Tag: PC

Categories
general freedom ideological culture Popular

Toxic Smile?

smirk, smile, Covington, MAGA, PC

Smirking is a subset of smiling. But what is a grimace? 

Nick Sandman, the offending Covington, Kentucky, Catholic high school student who triggered so much outrage last weekend, smiled. The effrontery!

Seeing a snippet of video, a social media mob formed, leaping to the conclusion that young Mr. Sandman was being disrespectful of an older Native American man who — chanting and drumming right up in his face — should have been “shown respect.” 

And not smiled? Instead, what: frowned? Cried? Bowed?

Smirks are irksome. Sure. But the young man’s facial expression seemed to me an attempt, only half-​successful, to smile — a covered-​over grimace. 

Understandable. The Covington youngsters — waiting to be picked up — had been targeted earlier by a group of nutty “Black Hebrew Israelites” who taunted at them for being … white. And the Native American man, Nathan Phillips, had singled Mr. Sandman out, violating his personal space. A grimace could be accounted for as putting “a brave smile on the situation,” as we used to say. 

But that was not how the Twitter mobs interpreted it. And of course the young Catholic students were wearing “MAGA hats” (pro-​Trump “Make America Great Again” baseball caps) which were later said to be racist. And the pro-​life rally he and his friends attended was said to be sexist. 

Can we all calm down? If we disagree on so much that even smiling is scandalous, maybe take a breath. 

In the midst of it all, economist Bob Murphy reminded us of the previous culture-​war fracas, the Gillette “toxic masculinity” ad, tweeting “if you see a mob picking on a boy, Gillette wants you to intervene.”

Masculinity wasn’t to blame for the mobbing. 

Toxic political correctness was. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

smirk, smile, Covington, MAGA, PC

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts


Categories
media and media people

Let’s String Up Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson, lynch, right wing, hit piece, PC, bias

“Ask Tucker Carlson whatever happened to Tucker Carlson,” writes Lyz Lenz for the Columbia Journalism Review, “and he gets upset.”

Hmm. I guess some rich, white, male, conservative television hosts just don’t like being pigeonholed and belittled.

Lenz’s profile, entitled, “The mystery of Tucker Carlson,” details Carlson’s descent from apparent good guy — that is, a journalist once working for CNN and MSNBC and writing articles that sometimes skewer Republicans — to racist bad guy with 2.7 million viewers on Fox News and a conservative position on immigration. 

On CNN’s Reliable Sources, however, Lenz offers, “If you look at a lot of his early writings … there has always been kind of a latent racism.” Evidence for this? She dredges up this confession from Carlson’s past: “The idea that I’d be responsible for the sins (or, for that matter, share in the glory of the accomplishments) of dead people who happened to share my skin tone has always confused me.”

Readers learn that Carlson is “worth over $8 million” and stands to inherit even more because his step mom is “Patricia Swanson of the Swanson frozen dinner fortune.” Lenz, in old-​fashioned “New Journalism” style,* contrasts that with her own struggle as “a single mom, a freelance writer with two kids, swiftly facing a future with no health care.”

Lenz is divorcing her husband of 12 years, who is … [gut-​punch] … a Republican. Their split “didn’t come because of the election,” she says, though “the election certainly revealed a lot of huge problems that we couldn’t overcome.”

Just as Tucker Carlson cannot understand his responsibility for all Caucasoid sins, he probably doesn’t see how her divorce is in any way relevant, either.

Racist!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Lenz acknowledges that journalists are “not supposed to make it about ourselves,” but does anyway. CNN Money describes this as “daring,”

PDF for printing

 

Categories
general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies too much government

To Anachronism in Heaven

Star Spangled Banner, anthem, PC, slavery, political correctness, war, violence

Symbols sure seem important in politics and government. I love the Statue of Liberty. Others may cherish the Lincoln Memorial and Mount Rushmore more. I’ve even heard people wax poetic on the images we find on our coinage.

But what about “The Star-​Spangled Banner”? The lyrics are not general at all, but instead an exultation about a moment of victory in a very bad war that our union almost lost way back in 1814. 

The melody leaps all over the place, making it difficult to sing. 

But its words are what stick in some peoples’ craws.

No, not the florid, old-​fashioned* phrasings. What bothers some people is all the violence … and a mention of the word “slave.”

Now, if the song were about slavery, or even mentioned the enslaved ancestors of current Americans, I’d side with the California branch of the NAACP, which wants to junk the old warhorse.

But the offending line does not seem to be what these activists say it is, one of “the most racist, pro-​slavery, anti-​black songs in the American lexicon.” The words refer, instead, to British sailors and soldiers:

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.…

The phrase “hirelings and slaves” means “mercenaries and conscripts.” Wednesday, on Fox, Tucker Carlson grilled a cheerful advocate of the NAACP position, whose main point was “unity.” He doesn’t think the anthem promotes “unity.”

But what would? Doesn’t taking on the anthem constitute just another divisive salvo in the culture wars?

