People, did you see the horrible news? Another woke shooter murdered children praying in church.
What a terrible tragedy.
Author: Clarissa
Self-inflicted Wounds
It is a great civilizational achievement that we have a class of people who can dedicate their lives to thinking about books. It’s the most wonderful thing. We live in a society that is wealthy and confident enough to have a whole class of people tasked with guarding the cultural legacy of the world. Our Humanities were the wonder of the world. Every bookish kid on the planet looked up to it. It was an oasis. It was a miracle.
We are throwing this incredible achievement away in order to peddle vulgar online influencers. We have emptied the libraries. We have demonized lecturing and abjured the idea of a professor professing knowledge from the podium as a figure of intellectual authority. We have rubbished the canon and condemned intellectualism. We have enshrined pettiness and poor taste.
Nobody is making us do it. No occupational force that is hostile to culture took over. All of this is self-inflicted and eagerly sought out by the very people who will be made redundant by these policies.
A Teaching Riddle
The Dean made a little speech yesterday about something appalling he had seen.
“I walked down the hallway yesterday,” he said in a voice that trembled with outrage. “I looked into several classrooms, and I saw faculty members doing ______ . I’m not saying that everybody does it and I don’t want to name any names because I don’t want to embarrass people. But I can’t believe that after everything, everything we’ve discussed, everything we know, all the research on the topic, there are still people who do this.”
Immediately, professors started explaining that no, they were not doing __________. It might have looked that they were doing it but was only because of the logistics of the classroom. But no, they would never. They know how bad _____________ is and they’d never engage in such behavior.
I said nothing because I do ___________ all the time and I love it.
So who can guess what ___________ is?
How to Promote Humanities
Somebody donated a large sum of money to the university to promote the study of the Humanities. I was invited to attend the opening ceremony. I was invited in person, as one of the few faculty members. This is an important part of the story, so please keep it in mind.
The ceremony consisted of the presentation of a book that all incoming students will read and discuss in class to foster their love of the Humanities.
Hardcover, illustrated, here is the book:
I took a copy and looked at the list of “every country in the world.” Ukraine is not there but Russia is, with slobbering descriptions of how pretty everything is and how nice the people are.
The book itself is an exercise in narcissism and vulgarity. The author poses, mostly half-dressed, with body parts falling out of skimpy outfits. The countries she visited are a framework for her admiration of herself. It’s downright embarrassing to be caught leafing through this kind of book in a store, let alone in an academic setting.
But wait, it gets better. There’s another book that will be obligatory reading. It’s this one:
It wouldn’t occur to people (I hope) to invite a Jew to visit an event featuring a book gushing over the wonderfulness of Nazi Germany. Or invite a black professor to discuss a book on the joys of slavery. But insulting a Ukrainian, that’s perfectly fine. Some feelings matter more than others. But leaving aside my personal grievances, is it any wonder students aren’t interested in the Humanities? There’s no history here, no intellectual tradition. Just vapid, superficial crap with zero value. This is what the university thinks the Humanities are. It’s not Aristotle or Cervantes. Instead, it’s some dime-a-dozen online influencer and a faddy quack of an author who will be forgotten tomorrow.
I didn’t stay for the ceremony. The embarrassment was devouring me.
Best Worst Student
I’m the best worst student known to humanity. The Dean made us read a book of neoliberal propaganda and hold a two-hour discussion of it.
Obviously, I didn’t even consider opening the book, let alone reading it. But I easily made the impression of having perused it with great care and attention. During the discussion, I’d crack the book open, catch a random sentence, and then say, “what I found especially provocative / curious / engaging, etc is” and reproduce the random sentence verbatim.
Q&A about Bandera
A man like what? Has somebody been listening to Russian propaganda?
Bandera is our José Martí or Simón Bolívar. He fought for national independence. It’s normal for people to celebrate their national heroes. Every nation-state has theirs and celebrates them. I’m not sure what specifically bothers you about this very normal behavior.
600,000 Chinese Students
This is clearly part of Trump’s negotiations with China. He accepts these 600,000 students in exchange for something. Rare earth minerals, maybe? In any case, I understand, though not approve, what Trump is doing.
China’s strategy is harder to fathom. It has adopted the strategy of El Salvador before Bukele. El Salvador would aggressively push the best and the brightest out of the country so that they’d send back money and create a semblance of an economy. This is done by desperate, failed countries with a surplus population. Everybody else tries to keep its elite instead of throwing it away like a used Kleenex.
How bad are things in China that they are so desperate to get rid of these 600,000 young people?
Unpatriotic Revisionism
JD Vance is now informing us that WW2 ended in a negotiated settlement.
No, you incredible pussy. It ended because we killed those bastards dead. That’s how it ended, you unpatriotic piece of utter ridiculousness.
Honestly, if in 2028 it comes to Newsom vs Vance, I’m kind of not that opposed to Newsom.
Bright
I found an intense, unexpected pleasure in talking to students about socialism.
The future is bright.
Two Designs
I don’t like either design, to be honest. The first one is what a Soviet antiquarian would have. The second one is the antiquarian’s nouveau riche son after 1991.
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