Tag: Political Correctness

FIRE’s Greg Lukianoff: ‘We’ve fully entered the Second Great Age of Political Correctness.’

Peter Bonilla
Peter Bonilla
65
 

In his new feature for the January 2022 edition of Reason magazine, Greg Lukianoff, President and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, where I also work, puts to readers: 

We’ve fully entered the Second Great Age of Political Correctness. If we are to find a way out, we must understand how we got here and admit the true depths of the problem. 

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Member Post

Richard Easton
Richard Easton
1711
 

The new hate crimes legislation in Scotland is controversial. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56364821 The offensive statements can be made privately which opens the question of how they could be proven. It certainly opens up uncorroborated statements being used as a weapon in divorces. And why should it be anyone’s business what one says at home. I guess it’s another […]
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Pasha Is Going to Need to Talk to You

David Foster
David Foster
85
 

Pasha, in the Russian WWII TV series “The Attackers,” is the political commissar attached to an aviation regiment. His duties include political education/indoctrination, ensuring that the regimental commander’s actions are in line with the regime’s desires, and taking action against any personnel who commit politically disfavored actions or express forbidden opinions.

He is quick with accusations of treason against the regiment’s members. When sabotage of one of the planes is discovered, Pasha assumes the regiment’s own mechanics did it and wants to have them immediately shot. In this instance, the regimental commander, a fatherly sort of man, is able to avoid precipitous action …”calm down, Pasha” … and get a proper investigation conducted, which shows that the mechanics had nothing to do with the sabotage. But overall, it is very dangerous for anyone, even the commander, to stand up against Pasha.

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The Best Articles I Read in 2020

DJ EJ
DJ EJ
65
 

Here at the end of 2020, I’m trying to close up a number of tabs I have open on my browser. Many of them are articles, and of that number I’m certain several were suggested or linked to by fellow Ricochet members, mentioned in podcasts, or discovered through searches prompted by Ricochet discussions. I was originally going to say “The 10 Best Articles…”, but the list is more than ten articles and I’m sure I’m forgetting some additional ones that I read months ago…it’s been a long year.

For this post I loosely define “the best” articles as those that challenged my thinking on an issue, were educational, were unexpected or deservedly scandalous, courageously broke with prevailing current narratives, or discussed an important topic otherwise ignored or forgotten. I’m not going to say which characteristic applies to which article as I’m trying to keep this post relatively brief, and each article could form the foundation of a post and become fertile ground for discussion. Some of the articles were written in years prior to 2020, but I just got around to reading them this year and they were either prophetic or remain pertinent to current events. Grouped with some of the articles I have read, I’m also listing what I’m going to read next in regard to that topic. These will have “to be read” in parentheses next to them.

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WillowSpring
WillowSpring
89
 

I guess its time to re-read 1984.  According to “Epoch Times*”, the house is preparing a new set of rules to control words which can be used: Terms to be struck from clause 8(c)(3) of rule XXIII, the House’s Code of Official Conduct, as outlined in the proposed rules (pdf), include “father, mother, son, daughter, […]
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Thaddeus Wert
Thaddeus Wert
5419
 

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I have taught high school math for 34 years. I’ve been a dues-paying member of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) the entire time. They used to publish a wonderful magazine, Mathematics Teacher, which was full of interesting articles about, well, teaching math. I picked up all […]
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Young Americans #53

Harry Potter and the Death of the Author

21
Hosted by Jack Butler
With guest Madeleine Kearns

Jack brings back his now-colleague Madeleine Kearns to discuss Harry Potter and the increasingly un-woke status of the books’ author, J.K. Rowling (increasingly, to the left, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named).

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The Elephant in the Room
The Elephant in the Room
2810
 

In Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope fends off the many suitors wishing to marry her while Odysseus is away by telling them that she will not choose a new husband until she had completed weaving a new shroud for her dead father-in-law, Laërtes. All day, she toils away at her loom, but still, the shroud never gets […]
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WalterSobchakEsq
WalterSobchakEsq
76
 

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, Rose the firs with cones upon them; Bright before it beat the water, Beat the clear and sunny water, Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water. […]
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A Conservative’s “Hamilton”?

