The Artificial "People of Color" Coalition: Black Guy in Korea

Blacks behaving badly has gone international with a video from Korea showing an American black berating an elderly Korean couple. (H/T: Chuck and Mangan)



The black guy hilariously justified himself as below, reflecting the perpetual victimhood and gross sensitivity of today's American blacks:

During police questioning, Mr. H said, “I felt offended when the man in the seat said ‘Shut up,’ and while I couldn’t understand the Korean that followed, I felt he was disparaging black people.”

As for the actual incident, nothing much to say regarding the man's behavior specifically. No one is shocked when a black person in public acts without regard to common decency and civility, especially in this summer of black flash mobs and beatings. Though, this situation does differ slightly from previous incidents in America, in that the innocent victim is Asian. Most of the time, blacks take out their socially puerile aggression on whites, yet this guy, living in Korea, had no such target.

So we see here a clear counterexample to the artificial "Person of Color" coalition championed by the anti-racist and mainstream left. If you read sites like Racialicious or Colorlines, almost every article alludes to "People of Color" as if all non-whites must band together against the evil white man. Of course, this false cohort of different races, connected merely by their lack of whiteness, neglects biological differences, historical precedence, and lack of actual social camaraderie between the groups. In this instance, we see that blacks and Asians don't really get along at all, with the obstreperous black man looked upon by the docile, staid Asians as almost unreal. Anti-racists and their Democrat peers have created this "People of Color" coalition merely for political purposes, casting the Republican party as the "white" party and convincing non-whites that all "People of Color" have the same goals, from the ghetto blacks to the Ivy League Asians.

Continuing with this idea, the anti-racist left has put forth the notion that all racism is equivalent and spans all non-white groups. (Note here that the race baiters have co-opted the term "racism" to apply almost exclusively to anti-black sentiments.) In sum, the popular conception of racism is a white person hating all non-white people. And, a very important aspect of this "racism", the archetypal "racist" hates irrationally, driven by aggressive social conditioning and a history of intolerance. Anti-racists forthrightly contend that the "racist" has no rational basis to his viewpoints.

But are any of these notions true? Do "racists" (read: race realists) view all minority groups equally, comporting with the general argument of anti-racists? And is their aversion to some particular minority groups, such as blacks, Hispanics, and Arabs, justifiably grounded in observed patterns of behavior? In general, I think almost all race realists harbor a sincere respect for Asians and Asian society. This respect surely does not equate with support of immigration or even a shared societal objective. But it does mean that race conscious whites do not indiscriminately hate or denigrate all non-whites. Instead, race conscious whites do think of different races differently, consistent with racial predilections and group behavior. A few YouTube comments, an utter hotbed of race realism, illustrate:

This video is further proof that you can take the monkey out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the monkey. I like Koreans and I feel compelled to apologize for the way this American ape behaved. I hope Koreans realize that most Americans are not like this, and that niggers behave this way on our mass transit systems, too.

Of course Koreans are racist. They should be. South Korea is an amazing country without crime. They don't need niggers threatening that.

Dumb. Fucking. Nigger. now you poor Korean's know how we Americans feel. and we are supposed to LOVE these fucking assholes!

Apparently, most South Koreans are unaccustomed to dealing with uppity negroids. They are also unaccustomed to flagrant lawbreaking in public, which is quite unlike "Apefrican Americans" are though.

These comments completely undermine the notion of blanket racism (not sure about the race of the commenters, but they sound white and at least the first and third comments are almost surely from white people). The individuals profess a clear admiration for Koreans, yet also express a genuine dislike of blacks. If these commenters were racists in the mold of that presented by anti-racists, then they would simply hate anyone who didn't look like them (i.e. white). But this rational type of "racism" differs in that foreign peoples, like Asians, can gain respect, while other groups, like blacks, can elicit derision. This type of informed "racism" has been championed by Jared Taylor, the genteel founder of AmRen who spent his childhood in Japan and often speaks fondly of the country.

In conclusion, "ya see deez rocks?!".

[Additional evidence: Black comedian disparages Mexicans.]

[I'll likely have a followup post extending this idea to voting patterns amongst a particular group.]

Debunking the famous Black Names Study

In an Salon.com article entitled Yes, black people still face discrimination, David Sirota argues that black people face discrimination. Not exactly a novel topic, right. Mr. Sirota concocts his piece around familiar buzzwords like "white privilege" "denialism", "demagogues", and "institutional racism". Anyone else starting to think some computer program writes the entire anti-racist catalog?

In sum, Mr. Sirota asserts discrimination as the only plausible hypothesis given extant racial disparities. This purposefully obtuse conclusion comes from the leftist axiom that all races, even all people, have the same inherent potential, with outcome differences caused only by the evil white man. See his example below concerning black scientists. Mr. Sirota does not even consider any alternative hypothesis; or, perhaps he can't due to the fervency of his liberal beliefs:

In the same week the Oklahoman insinuated that government gives African-Americans a "tremendous advantage," the New York Times reported on data showing black scientists are "markedly less likely" to win government grants than white scientists. A few weeks earlier, the Pew Research Center had reported that "the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households."

Conveniently, Mr. Sirota ignores Asian success, a fact that would partly undermine the notion of "white privilege." At the very least, he would have to admit that some factor besides a surreptitiously evil cabal of "institutionally racist" white men underpins success. Amongst his sanctimonious liberal sermonizing, Mr. Sirota does cite a very interesting and seemingly potent study on jobs and race.

A study entitled Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination, is a favorite amongst race liberals:

You can see it in a 2004 MIT study showing that job-seekers with "white names receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews" than job seekers with comparable résumés and "African American-sounding names."

I read the study and in the context of leftist race studies, this one is admittedly quite impressive. While the authors still push the discrimination angle quite hard, they do proffer alternative explanations and possible sources of error. Further, the study is well designed with the authors taking the novel approach of actually controlling for variables, something leftist academia often just sort of skips over. Nonetheless, this liberal favorite does have a few problems which I'll discuss in bullets below:

In the real world, the results likely have an almost negligible impact: The study doesn't merely posit discrimination based off a sample of artificial resumes. It contends, and preening media types like Mr. Sirota use it as such, that these results reflect widespread discrimination against blacks in the job market. But how realistic is the study? How many black children born to mothers who would name their children Laquisha, DeShawn, and Marquis are actually as competent as the resumes portray them to be? In other words, black mothers who name their children "ghetto" names don't normally have very astute children. I confidently presume that the job market is bereft of blacks with ghetto names who are also qualified for white collar positions (the posted jobs were in sales, administration, and customer service - not exactly a comprehensive variety of jobs by the way). To test this very quickly, I randomly chose a white collar position, journalism, and looked up a representative group's executive board. The board members of the National Association of Black Journalists have the following names:

Gregory, Errin, Bob, Lisa, Keith, Cindy, Dedrick, A.J., Michelle, Dawn

Here are the names from the board of the National Association of Black Accountants:

Gregory, Shariah, Wayne, Veda, Walter, Ronald, Celia, Tina, W. Delores, Sheila, James, Arica, Monica, Charles, Carriea, Robert, Steven, Kenneth, Nora, Uso, Manuel, Theresa

Extremely few "black" names here. And note that these are black groups, so one wouldn't presume discrimination against ghetto-named people for these Executive Board positions. In essence, the purported effect has no real practical importance because astute white collar blacks with ghetto names are so rare.

From a liberal perspective, it's justified: Liberals constantly tell us that background matters, as in all groups must exhibit a significant level of diversity to function successfully. Of course, leftists use this as an excuse to hire less qualified minorities, never applying the same principle to discriminate in favor of whites. But if blacks and Hispanics are endowed with some unique knowledge given their racial background, then the same can be true of whites. So then, perhaps 50% more of the jobs offered required a white sensibility. For example, maybe the job was in an exclusively white area, relied on cultural knowledge of regional white customs, or involved dealing only with white children. If blacks are often afforded the luxury of dealing with other blacks (e.g. education reformers support blacks teaching black children), then the same freedom should be offered to whites. The job "discrimination" may reflect this liberal idea.

The study does not actually show general anti-black discrimination: The authors of the study actually do spend a considerable amount of effort offering alternative hypotheses. Unfortunately, no media types actually read that far into the study:

These facts suggest that perhaps other models may do a better job at explaining our findings. One simple alternative model is lexicographic search by employers. Employers receive so many resumes that they may use quick heuristics in reading these resumes. One such heuristic could be to simply read no further when they see an African American name. Thus they may never see the skills of African American candidates and this could explain why these skills are not rewarded. This might also to some extent explain the uniformity of discrimination since the screening process (i.e. looking through a large set of resumes) may be quite similar across the variety of jobs we examine.

