that nothing the man does gets that person’s approval, and who in most cases is now actively hoping for impeachment or for the election of whatever candidate the Democrats nominate in 2020 to oppose Trump.

We have crossed the border into a place where the words “man” and “woman” have no biological meaning

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m talking about this sort of thing:

One of the many goals of the left is for the words “man” and “woman” to have no biological meaning or reality whatsoever, but to be entirely socially constructed. As Orwell knew, tearing down the traditional use of words is a powerful tool, as the left is acutely aware.

Those 27 mass shooters and fatherlessness

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed a number of people in this thread who cited a reported statistic about fatherlessness and mass shootings, which is that 26 of the shooters in the 27 deadliest mass shootings in the US grew up fatherless.

I’ve written about that assertion before, here. And while I have no doubt that the presence of a father is highly important and ordinarily beneficial for children, and the absence of a father is often highly detrimental, I beg to differ with that “26 of 27” statistic which appears to be based partly on this article.

The list of 27 can be found here. Let’s take them one by one. Continue reading →

Gentlemen and gentlewomen vs. Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the things that often strikes me is that Trump is no gentleman.

Oh, he can be a gentleman. When he wants to, he can act as graciously as anyone and exhibit excellent manners. But that’s not his usual mode, particularly with people in US politics whom he disdains or considers to be outright enemies or rivals.

Other presidents have behaved that way, too – in private. LBJ comes immediately to mind, as well as Nixon. In fact, it may be somewhat true of all presidents. But they have generally been careful – at least, the ones who have been president during my lifetime – not to display that particular side of themselves to the public at large (although Obama exhibited it once or twice in gestures for the cognoscenti to interpret).

One of the hallmarks of this lack of gentlemanly behavior on the part of the public Trump is his tendency to give people nasty nicknames. Nasty and yet effective, for the most part. These nicknames often involve a level of taunting reminiscent of the schoolyard, the locker room, or the pro wrestling circuit, and involve (among many many other things) insults regarding diminutive size.

That sort of ungentlemanly behavior as well as other examples in that vein drives Trump-haters on the right nearly crazy. The left hates him for that reason, too, but they hate so much else about him that their hatred about his lack of gentlemanliness is mostly because of its effectiveness. If he fought on behalf of their side, they’d love it.

Whereas those on the right who hate Trump for his lack of gentlemanliness hate it because they don’t want his déclassé ways to rub off on them. They don’t care that he has fought for policies and judges they profess to admire. Simply put, they consider him embarrassing riffraff and they don’t want to be tainted by association.

Many Trump supporters like him because he fights. He fights for them and he fights for America. And some of the time he doesn’t fight like a gentleman. That’s the same thing that a lot of Republicans who detest Trump really really really dislike.

I’ve probably written over a hundred posts on the topic of “why they hate Trump.” I may write a great many more. It’s an almost inexhaustible topic, isn’t it?

University students have increasing emotional problems

The New Neo Posted on by

This isn’t going to be a post bashing college students for being fragile flowers. It’s true they are more fragile than they used to be, but here’s a serious discussion in The Guardian, of all places, about the phenomenon.

Reading it, I felt a sense of sadness and came to the conclusion that today’s students are not being served by anyone very well. Politicians and the universities themselves have pushed the idea that just about everyone should go to college, and that means that people are attending who struggle with the work and remain highly stressed. It doesn’t help that secondary schools generally do much less to properly prepare them than they used to. Then there are the enormous student loans that result from a pact between government and universities, and allow students to attend while mortgaging their future earning power, all for a piece of paper that doesn’t reliably offer them a job payoff after school and yet is considered obligatory to get so many of today’s jobs. The family is much less of an emotional bulwark than it used to be, and that means a lot of students come to school with pre-existant emotional difficulties that are exacerbated by the stress of the workthere.

The article doesn’t mention it, but I bet substance abuse is part of it for increasing numbers of students, too. And of course there’s social media, which seems to do more harm than good and offers an illusory closeness and interaction, a forum for bullying, and impossible standards with which to compare oneself. Lastly (unmentioned by the article too) is hookup culture, which beckons and seduces but doesn’t fulfill. And especially for men, there is the fear of being falsely accused.

There’s probably more, but that’s enough for now. No wonder the suicide rate is up among university students.

[NOTE: The piece is about students in the UK, but I think most of it applies here, too. In the UK in particular, there aren’t enough funds for adequate mental health services at colleges, and waiting lists are long. I’m not sure that part is true in the US – yet.]

Fewer Americans think the impeachment hearings are a good idea

The New Neo Posted on by

So far it’s not working out in quite the way Schiff planned:

Support for the impeachment inquiry (not necessarily removal, but just the House process) was enjoying support in the 60% range not too long ago. Now, we are seeing almost 45% of Americans outright reject the process altogether. That’s a pretty big shift. Further, support to impeach and remove the President, which had peaked over 50% is now falling, down to 47%.

