Althouse: "Ever the good student, Jeong... absorbed a bastardized version of critical legal studies and critical race studies, both prevalent at Harvard Law."

August 9, 2018

"Ever the good student, Jeong... absorbed a bastardized version of critical legal studies and critical race studies, both prevalent at Harvard Law."

"Those by now hoary theories portray the great traditions of Anglo-American jurisprudence as just a mystifying cover for illegitimate power. 'In law school,' Jeong writes in her Rolling Stone post, 'we learned that due process is what we get in lieu of justice. And what’s due process besides a series of rules that are meant to keep things as predictable as [f***ing] possible?' It would be salutary for Jeong to live for a while in a society without due process and where the workings of justice are not 'as predictable as [f***ing] possible.'"

From "Sarah Jeong Is a Boring, Typical Product of the American Academy" by Heather Mac Donald in National Review.

I don't understand attacking Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies as "hoary." "Hoary" means "Ancient; venerable from age, time-honoured"(OED). Mac Donald objects to the disparagement of "the great traditions of Anglo-American jurisprudence." If tradition is something you like, hoariness is a plus.

I don't think cursing about the regularity of rules is much of an effort at Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies, and apparently Mac Donald doesn't either, since she calls what Jeong is doing "bastardized."

I haven't read enough of the Jeong oeuvre to have a real opinion of the quality of her mind, and I don't know what, specifically, Harvard lawprofs were teaching in the years when she attended. Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies were vibrant back in the 1980s, and lawprofs said all sorts of things under those labels back when the theories were young and fertile. The lawprofs who did this sort of thing used to argue with each other, and it wasn't boring at all.

100 comments:

rcocean said...: The old "aren't those leftists so funny (or boring)" has never worked. The American Spectator tried that approach for years, and accomplished nothing.

The most powerful Newspaper in the USA just hired a Racist. Who hates White Americans. And the liberal/left is cool with it.

Just sniffing and say how tiresome it all is, won't get conservatives anywhere.; 8/9/18, 5:56 PM
robother said...: Things were pretty exciting back in the 80s when lawprofs were young and fertile. Too bad everyone grew so...hoary.; 8/9/18, 5:57 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Things were pretty exciting back in the 80s when lawprofs were young and fertile. Too bad everyone grew so...hoary."

I tweaked the writing a little.

I meant that the theories were young and fertile... not the lawprofs. Many of them were quite hoary.; 8/9/18, 6:03 PM
David Begley said...: How in the world was Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies even taught in law school? These topics have absolutely nothing to do with the practice of law.; 8/9/18, 6:04 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Hoary can also mean tedious and uninspiring, trite, no longer interesting, prosaic.; 8/9/18, 6:05 PM
djf said...: Critical legal studies' fertility had to with its being full of shit.; 8/9/18, 6:07 PM
buwaya said...: She (Jeong) is right. It (the legal process) is all ritual and mummery.
The only thing that matters is who runs the system.
Who appoints judges, who can exert pressure on them (personal, political, money). Who pays for lawyers and extended litigation.

Critical legal studies, what I know of it, like Gramsci's cultural model of politics, are universally applicable. They work in every direction.

Power can be complicated (whats a mans price?), but it is everything.

What explains changes in the US legal system are the changes in the culture of the institutions that provide its staff, and of those other institutions that finance it.

Comprehension of reality requires complete cynicism.; 8/9/18, 6:08 PM
William said...: A Gershwin musical is traditional. A Victor Young operetta is hoary.; 8/9/18, 6:09 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Hoary can also mean tedious and uninspiring, trite, no longer interesting, prosaic."

The same is true of all the words that mean "old," but Mac Donald is PRO tradition when it comes to American legal values, so my point is, don't contradict yourself.

If CLS and CRT had any real value, it wasn't because they were (or seemed) excitingly new at one point.; 8/9/18, 6:12 PM
buwaya said...: "These topics have absolutely nothing to do with the practice of law."

Don't they? With enough money or its in-kind value in political influence and favors you can in time purchase any court. Which can interpret anything however it suits its owners.; 8/9/18, 6:12 PM
wbfjrr2 said...: “Don’t have an opinion on the quality of Jeong’s mind.”

Her mind is ignorant, racist and sexist. What more do you need to know, Althouse?; 8/9/18, 6:17 PM
buwaya said...: Consider also that the law, as usually understood, only applies (to a degree, there is always the matter of judicial personality and allegiances which always applies) in cases where the stakes are low and no-one with significant power wants to put in the effort.; 8/9/18, 6:17 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "How in the world was Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies even taught in law school? These topics have absolutely nothing to do with the practice of law."