We’ve bigger problems.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* The tune is by John Stafford Smith, who wrote it for the Anacreontic Society. Because the original version is usually called “To Anacreon in Heaven,” and because the phrasings of Francis Scott Key’s originally titled “In Defense of Fort McHenry” are “old-​fashioned” and arguably “anachronistic,” we have the title of this Common Sense outing.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
ideological culture media and media people moral hazard

Is This Even Funny?

Amy Schumer, comedy, equal pay, feminism, The Leather Special, PC, HBO, equality

Stand-​up comic Amy Schumer made headlines in Variety, this week, for her re-negotiations with Netflix over her recent comedy special, The Leather Special.

It initially garnered her a “mere” $11 million, while, Variety reported, comedians “Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle were given $20 million per special as part of their deals with Netflix,” according to a summary at Vulture​.com.* “Schumer then went back and negotiated for ‘significantly more compensation,’” scuttlebutt has it.

After-​the-​contract negotiations seem weird to me … almost … indecent.

But then, this might be apt, considering Schumer’s characteristic form of humor, which is almost relentlessly of an intimate sexual nature. Like many another Netflix watcher, I could not finish her special. “Indecent” is the nice word for it.**

The special was so relentlessly panned that Netflix created a new feedback system to discourage viewers from leaving severely negative criticisms and evaluations. It was a big deal months back.

So why did she think she could get more? Though she now denies it, the early reports said she demanded some sort of parity with Rock and Chappelle. And that “equal pay” for “equal work” ethic does seem to be behind the very idea of her ex post negotiating strategy. 

The thing is, Rock and Chappelle got more money, obviously, because their ability to make money for their venues is amply proven. Schumer, though she is not without talent and definitely has her partisans, is not as big an audience draw.

Like wages in the normal labor market, it’s about productivity.

And you’d have to pay me to watch The Leather Special in its entirety.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

* Variety is behind a paywall. I’m quoting Vulture because, like any good scavenger, I’m not paying for Variety.

** No idea whether I would have made it through a special with Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle. I get the impression I’m not in the target audience.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism

Loco Micro Repression

Close but no cakewalk prize.

Modern social justice advocates sometimes come up with legitimate complaints … only to wander off terra firma and into cloud-​cuckoo land.

“Microaggressions” is one of these airy wanderings, and Katherine Timpf has spotted another in the ever-​growing catalog of social justice beefs:

The size of our society’s chairs is now being considered a “microaggression” against overweight people, according to a guide released by The New School, a private college in New York City. 

Proponents of this cause, Timpf notes, insist that “Microaggression is not ‘Micro’ in Impact,” and that the best response to faux pas, slights, indelicacies, and what-​have-​you is snitching to the administration and intervention from same. Quite overbearing, if you ask me. During my too brief college stint it would have been considered an insult — a microaggression? — to think that young adults could not handle minor affronts such as so helpfully listed at The New School.

But let’s get real here. Microaggressions do not justify treating adults as children and setting up college administrators as in loco parentis tribunals — much less Molotov cocktails, sucker punches or bike locks in socks. At best, as has been pointed out elsewhere, Ned’s microaggression justifies Zed’s microretaliation. Nothing more.

So how does one micro-respond? 

Manners; etiquette.

In olden times, a well-​mannered person, when snubbed or otherwise insulted had the option of responding with a cutting remark … without any actual cutting, without even raising the tone of his or her voice. 

Activists and collegians really should look into it.

And not bring up chair size: the micro-​chair/​macro-​posterior issue has too many “microaggressive” jokes built into it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

 

Categories
education and schooling folly

When Dinosaurs Roamed the Schools

Sticks and stones break bones, but words hurt more subtly. Old-​school advice was that, growing up, one had to grin and bear it, let a few of our psychological wounds scab over, and get on with life.

But that is not “new school” wisdom. Nowadays, moved by a perhaps overweening sense of kindness (or politicized fear) educators tend to prohibit certain words, the better to protect some folks from taking offense.

The New York Post reports that, in a “bizarre case of political correctness run wild,” the people in charge of public schools have

banned references to “dinosaurs,” “birthdays,” “Halloween” and dozens of other topics on city-​issued tests.

That’s because they fear such topics “could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students.”

Dinosaurs, for example, call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists; birthdays aren’t celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses; and Halloween suggests paganism.

Even “dancing’’ is taboo, because some sects object. But the city did make an exception for ballet.

The “educrats” say such exclusions are nothing new, and I believe them. They’re inevitable when you have a government-​run school system that “services” a wide diversity of “clients.” The only real solution is to stop having the government run the schools. If you must support education with tax money, give vouchers to poor people. That would let a diversity of tutors and schools compete for parents’ and students’ attention … perhaps sometimes by catering to fears of dinosaurs, Halloween and dancing.

Odd, though, in one sense: If you really want not to “evoke unpleasant emotions in the students,” you could stop making them take tests. For most kids, tests are the most unsettling, truly horrifying aspect of schooling.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.