November 11, 2018

"What I was surprised to find was the extent to which [the 'manosphere' is] using ancient Greek and Roman figures and texts to prop up an ideal of white masculinity."

Said Donna Zuckerberg, interviewed in "Donna Zuckerberg: ‘Social media has elevated misogyny to new levels of violence’/When the academic, sister of Mark Zuckerberg, began exploring online antifeminism, she discovered far-right men’s groups were using classical antiquity to support their views" (The Guardian). She's an "academic" in the sense that she has a PhD (in classics). Her job is editing an on-line scholarly journal.
[I]n the case of stoicism’s sudden revival, Zuckerberg found that an active corner of Reddit was applying Hellenistic philosophy to explain the pain and hardship white western men were suffering in the 21st century. Except these men didn’t consider themselves angry – they considered themselves oppressed....

In her book [Not All Dead White Men] Zuckerberg explains that political and social movements have “long appropriated the history, literature and myth of the ancient world to their advantage....
Zuckerberg digs deep through the most popular and excruciating message boards, blogs and threads – so that, I joke, we don’t have to.... Her research, on which she set herself a limit of an hour a day, led her to essays advocating rape, posts offering advice on how to dehumanise, trick and control women, and reflections on the case against female education. “Sure, it was upsetting,” she admits. “I made a rule that if something really got to me, I’d stop right there for the day.”...
Okay, guys, be excruciating. I'll stop right here for the nonce.

ADDED: The nonce is over. I just had to come back to say I'm reading "The Zuckerbergs of Dobbs Ferry" (New York Magazine)(linked in the Guardian article) and I've learned that Donna & Mark's mother was a psychiatrist and their father was a dentist, and:
For many years, Ed commuted daily between Brooklyn, where he kept an office, and Westchester, where his family was steadily growing: Randi arrived in 1982 and Mark in 1984. In 1987, the year his daughter Donna was born, contractors completed work on the renovation of the ground floor of the house, and Zuckerberg moved his practice full time to Dobbs Ferry....

Karen, now a licensed psychiatrist, was enlisted as his office manager—“my most overqualified employee,” Ed says. A few years later, Karen briefly attempted to return to psychiatry but returned home after a year. “She saw those people in the chair,” Ed recalls, “and she didn’t want her kids to turn out to be one of them.”
Your mother is a psychiatrist, and after you were born, she switched to being the office manager for your father the dentist, and the whole operation is home-based. She tries to get back to her profession, but can't, because of the superior importance of you, your siblings, and your father's career as a dentist. Drill down into that. What does it mean? Who knows! The psychiatrist gave up.

98 comments:

Bob Boyd said...

Dat udda muddafuggin Zuckabug...

rhhardin said...

She needs to look at the bemused men area of the manosphere.

gilbar said...

Donna Zuckerberg? And her expertise is what? Choosing her parents?
at least Priscilla Chan showed her expertise in choosing a Husband

Mr. Majestyk said...

Thank God we have the intrepid Zuckerberg to analyze the origin of the widespread, nay, rampant belief among white males that it's okay to rape and otherwise dehumanize women, and to bar them from getting an education.

gilbar said...

Her job is editing an on-line scholarly journal...
I made a rule that if something really got to me, I’d stop right there for the day.”

Stopping right there for the day is something you can do when your actual job is being Mark Zuckerberg's sister .

Rob said...

Anything worth doing is worth doing for no more than an hour a day.

William said...

If you take the time and trouble, you can find a huge assortment of misogynistic remarks in Shakespeare. What a fine world we would be living in if all were blessed with the wisdom and tolerance of Donna Zuckererberg.

Tarrou said...

Once more, the advocates of strong, independent women undercut their own arguments, and provide evidence for the strongest form of patriarchal paternalism. A female PHD, sister to one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, coddled and showered with cash and benefits, living in luxury no one in the world could have imagined fifty years ago, can't bear to read mean things on the internet.

If we were to take her at her word (and I strongly oppose this), women should be subjugated, kept from learning etc. because it seems to be just too stressful for them. What delicate little buds these burgeoning feminists are, to be struck dumb for a day by a 4-chan post. God help them if they ever had to argue with someone who has an education and a point to make.

Diogenes of Sinope said...

I look forward to the day our new robot masters replace our Ivy League elite overlords.

Roger Sweeny said...