Part of education can be developing some depth and theoretical insight that doesn't have immediate practical value. The fancier law schools see the years in law school as well spent on things that distinguish it from a "trade school." The practical things will be picked up in the bar review course and on the job (though at Wisconsin, the bar review notion was mostly inapplicable, since we have the diploma privilege if you stay in Wisconsin).

Another thing is that there are things you might do with a law degree other than practice law. For example, you might write articles in National Review, like Heather Mac Donald, or do columns in the NYT, like Sarah Jeong. You could become a lefty law professor or an activist. You could be President of the United States.; 8/9/18, 6:17 PM
buwaya said...: Whats the difference between the modern US legal/political system and that of, say, Qing China?

Just the nature of the text (libraries of it) used to justify decisions.

You have a class of Mandarins qualifying under a remarkably similar system. Chinese Mandarins were however better dressed in brocaded silk, and the Chinese deified one of their judges (Bao Zheng), which the Americans haven't quite done. Yet.; 8/9/18, 6:29 PM
William said...: I wonder if she has ever speculated on how the Kim dynasty was able to endure all these long years. Does it speak to something in the Korean character and hence her own character. I suppose Jim Crow laws tells us something about the intolerance of white southerners of that era. Does juche and the willingness of so many Koreans to sign on to the Kim dynasty tell us something about Koreans?.......Kathleen Cleaver's child was born in North Korea. Mrs. Cleaver is a law professor. She's probably quite knowledgeable about these theories and can no doubt offer valuable insight about where the Kim dynasty went wrong.; 8/9/18, 6:29 PM
D 2 said...: Ah. The youthful 1980s. Specifically, 1981. When Ol R Stewart was trying to hold off Triumph for the much sought after teenager-studying-pre-law dollar

Young hearts be free tonight. Time is on your side,
Don't let them put you down, don't let 'em push you around,
Just make up your own legal points of view.

I'm young, I'm wild and I'm free
I got the magic power of critical race theoryyyyyyyy.

I think that was how the songs went ......; 8/9/18, 6:30 PM
Rob said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/9/18, 6:30 PM
glenn said...: Leave Sarah alone, she’s a first rate piñata.; 8/9/18, 6:31 PM
mccullough said...: It doesn’t take long to catch onto the theories of the day in the academy. It’s like fashion. It changes due to boredom. Jeong is pretty young and Critical Race Studies has been around since before she was born. I doubt it’s even the same It’s probably even changed a lot in the 5 years since Jeong graduated. Transgender is the big thing the last few years. Even intersectionality is long in the tooth. South Koreans are relatively recent immigrants to the US. Jeong has no insight into blacks, who have been in the US long before her family left South Korea. Her insight into whites is non-existent as well.

White and Black US soldiers are the reason her family isn’t living under the boot of Rocket Man. Like the French, this really bothers her and is at the root of her inferiority complex. Nothing she learned at Harvard can avoid this. She can pretend all she wants. She’s not fooling anyone. It doesn’t matter that she’s a racist. Most Koreans are. But they know they are inferior to the Chinese and the Japanese. So they lash out at whites and blacks. But selling liquor and trinkets in their stores in the ghetto hasn’t made them any more empathetic.; 8/9/18, 6:31 PM
Birkel said...: CRT and CLS were means to power for Leftist Collectivists.
Any other claim is a lie in service of that power.; 8/9/18, 6:33 PM
Lucien said...: Sarah Jeong, and the NYT, and those defending them, have done us the favor of revealing who and what they are. And they can never go back.; 8/9/18, 6:34 PM
Bob Loblaw said...: I meant that the theories were young and fertile... not the lawprofs. Many of them were quite hoary.

Sure, but were they fertile?; 8/9/18, 6:35 PM
Francisco D said...: " ...the theories were young and fertile... (back in the 80's)"

Postmodernism seemed interesting back in the 80's, but it has become a tired and predictable leftist dodge when facts and logic are not on their side.

Perhaps, the same thing has happened with Critical Race Theory.

Theories are made to be investigated not embraced as a religion. Otherwise, they become hoary over time, and rather quickly.; 8/9/18, 6:36 PM
William said...: There used to be a time when the children of immigrants and, for that matter, their immigrant parents looked to the old country and said, whew, I'm well out of that.; 8/9/18, 6:36 PM
Pookie Number 2 said...: I’m a little curious about whether Sarah Jeong has ever said anything that differs from what we’d expect from a caricature of a young Asian SJW.

(I’m not curious enough to actually check.); 8/9/18, 6:37 PM
Gahrie said...: So Libertarian support for States' rights (which apparently is fine and dandy now that the Left wants to use it) is enough to drive you to tears, but all you have to say about the destructive, racist and anti-Western Civilization ideas of Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies is that they "were vibrant back in the 1980s"?; 8/9/18, 6:39 PM
buwaya said...: "Her insight into whites is non-existent as well."