The employers have limited resources (time) with which to screen the large number of applicants. They likely make a quick run through the resumes and look for the smallest reason to eliminate many of the applicants. A ghetto name, owing to the phenomenon discussed above in regards to white collar blacks, likely eliminates many applicants even before the employers look at the actual qualifications. In other words, the employers immediately see the ghetto name then stereotype the individual not as a black person in general, but as a certain type of black person - one with a ghetto name. So the "discrimination" is not applied to an entire race, but rather to a certain subset of a race, with the stereotype shown above to be quite rational.

Monolithic racial groups and no control group of lower-class whites: Related to the last point, the authors do not have a corresponding control group of whites with distinctively lower-class names. While the authors do broach the notion of social class, they reject it as a possible explanation with unconvincing hand-waving. In total, they conveniently present the ubiquity of names like Jamal and Tyrone as applying all blacks. In doing so within their general discussion social class, they look at race as monoliths instead of understanding the existence of a black "talented tenth" who almost always give their children whiter names. To more accurately test the social class supposition, the authors should have sent out resumes with stereotypically lower-class white names, such as Billy-Bob, Earl, Sharlene, and Crystal. Though not as immediately recognizable as ghetto black names, this would have better measured the effect of social class.

I applaud the study's authors for at least trying, but I believe the points raised above largely undermine the practicality and accuracy of their work. Unfortunately though, we can't expect anything but empty catchphrases like "white privilege" coupled with anti-white antagonism from the likes of Mr. Sirota.

The Current State of Global Warming Discourse

With the left not letting this mostly overhyped hurricane go to waste ("see, it's global warming!"), I'll use this as an opportunity to highlight current discourse on climate change. Three links follow showing the self-parody of warmists:

NASA Study: Aliens Could Attack Earth to End Global Warming

We've all heard of the ravaged rain forests and the plight of the polar bear. But as far as reasons for saving the planet go, the one offered by scientists Thursday is truly out of this world. A team of American researchers have produced a range of scenarios in which aliens could attack the earth, and curiously, one revolves around climate change.

The thought-provoking scenario is one of many envisaged in a joint study by Penn State and the NASA Planetary Science Division, entitled "Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis." [Only those in the Ivory Tower could make recycled sci-fi sound esoteric.]

ETI could attack us out of selfishness or out of a more altruistic desire to protect the galaxy from us. We might be a threat to the galaxy just as we are a threat to our home planet," it warns. It speculates that aliens, worried we might inflict the damage done to our own planet on others, might "seek to preemptively destroy our civilization in order to protect other civilizations from us."

I refuse to respond to this rehash of 2008's The Day the Earth Stood Still. Instead let me just say that I'm always amazed when such idiocy gets released. And this phenomenon does not arise solely in academia; it's everywhere, such as my own personal favorite - the wretched Google Instant. Bill Simmons has referred to this in sports as teams needing a "Vice President of Common Sense." Inexplicably, sometimes the most absurd and idiotic ideas get greenlighted through a chain of people, with each individual seemingly missing the obviously horrible nature of the idea. So you end up with "New Coke", Microsoft Bob, and "we need to do something about global warming because of aliens" despite the public at large immediately rejecting this garbage.

Gore says Eat less meat to fight warming:

Al Gore wants society to ditch meat-heavy diets and go organic to combat global warming. "Industrial agriculture is a part of the problem,” Gore said Friday during an interview with FearLess Revolution founder Alex Bogusky. “The shift toward a more meat-intensive diet,” the clearing of forest areas in many parts of the world in order to raise more cattle and the reliance on synthetic nitrogen for fertilizer are also problems, he added.

I hate to admit the impressively comprehensive nature of leftist doctrine. In addition to lies about nutritional value, the left has found yet another way to countenance the vegetarian, low-fat paradigm. As we've discussed before, the left has erected a parallel institution to traditional religion, even going so far as to couch food choices in moral, social, and intellectual contexts. I've gotten some flak from outside commenters for connecting vegetarianism to liberalism, but at least some mainstream pundits have also noticed, with Michelle Malkin sardonically referring to the "Berkeley" special.

I can't discern the possible irony of this last article, as we know liberals experience almost everything with a haughty sneer. Nonetheless, I'll link to this article from Alternet entitled 10 Best Movies Where Humanity Gets Its Comeuppance. The article basically celebrates large-scale snuff films as Gaia's justified moral revenge:

Humankind’s intelligence combined with our unrelenting desire to live longer and dominate the planet is, ironically, our fatal flaw. Pop culture forever reminds us that we are disgusting creatures with deplorable habits that will ultimately be the end of us, and fortunately for fans of the apocalypse, cinema in particular loves to depict our agonizing deaths in vivid, epic color.

Since there are a thousand ways for humanity to die, here are some of the more creative films in which terrible, irresponsible humanity gets its final comeuppance. Our end may be imminent, but at least we get to watch some awesome stuff beforehand. Enjoy!

Each film shows millions of humans dying at the hands of nature, with the article presenting nature as a sentient being exacting revenge on us environmental heathens. The author writes with a subtly sarcastic tone, but the basic ideals do find support within environmentalist groups. Sometimes, I really do think soft-Gaiaists consider nature as morally superior to humans and the prevalence of doomsday films, showing human deaths in gory detail, reflects this popular notion.

Finally, regarding the hurricane - at this point I haven't researched enough to assert if the actual storm matched the predictions. But it does appear that the media relies heavily on "alarmism", with dire warnings on weather, public safety crises, disease, childhood dangers, and everyday hazards coming out frequently. Perhaps this is a contentious point, but I actually think our population might suffer from overemployment, with many of these individuals justifying their jobs in nanny state government offices, punditry, academia, and think-tanks by exaggerating potential problems. I imagine also that this constant state of fear is intended to encourage the influence of large institutions, especially of government. But I'll refrain from musing further on this huge topic.

The "It" Factor

Saturday Audience Participation

At OneSTDV, we like to discuss popular culture and celebrities from an analytical perspective. But sometimes culture defies rationality; sometimes it just exists and those of us searching for answers why may not find a satisfying one.

There's a concept in Hollywood called the "It" factor, though this aspect of human personality surely extends to politicians, musicians, and just regular people. You can even throw in fuzzy-hat wearing PUAs as individuals who rely on artifice to exhibit "It." So what exactly is "it"? Well the French would call it "je ne sais quoi", with the English translation being "I don't know what." (Eight years of French and I still had to Google that.) OK, so that doesn't help. In the end, I generally just go with the porno definition - I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. I accept the fact that some people have "It", a certain charisma, look, swagger, gait, type of speech, mannerisms, whatever, that attract others.

Awhile back I came across one of the most popular YouTube musicians, Tiffany Alvord, with over half a million subscribers.



Ms. Alvord is very cute, wholesome, and talented. She seems like a lovely girl with an obvious ability to sing and play music. But I have this strong itch that she's missing the all-important "It" factor. She just doesn't seem to have "It", that nebulous concept that gives rise to Britney, Taylor Swift, and Lady Gaga. All three of them are wildly different and do different things, but they all have some "It" that sets them apart and makes you want to watch them. I hate to say it because Ms. Alvord seems like a genuinely sweet girl (sometimes you can just tell), but I don't see "It."

Today's Questions: What is "It"? Is "It" necessary for celebrity stardom? How does "It" manifest in regular life with non-celebrities? Does Ms. Alvord have "It" and can she succeed if she does not have "It"? What celebrities or people (even in your personal life) have loads of "It"? Can "It" be learned or faked?

[As with all seemingly mysterious social phenomena, I presume "It" actually does have a subconscious biological basis forged through years of evolution. I imagine one could apply the principles of evo-psych to explain it, but I'll refrain from hypothesizing in this regard. Though, feel free to do so if you'd like.]

Extended Adolescence and Reasons Behind It

We've previously discussed the concept of an extended adolescence, especially for men. In her book criticizing young male slothfulness, Kay Hymowitz laments the lack of "good men". In our response post, we argued that feminism and liberalism largely created this problem by forcing men to achieve a level of stability no longer attainable. Despite impugning the wrong cohort, Ms. Hymowitz does pinpoint an unfortunate reality - the boys who won't grow up.

