/lit/ - Literature

>>15907559

>But a few years ago we moved back to the college town where I grew up, which gave me a close vantage point on young-meritocratic life again. Some of the striving culture that Brooks described remains very much in place. But talking to students and professors, the most striking difference is the disappearance of serenity, the evaporation of contentment, the spread of anxiety and mental illness — with the reputed scale of antidepressant use a particular stark marker of this change.

>I don’t think this alteration just reflects a darkening vision of the wider world, a fear of climate change or Donald Trump. It also reflects a transformation within the meritocracy itself — a sense in which, since 2001, the system has consistently been asking more of ladder climbers and delivering less as its reward.

>The scholar Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut, whose work on the cycles of American history may have predicted this year’s unrest, has a phrase that describes part of this dynamic: the “overproduction of elites.” In the context of college admissions that means exactly what it sounds like: We’ve had a surplus of smart young Americans pursuing admission to a narrow list of elite colleges whose enrollment doesn’t expand with population, even as foreign students increasingly compete for the same stagnant share of slots.

>>15907559
>Ivy League
lol

>>15907574

>Then, having run this gantlet, our meritocrats graduate into a big-city ecosystem where the price of adult goods like schools and housing has been bid up dramatically, while important cultural industries — especially academia and journalism — supply fewer jobs even in good economic times. And they live half in these crowded, over-competitive worlds and half on the internet, which has extended the competition for status almost infinitely and weakened some of the normal ways that local prestige might compensate for disappointing income.

>These stresses have exposed the thinness of meritocracy as a culture, a Hogwarts with SATs instead of magic, a secular substitute for older forms of community, tradition or religion. For instance, it was the frequent boast of Obama-era liberalism that it had restored certain bourgeois virtues — delayed childbearing, stable marriages — without requiring anything so anachronistic as Christianity or courtship rituals. But if your bourgeois order is built on a cycle of competition and reward, and the competition gets fiercer while the rewards diminish, then instead of young people hooking up safely on the way to a lucrative job and a dual-income marriage with 2.1 kids, you’ll get young people set adrift, unable to pair off, postponing marriage permanently while they wait for a stability that never comes.

>Which brings us to the subject invoked in this column’s title — the increasing appeal, to these unhappy young people and to their parents and educators as well, of an emergent ideology that accuses many of them of embodying white privilege, and of being “fragile,” in the words of the now-famous anti-racism consultant Robin DiAngelo, if they object or disagree.

>>15907590

>Part of this ideology’s appeal is clearly about meaning and morality: The new anti-racism has a confessional, religious energy that the secular meritocracy has always lacked. But there is also something important about its more radical and even ridiculous elements — like the weird business that increasingly shows up in official documents, from the New York Public Schools or the Smithsonian, describing things like “perfectionism” or “worship of the written word” or “emphasis on the scientific method” or “delayed gratification” as features of a toxic whiteness.

>Imagine yourself as a relatively privileged white person exhausted by meritocracy — an overworked student or a fretful parent or a school administrator constantly besieged by both. (Given the demographics of this paper’s readership, this may not require much imagination.)

>Wouldn’t it come as a relief, in some way, if it turned out that the whole “exhausting ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Red Queen Race of full-time meritocratic achievement,” in the words of a pseudonymous critic, was nothing more than a manifestation of the very white supremacy that you, as a good liberal, are obliged to dismantle and oppose? If all the testing, all the “delayed gratification” and “perfectionism,” was, after all, just itself a form of racism, and in easing up, chilling out, just relaxing a little bit, you can improve your life and your kid’s life and, happily, strike an anti-racist blow as well?

>>15907590
Thank you, this seems interesting.

>>15907602

>And wouldn’t it be especially appealing if — and here I’m afraid I’m going to be very cynical — in the course of relaxing the demands of whiteness you could, just coincidentally, make your own family’s position a little bit more secure?

>For instance: Once you dismiss the SAT as just a tool of white supremacy, then it gets easier for elite schools to justify excluding the Asian-American students whose standardized-test scores keep climbing while white scores stay relatively flat. Or again: If you induce inner-city charter schools to disavow their previous stress on hard work and discipline and meritocratic ambition, because those are racist, too — well, then their minority graduates might become less competitive with your own kids in the college-admissions race as well.