On the contrary. She was educated in and is competing in a specific US subculture.
Her outlook is not Korean. Don't blame Korea for this woman. She behaves as she was taught is required for success among her kind, that of the American Mandarins.

Her only fault I can see (in her circles) is that she has not quite picked up on the necessary subtleties her white sisters are more attuned to. This makes her communications more likely to have a distressing overtness. She does not lie as well as she should.; 8/9/18, 6:40 PM
Gahrie said...: Part of education can be developing some depth and theoretical insight that doesn't have immediate practical value

Exactly what "depth" or "insight" does Critical Race Theory or Critical Legal Studies provide?; 8/9/18, 6:42 PM
ccscientist said...: Not clear what Sarah thinks "due process" is. It is supposed to prevent cops from fabricating data and lying, prosecutors from railroading and lynching the innocent and hiding exculpatory evidence. When the Brits were fighting us in the revolution, people would just disappear. Habeus corpus (sp?) is "show us the body" that is you can't just make people disappear. It is far from perfect as practiced (e.g., prosecutors load up charges in order to get a plea deal) but when practiced reasonably well it is as close to justice as you are going to get in a world with humans in it.; 8/9/18, 6:45 PM
DKWalser said...: Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies were vibrant back in the 1980s, and lawprofs said all sorts of things under those labels back when the theories were young and fertile. The lawprofs who did this sort of thing used to argue with each other, and it wasn't boring at all.

It may not have been boring; it certainly wasn't good law, nor was it good public policy. It was good for fraying the fabric of our society, assuming you see anything good in that.; 8/9/18, 6:49 PM
Francisco D said...: "Her outlook is not Korean. Don't blame Korea for this woman. She behaves as she was taught is required for success among her kind, that of the American Mandarins.

My stepson was adopted from Korea nearly 20 years ago. He is now a college student who does not buy into most leftist bullshit. (His parents are liberal academics who taught him to think for himself).

I don't know how to categorize his outlook. He was raised in a middle class White family that embraced Korean culture and connected quite a bit with Korean families. He doesn't try to represent any particular culture; he represents himself.

Ms. Jeong represents her own narrow minded bigotry.; 8/9/18, 6:50 PM
robother said...: Interestingly, criticism requires some foundational reality even more than spontaneously arisen art, or religion or law. After the thrill of practicing philosophy or legal or art criticism with a hammer is gone, the theorist is left with no ground to advance any positive new foundation.

In terms of Critical Legal or Race studies, you're only urging your preferred group seize power "by any means necessary." "Justice" or "objective Truth" like any other traditional value is empty, only useful against the idiots who can be conned into giving up power prematurely. Hence the rise of hate crime hoaxes.; 8/9/18, 6:52 PM
buwaya said...: "There used to be a time when the children of immigrants and, for that matter, their immigrant parents looked to the old country and said, whew, I'm well out of that."

She has apparently had some sort of split with her parents.

What she has done that is entirely Asian is that she has correctly divined the criteria for academic and professional success in her field, and determined to excel in these. She has no doubt learned extremely well from her teachers.

Blame her teachers and her peers and the industry she entered. She just did what she had to do.; 8/9/18, 6:52 PM
Henry said...: Why "bastardized"? That's what I wonder.

Althouse provides the answer that Mac D does not: the theories became debased to the extent they became rote.

Good theories are like small talk:

I didn’t want a vapid exchange, and in-depth conversation wouldn’t have been appropriate either, and I had no intention of launching into either. The perfect in-between connection was [theory]

I do think Mac D might be onto something. The worry with Jeong isn't that she's radical. It's that she's boring.; 8/9/18, 6:59 PM
mccullough said...: Buwaya,

She was born in South Koreain 1988. The damn Summer Olympics were there that year. Her parents came here in 1991. She speaks Korean and English. She is not the same as some douche like Ezra Klein. She resents whites for way different reasons than a thirty year old black woman from St Louis would. She has a rather typical South Korean chip on her shoulder for owing America her life. It’s bad enough they can’t measure up to the Japanese or Chinese. But to owe your life to the whites and blacks in th US is too much for many of them. It is like the French. Inferior to the Germans is probably ore than they can handle. But the Americans saving their worry asses twice justkills them.

The stuff she writes about whites pales compared to what she thinks of blacks. I guarantee it. She knows to keep that to herself, unlike most Korean Americans who make American whites look enlightened when it comes to blacks.