And if you try, you can find people saying white men are responsible for most everything that's wrong in the world. So what?

J. Farmer said...

Steve Sailer has been commenting on Donna Zuckerberg's woke crusade for a bit now.

Of course, if you "dig deep" into "message boards, blogs and threads," you're going to find all kinds of wacky shit. So what? Blacks, on average, commit rape at higher rates than white. Does Zuckerberg think this has anything to do with the an application of Hellenistic philosophy? But of course, Zuckerberg is smart enough to know that the real gravy train in modern America is riding the anti-white resentment bandwagon.

traditionalguy said...

Discovering the best new reasons to hate all white men is making a racist ideology. She will be highly rewarded in the Univerities.

Henry said...

I'm surprised she was surprised.

Paco Wové said...

Steve Sailer has produced quite a body of commentary on Ms. Zuckerberg and her work:

Zuckerberg Announces: No More Tolerance of Ideological Diversity on This Platform

Donna Zuckerberg on Pickup Artists Roosh V and Ovid

Donna Zuckerberg on the Alt-Right Menace from Ancient Greece and Rome

Mark Zuckerberg's Sister on How She Is a Victim and Needs More "Microaffirmations"

Donna Zuckerberg's "Not All Dead White Men"

A Classic Sibling Rivalry

rhhardin said...

Then there's Helen's whoring around and its unsavory aftermath, to quote classicist Anne Carson.

Robert Cook said...

” A female PHD, sister to one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, coddled and showered with cash and benefits, living in luxury....”

Does she live in luxury? Is she showered with cash and gifts? Does her brother do this showering?

narciso said...

did we ever call it the gynosphere, good grief, does she think there was this secret amazon society, wonder woman is fiction,

Amadeus 48 said...

Has she considered digging deep into the Alhouse blog? And the comments! Sheesh...

How about a deep dive into the in-house message boards at Facebook? I bet you’d find a lot of people who think of themselves as oppressed rather than angry. And the Guardian? That’s a shop that just oozes mental health. They take everything calmly at the Guardian.

Karen of Texas said...

Funny how feminists like the Zuk's sister never see the misandry plank in their eye. It's all misogyny's fault for the deplorable state women find themselves in.

How does she know it's white men posting about "white" masculinity?

WTH is white masculinity? Is that as opposed to black or brown or yellow or red masculinity? Are the other man colors not masculine?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Social media has elevated misogyny to new levels of violence...

I completely and unequivocally denounce any and all advocacy of rape and other violence against women.

Having said that, advocating violence is not, itself, violence. And rape ( and other forms of actual violence ) are not new levels of violence. They are, historically, very old levels of violence.

Sebastian said...

"Who knows! The psychiatrist gave up."

Ah, so you do know.

Henry said...

Drill down into that. What does it mean?

Not enough kids. They're cheaper by the dozen.

Bob Boyd said...

The White Woman's Burden

Shouting Thomas said...

A controversy fabricated by an egghead over a couple of men's websites.

In other words, your classic kerfuffle.

robother said...

Doesn't her brother Mark exhibit a marked interest in classic roman empire statuary and philosophy? As Sailer points out, there's a barely sublimated sibling rivalry thing happening here. On the other hand, I yield to the daughter of a dentist and a shrink when it comes to understanding the full range of "excruciating."

Fernandinande said...

her to essays advocating rape, posts offering advice on how to dehumanise, trick and control women, and reflections on the case against female education.

So she's a masochist who indulges in rape fantasies while pretending to do online research.

PS ... (those other) white people are bad.

Lewis Wetzel said...

How much really vicious anti-male stuff written by women is on the internet? Not counting Salon, that's too easy.

mockturtle said...

Ms. Zuckerberg is an expert on men as rhhardin is an expert on women.

Lewis Wetzel said...

So what I am getting from this is that the only Zuckerberg who has done humanity any good is daddy Zuckerberg, because he can fix teeth.

iowan2 said...

She tries to get back to her profession, but can't, because of the superior importance of you, your siblings,

Not so long ago, 30-40 years? Maybe pre Dr Spock. The family was parent centered. The children were reared. Always demanding from them more responsibility. Not like today where parents play the role of concierge at a 5 star hotel to their children.

Shouting Thomas said...

A couple of decades ago, I briefly edited a men's issues online newsletter and, as a result, met most of the major players who had created men's issues websites.