>Not that anyone is consciously thinking like this. What I’m describing is a subtle and subconscious current, deep down in the progressive stream.

>But deep currents can run strong. And if the avowed intention of the moment is to challenge “white fragility” and yet lots of white people seem strangely enthusiastic about the challenge, it’s worth considering that maybe a different kind of fragility is in play: The stress and unhappiness felt by meritocracy’s strivers, who may be open to a revolution that seems to promise more stability and less exhaustion, and asks them only to denounce the “whiteness” of a system that’s made even its most successful participants feel fragile and existentially depressed.

>>15907610

Yeah no problem, was wondering what /lit/ would think.

I’ve seen people Twitter argue that there isn’t elite overproduction because you’re still likely to have a much better life with a Bachelor’s degree then a person without one.

>>15907559
American culture is centered around niggers. They have holidays for niggers. They killed hundreds of thousands of white men to free niggers. They listen to nigger music. They elect a nigger as their president. They dress and act like niggers. They draw the entirety of their modern culture from niggers. They post sassy gifs about niggers. They watch sportsball in worship of niggers. Their biggest event of the year involves throwing parties in honor of niggers playing sports. They use nigger slang like "bruh" and "thot". When you say "Martin Luther" they're not thinking of the father of protestantism. They're thinking of the nigger. Their cities are completely overrun with niggers. They worship their ZOGbot police force disproportionately filled with niggers and their global police force of soldiers filled with niggers. Their men sit around watching nigger ball while their women sit around watching nigger talk shows. They worship niggers like Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson and Jackie Robinson while attacking the whites who actually built their country before niggers took over. Their movies are filled with niggers and their music charts are topped by niggers. They send niggers to the Olympics and celebrate when the niggers win because those niggers are true red blooded american niggers. They watch nigger porn to a point where "BBC" does not make them think of an international media company but about nigger penises instead. They will tell you how much they hate niggers and how the mutt's law meme is a stale joke and they are just pretending to love niggers but the evidence speaks for itself in that America has always been and will be a nation of nigger loving niggers.

>>15907640
Take your meds.

>>15907627
Yeah I don't really understand his point about that. White parents are going to encourage academic institutions to focus less on achievements (in the name of anti-racism) because the rewards for their white kids are likely to be burnout and other negatives?

>>15907620
>What I’m describing is a subtle and subconscious current
Haha wow what a way to immediately throw everything you're writing into the trash

>>15907559
Douthat is the smartest 'conservative' writing for a mainstream American newspaper today. His columns are always full of insight. Cultural conservatives and leftists should really get along better, given that we hate the exact same people.

>>15907659
He’s basically saying that things like SATs and other methods of academic achievement cause stress for whites.

So by saying they’re racist they won’t have to do them anymore and they do in the good cause of anti-racism.

>>15907677
Basically, college has become more competitive for lesser rewards (chances of success). Saying the ways of achieving these successes are racist makes it easier to achieve them.

>>15907667
He’s actually a principled Paleoconservative (Social conservative, economically Left) unlike Donald Trump.

>>15907574
>Peter Turchin
Thoughts on this guy?
I've seen his work mentioned here and there, and it seems interesting, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about statistics to determine whether it's trustworthy. Apparently he was able to predict political instability in the 2020s ten years in advance, but the writing might have already been on the wall by then.

>>15907727
Not sure, honestly haven’t read his stuff.

>>15907727
He is brilliant. Highly recommend.

15907559

Total population of ivy league schools: 150,000

Total population of college age white people: 29,200,000

So Douthat the conservative white elitist thinks that .5% of the population that strives and goes to ivy league schools speaks for and is representative of the other 99.5%.

Wow! At least he is a consistent conservative asshole totally incapable of seeing outside of his white privilege, just like Brooks.

The thing about reading is it is supposed to expand your point of view, not entrench it.

>>15907677
>>15907690
Ah okay, but how do whites expect to make it into college etc if SATs etc aren't a means of selecting those who work the hardest etc?

Is he implying that simply having a degree (even if not as the result of hard work) will still work in the favour of whites due to nepotism or systemic racism in corporations etc?