But I do like you using the term Mandarin to describe her. She would go apeshit at that Chinese term. Totally lose it.; 8/9/18, 7:01 PM
William said...: She's smart enough to get into Harvard and successfully complete a degree. At the same time, she's too dense to understand how these tweets will trigger a ferocious backlash. There's a great deal about her that doesn't make sense. I know America pulls you in different directions, but I just don't understand where all this hostility is coming from.; 8/9/18, 7:01 PM
Rory said...: I remember an old Harvard-educated professor lamenting in the 90's that his generation had stupidly broken down all the barriers that kept crazy people from making their own decisions and living in the streets. Later generations are going to lament a lot more than that.; 8/9/18, 7:03 PM
Sprezzatura said...: I think she's hot.

Berkeley and Harvard. And, she knows how to leave a mark. Don't see that everyday.

IMHO.

P.S., It's nuts (IMHO) that many here thought the preger gal w/ an NRA sticker, projectile tits and an Am Flag on a pickup truck was hot. What's the point of a woman like that? Why not just F a slogan? Maybe that is the point. I dunno.; 8/9/18, 7:04 PM
buwaya said...: I like pregnant women. Just the cave-man in me I suppose.; 8/9/18, 7:09 PM
Earnest Prole said...: A young girl immigrates to America from Korea, graduates from Berkeley and Harvard Law, and goes to work for the New York Times, yet the society that makes such a thing possible is grossly unjust.; 8/9/18, 7:12 PM
wildswan said...: What I notice about critical race theory is that it encourages its practitioners to "tell a story" rather than cite legal precedent. And 44 absorbed this theory while at Harvard Law. Once you start to notice you can see at once who is using the theory because they tell a story, usually about themselves, and try to use story to overthrow a law or a precedent. And it's stylistic trick that has expanded beyond the legal system into politics, as if there was training school for political mannequins which includes devising one's victim story to include as many intersectional victimologies as possible in 25 words or less. After a while people will recognize the genre just the way they get bored with a TV series and start mocking even the worst moments in the lives on screen. Or maybe people will learn to bring up counter-victim stories. In Massachusetts they were going to put another gender on drivers' license choices but were driven back by an astute legislator who demanded that all 73 possible combinations of genders be listed. He didn't tell a counter-story; he implied 72 other stories in addition to the one story about the one gender which was being told and then he drew the policy conclusion.; 8/9/18, 7:13 PM
bagoh20 said...: Progressives have become predictable and boring, becuase they are no longer progressive. They are stuck in the past, with old worn out ideas that continue to become less and less relevant to a world of increasing tolerance, cooperation, and prosperity. The success of western free market ideas is so overwhelming and has so much momentum that eventually the very purpose of the left will be obsolete to most of the world, if it isn't already.

Libertarian-leaning conservatives are the ones being censored, banned, and attacked as uncivil, despite staying mostly in the battle of words and ideas in the face of physical attacks? Lefties who try so hard to be provocative with the same old provocations from years past can't help being boring. Try an idea that hasn't been disproven years ago for a change.; 8/9/18, 7:13 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Thoroughly unimpressive, young, stupid leftist woman - who has a potty mouth and happens to be Asian.; 8/9/18, 7:14 PM
Jeff Weimer said...: Heather fell into the leftists redefinition trap using "hoary".

Leftists use it as a pejorative, since they think those old traditions are outdated and must be overthrown, and she absorbed it as a generic pejorative as being against the status-quo without understanding it's definition.; 8/9/18, 7:21 PM
Ken B said...: 1 Buy a better dictionary. Hoary is pejorative in common usage. Google brings up “grayish white” and “old and trite” as the first two usages.

2 Buy a better dictionary. “45 years ago” is not “now”. If your young brain found it new and exciting 45 years ago that doesn’t mean either word applies now. Progressives found eugenics new and exciting once, lobotomies were called new and exciting once.

3 Buy a better dictionary. “She” and “they” are not the same. Maybe your profs weren’t boring 45 years ago, but Jeong is if she's always going on about “whiteness” and “privilege “. Those drones are dull as hoary reminisces of exciting critical theory profs.

4 Buy a better dictionary. Your comments are purblind, otiose, and negatory.; 8/9/18, 7:25 PM
Bob Boyd said...: You know what's hoary? Critical Marmot Theory.
Max Gophenheimer questioned the very need for holes. His idea was to free all ground squirrels from what he called "the slavery of the burrow". For a time the movement enjoyed some popularity. Excited marmots filled in their holes. They were running all over the meadows, frolicking and whistling and so forth.
But then the bears came.; 8/9/18, 7:25 PM
bagoh20 said...: What is "depth" in a subject or idea like CRT or CLT? It's not nuance, because that's like knowing the path to truth has sideroads and dead ends, while still seeing the strength of a well worn path that gets people somewhere. "Depth" via CRS and CLT sounds like taking a side road and refusing to turn back even after arriving at an abyss, if you even see the damned hole.