The splits within the polling are interesting in so far as the consolidation we are seeing. In general, what we are seeing in these numbers is almost all Democrats wanting to remove Trump and almost all Republicans disagreeing. Not shocking, but it’s important to remember that wasn’t the case in October, where a not insignificant number of Republicans were supportive of both the inquiry and removal.

In my opinion, the numbers approving of this travesty are way too high. But they’re going in the right direction.

Then there’s also the little fact that the hearings are boring. However, that can work in the Democrats’ favor. The reason is that since it’s the MSM that frames the narrative for so many Americans, the MSM gets free rein to pick and choose what facts to report in order to serve the Democrats’ purpose. If most people aren’t actually listening to the testimony or reading sources on the right, they will therefore miss all the exculpatory evidence in favor of Trump.

As Sweden goes…

The New Neo Posted on by

…so goes the rest of Western Europe?

Sweden today:

There have been 187 bomb attacks this year. In just 1 week in August, there were three major bombings. Much of the violence is concentrated in Malmo which experienced 58 bombings in 2017.

Malmo has a sizable immigrant and Muslim population. And it’s a center of gang violence.

Swedish authorities and its media rarely discuss or name the perpetrators, but the latest shooting left Jaffar Ibrahim, a 15-year-old boy, dead. Jaffar was shot in a Malmo pizzeria and had been part of a family of Syrian refugees who migrated to Sweden in 2016. Services for him were held in a mosque…

But Muslim gang violence in Sweden isn’t just its problem anymore.

Bombings took off in Copenhagen with explosions outside a police station and a tax office over the summer. The targets were political and the bombs weren’t fireworks or hand grenades, but commercial explosives used for demolitions. The suspects turned out to be criminals who had entered from Sweden.

The violence was probably related to gang wars involving the Brothas, Loyal to Familia and other splinter gangs. Despite the gang names, the actual gang members have names like Osman and Omar…

Much more at the link.

How is Sweden dealing with it? Mostly by making excuses for it, in order to sooth the native Swedish population:

The main components of Islamic militias, like the ones that tore apart Syria and Libya, were gangs. Islamist forces like these are often made up of gangs with grandiose names. The Copenhagen gangs are still associated with international gangs and use their names, but eventually they will go Islamic.

And then it won’t be the Hells Angels anymore. It’ll be the Islamic State of something or other.

That’s a reality that Swedish authorities are deliberately ignoring.

A government site insists that immigrants are no more likely to be criminals than anyone else. “In a study from 2013, researchers at Stockholm University showed that the main difference in terms of criminal activity between immigrants and others in the population in Sweden was due to differences in the socioeconomic conditions in which they grew up,” it argues.

As if Swedes, including the researchers of Stockholm University, are only refraining from picking up AK-47s and throwing hand grenades because of their socioeconomic conditions. The moment they lose their lucrative research grants, they too will be setting off bombs and fighting over the drug trade.

But nonsense like this sounds reassuring because it suggests that the solution to Islamic violence is social welfare. That’s a comforting message for socialists for whom social welfare is the answer to everything.

And, as the author also points out, Bernie Sanders wants to make us more like Sweden.

Love at first sight – in the movies

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course, it helps to have Shakespeare writing your lines.

But still, words – even Shakespeare’s – are not enough to convey the experience (one that some deny, but that does truly exist) of love at first sight. Not just lust, not just attraction, but love.

You say it can’t happen that way? I’ve seen it happen, and not just in the movies. But now I’m going to talk about the movies – in particular, this scene from Zefferelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” (unfortunately the first line and a half is missing; it’s Romeo saying “If I profane with my unworthiest hand/This holy shrine…”):

It helps that the actors are both extraordinarily beautiful. That’s the lust part, which happens instantaneously. But the thing that has always impressed me about this scene and this dialogue and this version is that you see two distinct processes. You see them looking at each other and being smitten with the way they match physically. Juliet’s eyes especially convey this, although there’s an earlier scene where Romeo sees her for the first time and something similar happens to him.

But the real transition to love comes from their words, their delighted discovery – through some rather sophisticated and highly flirtatious banter – that their minds match as well, and their emotions. They are both intense, intelligent, poetic, and quick. Not only is their dialogue a sonnet, but the images they use and the juxtaposition of religion with romance is poetic and clever and a bit daring. Again, in Juliet’s eyes (she’s younger than Romeo) you see her seriousness alternating with the playful joy of discovery. Why, he’s not just the handsomest guy I ever saw, but he’s on my wavelength too!

Here’s the dialogue in sonnet form:

R: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
J: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
R: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
J: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
R: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
J: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
R: Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.

So brilliant, so perfect!

[NOTE: The movie changes the word “fine” in the second line to “sin.” I don’t know why they did that, but it’s not a good change.]