I'm in my high school's alumni group on FB. It's a magnet school focused on STEM, so lots of high achievers are fed into ivy leagues and good state schools. Since saint floyd got killed, people went into a frenzy over renaming the school, overhauling its admissions process to let more black people in (but no mention of hispanics ofc), etc.. The people going into hysterics and trying to push and bully others out of the group for not following the mob are never the high achiever types who you knew had 4.0s, worked in finance or tech after graduating, or went into good phd programs. They were either run of the mill resume-padding pussies who washed out in college, or fat white/asian/hispanic-but-actually-white millennial women and s*yboys that i never heard of.

moral of the story is fuck western women and weak men and fuck neoliberalism, thanks for reading my blog

>>15907763
The Ivy League population includes foreign students (Of which there are a lot of at Ivies).

What he is saying that there is are more elites in America that strive for the Ivies, but the Ivies can’t take all of them in. So they want to do away of the traditional methods of getting in so they can get in.

Removing things like SATs would get rid of a lot of Asian applicants to places like Harvard.

Lol I'm not reading that. Fuck niggers.

>>15907763
You're missing the point. All the insane woke bullshit is emanating from that 0.5% of the population. They are the source of the problem.

>>15907640

>>15907727
Douthat references the concept (intra-elite competition) that Turchin talks about here: http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/intra-elite-competition-a-key-concept-for-understanding-the-dynamics-of-complex-societies/

>>15907770
In this age of America having a college degree literally gives another level jobs. Ivy League ones especially signal you’re a part of the elite.

But there are starting to be more Bachelors degree holders. Look up credentialism.

Doing away with the SATs would have a lot less Asian students go to Harvard, since Asians score the the highest on those tests, while white people did to do a lot more extracurricular activities.

The celebrity college admission scandal that happened like a year ago is a part of all this. Rich celebs children weren’t actually smart enough or did enough to get into good colleges, so they bribed the way for their children to get in.

>>15907640
grow up

>>15907801
>>15907650
>>15907816
These posts brought to you by braindead ledditors

>>15907795
In a way this handwringing of elites over black people isn’t new. America always had some sort of high-class WASPy culture who did things of charity (Although these were really all for show and didn’t really change the lives of many people).

>>15907814
Fair enough. In the UK I guess there is a similar debate taking place; elite university places are now determined not so much on connections (as they were pre-1950s), and not even so much on academic achievement (which still favours rich white people at private schools), but more on race and diversity (socio-economic and racial), so I can see that placing less emphasis on academic achievement would save high-achieving, hard-working whites (especially in private schools) from having to work so hard, I just don't understand how doing away with academic achievement as a basis for attaining a place in an elite university would favour such people, given that diversity is now already the focal point in university admissions.

>>15907850
>psychoanalysis
Meaningless

>>15907868
It's definitely a fast track to a crumbling society.

When you base your society around equality of results instead equality of opportunity. You are convincing the truly intelligent to drop out since they see there is no point in working hard.

>>15907790
Came here to post this.

>>15907782
>Removing things like SATs would get rid of a lot of Asian applicants to places like Harvard.
It's curious to me that the Asian-American community hasn't coalesced into a voting block to confront this new racial gospel, considering they have much to loose in face of many of these proposed policies.

I don't necessarily think they'd join a coalition with whites (although at the moment, it seems that a lot of their interests line up), but rather act as a more cohesive, insular voting block similar to blacks.

Perhaps I haven't noticed any movement because my locale in the US has a very small Asian community. Does such an organization exist on the west coast?

>>15907929
Asians tried to sue Harvard for discriminating them so that there was more room for coloreds but their lawsuit failed, unfortunately.

I hate to admit it, but Douthat is one of the only columnists writing today who’s worth reading.

Obviously his view point is extremely skewed since he himself went to an Ivy and writes for the NYT. But I think this basic idea that upper-middle-class white college graduates being attracted to SJW culture has something to do with performance anxiety has something to it. My own experience has led me to make that connection to.

>>15907559
This is all well and good, but what happens when America starts running up against nations that simply don't care about these issues? Say what you will, but Chinese people as a rule work extremely hard, and don't complain.

>>15907929
Look up Wesley Yang, he’s a Korean-American writer who talks a lot about issues of Asians in the race debate in America.

He very much sees an SJW way of thinking that makes Asians not part of the racial underclass liberals want to elevate.

Also, they were in the news a while ago but there is an Asian group suing Harvard for racial discrimination because they basically admitted that the personality test on their admissions was to make sure that not too many Asians got in.