And "hoary" was probably just a misspelling.; 8/9/18, 7:26 PM
buwaya said...: "Progressives have become predictable and boring, because they are no longer progressive."

Maybe. The problem here is that disaster is more interesting than success, sin more fascinating than virtue, absurdity more amusing than sense.

I think even Dante said so. The Inferno is way more fun than the Paradiso.; 8/9/18, 7:29 PM
Bob Boyd said...: That's Max Gopherheimen. Damn auto correct.; 8/9/18, 7:33 PM
bagoh20 said...: I think "Ever the good student" explains how she got where she is philosophically. See Pavlov.; 8/9/18, 7:36 PM
Sprezzatura said...: BTW Buw, I don't gots ta tell you that some Filipino gals can put on a show re food (and more), but Korean gals are (according to my experience) on a way higher level.

The assimilated gals (like Sarah Jeong) that I've known are totally enchanting. But then, there's the college students and first get-ers. It's way too much, very uncomfortable to see that much effort directed at pleasing me. And from absolutely brilliant women, that's the part that I struggle w/. Plenty of dummies are ready to serve. That's all they got.

Obviously anecdotal, could (probably does) mean nothing.; 8/9/18, 7:38 PM
Jeff Weimer said...: @Mccullough

You touch on a truth - all Asian nationalities *hate* each other (for long standing reasons), and are quite ethnically supremacist.

I'm reminded of the situation in the US when a person of obvious asian extraction is asked, are you Chinese? and they say no. Oh, Japanese? No. Korean? No, then what are you? At that point they are annoyed and refuse to say - this goes back to the "we all look the same to you" trope.

Answer with "Oh, Filipino, then." They *love* that.; 8/9/18, 7:39 PM
traditionalguy said...: Progressives lust for power. That is all they want. But due process is their enemy because it restrains all attempts at weaponizing Law to destroy the selected enemies of the State. That procedure instead channels the judgements of the Judicial arm of the State into a Trial by a JURY. That is their enemy: The Jury.

A State needs military Tribunals in time of War. The rest of the time legal powers to destroy men Ergo: Lawyers are sine qua non to free men.are restrained by Juries that are persuaded by Lawyers. Ergo: trial lawyers are sine qua non to free men.; 8/9/18, 7:47 PM
Sebastian said...: "I haven't read enough of the Jeong oeuvre to have a real opinion of the quality of her mind" Ah, you haven't, have you. Some of your commenters linked to that oeuvre. I encourage you to take advantage of their links, and form a "real opinion."

"I don't know what, specifically, Harvard lawprofs were teaching in the years when she attended" Ah, you don't, do you. You, a law professor.

"Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies were vibrant back in the 1980s, and lawprofs said all sorts of things under those labels back when the theories were young and fertile." But now it is a hoary tradition. MacDonald was right and did not contradict herself. She used le mot juste.

"The lawprofs who did this sort of thing used to argue with each other, and it wasn't boring at all." Law profs arguing with each other! Not boring at all!

But this is all beside the point. CLS and its corollaries are just prog tools to pursue prog purposes. Jeong's bastardized version whittles it down to the purely instrumental essence, the better to use the rhetoric in a purely political way, to transform the culture and attack the deplorables. And this is where MacDonald goes wrong: boring is fine with progs. They can afford to be boring. They don't need to be exciting. It's the mark of hegemony.; 8/9/18, 7:48 PM
buwaya said...: "Answer with "Oh, Filipino, then." They *love* that."

In keeping with ancient family tradition (as we don't LOOK Filipino), when I hear Filipinos speaking in public I will, given the chance, interject in Tagalog. This happened at one of the kids' UC graduations. The ladies behind us were chattering away in Tagalog and Visayan. I turned and told them "Wala na kayong sikreto" - you have no more secrets. We got on famously.

Astounding Filipinos for hundreds of years, that's us.; 8/9/18, 7:48 PM
Sprezzatura said...: You'd think that keeping Asians from nabbing white space at Harvard (et. al.) wouldn't be the only concern of the majority-minded.

Wouldn't most thinking guys rather be w/ a person rather than an artifice, aka Lena-Epstein-photo-presentation. I mean, don't all guys learn in high school how to spot fluff and filler?

OTOH, if yur a DJT voter POS who thinks the Mexicans and Blacks (and Asians?) get all the breaks, maybe you don't have options.