Now one could argue that these man-boys, still reading Maxim, playing Xbox, and living with their frat brothers, should take responsibility for their own failings. I somewhat agree, but the subject of this post isn't the cause of the problem, but rather the mere existence of extended adolescence as a common social phenomenon. And while we'll avoid broaching the underlying causes (i.e. liberalism), we can however discern exactly why so many men feel comfortable in listless purgatory. First though, let me present a fantastic illustration of this phenomenon. It perfectly represents the kind of men Ms. Hymowitz rightly characterizes as not "good":


If you're not familiar, that hand symbol is the infamous "shocker" which I refuse to explain on a family website like this one. Suffice it to say that you can't get more puerile than displaying that gesture. Yet even as these two overweight, drunk tools make a hand symbol befitting of a retarded 15 year-old, their faces reflect a lack of self-consciousness. In their social milieu, such ostensible acts of immaturity are largely acceptable. One asks then - why do so many men feel comfortable in this type of environment?

Perhaps they understand the futility of financial and social independence prior to their early 30s and instead accept extended adolescence as a hedonistic alternative. OK, but it wasn't always like that. What then has changed that men can find themselves in this situation and even view it as quasi-normal?

I'll go through these quickly because they're largely self-explanatory. First, people are having children later in life and thus men do not have any family to care for. They don't have a family that forces them to understand their role as an adult man. These men can live carefree and view themselves as pseudo-children because no urgent responsibilities demand their attention.

Second, it's hard to start an adult life with massive amounts of debt, especially when that debt was accrued along with help from one's parents. As college costs rise to astounding levels, almost all middle-class men (and women) have to pay off debts they started accumulating at age eighteen. Since almost all parents help out in this regard, there's a financial and social connection to college, the intermediary between childhood and mature adulthood, that's not fully broken until one's 30s.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, since marriage rates have fallen and many middle-class urbanite women revel in living out their Sex and the City lifestyle, the sexual marketplace remains open for many 20-something men. It's been said that civilization is merely a way for men to attract women, implying that men's actions derive largely from a desire to attain sexual success. These "shocker" men engage in such acts because they presume, or hope, that such subversiveness (a timid attempt at being a bad boy) will make them popular with women. In essence, they still act like the frat boys they once were, with frathood largely an aspect of social proof for attracting naive sluts.

So how then do we remedy such a situation? How do we force men to grow up and repudiate such behavior? Well, by undermining the three negatives above. So women having babies earlier, education bubble pops, and reconstructing a slut-shaming popular culture to dampen modern lasciviousness.

Example of MLK as Deity

Let's play a quick game - is the following phrase from a religious tome celebrating the Lord?

AWAKEN HIS SPIRIT IN ALL OF US

If you said yes, you're actually wrong; though one imagines that type of language would only apply to the divine. But not so when the left erects proxy figures of transcendence importance, exulting these individuals with fundamentalist devotion. The above quote actually appears in an ad for the MLK statue unveiling ceremony next week in DC:


The statue itself, its mere existence and the grandiose nature of its design, reflects a number of interesting concepts of leftist doctrine. As noted by Paul Gottfried, dubbing MLK the "patron saint of white guilt", Dr. King is viewed as a heaven-sent martyr who died teaching the ignorant masses about tolerance, multiculturalism, and all the other leftist euphemisms for hate-whitey. MLK surely holds an unimpeachable place in the American psyche. His pristine image has no equal, not even Jesus finds himself so aggressively defended amongst adherents.

Admittedly, this characterization of MLK isn't anything new amongst the reactionary right. Along with secular saint Darwin and white-washed (no pun intended) freedom fighter Ghandi, the left uses historical figures as a palatable aspect of their rhetoric. Yet unlike Darwin or (another white-washed, no pun intended) Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, MLK's preeminence includes a moral component. As illustrated by the ad's quote, we aren't to look at MLK as merely a venerable individual or standard role model. We aren't to just follow his example in our everyday activities.

It goes further than that and it speaks to the faith-based ideals that underpin leftist multiculturalism. I've previously defined the notion of racial Original Sin:

[L]iberals also believe in "original sin", the notion that we all inherit a corrupt soul and that we can only absolve ourselves through faith and its attendant demands. Thus, as a proxy for salvation through Christ, liberals demand adherence to the leftist racial doctrine that necessitates complete racial integration and views whites as a pernicious collective in both modern and historic times...Leftists then argue that one can exonerate himself of "original sin" through deeds like forced desegregation, support of unlimited immigration, support of affirmative action, and advancement of the basic hate-whitey ideals. Only then, when a white person has fully accepted his inherent depravity and rejected his presumed white privilege through deeds can he be considered a moral individual.

In sum, liberals believe all whites inherit the racial sins of their fathers. And thus, every white is born inexorably impure, with only leftist multiculturalism able to cleanse them. Of course, this almost exactly mirrors traditional religion, with Jesus the only source of one's ultimate moral absolution. Note though that Jesus is not just a historical figure who treated lepers and prostitutes nicely; he was the Son of God who died for our sins, this sacrifice transcending the physical world and its benedictions open to those who seek him via spiritual means. The parallel here to MLK is clear - MLK's "spirit" can affect all of us. Notice the use of "spirit" here, reflecting the religious nature of the phrase. Further, note how he can "awaken" the spirit in all of us, as apparently we all have a dormant connection to this man. Once again, the parallel is clear - salvation through Jesus awaits all those seek it.

According to liberals, MLK's example transcends the usual sort of affection we feel for respectable public figures. We must look to his "spirit" and not merely his actions in order to lead moral lives. As a result, we get statues straight out of Stalin's Russia that present MLK as a figure without human flaw and embodying moral concepts to which we can only aspire.

Masculinity, Crying, Emotion, and Sports Movies

Sofia, who has an impressively thoughtful and interesting, but still refreshingly light blog, writes on the problem of modern masculinity that I've covered previously. I'll go first, then Sofia (chivalry is dead after all):

Men are allowed to express exactly two emotions: aggressive anger and sexual lust. If a man divulges his disappointment or sadness, he's labeled an effeminate p*ssy and he loses much of his social respect. As a result, man becomes a stoic automaton, effusive only when he perceives a slight to his pride or in pursuit of a sexual target.

This particular brand of contrived detachedness seems to be characteristically unique to Alpha males. I find that the emotional suppression men, but particularly very dominant men, practice can really destroy somebody.

We both agree here that masculinity no longer allows for genuine expression of emotion, especially if said emotion reflects some type of personal weakness. Sofia explicitly mentions crying, or lack therof, as emblematic of modern man's reticence for displaying emotional pain:

My father, who comes from I guess an ultra masculine culture, is very traditionally male. I’ve mentioned I’ve only seen him “cry” once, when his brother died. I was peering through a crack in the door and I saw him grasp his head and shake a little bit; there wasn’t any noise, but it was evident he was crying.

I've actually never seen my father cry and my mother mentioned she has only seen him cry once, after a death in his family. I myself cried no more than three or four times from age eight to age eighteen. And the few times I have cried since then I've done so in private. Honestly, I would never feel comfortable crying in front of another person; though that may be due to my overall discomfort in revealing any emotion, even positive ones, rather than an unhealthy machismo.

In general, I think men don't cry or even disclose feelings of sadness because it undermines their authority. Men see themselves as providers, as leaders, and as protectors. Their biological mandate does not allow superfluous energy wasted on sullenness or personal sympathy. And the female hindbrain, with an acute awareness of such things, isn't forgiving when it enters the sexual marketplace. Further, as discussed in my previous posts, no healthy societal notion of masculinity exists, so a hint of any feminine quality automatically casts one as a sniveling beta.

But do men sometimes manage to avoid such stigmatization? Are there social situations, outside deaths in the family, where a man has some way of expressing sadness while maintaining his masculine status? I'd say yes - sports movies. One can view sports movies as a proxy for real life. Modern man, afraid of his tenuous alpha status, uses sports movies as a means of dealing with emotional situations. Since real life affords him no such opportunities, he vicariously experiences disappointment and ultimately triumph through the hackneyed plots of sports films.

One often encounters this risible phenomenon when reading sports-centric sites that cater to men. Every so often, a poll appears asking men what movie last made them cry. Correct answers are, of course, Brian's Song and Rudy. The latter always gets me, the score in crescendo, Rudy raising him arm as he bursts onto the field, his father in the stands with unbridled happiness. I get goosebumps just writing about it. But despite the unwritten rule against male crying, almost all men will admit to tearing up at the end of many sports movies. And they will do so because the context of the emotion is sufficiently masculine - after all, it's a sports movie.