My general political agreement with those men didn't overcome my hatred of cause mongering or cause mongers. No matter the issue, the cause monger is always fucked up and looking for somebody to blame for being fucked up. The few guys running these websites were obnoxious assholes with serious personal and psychological problems.

I still agree, mostly, with the men's issues groups, but I want no part of supporting or belonging to them. I won't turn my life into a crusade for any cause.

Birkel said...

NYT new hire Jeong: White people bad. Men bad. White men worst.
Obscure internet bozos: Women bad.

Double standards are terrific!

Paco Wové said...

To be honest, the vast majority of humans probably haven't done humanity any good either – better than mere existence is a high standard.

(Finding a good dentist can be a serious quality of life enhancer, though.)

CJinPA said...

...posts offering advice on how to dehumanise, trick and control women...

I'm pretty sure this means 'advice on getting laid.'

DavidD said...

“What does it mean?”

Being a stay-at-home mom is important.

Big Mike said...

When there's a mass shooting and men put their bodies between the shooter and women, as happened in the theater in Aurora and Las Vegas and Marjory Stoneman High School and, lately, in Thousand Oaks, is that toxic white masculinity?

Francisco D said...

Postmodern intellectualism:

Men do bad things. Therefore we should punish and ostracize them.

White people do bad things. Therefore the same rule applies.

As a White man, I do not feel victimized by this illiberal cant that masquerades as thought. I am not a victim because I chose to take control over my life a long time ago. However, I am annoyed by the brainwashing that seems to be going on among academic intellectuals.

tcrosse said...

It sounds like the kind of family Woody Allen makes movies about. Not one of the early, funny ones.

The Crack Emcee said...

"What I was surprised to find was the extent to which [the 'manosphere' is] using ancient Greek and Roman figures and texts to prop up an ideal of white masculinity."

Like it was going to be Africa Bambaataa's Zulu Nation. Hell, I hear more hatred for women in Led Zeppelin's discography than in all the rap songs I've ever heard, put together.

Paco Wové said...

"the only Zuckerberg who has done humanity any good is daddy"

I don't know, I think one less psychiatrist is a positive good.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Her research, on which she set herself a limit of an hour a day, led her to essays advocating rape, posts offering advice on how to dehumanise, trick and control women, and reflections on the case against female education. “Sure, it was upsetting,” she admits. “I made a rule that if something really got to me, I’d stop right there for the day.”...

Its the Internet. There's way worse stuff on it than that. The people writing those posts have no power of cultural influence. They're kooks, cranks, and losers. Some people just can't stand the thought that someone might have opinions they find abhorrent. But, if she hadn't actively sought them out, she would never have seen those postings at all.

I mean there are videos on youtube purporting to make the case that the earth is flat. And,for some reason, videos refuting that claim. Many people seem to sincerely believe that if you are famous and successful then you must have made made a pact with Satan and have participated in degrading rituals. Others think that the Queen of England has reptoid alien genes. Others think the moon landing was a hoax and the movie The Shining was Kubrick's way of telling us that he was the film maker who did so. There's a religion that believes that millions of years ago frozen aliens were dropped into the earth's volcanoes in order alleviate a galaxy wide over-population problem that strives mightily to keep its texts off the Internet. And that's just a few examples of the not really upsetting stuff. Its the Internet.

ga6 said...

This is my navel, there are many like it but this......

cacimbo said...

Weird how most of the white women raging about white men - marry white men. Why don't these women marry and/or date the black and brown men who apparently have not been ruined by white privilege and toxic masculinity.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I guess you'll try anything to minimize rape threats.

How noble you must feel. Seriously. Just doing the Lord's work.

Bob Boyd said...

"The psychiatrist gave up."

Getting people to stop being crazy is like pulling teeth.

stevew said...

Do or do not, there is no try. The psychiatrist chose a different path, presumably one that she found more fulfilling.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

She tries to get back to her profession, but can't, because of the superior importance of you, your siblings, and your father's career as a dentist. Drill down into that. What does it mean? Who knows! The psychiatrist gave up.

Or....perhaps she found that she got more personal satisfaction in being a part of her husband's business, a wife, and a mother to her children. Free of her patients and able to concentrate on herself and her family.

More satisfying, than of dealing with the sometimes superficial and annoying problems of self absorbed patients, most of whom probably didn't listen to her advice anyway.