>>15907814
The SAT is a bad test, though. It doesn't measure potential, it measures preparation. The wealthy can afford to pay for SAT prep courses, etc. A straight-up IQ test would be better. Something relatively culture-neutral like Raven's Progressive Matrices.

>>15907620
>Once you dismiss the SAT as just a tool of white supremacy, then it gets easier for elite schools to justify excluding the Asian-American students whose standardized-test scores keep climbing while white scores stay relatively flat.
is he seriously not going to mention what would happen to the other minorities

>>15907559
>>15907574
>>15907590
>>15907602
>>15907620
it's not a bad thesis, he should skip to the part where he acknowledges that neo-liberal capitalist society is a dystopian nightmare for Whites and everyone else, and that even progressives intrinsically know this despite not being able to articulate it.

>>15907951
I thought they were bringing it to the Supreme Court? (Which takes a long while.)

>>15907929
It's definitely fermenting. Asian males in particular are getting fed up with being cast as a "model minority", only to have their issues/concerns ignored.

>>15907962
>It doesn't measure potential, it measures preparation.
Are you sure? Since you mentioned IQ tests, the SAT correlates very well with IQ.

>>15907964
No, because liberals basically already say it out loud. That since minorities aren’t scoring as high as Whites and Asians it must be racist, so we should do away with it.

>>15907929
They recently tried to sue an Ivy League school for excluding Asians based off race to satisfy affirmative action programs. They have their own version of NCAAP. You might see more push back as time moves forward, especially since non-Ivy universities like UCLA/USC are starting to put a cap on the number of Asians they allow in per semester as well.

>>15907961
>>15907951
That Harvard lawsuit was promising, I just don't understand why all elite institutions (and the prestigious schools in the UC system, in addition) aren't all faced with a tidal wave of similar lawsuits.

>>15907908
Isn't one of the points in the article that there are fewer rewards even to those who are intelligent etc, that society basically doesn't need (and perhaps never has needed) all that many "truly intelligent" individuals and that a culture of mandatory higher educational achievement is just producing a generation of bitter, indebted, disillusioned people? In the UK at least the late 1990s / early 2000s involved the Labour government championing the slogan "Education, Education, Education" which has resulted in university education becoming pretty much the expected norm for people who really have no desire and often no real financial means of studying at a university, but do so nonetheless, paying increasingly higher fees while studying less and earning far less than expected upon graduating.

>>15907959
China has a cheating problem in their high schools, national exams, and universities. This leads to unqualified people filling roles in government/business. At one point teachers in some province of China tried to institute a no-cheating policy on the National Exam and students protested. They argued that by not letting them cheat they are being put at a disadvantage vs their peers in other provinces.

>>15907971
I'm looking at a couple of articles and that seems to be the course they are taking

>>15907982
Correlating 'very well' doesn't cut it. A genius from the ghetto is unlikely to know all of the obscure vocabulary words the test throws at him.

>>15907967
He’s a Catholic paleoconservative who basically believes in a social democratic state with good borders (Although he’s condemned the child separation policy, he just wants a system that would prevent illegal immigrants from working). He also wants a Universal health care system (But of course that doesn’t cover abortion or contraceptives).

He also wants some morality laws (He wrote a column about wanting to ban Porn), although he doesn’t consider himself to be an integralist.

>>15907990
>and the prestigious schools in the UC system, in addition)
Because we're already flooded with Asians. These schools are literally majority Asian.

Interesting article, but not a new thought. Nozick wrote extensively on intellectuals hating capitalism/meritocracy because it divorces their success in academia from real-world success. And I guess you can say this whole ressentiment shit goes back as far as Nietzsche

>>15907962
Problem is if any test shows that there is a vast difference in scores between races the test will be called racist.

>>15907962
>The SAT is a bad test, though. It doesn't measure potential, it measures preparation. The wealthy can afford to pay for SAT prep courses
I believe studies regarding SAT/ACT prep course efficiency show that they usually only help bump scores by 10-30 points (SAT test score standard deviation is typically around 120). So extensive prep work typically won't get a mediocre student across the line to an exclusive school, but it may help you if you're on the threshold.

>>15908011
>"Education, Education, Education"
The focus should be on secondary school. Scrap the current curriculum and teach kids how to think critically and be informed citizens.

>>15908011
Yes, but things can always get worse.