One notes that these films are undoubtedly structured for this effect. The soaring music, the various obstacles overcome by platitudes and training montages, and the triumph of the underdog all come together in just the right way. We can attribute the popularity of sports movie, with some reaching iconic level such as Rocky, Raging Bull, and Rudy, to the simple stories (that's primarily why I enjoy them). But we can also justifiably posit that men enjoy sports movies so much because it gives them an outlet for that pent up emotion. Men like these movies because they can temporarily cast off this affected stoicism common amongst alpha males. Sports films are supposed to move us; we're supposed to cheer for the underdog, feel for him as he faces challenges, and get excited when he ends victorious. And yet it's all largely artificial and impersonal, so it's not like man is showing genuine weakness in regards to his own standing in life.

[Men can also show some negative emotion when rooting for sports teams, as in disappointment with a little frustrated anger thrown in to maintain one's masculinity. Never crying though, as in this infamous clip of a distraught Giants fan.]

Medical Industrial Complex and Conspiracy Theories

At BigGovernment.com, Britt Hysen (God does very rarely give with both hands) reports on yet another case of Big Pharma's avarice. In discussing an under-funded cancer treatment, Ms. Hysen considers the possibility that Big Pharma and Big Government undermine possible cures in order to sustain their lucrative business.

The latest breakthrough in cancer treatment could prove to be “the cure” that kills it all, including a $50 billion-a-year industry. Dr. Carl June and his team at The University of Pennsylvania Medical Center have discovered a fresh, yet promising procedure that has leukemia patients marveling and pharmaceutical companies weary.

So if a potential cure has been found, then why is there a lack of funding for further research and clinical trials? Both the pharmaceutical industry and the government’s National Institute of Health have denied financing this project and many others in the past. An ongoing battle since the 1970s has prevented a cure from obliterating not only a life altering disease, but also that of a lucrative cancer industry.

She cites medical iconoclast Joseph Mercola regarding the amount of money at stake:

Dr. Mercola states, “Pfizer alone projects it’s annual cancer drug returns will be $11 billion by 2018.” Dr. Mercola suggests “the FDA continues to serve its client, Big Pharma, by making sure toxic chemotherapy, along with surgery and radiation, are the only cancer treatment options legally available to you.” Discussing the differences in profits between drugs and supplements, Dr. Mercola adds, “Over 800 studies show Vitamin D could have cancer prevention and/or treatment possibilities,” but Vitamin D can’t be patented because it’s a simple supplement, and therefore, profits couldn’t compare to that of a branded prescription drug.

Now one shouldn't get overly excited about an experimental procedure. Nonetheless, the fact that neither government nor industry has taken to funding this research is quite telling. In essence, the Medical Industrial Complex only works if we have a sick population and curing people of a serious disease would undoubtedly bankrupt much of the industry. Organized Medicine needs money and it needs sick people to give them that money.

But can we make the leap here into conspiracy territory, that dreaded word directed at loons with tin foil on their heads? We have the underpinnings of a conspiracy - dishonest medical practice, seemingly collusive efforts amongst large institutions, and a big pile of cash waiting for those who cast off any moral apprehension. We know that some conspiracies, while exaggerated by similarly conscious actors looking for personal notoriety or professional success as in Alex Jones, have actually turned out to be true. And we know the medical field is filled with lies that have now become unassailable "truths", such as saturated fat causing the modern health epidemic.

In this case, if a legitimate conspiracy exists, then Big Pharma execs and their Big government friends go to bed each night with blood on their hands. They fall asleep knowing they've consciously withheld information that could save lives and instead propagated alternate information that maintains their bank account. These individuals have chased profit at the expense of the most basic moral axioms, blatantly disregarding not only the underlying principles of medicine, but the mere compassion inherent to humanity.

And here I think is why so many people reflexively dismiss conspiracy theories - it depicts man as a fallen being. Conspiracy theories rely on the furtive efforts of men who act only with regards to their own ends. A conspiracy theory presents, at its most basic level, a sterile, Darwinian conception of man that undermines the more idealistic conception popular in modern society. Modern thought views man as bestowed with limitless potential and propensity for good. While previous civilizations applied a practical version of Original Sin, censuring man for both his historical Fall and his imminent future moral failings, our enlightened society takes an unrealistically positive view largely built from the pretty lies of kindergarten teachers. Instead of fire and brimstone, we get bromides such as, "there's good in everyone," "you can learn something from everyone", and "everyone makes mistakes, so don't be too hard on yourself."

So do I really think Big Pharma and Big government are taking efforts to maintain their profits, whatever the cost? I'll answer it by pointing to the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests giving statins to children as young as eight and the FDA approves of antipsychotics for children as young as two.

Accusations of Racism Have Jumped the Shark

It was bound to happen soon or later - the leftists have actually gone crazy. Last week, professional MSNBC bloviator, Ed Schultz, put forth the most absurd accusation of racism I've ever seen. And I read "anti-racist" sites, so one can imagine the type of rhetoric I've encountered. In sum, Schultz and the writers of his show have no outlawed the word "black" as racist. See for yourself:

Schultz: Perry...loves to remind white America that President Obama is "Other", not like you. [I presume Ed Schultz is a black Harvard Law grad who grew up in Indonesia with his white mother and Asian stepfather and then in Hawaii with his white grandparents.] Perry also wants you to know that he's pro-business.

Perry: I will be a pro-business President...Being able to pay off 14.5 or 16 trillion dollars worth of debt, that big black cloud that hangs over America. [video cuts off mid-sentence]

Schultz: That black cloud Perry is talking about is President Barack Obama.

Author Jim Moore: I think the whole business with the black cloud wasn't exactly very subtle.

So according to Schultz and his guest, using a common idiom containing the word 'black' is now grounds for justified charges of racism. This reminds me of a viral picture showing a black guy claiming "computers are racist." And this Texas County Official who feels the same way about "black holes" and "devil's food cake." But these other two examples are from guy-on-the-street cranks. They don't have their own program on MSNBC in a primetime slot.

Note also that Schultz's staff consciously edited the clip to cut off Perry giving proper context; though only an idiot couldn't construe the meaning anyway. Perry continues with "that big black cloud that hangs over America...that debt that is so monstrous." In this case, the selective editing doesn't leave out some nuanced point; no, the selective editing leaves out the actual point Perry made. It's akin to cutting off Abe Lincoln immediately after, "Four Score...".

Yet shouldn't we expect such mendacity from the left? I no longer consider much of the professional left idealists, but rather a group motivated by hatred and greed. And since they have no moral foundation to their beliefs, a fact they'll occasionally admit to, the left has no qualms about presenting lies as fact, then bashing anyone who notes their duplicity. (See Global Warming.) Unfortunately, this blatant lie will soon be forgotten underneath the persistent vituperative leftists spew at any dissenter, such as Maxine Waters telling the Tea Party to "go straight to hell." How about that civility?

As the left becomes more dishonest in their presentation, it also becomes more desperate to unearth conservative transgressions. Similar to the left's fastidious study of Palin's governer e-mails, while ignoring the huge autobiography Obama published explaining his way of thinking, the left wants to find any dirt it can on non-liberals. Yet when they can't, when those evil conservatives somehow avoid character assassination, the left just makes stuff up. Their favorite, of course, is accusing an individual of racism, such as that directed at John McCain despite his adopted Indian daughter. Though, this latest race-baiting from eminent blowhard Schultz does perhaps take the cake. I've never seen anything so ridiculous from a mainstream leftist pundit.

Now that the left has made common idiom and even a color indicative of racism, where do they go from here? I foresee regular people increasingly understanding leftist insanity as even Jon Stewart mocked Schultz for this. I imagine also that soon we'll actually declare war against Eurasia, but maybe there won't be enough Winston Smiths for such lies to hold.

Amazing and Not so Amazing Art

As I've said before, art makes me uncomfortable because I can't fully rationalize it; I can't understand how or why anyone makes it and why their work impacts me. But I can appreciate art fully. I can feel art as a transcendent experience. Yesterday, I found this utterly incredible lifelike portrait of (hot version) Britney Spears on YouTube. Enjoy:



Note that the artist presents a fully sanitized version of the once gorgeous Ms. Spears, a visage whithered away by her lifestyle the past few years. In doing so, he celebrates the positive nature of his subject, a far cry from much critically acclaimed art of today.