Gary McVey
Gary McVey
3314
 

Imagine this: The insular world of the Manhattan theater scene is buzzing about an exciting new play by a brilliant outsider. It’s a tour de force of Black acting and true American history, mixed with dazzling dramatic craft and lacerating humor that wins over even its ideological opponents. It’s talked about in The New York Times, touted for theater prizes, and becomes one of the hottest tickets in town. You know this story, right?

But this was all in 1997, eighteen years before “Hamilton” opened. You’ve probably never heard of the hit play I’m about to tell you about. Don’t feel bad, hardly anyone has, and of the hundreds of thousands of smart people who read and talked about it that year, scarcely anyone seems to remember it now. Strange how that happens.

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David of Reno
David of Reno
74
 

I run a small tech company and was wondering about the hiring opportunities that might be occurring due to people being fired for their opinions.  But the number of tech people fired for their opinions might be very small.  It seems to be more media and sports personalities Preview Open
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Bad Eagle’s Question

David Foster
David Foster
4114
 

The late Dr. David Yeagley, a Comanche Indian (traditional name ‘Bad Eagle’) and college professor, described an interaction that took place in one of his classes. (excerpted)

“LOOK, DR. YEAGLEY, I don’t see anything about my culture to be proud of. It’s all nothing. My race is just nothing.”

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Comedy Before Cancel Culture

David Deeble
David Deeble
2213
 

Before I was born my parents went to see Johnny Carson perform in Las Vegas. Carson’s Vegas act, my parents would later inform me approvingly, was nothing like the material he performed for millions of Americans nightly over the source of thirty years on The Tonight Show. This wasn’t just Vegas – it was 1960s Vegas: a sophisticated playground for adults, not the inclusive, family-oriented bastion of “zany” comedy that prevails today. 

Carson’s versatility was laudable, notwithstanding the widespread notion that the mere ability to perform R-rated material is disqualifying. My parents, typical of their generation, ate it up: they had no intention of making the four- or five-hour drive through the desert to spend an evening with Johnny Carson only to hear him deliver FCC-approved jokes about the Buffalo blizzard of ’77. (“How cold was it?!”)

Carson, who by then was a national figure and host of The Tonight Show and therefore had a lot to lose, instead regaled his audience with hilarious stories from his childhood, such as his barely-controllable anticipation for the arrival of National Geographic and the fodder it provided for his teenage sexual fantasies. 

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Seattle War Zone: Dori Monson Nails It

RushBabe49
RushBabe49
5515
 

In the past few days, there have been multiple shootings in downtown Seattle. Ordinary citizens are wondering if they should be going there at all, and are expressing their opinions publicly. Local businesses are appealing to city government to improve conditions in their neighborhoods, so they are not confronted with drug deals, gang shootings, and homeless people in their doorways on a daily basis.

Dori Monson, a host on KIRO Radio, has published an excellent article on the local site MyNorthwest.com. He attributes many of Seattle’s problems to the city’s elected officials, many of whom are politically-correct 1960s radicals who now hold the power. City police, distrusted by many, seem powerless to stop the rampant crime and drug dealing. Criminals with multiple felony convictions are released onto the streets to continue their mayhem. Respected local businesses, like Bartell Drugs and Barnes and Noble Booksellers are closing shop, leaving empty storefronts behind.

But the Citizens of Seattle elect their Government. Too bad they get what they elect.

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City Journal's 10 Blocks

Theodore Dalrymple on Elite Medical Journals and the Criminal Underclass

34
Hosted by Brian C. Anderson

Anthony Daniels (known to readers as Theodore Dalrymple) joins Brian Anderson to discuss Daniels’s quarter-century of writing for City Journal and his new book, False Positive: A Year of Error, Omission, and Political Correctness in The New England Journal of Medicine.

“Theodore Dalrymple” first appeared in the pages of City Journal in 1994 with an aptly titled essay,“The Knife Went In,” which recounted conversations he had had with violent felons during his time as a physician in a British inner-city hospital and prison. Since then, Daniels has written nearly 500 articles for City Journal. Selections of his essays have been compiled in the books Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass (2001) and Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses (2005).

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