New Rule at USC: Don’t Say Non-Offensive Words That Sound Like Offensive Words

This is an example of Daniel Kahneman's halo effect going beserk. If you are not stuck in a modern day intellectual silo, this article might sorely disappoint you: "If USC can punish Greg Patton, free speech on campus really is dead." Professor Patton did not say anything inappropriate. He said a word that sounded like another word that some students said offended them. To summarize, Patton didn't say an offensive word at all, but he is being punished for saying a Chinese phrase that, to the over-sensitive ears of some students, sounded like an offensive word. USC's conclusion is that saying a perfectly innocent Chinese phrase in the process of discussing business speech is the moral equivalent of saying a completely different English word with a totally different meaning.

Too many of us are being silent about stupidity in high places. USC is a prestigious and supposedly learned university that is acting deliberately, intentionally and perniciously with regard to Professor Greg Patton. This knee-jerk off-target administrative disciplinary action serves no legitimate purpose and chills speech in classroom filled with elite young adults who are not acting their age or educational level.

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The Eight Stages of Critical Race Theory Courtesy of Woke Temple

At Twitter, the Woke Temple is is known for ridiculing Wokeness through the use of cartoonish graphics, but don't be fooled. Despite the cartoonishness, the lessons of the Woke Temple are well-researched and accurate. They repeatedly get at the heart of the misguidedness and perniciousness of the Woke movement. As I've researched the Woke movement over the past few months, I've come to appreciate all the serious work that goes into analyzing the Woke movement, then cleverly boiling down this unwieldy-looking movement into the brash-looking cartoons.

I agree with this approach. The Woke movement needs to be ridiculed because it is wrong-headed in numerous ways that are not obvious.  The Movement consists of many well-intended followers, who are being intentionally deceived by many of its leaders.

But it can't be easily ridiculed because the movement has it's own language that has been developed for decades in critical studies departments at major universities. The movement often defines terms in ways that conflict with (or sometimes are the opposite of) the common meanings of words. The Woke movement abhors critical analysis and evidence, especially of its own concepts and tactics. It is a movement that thrives on ad hominem attacks, revised history, anecdotes in place of statistical analysis and the refusal to engage in good faith dialogue. It is a movement that celebrates the use of feelings in lieu of careful fact-gathering. It is a seductive movement that has taken root in many colleges, government offices and corporate HR departments. How does one clearly and quickly communicate the problems and dangers of the Woke movement with those who unfamiliar with what it is really about?

With that introduction, I'm pasting below The Woke Temple's recent graphic setting forth the Eight Stages of Critical Race Theory (one of several manifestations of the Woke Movement). These stages accurately capture my personal journey in trying to understand and engage with the Woke Movement.  There is a lot of important information embedded here, so take your time in order to appreciate this:

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U.S. Department of Education is Being Taught to Abolish U.S. Society

Here's the latest chapter in Woke indoctrination of federal employees, reported by Christopher Rufo. View the actual training documents in the comments:

If you were told to throw away your (workable but imperfect) car and buy an entirely new one, you would demand to know the details about the new car before throwing away the old one.

It is stunning to see that Woke ideology urging professionals at the Department of Education to do the opposite regarding the current social order.  This class is urging the audience to simply abolish society and have faith that something new and better will rise in its place. No details, no safeguards, no respect for traditions that have worked reasonably well, no assurances for the safety for people during the transition, no assurance that we won't be plunged into a society dominated by warlords imposing their will capriciously, a society much worse than our current situation. There's no consideration that we might possibly be able to reform the current imperfect society from within the current structure, reform that the U.S. Constitution invites in orderly fashion by the amendment process. This class is rife with vague terms and empty promises that would amount to a revolution that would lead to an unknown and violent place. It is specified to be a society in which people will be categorized by "race" and judged by skin color (and other immutable characteristics), as though it makes sense to judge each other by immutable characteristics. This is what is passing as education for our educators at the Department of Education these days.

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The Woke Alternative to the Scientific Method

The Science Femme poses a simple question. The many comments are worth a careful read. Some of them might keep you up at night in that the humor is laced with deep concern.

The Woke Temple provides an illustration of the Woke alternative to the scientific method using a real-life problem. This type of "reasoning" is ubiquitous these days:

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The 1619 Project is Not History

Creator Ida Bae Wells argues that the 1619 Project should be "taught" yet she also admits that it is not "a history." Is she saying that it is not true? Is she saying that ideology should be taught in our schools?

Here are some of her own words:

1619 is clearly a false history:

Here is one more Tweet: 1619 is clearly a false history:

The project has sparked criticism and debate among prominent historians and political commentators.[5][6] In a letter published in The New York Times in December 2019, historians Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson, Sean Wilentz, Victoria Bynum and James Oakes expressed "strong reservations" about the project and requested factual corrections, accusing the project of putting ideology before historical understanding.

John McWhorter summarizes some of the many problems with the 1619 project:

The New York Times’ 1619 Project is founded on empirical sand. The fundamental claim that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery simply does not correspond with the facts, too conclusively for the point to be dismissed as mere hair-splitting. The issue is not differing interpretations of history, but an outright misinterpretation of it.

Yet the project lives on. Its spearheaders blithely dismiss the charges of inaccuracy as mere natterings that at least verge on racism, while school districts nationwide eagerly received pedagogical materials based on the idea of offering students a fresh, revealing take on American history.

We must ask: Is there some broader aspect of the 1619 Project that justifies a certain slippage between its claims and actual fact? Just what does this project have to teach students? What does it have to teach us? And if the answer to those questions is “nothing much,” then how is it that brilliant, high-placed people can be so serenely unruffled in promulgating this material to innocent young minds?

In the end, the 1619 Project is more than a history lesson. It is founded on three basic principles, none expounded with a great deal of clarity, but all of them pernicious to a truly constructive black American identity.

...

To accept the implication of the 1619 ideology that heroic figures should be dismissed for not fully understanding the horrors of slavery, and that the American story is defined by nothing except the treatment of black people, would be to disrespect them as infantile minds. As such, we must evaluate the project on what it portends for forging socio-political change. Sadly, here the project would seem to yield nothing. A revivification of the reparations argument is longer on theatre than politics. The concern with whites understanding that “It isn’t our fault” may seem a form of political engagement but in fact is quite irrelevant to change in actual lives. . . . evaluated honestly, the 1619 Project is a kind of performance art. Facts, therefore, are less important than attitude. Hannah-Jones has predictably dismissed serious and comprehensive empirical critiques, as if for black thinkers, truth is somehow ranked second to fierceness and battle poses. For many, questioning the 1619 Project elicits irritation, of a kind that suggests personal insult rather than difference of opinion. This is because the 1619 Project is indeed all about personality, a certain persona that smart black people are encouraged to adopt as a modern version of being a civil rights warrior.

For this 2.0 version of civil rights warrior, authentic blackness, significant blackness, requires eternal opposition, bitter indignation, and claims of being owed. Whether all of this is rooted in reality in a way that can create change for actual human beings is of less concern than whether all of this is expressed, on a regular basis. It keeps The Struggle going, we are told.

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