As Western society has become increasingly self-loathing, its art has seen a commensurate decline. No longer does art celebrate society as a living entity that confers benediction upon its citizens. No longer does art celebrate the individual as valuable. Instead, art denigrates society for its purported transgressions and we get the purposefully provocative, as in Piss Christ, and the purposefully subversive, as in this "performance artist":

A transsexual cabaret performer named Rose Wood engaged in projectile vomiting on stage and hit Sarandon with it. “Apparently [Sarandon] got a big kick out of it. She squealed with surprise and loved it when several handsome gentlemen wiped it off of her. She had a ball! I saw her assistant downstairs afterward, and he was moved by it! She was in great spirits,” Wood told the New York Press.

Performance art: half-naked androgynous person convulsing on a stage lit from the back with bright neon lights, utters nonsense with words appearing behind him on a screen. Usually nausea-inducing.

I wonder if the modern leftist university has anything to do with this decline. The leftist elite university system has a strong effect on public opinion and everyone knows the sorts of individuals populating majors and departments like Art History. (Digression: Before hearing the term SWPL, I imagined that sort of person as drinking coffee, wearing tweed, and majoring in Art History.) Of course, liberals revel in societal subversion and would deign to even view such simple work as that of Norman Rockwell.

Further, liberals engage in what I'll deem "self-professed enlightenment" (one day, I'm going to catalogue all these terms I've made up). Abstract art is a great example. I remember seeing abstract art as a child and wondering what the hell was going on. I figured as an adult I would understand. Turns out, nothing was going on; it was just a bunch of high society NYC leftists congratulating themselves. Abstract art is an "Emperor with No Clothes" scheme fitting into the more general liberal phenomenon of "self-professed enlightenment". In essence, this means that an insular group celebrates obvious trash as a way of distinguishing themselves. One could sum up the entire thought process as, "well yea, you just don't get it."

A 2007 documentary, My Kid Could Paint That, subtly skewers these individuals. It tells of the frenzy surrounding a 3 year-old's scribbling that fetched up to $300,000 per "painting." Hilariously, the buyers and art critics fell over themselves elucidating on the emotional depth and artistic elegance of what amounted to pretty splotches of color.

I guess modern art would be a great indicator of the crazy world in which we now live.

Common Terms Questionairre and Accents/Slang

Saturday Audience Participation

I found this questionairre online and thought it would make for a good less serious Audience Participation post. As we all know, different accents, slang terms, and verbiage are prevalent in different parts of the country. Seemingly ubiquitous lexicon in one part of the country is akin to a foreign language in another part. And surely we've all encountered someone with a different accent or speech marked by odd slang, such as the California surfer, and immediately characterized him consistent with that accent.

The following questionnaire deals with a few common terms and phrases that may differ across regional boundaries. If I had to guess, I'd say I'm the default American when it comes to speech and language. One could imagine California, the Bible Belt, Boston and NYC, and the Midwest deviating from my baseline American accent. Now some have actually pinpointed where I grew up based just on my speech, but whenever I take these kinds of accent quizzes, I always find myself merely ordinary, i.e. "water" not "wuhter." In general, I tend to pronounce words very much as they look, if that makes any sense.

So today's question: answer below (my answers next to each question)

1. What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house? TP-ing
2. What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball? (No answer)
3. What is the bubbly carbonated drink called? Soda
4. What do you call gym shoes? Sneakers
5. What do you say to address a group of people? Everyone/Guys
6. What do you call the kind of spider (or spider-like creature) that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs? Daddy Long-legs
7. What do you call your grandparents? Mom-mom and Pop-pop
8. What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket? Cart
9. What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining? (No answer)
10. What is the thing you change the TV channel with? Remote

I always figured these were everyone's answers until I found a few threads saying otherwise. Also, what of personal anecdotes regarding accent and slang. The general topic has been discussed ad nauseum, but if you'd like, go ahead and muse on that as well.

SWPL Rap Critics and their Interpretation of Content

There's a rap group getting lots of buzz right now called Odd Future. Interestingly though, much of the media coverage and commensurate fawning comes from white, middle-aged critics who seemingly ignore their outright vile lyrical content.

The thing is, a lot of people are laughing -- laughing and fawning. One thing that jumps out at you when you look at much of the criticism of Odd Future is that hardly any of it is very critical. Indeed, most of America's revered music-news outlets -- and many of the British outlets -- love Odd Future. Another thing that jumps out at you is that most of these critics are white.

As I've followed Odd Future for nearly half a year now, it's been strange to watch hip white America wholly embrace a bunch of African-American punks whose leader once tweeted, "I want to scare the f--- out of old white people that live in middle f---ing America."

"Something about wealthy white yuppies laughing and smiling as black teenagers pour out their rage at an unfair world through hip-hop didn't sit well with me … [T]here's something unseemly about white people getting a big kick out of it."

I know little about Odd Future specifically, but I can confidently presume that one could classify as SWPL rap, albeit a far more crass and violent version of more "dignified" acts like Mos Def and Talib Kweli. They have that sort of hipster, iconclast, non-mainstream feel to them that SWPLs love. The articles I've read on their "yuppie" fan base accurately described the vibrancy-by-proxy that attracts many middle-class whites to rage-filled rap music like that proffered by Odd Future. Some examples:

And on "Couch," Earl fantasizes about feeding a woman acid, binding her in duct tape and putting her in the trunk of his car. "Now you ain't laughing, huh?" he asks his victim at the end of the gruesome verse.

“She mad as fuck/stuck in the back of a black Acura/Fed her acid now that the duct tape quacks back at her/ Hello Heather yellow feathers/now you ain’t laughin, huh.”

We've spoken before about the risible post-adolescent wigger, a phenomenon that actually exists independent of SWPL rap fandom. While the 20-something wigger views blacks as the zenith of cultural vibrancy, the SWPL rap fan doesn't imbibe the culture fully. He instead prefers to experience the culture sporadically and from a safe distance, with "distance" defined in both physical and social terms. Yet the amount of voluntary immersion in the culture isn't what primarily divides the two groups. Instead, it's the SWPL's often desperate attempts to justify his fandom, an exercise whereby the SWPL depicts Odd Future and other rap acts as informed social commentators.

In his lengthy Village Voice piece on Odd Future, critic Zach Baron writes, "Odd Future and the acts from which they've descended make us confront a kind of disgust that is mercifully absent from our everyday lives. The discomfort and foreignness of the elaborately awful scenarios that Odd Future concoct is part of the point: it takes us out of our comfort zones, makes us feel weird and awful."

And going back to Frannie Kelley's NPR article, Kelley theorizes, "I think that, for years, Tyler thought he'd never met anyone as smart as him. I think that enrages him. Makes him feel trapped and unheard. I think Tyler feels bad about some of the things he says, but it feels so good to say them out loud. To scream them. To make some people feel bad, and other people feel good."

What makes hip-hop such a durable form is its capacity to scramble fiction and fact; the artifice and the realities that art conceals or amplifies become one. In this way, Watch the Throne feels astonishingly different. It captures two artists who no longer need dreams; art cannot possibly prophesy a better future for either of them.

Note the common thread where liberal white social critics interpret indiscriminate nihilism as perspicacious musings on society. In this, we see an addition to the notion that whites possess none of the cultural vibrancy that blacks do. Instead of just cultural vibrancy, liberal white critics also champion the existence of informed social commentary within black dysfunction. To the regular person, rap lyrics about raping and binding women, yelling random words, and offering disturbing images would reflect a benighted spirit, not a cerebral social critic lamenting one's misfortune.

In sum, SWPL rap fans express a clear case of projection, with Odd Future and others merely a way of illustrating their own insightfulness. Odd Future is a proper choice because their lyrics are simply so absurd, so disgusting, and so out-there that a SWPL simply can't fathom this as a transparent reflection of black pathology. Instead, it must be some convoluted criticism of society, some means of expressing anger via a theater of the absurd. The SWPL critics tacitly reject the idea that perhaps these rap groups do stuff just because. Clearly, these rappers have no reasoning behind their crudeness; some people embrace nihilism not from pensive thought, but from a wicked desire to "see the world burn." Odd Future raps about rape and murder simply because they want to shock for no particular reason and, most importantly, they know they'll find an audience.