Maybe....it could have happened that way :-D

stevew said...

Why don't we ever discuss the song "Hey Joe" in this context?

The Crack Emcee said...

Bob Boyd said...

"Getting people to stop being crazy is like pulling teeth."

This is true: When I first got to Althouse, people said there were no cults, and the problem was just that I was crazy. But, now, they just say the problem is I'm crazy.

I have to work on my presentation, I think.

rcocean said...

She's another Billionaire Commie who hates American 1.O just like her brother:

Mr. Zuckerprick.

traditionalguy said...

She needs to advocate open carry for all women. That is the equalizer of arming everyone. That strategy was called the Peacemaker.

gilbar said...

somebody said...
If we were to take her at her word (and I strongly oppose this), women should be subjugated, kept from learning etc. because it seems to be just too stressful for them. What delicate little buds these burgeoning feminists are

It's almost like there's a correlation between hysteria and having a womb!

Michael said...

So she spent hours and hours scouring the internet to find the tiny number of sites catering to a tiny cohort of men using classical literature in a wrongthink way. So?

cronus titan said...

It would be interesting to pull the thread on the quote “She saw those people in the chair,” Ed recalls, “and she didn’t want her kids to turn out to be one of them.” Was that a joke, was she worried about something specifically with her own children, did she too many latchkey kids, what was it?

cronus titan said...

Wingnuts can be found if you look enough. One can go on to the Women's March sites and see insane postings about men, although one does not have to look very hard to see misandryst rants.

Wince said...

Randi arrived in 1982 and Mark in 1984.

"Yeah, see, there's the guy."

Chris N said...

So, her Dad made money and her mom stayed home with the kids, and Mark makes money and she does this stuff...

Charges from the dock: Insufficient revolutionary spirit. Member of the 1%. Supporting the Patriarchy.

Life imprisonment. Probably death if she’s brought through the yard.

Next!

Francisco D said...

More satisfying, than of dealing with the sometimes superficial and annoying problems of self absorbed patients, most of whom probably didn't listen to her advice anyway.

I can relate to that.

The vast majority of my clinical patients were liberal Democrats. After the election, they really ranted.

One did not want Trump impeached. She wanted him executed for treason with a bullet between his eyes.

This is the "reality-based" community.

Anonymous said...

Tarrou: If we were to take her at her word (and I strongly oppose this), women should be subjugated, kept from learning etc. because it seems to be just too stressful for them. What delicate little buds these burgeoning feminists are, to be struck dumb for a day by a 4-chan post. God help them if they ever had to argue with someone who has an education and a point to make.

Yup. As I always say, "modern feminism - working hard every day to prove that everything every misogynist in history ever said about bitchez being dumb, weak, and crazy is 100% true". (Or, as my daughter says, face-palming, "Please, get out of my sex. You're embarrassing us".)

Zuckerberg is also representative of that modern breed of Classics scholars who are profoundly butthurt that the study of Classical culture concerns itself with, um, Classical culture, and has always been dominated by guys who are, uh, the historical heirs of that culture.

This manifests in a lot of lame sleight-of-hand "scholarship" intended to mislead an uninformed public about the demographic composition of the classical Mediterranean world and Roman Europe. The purpose being, of course, to push "multicultural" propaganda. (E.g., "If we 'curate' the facts, and bullshit fast enough, we can make ignorant students believe that in the classical era North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa were culturally and genetically indistinguishable.")

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ken B said...

Does it sound like her mother succeeded?

tim in vermont said...

Don't feminists spend most of their waking hours working to prop up some ideal of femininity? Only a thoroughgoing asshole resists the redefinition of his identity by feminists.

Robert Cook said...

"She's another Billionaire Commie who hates American 1.O just like her brother."

Is she a billionaire? How did she make her billions? What makes you think she is a communist? (Or her brother, more curiously? Do you even know what a communist is?)

What makes you think she and her brother hate America?

tim in vermont said...

She's probing the manosphere for resistance. It's like a prison guard working over a hay wagon with a pitch fork. It's impossible by definition for even the most powerless man to be oppressed by feminists because they have zero power until they get all the power.

Xmas said...