I dunno.; 8/9/18, 7:49 PM
Ken B said...: Bagoh20
No “theory” is in depth if it doesn’t involve math. It's just words over and over. As Scott Adams puts it, thinking in words is hopeless. Theory can’t really be deep until you turn it into something measurable, testable, falsifiable. And that means, in some way mathematical. Thermodynamics is deep, genetics is deep, “implicit power structures in the use of semicolons” can never be deep.; 8/9/18, 7:55 PM
Anonymous said...: If tradition is something you like, hoariness is a plus.

Occasionally your nit-picking about usage strikes me as a bit labored, but I think this is the first time I've seen you be just *wrong* about it. "Hoariness" could conceivably be used in a borderline-neutral sense, but it is never laudatory. That's a "non-native speaker" level of missing the nuances.; 8/9/18, 7:57 PM
mccullough said...: Jeff,

That’s a good joke. When confronted with the “you think we [Koreans, Chinese, Japanese] all look alike response, I’ll show them a photo of four white guys from my phone and ask them to identify which one is Irish, which is English, which is Scottish, and which is German. When they get it wrong, I tell them, there’s no such thing as white people or Asian people There is only ethnicity.; 8/9/18, 7:59 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Anybody familiar enough with Richard Spencer's oeuvre to understand the workings of his mind?

He's just a racist asshole so who cares what bullshit he believes.; 8/9/18, 8:04 PM
Sprezzatura said...: Mcullough,

Yur not writing about what Jeff is talking about (and, I'm surprised, Buw seems to have missed it, too).

Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans look down on Vietnamese, Filipinos etc. They genuinely don't consider those groups as qualified re being identified as Asian.

It'd be like the worst Irish v English sentiment, but more.; 8/9/18, 8:05 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: That reminds me. Remember "it's OK to punch a racist."

So when is she going to get a bike lock upside her head.; 8/9/18, 8:09 PM
Sprezzatura said...: And Mcullough,

Look at Rodrigo, for example. There is sorta a rationale.

Sad, but true.; 8/9/18, 8:11 PM
Sprezzatura said...: Imelda?; 8/9/18, 8:12 PM
rhhardin said...: You want somebody who likes the system to do critical theory of that system. Otherwise you get what the leftists get, namely everything is a cover.

The don't see the point of discovering how everything is produced by unawareness, when it would apply to the left as well.; 8/9/18, 8:12 PM
Sprezzatura said...: OTOH,

We've got our own Rodrigo.

Thanks to folks like you.; 8/9/18, 8:13 PM
Sprezzatura said...: BTW rh,

The Oscars are trying to be more appealing to real people.

But, still no 'rom-com' category.

If you start a petition, I'll sign.; 8/9/18, 8:16 PM
buwaya said...: The Filipino response is very different. I will not answer for the Vietnamese, etc. but the Filipinos are a forgiving, Christian sort. Hate doesn't come into it.

Back home they suspect the Chinese and fear them, for good reasons, but its not personal.
In the US they have no chip on the shoulder vs Chinese.
To be sure, they tend to be richer than the US Chinese.
They have a different strategy for success.
Indians, Filipinos earn most income among California immigrants
They recall the Japs, but have forgiven them. A genuine forgiveness.
There is no ongoing agitation as the Chinese and Koreans put on vs the Japs.; 8/9/18, 8:18 PM
Sprezzatura said...: BTW rh,

Where are you re cutting the ears of dobermans?

Is fussing about that lady influenced lameness? Or, manly wisdom?; 8/9/18, 8:18 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: It seems to me that a legal system that keeps things predictable is a feature, not a bug.; 8/9/18, 8:18 PM
Sprezzatura said...: I appeal to golden years-ers.; 8/9/18, 8:20 PM
mccullough said...: And the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans look down on each other. Just because they consider the other southeast Asians even lower than each other among the yellow people doesn’t mean they don’t consider themselves superior among the Big 3.

It’s a shame that Filipinos in the US have been passed up in numbers by Chinese. Filipinos are by far the best Americans.; 8/9/18, 8:21 PM
Sprezzatura said...: "It’s a shame that Filipinos in the US have been passed up in numbers by Chinese. Filipinos are by far the best Americans."

Presumably you think that the countries of origin are composed of very different folks v those who leave their homeland to come here. If not, you like Rodrigo/Imelda/DJT leadership. If so, I'm sure you'd like to see DJT upend his predecessors, to make us more Rod/Im/Putin.

Different strokes fer different folks.; 8/9/18, 8:27 PM
Ken B said...: I think it's time for fun with Althouse vocabulary rules!

For those keeping score here is the OED on hoary https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hoary The only meaning given which can apply to a theory is “unoriginal and overused; trite”

One meaning of inept is “awkward, out of place”. My coffee grinder was inept in the garage!
One meaning of flat is unvarying. My tire was unvarying so I had to call AAA.