Finally, note that the same media types vehemently criticized the only prominent white rap artist, Eminem, for almost identical lyrics, most of them directed at his mother and ex-wife. Eminem's lyrics weren't construed as the anger of an underprivileged individual, but rather as the hallmark of a sick individual with various sorts of mental pathologies, all of which he would confer upon the youth. Of course, white suburban youth did actually deify Mr. Mathers early in the decade, so perhaps the moral osmosis argument had merit. Nonetheless, no respectable individual ever viewed Eminem as anything but an immature cretin with little respect for society or the people within it. Quite a contrast to the acclaim given to Odd Future, purported to speak for a generation of disaffected youth who, for some reason, seek social power via rape and murder fantasies.

Related Link: Same sort of projection regarding the London rioters.

Technology and Social Absence

Ferdinand Bardamu (Ferd), proprietor of "fuck that" group blog In Mala Fide, really hates nerds. He views nerds as vile creatures justifiably shunned by society for their exceeding unattractiveness. Ferd's derisive musings conjure up the slovenly, ugly, and socially inept archetype popular in recent American culture. He blames the Internet for amplifying the nerd phenomenon, both in absolute numbers and the basic reprehensibility of such characters:

The smelly, asocial, poorly dressed nerd of today is a relatively recent phenomena – as recently as the late 90′s/early oughts, when I was growing up, nerds were much closer to the bowtied 80′s stereotype than today’s white trash-esque hordes. The reason nerds were far more bearable back then was because they had no choice but to engage with society at large.

The reason nerdiness is far worse now than a decade ago is because the Internet enables social incest. Now, when nerds of today are teased by bullies, they can just sequester themselves in their fantasy worlds online. They can entertain and inform themselves without ever leaving their rooms, without facing the disapproving eyes of their peers, without having to change or improve themselves in any way to overcome the daily challenges of life.

Ferd views the nerd phenomenon in a negative context, as in how the proliferation of technology facilitates the socially autistic's voluntary exclusion. Ferd offers an incisive account of nerds' contentment in fantasy worlds, yet he perhaps too quickly admonishes technology as only a negative force in this regard. Ferd feels only real life social interaction should dominate, with technological proxies fostering a "social incest" that allows some individuals to drop out of society and become the smelly, disgusting nerds he resents. Yet Ferd blithely ignores the fact that perhaps some of those that gravitate towards "social incest" do so as a way of improving their social interaction. Or, more generally, they use technology as a means of participating in society without all the "bathwater" of watercooler blather and polite greetings.

When I was fifteen, I came up with the notion that language is arbitrary, not exactly a revolutionary thought but pretty good for a fifteen year-old. I soon started thinking about raising my first born in a secluded box and having me as his only conduit to the outside world. The idea being that he would learn a unique language just as potent as any traditional one. After informing others of my future experiment and noting their horrified reactions as well as learning someone had stolen it, I changed the subject to a dog. However degrading, the thought experiment does bring up a few interesting points, primarily how children develop and how their access to information and various social environments affect that development.

I knew a kid, "Ben", who went to my elementary school until sixth grade, then at the beginning of the next year, he disappeared. Later, I found out he had started homeschooling with his mother, something he continued until going away for college. So from the age of twelve to eighteen, Ben essentially never stepped foot in a classroom of his peers. I stayed in touch with him sporadically over the next few years until sophomore year of high school, largely via IMs and indirect contact through other friends. From what I gather, his only sustained social interaction amongst peers was with his recreational baseball team. But other than that, he spent most of his time either alone or under the guidance of his mother during homeschooling hours (only child). From our brief conversations, he was always ebullient and friendly, but it appeared he didn't have much of a social outlet besides occasional invites to go out that I imagine grew less frequent over time. In school, he was actually very well-liked, so if he had stayed with everyone else, I'm sure he would have developed normally.

Now I don't know what ever happened to Ben. I've seen his public Facebook profile and the picture shows him from afar on a mountaintop with only 75 friends listed. I'm guessing those aren't good signs of a social butterfly. But let's ignore the subsequent ramifications of Ben's social exclusion and focus on his late adolescent development. In the bio-sphere, we champion a pseudo-deterministic conception of man, his development largely the result of genetic wiring and the vestiges of a carnal past. In essence, the bio-deterministic narrative imagines development as a ball rolling down an incline; it just sort of happens. Yet, what of those like Ben, imposed upon by an odd sort of circumstances that rob him of normal social interaction? How must we change our view of social development to account for the socially adroit who have no external environment in which to nurture that ability?

In essence, I'm wondering if when Ben went to college at age eighteen, was he emotionally equivalent to a twelve year-old, the age at which he was removed from his peer group? Could he function properly amongst his peer group despite being absent for so many years, despite almost all his social experiences only relevant to a twelve year-old? Despite having the physical development of a young adult, did Ben relate to others as a jejune pre-pubescent? Or did biology dictate that he had developed consistent with his peers?

And this is where technology comes in. Ferd views technology as complicit in social incest, by allowing outcasts to escape from the judgmental eye of society. While I agree to some extent, technology also allows for a greater dissemination of content and, germane to Ben, of culture. The advent of party lines, cable television, AOL chatting, and now social media translates into a smaller world where the excluded (nerds) can still plug in and follow the zeitgeist. Now, Ben had only the then-nascent Internet, but he also had MTV. He watched The Real World, music videos, and whatever other crap MTV used to play back then. Sure, he got a decidedly manufactured view of the outside world, but he still had an avenue for understanding social attitudes and trends without personally experiencing them.

However, in the end, I do agree with Ferd here. We should only view technology as a means of supporting real-world interaction. We're designed for face-to-face contact and while the Internet surely affects how information travels, we can't rely on it exclusively. So maybe when Ben started college, he knew what to wear, how to speak, and what TV shows to watch. But I imagine he was still, at some level, a stilted individual with little social insight or maturity beyond that of the twelve year-old who started homeschooling. You simply can't live life behind a computer screen.

Feminists Ignore Social Parallel

After the Larry Summers incident, gender disparities in the sciences became a mainstream point of contention. Even as biology professor Nancy Hopkins ironically confirmed the stereotype of emotionally unstable women ("I would've either blacked out or thrown up" [if she had stayed through his talk]), the chattering class assured us that evident gender differences resulted solely from social conditioning. A recent study lamenting the lack of female scientists explains (H/T: Randall Parker):

Park notes that women, in particular, are socialized from a young age to be romantically desirable, and that traditional romantic scripts in Western cultures are highly gendered, prescribing how men and women ought to think, feel and behave in romantic settings.

"Gender scripts discourage women from appearing intelligent in masculine domains, like STEM," Park says, "and in fact, studies show that women who deviate from traditional gender norms, such as succeeding in male-typed jobs, experience backlash for violating societal expectations. On the other hand, men in gender-incongruent occupations don't experience the same degree of backlash as women do."

Blah blah, you've heard this before. (Quick digression: do feminists and liberals ever get tired of repeating the same obviously false arguments?) Perhaps surprising to some of my readers, I don't think this is all bunk. While I find the notion of exceedingly restrictive gender policing highly exaggerated, I won't discount that behavioral transvestites do encounter a small amount of resistance. So for the sake of argument, let's accept the basic threat of social ostracism for women in traditionally masculine fields, such as physics or math. For the purposes of this post, we needn't specify much beyond yielding this basic point.

At this point, liberals and feminists would gladly declare themselves the victor, the problem dutifully explained by an insidiously oppressive social system. The liberals/feminists would then continue to the suggested solution, likely a direct dismantling of the meritocracy and an indirect cultural subversion of traditional gender roles. Yet, such a hasty leap to rendering solutions ignores parallel social motivations that perhaps undermine the above, gender-based argument.

My favorite example of male technological prowess is the computer industry and the Internet. Essentially every single major advance regarding computers and online content has been initiated by men - Google's Brin and Page, Facebook's Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Gates and Allen, Dell's Dell, Apple's Jobs and Wozniak, and the founders of Yahoo, YouTube, Amazon, and every other site on the Internet not discussing celebrities, fashion, and exciting PR gigs in NYC. The modern computer and Internet revolutions have developed through the work of nerdy boys toiling in their childhood bedrooms, then their dorm rooms, then in Silicon Valley garages, then in the offices of multi-billion dollar companies. The kind of men who started computer companies and currently make it big online usually spent their childhood sitting in their bedroom learning how to solder, hook up a modem, and write HTML code. They spent their college years, ala Zuckerberg, trying to translate their technological prowess into real-world occupational success, and more importantly, social prestige. (A recent documentary entitled We Live in Public profiles one of these types of men, early Internet pioneer Josh Harris.)