The Red Pill and PUA communities are pretty vile. But their key premise is a pretty straightforward one, fertile women have a biological drive to want to have the babies of powerful men. The rest of their theories try to answer questions that stem from that first premise. How do you make yourself seem powerful to women? What is "powerful"? What is the purpose of marriage when modern society has destroyed the inherit power structure of traditional marriage that appealed to the biological drivers of young women?

Howard said...

she just 'nother millenial who drank the baby-boomer koolaide

n.n said...

She's extracting power from the popular leftist meme: "Jew privilege". Does she dabble in the Twilight arts?

ALP said...

From one of Donna's articles linked by Tarrou:

"...have entered into an unholy alliance to remove feminism, political correctness, and multiculturalism from America."

That is quite a goal for guys who probably can't even get laid. "Removing multiculturalism from America" - does she mean South and Central America as well? How would this be accomplished by posting on the internet? Why does she give these people more power than they really have?

mccullough said...

The Zuckerburg’s ooze White Privilege. Of course she doesn’t consider Jewish Men in her White Man diatribe.

Hollywood has more misogyny than Led Zeppelin and rap combined.

Any guy in the US hate women more than Harvey Weinstein?

n.n said...

White men and "white girls next door" (hat tip Hope Solo, The Guardian) have lead human rights to end slavery, to give voice to wholly innocent human lives that are deemed unworthy of life. White men and "white girls next door" have led civil rights to restore the principle of individual dignity, self-moderation, and personal responsibility. They have lead the way to confront diversity (i.e. color judgments including racism, sexism), a clear and progressive liberal doctrine.

n.n said...

remove feminism, political correctness, and multiculturalism

Deprecating chauvinism, political congruence, and diversity (i.e. color judgments including racism, sexism), is a worthy goal.

ALP said...

Also, apologizes for MY sister, a PhD teaching in CA that publishes similar drivel. Although she goes the dead tree/book publishing route.

tim in vermont said...

Once you have destroyed marriage, why should 95% of men live celibate while women only fuck the 5% for whom they would drop their pants for the asking. Civilization was built by men working the angles. We have to understand women better than they understand us or most of us would never get laid. Men are as simple as our evolutionary drives make us, so are women. The rest is phantasmagoria.

LA_Bob said...

I have to work on my presentation, I think.

The Crack Emcee is the Donald Trump of the Althouse Commentariat.

Bob from Alhambra

Rosalyn C. said...

Mark Zuckerberg's mother is interesting from a feminist point of view. She wasn't held back as a woman. In order to become a psychiatrist Mrs. Zuckerberg had to do well in pre-med classes and had to graduate from medical school. Medical school is more difficult to get accepted to than dental school, right? So she was actually more educated and accomplished than her husband.

However some say that psychiatrists are doctors who can't handle the life and death responsibility of being an actual doctor. And then she discovered that she couldn't handle the responsibility of being a psychiatrist, dealing with peoples' emotional problems, even part time. My conclusion is that she's super smart and chose what made her happiest even though that abandoned feminist ideals. I doubt that she spent less time away from her children as a dental office manager than she would have having a part time medical practice. So the rationalization that she quit psychiatry for her children seems weak.

That gives a different slant to Mark from the standpoint that he chose to marry a woman who does practice medicine.

LA_Bob said...

Many years ago, I was seated next to a Philipino woman on a flight from Los Angeles to Florida. The woman was married to a white dentist in the San Fernando Valley.

I recalled the ads I'd seen as a kid in the back pages of magazines: "Philipino women looking for American husbands."

"What is it about Philipino women and American men?" I asked her.

"You really want to know?" she said. "We think they are henpecked."

American women often have no idea how easy their lives are compared to what they might be in non-white countries.

Bob from Alhambra

Howard said...

Bob: exactly. Male Order Brides go for the suckers who think they can avoid hen pecking by importing a subservient woman from a shithole country. These Dragon Ladies enjoy the easy peckings of the Milquetoasts

gilbar said...

Bob said... The Crack Emcee is the Donald Trump of the Althouse Commentariat.

i'm just waiting for Crack MC to say
"I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum"

hstad said...

Paco Wové said...To be honest, the vast majority of humans probably haven't done humanity any good either – better than mere existence is a high standard. 11/11/18, 8:53 AM

Well I guess that's your opinion! Humanity has done a pretty good job coming from "mere existence" as hunter gatherers to invent agriculture which resulted in today's Earth population of over 7 billion people. The doubling of humanity's life span in the 20th century is a pretty good trick too.

