The tragedy in Minneapolis of a few days ago underlines something I have written about before and will no doubt have to write about again. I never really thought about it much until Katrina hit and I saw the images that all of you saw. Those were images of people standing in what seemed like endless lines for food and water or to be evacuated.
Civil Society
Multiple Cultures
After Ralph’s thought-provoking post below, I’d like to take another pot-shot at the multicultural elites who seem to value any other culture more than our own.
One of the things that persistently puzzles me about the multi-cultural crowd is that, at least when I was a TA, they shied away from intellectually rigorous activity such as studying a foreign language. One would think that actually learning to speak a non-Western tongue would do more for true inter-cultural understanding than any pastiche of factoids, half-truths and generalized misinformation about other cultures that is the general Introduction to Foreign Culture claptrap at most Universities.
The cynic in me says that most multi-culturalists don’t go in for a detailed study of a foreign language for three reasons it would take away the focus from their departments, it’s hard (non-Western languages generally come with non-Western writing systems, and in my experience, students run from those like the plague), and, to Ralph’s point, the more in-depth you study some cultures, the more you are thankful you weren’t born into them. Hardly conducive to the facile moral relativism of the multi-culti crowd.
Millennial Boyz
I’m on a mission from Lex. On Thu 12 Jul at 5:34 PM CDT, he wrote me:
> Are the Millennials Different?
>
> I know you are a fan. Any response must be cross-posted on CB!
I can think of nothing better to do on a fine Bastille Day evening — having missed the concert by virtue of being 400 miles to the southwest — than consume modest quantities of ethanol in the form of Boulevard Lunar Ale and compose a rambling post for infliction on the readership here. By way of my usual thinning out of my prospective audience, graze on over to Arcturus for what has become known as the Baby Boomer Apocalypse post, which will 1) impart what I think is the most important aspect of Strauss & Howe’s model and 2) very likely cause you to decide you’ve got better things to do than read the rest of this.
What Year is This?
…because it increasingly seems that the first 3 digits must be one, nine, and three.
British film-maker Richard Littlejohn has released a documentary titled The War Against Britain’s Jews. Read this article, in which he talks about some of the things he has learned in his research.
I believe this program ran on Britain’s Channel 4 on Monday—don’t know if any reruns are planned.
Via Judith at History News Network.
The Nature of Dictatorships
It seems like there are a lot of people these days who justify–or at least make excuses for–dictatorships. “Well, it’s true there are some things you can’t do,” goes one typical line. “But if you steer clear of politics, you’ll be just fine.” Dictatorships are justified based on many purported benefits, including suppression of internal violence, enabling economic development, and above all “stability.”
Mario Vargas Llosa talks about what dictatorship really is and what it does to people.
Related: Ralph Peters takes on the “stability is always good” argument. I have related thoughts here.
Vargas Llosa link via Neptunus Lex.