Imagine for a second: pimply 14 year-old nerd spends his Friday nights writing HTML code and building websites that no one reads or cares about. He follows technological developments instead of sports. He gets computer magazines instead of Maxim. He dreams about hitting it big online, instead of with the cute girl in algebra. He socializes online with other like-minded individuals instead of amongst his local peer group. And he does this obsessively every single day, sometimes staying up all night writing and learning code (I have a family friend who grew up like this and now works at Google). Well, that just about describes how many of these computer and Internet pioneers, as well as just many regular computer science majors, spent their childhood.

This childhood interest generally manifests into an adulthood occupation in the tech field and thus one presumes most people working in computer science would have gone through this sort of experience, perhaps not as extreme though. And since most computer scientists are men, we can presume most of the individuals described above are boys. (I promise I'm getting to the point.) So one asks - is the behavior described above socially encouraged? Does this sort of behavior translate into social success and prestige amongst adolescent and teenage peer groups? Would these boys have gotten positive reenforcement from other children and teenagers for pursuing these skills?

The answer is, of course, no. Nerdy behavior such as interest in technology is highly discouraged amongst adolescents. Interest in girls, sports, and general friendship is what boys must find interesting. Anyone who has interests orthogonal to these areas faces inevitable social pressure and, eventually, social exclusion if they do not conform to standard youth behavior. One needn't even define this as specifically gender-based; instead, merely understand that overall adolescent social environment actively denigrates behavior and individuals widely perceived as nerdy.

In essence, this imposed conformity via social sanction mirrors the purported means by which women are excluded from pursuing technological interests. The parallel manifests as such: girls are discouraged from pursuing STEM fields via gender policing and boys are discouraged from pursuing STEM fields due to the associated evident nerdiness. In both situations, one notes a rather potent social force that dictates which interests boys and girls find socially acceptable and whether or not one can pursue them whilst maintaining one's social capital.

So I ask - if so many boys can fend off or outright ignore the chiding of their peers or the social isolation that technological interests often engenders, then why can't girls do the same with regards to gender-based pressure? Apparently, many boys can overcome a potent social hurdle, so why can't girls do the same? Maybe the girls' hardship is specific to their gender, but social pressures manifest concerning all facets of one's person, with nerdiness perhaps the most harmful of all social distinctions. (For evidence, think about how many TV shows depict lonely nerds unable to get a girl and how many depict ostracized girls due to their scientific ability. Answer - former: lots; latter: none.)

In the end, it appears both girls and boys face at least equally strong deterrents (I'd argue nerdiness is far stronger) to conform, so this environmental variable in explaining gender differences is essentially null. It is controlled for because social factors affect both boys and girls. So, sorry feminists, have to find another explanation, even one you may not like.

[For the sake of argument I accepted the notion of gender-based social discouragement for women in STEM fields. But in real life, I've never encountered this at all, either in academic study or in popular culture. Yet, think about how much crap computer nerds get in both the high school hierarchy and popular culture. Finally, for the record: I don't know a lick of HTML.]

Related Link: Similar post on "acting white" myth

Types of Trolls

If you go on any Internet site, you will have encountered the dreaded troll. He lurks everywhere and essentially no open forum online can escape this dreaded creature. As an immensely popular blogger with millions of fans across the globe, I have experienced this online phenomenon firsthand. And as someone who spends lots of time reading other websites, both niche and mainstream, I understand the troll in contexts independent of my own blog's comment sections. Below, I enumerate the various incarnations of the troll, a disease that knows no bounds regarding age, intelligence, color, and ideological bent.

Types of Trolls

Interloper/Resident Dissident, found most frequently at political sites: Every politically-focused blog has a person who loves mixing it up with his intellectual opponents. He visits the blog obsessively and comments on almost every post. And in every comment, he champions the contrarian viewpoint, presumably to enlighten the ignorant denizens of the blog. He usually gets snarky and gives off an air of disdain for those with whom he converses.

ALL CAPS GUY, found most frequently at anti-religious sites: He thinks the apocalypse is coming and only a broken capslock key can save everyone. He posts largely incomprehensible rants, made worse by his insistence on using only capitol letters and bad spelling. The one thing to understand - he's mad and he wants you to hear him.

Insane and Repetitive, found most frequently on political sites: This is ALL CAPS GUY's brother, both equally insane but at least this guy agrees with the content and actually appears to sort of know what's going on. Unfortunately, he says the same exact thing over and over again, no matter the content of the actual post. He generally rambles semi-coherently, but he still can't hide his instability beneath the mildly cogent rants. He's sort of a Monet: good from far, but far from good. Bloggers like people agreeing with them, but not crazy people. This guy may actually live in his mother's basement.

The Bored 14-year old, found most frequently on YouTube: He's probably 14 years-old and he thinks you're a gay douche fag. And you suck. And you're a fat loser too. But if you're a hot girl, he'll tell you, in rather licentious terms. Why does he do it? He's bored while hanging out with other 14 year-olds, as this type of trolling has now replaced prank calling Chinese restaurants. A warning: if you post a video on YouTube, they will come in droves.

Insane, Repetitive Dissenter, found most frequently on political sites: He's the evil twin of "Resident Dissident", except he's far too stupid to actually engage in discourse. He comes to the blog every day to leave a driveby comment telling everyone how much he disagrees with them.

"You Suck", found most frequently on YouTube, Twitter, and pop culture-focused sites: These people hate everyone and everything ever made. They think all music, art, movies, TV, and people in general suck. They hate everything put out in the public sphere. Note that this person differs from the "Bored 14 year-old" because the bored 14 year-old just says things to piss people off. This person actually means it when he asserts how sucky someone or something is.

Spammer, found most frequently on Blogger blogs: This is probably a spambot, but usually it'll say some generic comment praising the blog's content with a link to some virus-laden site. Why do these programmed trolls even exist as one wonders who is actually stupid enough to click on the link? I don't know, but Blogger blogs get plenty of these comments, especially on older posts.

Internet Males, found most frequently on gender forums and celebrity-focused sites: This man, likely an overweight 30-something who uses prostitutes, doesn't think Megan Fox or Miranda Kerr or Scarlett Johansen are even mildly attractive. He doesn't like Megan's asymmetrical kneecaps and Miranda's dimpled nose. But even then, they're just not his type and he honestly wouldn't even give those girls the time of day. A slightly different incarnation of the "Internet Male" also claims that he gets so much hotter chicks everyday. (Also, see "The Faker".)

Sophisticated Hackers, found most frequently on news sites and Twitter: These guys know computers and they like messing around on prominent sites. They hack and post fake news stories, just for the LOLz. They're not exactly trolls in the same sense as the others listed, but they do also revel in causing trouble.

Obsessive Hater, found most frequently on personal websites: This type of hater overlaps significantly with the others, with almost every prominent online person having an obsessive hater who, unsurprisingly, really really hates them. This isn't "Resident Interloper" who merely abhors an entire ideology; no, this person has a specific vendetta against a specific online individual. Anyone who runs a website or has a YouTube channel must deal with one of these individuals.

The Gamer, found most frequently on online games: This guy goes into online games, such as World of Warcraft, and gets a bunch of nerds very upset by messing up their..whatever the hell nerds do on these games.

The Threat, found most frequently directed at celebrities: Dating Justin Beiber, kissing Robert Pattinson, or even taking part in a crappy movie based on a beloved comic book can all lead to death threats. Death threats are also commonly directed at controversial bloggers. The less sinister twin of "The Threat" is "The Stalker", though the latter often extends outside the online realm.

The Faker, found most frequently on niche forums: If someone claims to have grown up with Lady Gaga, or does hair for Kim Kardashian, or teaches physics at an Ivy League university, or works at a climate research facility, or is a demure and beautiful Russian girl looking for a smart American nerd, they're probably not telling the truth. "The Faker" often appears in forums where their lies will have the most impact, as in pretending to have played in the NFL on a football message board.

Driveby Dissident, found most frequently on political sites: This person leaves a driveby comment just to get a reaction from the commentariat. He knows he's saying something slightly outrageous, but he does so just to enjoy how hysterical other commenters get. He's not interested in discussion; he just wants to rile everyone up.

Just Plain Crazy, found most frequently on the Internet: The Internet reveals one unassailable truth about mankind: there are some crazy-ass people out there. Crazy people spouting crazy stuff for no particular purpose appear on every site. It's discern someone's craziness solely from online interaction, but these people just can't hide it.

That's an almost comprehensive list of trolls you'll encounter on the Internet. Beware that the truly adept often combine one or more of the above characters into an uber-troll.