Balfegor said...

She's fighting a doomed crusade. I don't follow any "white nationalist" classicists closely, but men have been looking to the classical world to inform their understanding of proper masculinity for quite some time now. Millions of Americans are familiar with how the teachings of Epictetus helped Adm. Stockdale endure his long captivity. Of course, the popular understanding of the ancients is mediated through a long tradition in Western culture. The ancient world doesn't stand alone -- we can't help but hear recall:

And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods,


When we read about Hector in the Iliad. And echoing in the back of our minds:

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.


However fine-grained my knowledge of the Roman past becomes, it remains in my imagination, all jumbled up into an impression of something "high and cruel and dignified" (as Wells put it), pre-Christian, with what I would describe as an earthy and somewhat fatalistic set of values for living a correct life in a corrupt world, a consolation for the disasters of the present without promise of reward in an after-life:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.


This tradition isn't necessarily "White," or anti-multicultural. Notwithstanding tendentious modern efforts to conflate the North Africans with Nubians, Rome did interact with Meroe on the borders of Egypt (so yes, there were Black people in the Empire), and the interaction between the peoples of Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and Greece is well-attested. But none of that really matters.

It is, ultimately, the tradition of the West, and offers a window to anyone into a long and glorious history, which all the tedious fulminations of modern academics cannot efface.

Balfegor said...

As far as political correctness goes -- having recourse to the whole library of historical writings going back thousands of years does a lot to undermine political correctness no matter what, even if that's not one of its principal objectives. People writing an hundred years ago had their own taboos, of course, but they didn't care about the things that modern ideologues care about, so they speak frankly on topics that one isn't supposed to talk about (or think about) today. Same with people writing today in other languages -- anything that lets you slip out from the noose of your immediate social and political context can offer that kind of escape.

Robert Cook said...

"Millions of Americans are familiar with how the teachings of Epictetus helped Adm. Stockdale endure his long captivity."

Uh...maybe thousands do. I doubt millions of Americans have ever even heard the name Epictetus. I have, but I am, frankly, not familiar with his thinking or accomplishments.

FIDO said...

Does she live in luxury? Is she showered with cash and gifts? Does her brother do this showering?


She certainly has an option denied to a mere 99.99999% of the population.

FIDO said...

It is, ultimately, the tradition of the West, and offers a window to anyone into a long and glorious history, which all the tedious fulminations of modern academics cannot efface.


They can if they burn the libraries. And these are just the Academic tools to try and do so.

FIDO said...

Since the Academy no longer has use for men nor attempts to teach them how to be men, why is it surprising that males of today seek this knowledge from other sources?

Balfegor said...

RE: Robert Cook:

Uh...maybe thousands do. I doubt millions of Americans have ever even heard the name Epictetus. I have, but I am, frankly, not familiar with his thinking or accomplishments.

Really? I mean, there's 350 million Americans. I would have thought at least two or three million are familiar with Epictetus and -- at minimum -- the story of Stockdale's captivity (seeing as he was a VP candidate, if only for a kooky third party candidate back when I was a child). But you're probably right. Thousands then. Tens of thousands . . . maybe?

(In all honesty, I am only familiar with Epictetus indirectly through Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. But I am a Confucian, not a Stoic.)

walter said...

“She saw those people in the chair,” Ed recalls, “and she didn’t want her kids to turn out to be one of them.”
--
Donna wants to run the chair.

Ralph L said...

Yesterday, I got an email from my alma mater that they've expelled 2 students, one of whom apparently posted something positive about Hitler and the KKK on Facebook. Not clear what the other one did. Instead of trying to persuade or influence them, they created 2 angry young men.

The college was (successfully?) sued last year for ejecting a student for a rape allegation. The female prez then wrote in the Charlotte paper that we must believe the women. I sent them an angry email over that. It was once a regional Presbyterian doctor/lawyer/preacher school, but it's gone full PC.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"How does she know it's white men posting about "white" masculinity?"

It doesn't matter if it is white men, or only white men. According to Symbionese Intersectionality rules, they're the only men she is allowed to criticize, and they're probably the only ones she wants to criticize.

Robert Cook said...

"Really? I mean, there's 350 million Americans. I would have thought at least two or three million are familiar with Epictetus and -- at minimum -- the story of Stockdale's captivity (seeing as he was a VP candidate, if only for a kooky third party candidate back when I was a child). But you're probably right. Thousands then. Tens of thousands . . . maybe?"

