Thursday roundup

 As an English major and someone who understands that Western civilization has been a unique blessing to humankind, this strikes me as about as dark and absurd a move as an educational institution could make:

The University of Leicester will stop teaching the great English medieval poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer in favour of modules on race and sexuality, according to new proposals.

Management told the English department that courses on canonical works would be dropped in favour of modules that "students expect" as part of plans now under consultation.

Foundational texts such asThe Canterbury Tales and the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf would no longer be taught, under proposals to scrap medieval literature. Instead, the English faculty will be refocused to drop centuries of the literary canon and deliver a "decolonised" curriculum devoted to diversity.

Academics now facing redundancy were told via email: "The aim of our proposals [is] to offer a suite of undergraduate degrees that provide modules which students expect of an English degree."

New modules described as "excitingly innovative" would cover: "A chronological literary history, a selection of modules on race, ethnicity, sexuality and diversity, a decolonised curriculum, and new employability modules."

A quick aside: If I never hear the word "module" again, it will be too soon.

At The National Interest, Sumantra Maitra looks at how a grotesque development like this came to be:

Why is it, that suddenly, faculty and academia seem so powerless in stopping the onslaught of “wokery,” to use the terminology of Member of Parliament Jacob Rees-Mogg? In my research for the Martin Center, I wrote about the pattern in which normal and high-functioning discipline gets hijacked from within by activist academics, who then proceed to control funding and committees and then channel all research and teaching potential towards activism. To use a feminist pedagogical tradition, these academics are like viruses, determined to kill what they consider hetero-patriarchal western canons from within.  

But that is also a partial argument. Ultimately, this also demonstrated the logic and flaws of a purely market-based approach which is prevalent in modern conservatism. Consider the fact that in the last thirty years, there has been a 10 percent increase in faculty, in colleges, compared to a whopping 221 percent increase in administration and bureaucracy. That, more than anything, explains the emetic “self-help” jargon-filled direction of academia. Risk-averse bureaucracy, are designed for self-sustaining and expanding. Transforming academia to a market-oriented approach has made students consumers, and the university administrations are designed to enhance that consumer experience. On one hand, the massification of academia has destroyed quality and hierarchy, in favor of forced equality in outcome. On the other hand, a consumerist approach has absorbed all the market dictated dogma, where bureaucrats, with overwhelming power and limited intellect or appreciation about the historic tradition and purpose of higher-ed, are practically ignorant about what destruction they are bringing in.  

I like a quote she includes from the great Kevin Williamson:

“Well-off white women from elite colleges run the diversity-and-sensitivity racket like the 17th-century Dutch ran the tulip racket, like the De Beers cartel used to run diamonds. Big Caitlyn is getting paid."

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is dismayed and, it sounds to me, anyway. insulted that the Biden administration has put the squelch on the Keystone XL pipeline.  

At his Substack site The Weekly Dish, Andrew Sullivan looks at Joe Biden's preference for the term "equity" over the term "equality."

 . . .  Biden’s speech and executive orders . . . explicitly replace the idea of equality in favor of what anti-liberal critical theorists call “equity.” They junk equality of opportunity in favor of equality of outcomes. Most people won’t notice that this new concept has been introduced — equity, equality, it all sounds the same — but they’ll soon find out the difference.

In critical theory, as James Lindsay explains, “‘equality’ means that citizen A and citizen B are treated equally, while ‘equity’ means adjusting shares in order to make citizen A and B equal.” Here’s how Biden defines “equity”: “the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.” 

In less tortured English, equity means giving the the named identity groups a specific advantage in treatment by the federal government over other groups — in order to make up for historic injustice and “systemic” oppression. Without “equity”, the argument runs, there can be no real “equality of opportunity.” Equity therefore comes first. Until equity is reached, equality is postponed — perhaps for ever.

Two imporant documents of position by the bishops of two major Christian denominations. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops on abortion (including clear and forthright urging of President Biden to strongly oppose it) and a pastoral statement from the Anglican Church in North America on sexuality and identity.

Two National Bureau of Economic Research economists have put out a paper that cuts through all the conflicting findings about the minimum wage by crunching the numbers of every paper on the minimum wage published since 1992. Their takeaway is that 79.3 percent of the assessments are that it is detrimental.

Speaking of the minimum wage, here's a 1987 New York Times editorial entitled "The Right Minimum Wage: Zero."

If a higher minimum means fewer jobs, why does it remain on the agenda of some liberals? A higher minimum would undoubtedly raise the living standard of the majority of low-wage workers who could keep their jobs. That gain, it is argued, would justify the sacrifice of the minority who became unemployable. The argument isn't convincing. Those at greatest risk from a higher minimum would be young, poor workers, who already face formidable barriers to getting and keeping jobs. Indeed, President Reagan has proposed a lower minimum wage just to improve their chances of finding work.

A scholar from an Israeli think thank and the founder of a policy center in the United Arab Emirates have teamed up to write a Foreign Policy piece imploring the Biden administration not to re-enter the JCPOA: 

For the United States to simply return to the nuclear agreement would be a major strategic blunder. The deal was based on assumptions that ultimately proved flawed and overly optimistic. The accord did not tame Iran’s policies, empower moderates in Tehran, pave a path to a good-faith relationship with Iran allowing for further cooperation, or “block all of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon.” Rather, from 2015 onward, Iran increased its support to regional proxies. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remained the ultimate decision-maker as the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) grew more influential. Tehran deceived the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding the military dimensions of its nuclear program despite committing to act in good faith, and it continued researching and developing advanced centrifuges that could significantly shorten its breakout time. If a future Iran policy is to avoid producing a similar outcome, it must counter Iran’s malign regional activities and resist the temptation to try to game Iran’s political dynamics. At the same time, it should allow for a more intrusive inspections regime and more restrictive and longer-lasting restraints on Iran's nuclear program.

At Foreign Affairs, Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise institute takes in the full scope of America's current place on the world stage and offers a sober, grown-up view of the way to proceed:

The right answer—and it is a deeply conventional one—is to build a sense of continuity in national security and end the search for that elusive, game-changing reset button. Americans should admit that the economic and geostrategic shifts afoot may not benefit the United States, that it’s not all Trump’s fault, and that the advent of a new administration will not herald a new dawn in the United States’ relationship with the world. With humility, the U.S. goal should be to build domestic and international consensus around improvements that can right its course. 

A Los Angeles Times column by Chris Stirewalt on why he got canned by Fox News:

The rebellion on the populist right against the results of the 2020 election was partly a cynical, knowing effort by political operators and their hype men in the media to steal an election or at least get rich trying. But it was also the tragic consequence of the informational malnourishment so badly afflicting the nation.

When I defended the call for Biden in the Arizona election, I became a target of murderous rage from consumers who were furious at not having their views confirmed. 

Having been cosseted by self-validating coverage for so long, many Americans now consider any news that might suggest that they are in error or that their side has been defeated as an attack on them personally. The lie that Trump won the 2020 election wasn’t nearly as much aimed at the opposing party as it was at the news outlets that stated the obvious, incontrovertible fact.

Emma Green at The Atlantic on Adam Kinzinger's deep concern on the poisonous effect Trumpism has had on evangelical Christianity.