Why am I piling on this way? Because when challenged Althouse was too smug and too lazy to check, so she doubled down in a comment above.

McDonald's essay is spot on. Everything I have seen from Jeong is just as HM describes it, rote regurgitation of the fatuous, hoary shibboleths and totems of her class.; 8/9/18, 8:32 PM
Ken B said...: Buzzard: “That's a "non-native speaker" level of missing the nuances.”

Exactly. It's just like the “inept” ineptitude, which I did not invent but overheard. But Althouse will either ignore it or spend hours finding some old, obscure, hoary reference to cite. “Bisguier's response to the third edition of Johnson’s dictionary gives ...”; 8/9/18, 8:43 PM
Henry said...: I saw a hoary shibboleth once in the Catskills, but the picture came out too blurry to prove it.; 8/9/18, 8:51 PM
mccullough said...: Yes. The people who come here are usually different than the ones who stayed behind. Some similarities in culture/outlook but also different. Just as people who sign up for combat are different than civilians. Not drastically different but some important differences.

Jeong has an inferiority complex common among South Koreans and French. Anipathy to white and black Americans is pretty common for them. Not all but some. Her people here tend to run liquor stores and nail salons that serve mainly blacks and whites. It really hurts them. They are resentful. Whites and blacks think they are Chinese if they see them on the street. The only way they know they are Korean is if they are in a liquor store or a nail joint. Any Asian running one of those in the US is Korean.; 8/9/18, 9:12 PM
gilbar said...: buwaya said... The Filipino response is very different

i've been meaning to ask you; What's the Filipino response (in Your observation) towards President McKinley and the whole Spanish war?
Are people happy that the yanks kicked the Spanish out?
Are people pissed that it took the yanks 50 years to leave?
Do people even remember the Spanish war?

Is it different in Mindanao?
thanx!; 8/9/18, 9:17 PM
Sprezzatura said...: " Any Asian running one of those in the US is Korean."

Doesn't hold for all. But (assuming this is the stereotype-palooza thread), it is about as accurate as making the same claim re Koreans re running dry cleaners.; 8/9/18, 9:26 PM
mccullough said...: Jeong in the pink dye hair photo looks like one of the girls who does nails at those Korean owned nail joints. When this gig at The NY Times ends, she can make a good buck opening one of those nail joints near Harvard Yard. The white girls at Harvard wouldn’t be caught dead in a black owned nail salon.; 8/9/18, 9:30 PM
Sprezzatura said...: "Jeong in the pink dye hair photo looks like one of the girls who does nails at those Korean owned nail joints"

Berkeley and Harvard?

"The white girls at Harvard wouldn’t be caught dead in a black owned nail salon."

BTW, the Asian girls would probably be even less likely to end up there.

I once got a haircut in a "black" salon/barber. Was in a non-usual place dealing w/ a plane delay. When I walked in I was worried about all the pics of "fades" and weird things cut into black-folks heads. Anywho, I made lemonade. Not the first time. Or last, hopefully.

Life. Living. I love/ador it.; 8/9/18, 9:41 PM
Amadeus 48 said...: Althouse fondly remembers Mark Tushnet throwing it down with Duncan Kennedy. Those were the days.; 8/9/18, 9:45 PM
buwaya said...: "What's the Filipino response (in Your observation) towards President McKinley and the whole Spanish war? "

It is patriotic myth, much like the old US schoolbook story of the American Revolution. Heroes wall to wall.

Every kid gets the whole Revolution of 1896-American War of 1899-1902 as a heroic episode.

The line is - regrettably, not quite successful, but almost!

The Spanish and Americans are rather faceless, generic in the official story.
McKinley is distant. Dewey is better known, but still a shadow. The battle of Manila Bay is a footnote.

A very popular, recent patriotic movie - Heneral Luna

Note the Americans are not individual villains, with names and faces.

This is an American movie, worthwhile if you are interested in the subject, and in most ways quite accurate as a microcosm, though the director is a commie. Down to the rebels massacring the Chinese, just because. The Filipino attitudes are accurate for the period. The Filipinos are way too well dressed however.

Amigo

These were my people -

Ultimos de Filipinas

My great grandpa was one of those guys (not the "ultimos" at Baler, in this particular incident), but in that army.

This is actually a remake of a Spanish classic of the 1940's, but without the Habanera, Yo te dire

And there is a Filipino version! Baler

Mindanao is mainly Christian-Visayan, and for them the national myth is the same. The Muslims, well, they are something else.; 8/9/18, 9:56 PM
buster said...: Buwaya: "What's the difference between the modern US legal/political system and that of, say, Qing China?"