Sure, I'd say even hundreds of thousands is probable. Americans younger than 30 or so will probably have no idea who James Stockdale was.

Americans are generally not taught the classics in elementary, junior, or high school, and probably few in college as required general courses. Students who study history or philosophy will probably counter Epictetus or Heraclitus, etc.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Balfegor: This tradition isn't necessarily "White," or anti-multicultural.

The tradition is very multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi "racial", in the historical sense, and was always understood to be so. What it isn't is "multicultural" in the contemporary PC sense. Like a lot of PC "history", trendy classicists seem to think that they're "subverting" conventional understanding and blowing everyone's mind with facts that no reasonably historically literate person doesn't already know.

Rome did interact with Meroe on the borders of Egypt (so yes, there were Black people in the Empire)....

Which has always been known, and never suppressed, by those Old White Guys. (Populating half of Roman Britain with sub-Saharan Africans, or implying that Hannibal or St. Augustine were sub-Saharan Africans, on the other hand, is propaganda with a specific aim in mind, not scholarship.)

...and the interaction between the peoples of Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and Greece is well-attested.

Yes. Well-attested from the start. Never suppressed. The idea that traditional history didn't know that, or suppressed and marginalized any of this, is, again, propaganda.

PhilD said...

Why would 'masculine' men go back to Greek and Roman antiquity and thereby insult poor miss Sucker. Why not take the way the Taliban treats women, or for that matter, how 'moderate' islam treats women (as illustrated by the UK 'grooming gangs'). That would be PC and make Suckers' day.

PhilD said...

By the way, her is a wedding vow based on 'antiquity';
"I, ____, take you, ____, to be my lawfully wedded (husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part." (*)
But of course this is based on toxic Christianity (in this case the Catholic variety). I have no doubt miss Sucker is rightly horrified by this (/s).

(*) though the 'obey' part for the woman is removed, and I do have some sympathy with those who objected to that part and militated for its removal.

Tina Trent said...

The last thing I think I'd want to run into in a dentist's office is a psychiatrist.

Tina Trent said...

@Balfegor: I once taught at a very poor community college near a military base. Poor except for the plethora of administrators, who made six figures enforcing diversity and in one case abusing the vets, whom the bearded bitter president hated.

I had a rough, 40ish woman veteran coming off two decades in a communications unit. She was set to leave the service earlier, then 9/11 happened, then she was called back up from national guard (?) and spent several more years overseas.

She had, she told me, never read a whole book in her life. I gave her The Odyssey. She was delighted. She mapped out what she could discover about her service locations compared with the travels of Odysseus. She had once done the same with Alexander the Great. Mostly, she was interested in the relationship between Odysseus and his men as leader to soldier. She said she'd spent two more years at the gates of Troy than those guys did and complained about it less.

We moved on to Achilles. She understood things I'd never noticed. She called herself a Florida cracker, and she had traveled the world. The bearded radical pouting upstairs could go pound sand. Western Civilization may need to be fought for more urgently than most people understand. But happily for our side, it is Western Civilization. And it is the finest inoculation against the intellectual indulgences that are political correctness and identity politics. That's well put.

Tina Trent said...

@Balfegor: I once taught at a very poor community college near a military base. Poor except for the plethora of administrators, who made six figures enforcing diversity and in one case abusing the vets, whom the bearded bitter president hated.

I had a rough, 40ish woman veteran coming off two decades in a communications unit. She was set to leave the service earlier, then 9/11 happened, then she was called back up from national guard (?) and spent several more years overseas.

She had, she told me, never read a whole book in her life. I gave her The Odyssey. She was delighted. She mapped out what she could discover about her service locations compared with the travels of Odysseus. She had once done the same with Alexander the Great. Mostly, she was interested in the relationship between Odysseus and his men as leader to soldier. She said she'd spent two more years at the gates of Troy than those guys did and complained about it less.

We moved on to Achilles. She understood things I'd never noticed. She called herself a Florida cracker, and she had traveled the world. The bearded radical pouting upstairs could go pound sand. Western Civilization may need to be fought for more urgently than most people understand. But happily for our side, it is Western Civilization. And it is the finest inoculation against the intellectual indulgences that are political correctness and identity politics. That's well put.