In the end though, I ask who actually is the troll? Isn't there a troll dormant in the confines of our carnal psyche, inherent to our own humanity, waiting to divest itself from the restrictions of courtesy? Ponder that the next time you respond angrily to a troll; maybe, just maybe, you're actually reacting to the troll that lies restless within you.

Framing Racial Discourse

[Note: I use "anti-racist" throughout the post, but I mean both self-proclaimed anti-racists and also any leftists or moderate leftists who champion the same sorts of ideas.]

From Racialicious, probably my favorite hate-whitey site, comes this "People You Meet When You Write About Race" Bingo.


An accompanying post tacitly criticizes the colorblind, mainstream conservative perspective on race, summed up in the desperate exclamation that "I have lots of diverse friends and I just don't see race and I'm sick of everyone always talking about it."

A few important reflections on the "anti-racist" mindset arise regarding the caustic and dismissive image above. First, note that most of the above sayings occur often amongst mainstream conservatives and moderate liberals. Each implies a certain defensiveness against accusations of racism and, in exonerating oneself, the cowering individual inevitably comes off as ridiculous. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George believes his black boss considers him a racist and George's attempts to get back into his boss' good graces. The phrases shown on the Bingo card are admittedly absurd and reflect how whites have become so fearful of the "racism" stigma.

Of course, owing to their absurdity, none of the phrases actually work. The harpies over at Racialicious posted it for purposes of mocking the individuals who regurgitate such desperation. Don't try to convince a fervent anti-racist by noting your Mexican nanny or a past Asian girlfriend because it won't change their mind at all. In fact, they will probably consider you even worse for stubbornly attempting to justify your bigotry. Repeating one of the phrases does not temper their vitriol. Instead, it makes the discussion a "teachable moment", roughly translated as an opportunity for an anti-racist to intellectually flagellate a white person for committing the sin of whiteness. In essence, the frame of the conversation turns from a discourse amongst equals to a pitiful trial of one's racial morality.

By ceding the frame of the conversation, with conservation applying to both personal and public contexts, white conservatives open themselves to this aggressive position popular amongst crusading anti-racists. Note that all the phrases in the Bingo card come from a white person trying to explain away their own perceived racism. In each, a white person has transgressed and is dutifully trying to illustrate his openness to multiculturalism. This frame, censuring only whites as insensitive, is the de facto one ubiquitous amongst anti-racists. It is always the fault of whites. It is always whites who fail to understand race or fail to perceive race sufficiently. It is always whites who must vindicate themselves.

Yet even this interpretation of anti-racism doesn't extend far enough. Anti-racists do not think whites can even experience race at all. They believe that only a minority can interpret a racial experience, with whites subservient to the minority's feelings and wholly removed from any racial experience themselves. This thinking underpins the reticence to label anti-white hate crimes as such; primarily because whites' only role in racial interaction is as antagonist. Whites are denied culture, experience, and mere existence, with all these notions solely the province of minorities.

With this in mind, note the current controversy concerning The Help. I just stopped my membership to Oprah's book club so I haven't read the novel nor seen the movie. Nonetheless, I've enjoyed the inexorable criticism directed at the "whitewashing" therein. I can't speak of the movie specifically, but I am sure that anti-racists will always oppose whites casting themselves as a racial story's omniscient narrator (or, as in The Help, its primary protagonist around which all stories converge). In doing so, the white character presumes to understand the subtleties of race, a knowledge and, more importantly, power that anti-racists can't ever lose.

The Left's Misleading Characterization of the Political Spectrum

Update: I tweeted this to Amanda Marcotte saying I found counterexamples to her lie about the mainstream media's (purported lack of) coverage concerning Tea Party "racism."

The Left primarily works in two ways - by direct means such as welfare, abortion laws, and appointment of activist judges and via indirect means such as demonizing anything they deem insufficiently left-wing. Notice I didn't use the phrase, "anything they deem right-wing"; I chose the former phrase because it more aptly reflects how the left thinks. They proffer a laughable notion of right-wing politics, their idea of "right-wing" being anything or anyone beyond sniveling Beltway RINOS. This misleading characterization of the political spectrum extends to all aspects of the zeitgeist, most notably the (leftist) media which many liberals still regard as hopeless. So Fox News, a largely right-liberal outfit, becomes a breeding ground for radicals and the Tea Party, a benign and PC group focusing on taxes, is a group of rabid crazies on the verge of violence.

Take Amanda Marcotte, perhaps the Internet's most strident feminist (that's saying something). She responds to an article at Salon.com criticizing the Tea Party as white Southern race-baiters:

I opened up Michael Lind's article at Salon titled "The Tea Party and white Southern extremism" with a sigh. I'm sure it will be astute, I told myself, but at the end of the day it doesn't seem to matter. No matter how many writers and historians point out that the Tea Party is just the same old race-baited Bible-thumping white Southern fools that have been a pain in the ass of this country since its inception, the mainstream media won't listen, instead characterizing them as some bold new political force.

Apparently, the mainstream media has been kind to the Tea Party?! Showing them as a putatively positive movement of informed dissidents?! Here are two recent articles from the New York Times op-ed, one from HuffPo (largest online news site), one from Rolling Stone, and two from Newsweek:

Tea Party’s War on America

Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people...the Tea Party Republicans can put aside their suicide vests. But rest assured: They’ll have them on again soon enough.

Genuflecting to the Tea Party

That moment should tell every voter in America everything about this current crop of Know-Nothings...Luckily for the rest of us, a rash of recent polling suggests that more Americans, at least for the moment, seem to be coming around to seeing the Tea Party for what it is — not mechanics come to fix the machine, but the proverbial monkeys willing to throw a wrench into it.

The Truth about the Tea Party

A loose definition of the Tea Party might be millions of pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the handful of banks and investment firms who advertise on Fox and CNBC...These are the kinds of thoughts that go through your head as you listen to Tea Partiers expound at awesome length upon their cultural victimhood, surrounded as they are by America-haters like you and me or, in the case of foreign-born president Barack Obama, people who are literally not Americans in the way they are.

Tea Party is All About Race

The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there's no comparative group on the left that's similarly motivated by bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred.

Black Helicopters over Nashville

The tea-party movement is dominated by conspiracist kooks.

Are Tea Partiers Racist?

Ever since the Tea Party phenomenon gathered steam last spring, it has been plagued by charges of racism. Placards at rallies have depicted President Barack Obama as a witch doctor, denounced his supposed plans for "white slavery," and likened Congress to a slave owner and the taxpayer to a "n----r." Opponents have seized on these examples as proof that Tea Partiers are angry white folks who can't abide having a black president..."The Tea Party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race."

NPR CEO on the Tea Party:

Schiller's resignation came a day after Ron Schiller, NPR's former senior vice president for fundraising, was shown in an undercover video calling the Tea Party "racist" and "scary" and questioning whether NPR needs federal funding.

MSNBC Religious Expert on Tea Party:

a lot of ordinary Americans who aren't on the religious right understand something and that is as the first African-American president, he has been up against a racist white bloc in the Republican Party that has come dressed as the Tea Party, the religious right, all sorts of excuses.

I could keep going and going and going. I could look in just about every single large media outlet and find similarly dismissive and sometimes outright vitriolic sentiments directed at the Tea Party and their apparent racism. In fact, the "Tea Party racist rednecks" narrative has been impossible to avoid over the past year. Yet Ms. Marcotte evidently has missed all of this coverage. She sees something entirely different than I do. In addition to ignoring the ubiquity of their ideas, the left views (or at least promotes the idea) the Tea Party and other right-liberals as inchoate extremists waiting to pop at any moment.

I won't postulate on the possibility that individuals like Ms. Marcotte are either blind or wily or both. I'd say a little bit of both if I had to guess. But ignoring the underlying motivations, it's absolutely absurd how the left frames current political discourse. I think a good way of combating this isn't necessarily done via political discussion or individuals, but via those well-known individuals who have social proof in an orthogonal context.

Take Michael Crichton, an absolutely brilliant mind in both science and literature. None of the hysterical warmists could attack him as a crazy person, thus making his criticism of "global warming" stand on its own and resonate more with the public who respect him as an individual. In a way, using non-political individuals like Nobel Prize winners James Watson (OK, that didn't quite turn out well) and William Shockley works because the left can't use their frame of "loony right-wingers" as a counter-argument. These individuals circumvent the (leftist) notion of liberal and conservative and, most importantly, derive their authority from outside the political sphere.