For one thing, the legal system of Qing China didn't have the concept of a contract.; 8/9/18, 10:02 PM
MikeD said...: Ms MacDonald actually called them, (critical yada yada theories) a bastardized version of same. Jeong shows the same real world smarts as occasional-cortex does.; 8/9/18, 10:03 PM
n.n said...: Diversity denies (e.g. color judgment) individual dignity and is apparently a progressive condition. Thus the Left's regurgitation of Jew... White Privilege, etc. They miss the person for the colorful clump of cells, interchangeable and disposable. That said, perhaps Jeong has repented for wallowing in diversity. If so, she should avoid the rabid diversity that infects the NYT.; 8/9/18, 10:08 PM
narciso said...: Fascinating fellow, he's supposed to be the hero, a scientist by training, but a,soldier by inclination. A worthy adversary is always respected.; 8/9/18, 10:38 PM
narciso said...: So thats the adaptation of john sayles interminably long novel, its curious having dellahunt be the understanding one, and cooper the iron fist.; 8/9/18, 10:54 PM
Martin said...: MacDonald and her headline writer nail it--Jeong is above all else BORING and STUPID.

Sure, she's also a racist and bigot, but I could forgive a little of that if the person is interesting. She is a dime a dozen.; 8/9/18, 11:05 PM
Sprezzatura said...: "She is a dime a dozen"

Presumably you (as a Berkeley and Harvard Law grad) are an expert.; 8/9/18, 11:11 PM
Jon Ericson said...: So, day off, or just really abhor whitey?; 8/10/18, 2:33 AM
Bob Loblaw said...: Whether or not her professors were serious intellectuals (I know where my money is on that score), you have to admit a university system that produces someone like Sarah Jeong is broken.; 8/10/18, 4:40 AM
Amadeus 48 said...: I want to see Jeong's best work. Why doesn't anyone ever cite any Jeong journalism? Does this woman do her principal work on Twitter?; 8/10/18, 5:14 AM
Tina Trent said...: Ann, this stuff is hoary. It is dull. Sure, people "argued" over it, but those arguments went in exactly two directions: either they were wee dilations over some word salad or they were bloody Maoist re-education sessions to salt the earth with legal traditions and one's own enemies.rg

Intellectually, both "gestures" were in service to the latter's cause.

Pretending literary criticism or racial mau mauing is relevant to the practice of law is just an ornate way of undermining the contractual relationship between citizens and the justice system. It's activism, not scholarship. And activism is mind-numbingly dull. I speak from vast experience. And speaking from experience is dull too. Do you want the Wise Latina or do you want Scalia?; 8/10/18, 5:19 AM
Anonymous said...: Tina Trent @5:19:

+++; 8/10/18, 5:37 AM
Unknown said...: > Presumably you (as a Berkeley and Harvard Law grad) are an expert.

Somebody thinks "going to school" is an accomplishment.; 8/10/18, 8:24 AM
Gabriel said...: @Jeff I'm reminded of the situation in the US when a person of obvious asian extraction is asked, are you Chinese?

I've found that when dealing with anyone, Asian or not, questions that do not contain your assumed answer are much better received and much more likely to elicit information--presuming you asked because you really wanted to know:

Asian: "What is your family background" vs "Are you Chinese"?
Appalachian: "What was it like growing up in Appalachia" vs "Did your family have plumbing?"
Possibly pregnant woman: "So any good news to share?" vs "When are you due"?

Etc.; 8/10/18, 10:02 AM
mtrobertslaw said...: Critical Race Theory and Critical Legal Studies may not have been boring, but it most certainly was nonsense seasoned with gibberish.; 8/10/18, 10:33 AM
Jupiter said...: Martin said...

"Sure, she's also a racist and bigot, but I could forgive a little of that if the person is interesting. She is a dime a dozen."

Not so. She is very interesting indeed.

https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5

For those (Ahem) who don't know how to cut and paste a URL;

Vice versa; 8/10/18, 11:46 AM
Bilwick said...: I like the comments of Jonah Goldberg about Jeong, how she is an example of what economist Joseph Schumpeter predicted; to wit:

[Joseph] Schumpeter predicted, before the massive expansion of higher education, that capitalism would breed a new class of intellectuals (writers, journalists, artists, lawyers, etc.) who would be motivated by both ideology and self-interest to undermine liberal democratic capitalism. “Unlike any other type of society, capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest,” Schumpeter wrote in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. He adds a bit further on: “For such an atmosphere [of social hostility to capitalism] to develop it is necessary that there be groups whose interest it is to work up and organize resentment, to nurse it, to voice it and to lead it.”; 8/10/18, 2:29 PM