>>15908039
lol can you imagine a team of progressives trying to figure out how to make a test that every race gets the same score on

>>15908034
The whole new way of praising minorities is just a new form of Orientalism that praises “exotic” cultures. The people who embrace it the most probably have the least amount of time spent with black people, so they want to make up for it (And deep down, they realize they are a part of their active oppression so they do feel guilt).

>>15908040
Yeah, that's bullshit. Anyone can get a high score if they put in the work. The college board needs people to believe its tests are prep-proof so they don't question their legitimacy. That's why they sponsor these 'studies'.

>>15908039
They already make that argument regarding the SAT. And they have a point since the test is quite culture-bound relative to an IQ test.

What disingenuous nonsense that someone would favour an agenda explicitly hostile to their ethnic group because the policies would benefit them.

They do it because outwardly conforming to the current dogma is a requisite for short-term social advancement, even if in the long-term it would be detrimental to their career and life. These simpering brownnosers would be good fascists in Mussolini's Italy, and resolute communists under Stalin's gaze.

At this point in time I honestly believe we should switch affirmative action from being based on race to being based on familial income, so smarter poor kids do have a chance.

>>15908088
They think themselves as the “good” whites (Yes, even if they admit to being “racist,” think of it like religious sin). So they don’t really think there criticisms apply to themselves.

It’s cognitive dissonance.

>>15908085
I know. I was just pointing out any attempt to replace the SAT with a new test would fail if the results show an achievement gap between races. Soon I'm sure grades will be done away with as well. When I was going through high school in the 00's they got rid of F's because they thought it had a negative effect on the students self esteem. I heard rumblings they are going to do away with red ink for grading because it makes the student think they did something wrong.

>>15908090
In my experience, almost all the poor, smart kids who went to expensive universities did. My high school was proactive in providing them with lists of scholarships that they could apply to (they practically forced college-bound kids to fill out scholarship applications). In the end, almost all of them were able to get functionally a full ride scholarship for their undergrad degree.

I guess the difference here is that my high school actually had counselors that gave a shit about their students. The trouble is this is an anomaly across public schools in the US, and I'm not sure what the solution is.

>>15907627
Yes, having a BA will open more doors for you in terms of employment opportunities, but that's not the issue that the "elite overproduction" meme refers to. "Elite" in this context refers to a very specific kind of "non-productive" employment - e.g. journalism, academia, government, think tanks. These jobs stand outside the "real" economy in the sense that there's no "market" demand for them - they exist primarily due to the largesse of big donors who want to use their money to make some contribution to culture, whether through a one time check or an endowment. "Elite overproduction" means that too universities are producing too many qualified applicants for these jobs, the numbers of which are basically fixed and are only going to shrink as we enter a recession and wealthy donors and institutions tighten their belts.

>>15908136
Which way big newspapers “go woke.” It’s a way to keep subscribers.

>>15908174
*Which is why

>>15908174
I don't think so. Tucker Carlson has insane ratings but his advertisers are still pulling out. doesn't really add up

>>15908184
Newspapers like NYT and Washington Post appeal to the elites of those cities.

Carlson appeals to white conservative middle and working class of heartland states.

>>15908174
WSJ didn't go woke. Check out their "Myth of Systemic Police Racism" article.

>>15908195
I mean in general I dont think companies are going woke to make money. NYT doesnt exist to make money anyway

>>15908184
>>15908195

Also, like this anon said>>15908136
Less journalism jobs means only children from richer families will become journalists (Ronan Farrow is an example). Since the best journalist jobs are in the big metro areas, it’s going to be children of liberal coastal elites who start to run those papers.

>>15908203
WSJ was also the paper who initially accused Pewdiepie of being racist.

>>15908203
im a bit surprised how close WSJ is going to crimethink recently.

>>15908195
>working class
Lmao.

>>15908217
Piewdiepie's subscriber count went up after that, it got him a ton of exposure outside of his usual demographics.

>>15908205
NYT wants readers to think of itself as a sacred institution that should never go under (If it would it will be the end of democracy itself).

Going “woke” just represents the feelings of the elites in those cities now who subscribe and donate to that magazine.

>>15908219
Right? I remember some op-ed by Nikki Haley a while back about American capitalism and meritocracy or something, and thought damn how did they publish something so based?

>>15908230
But it still damaged his reputation among elite media groups. YouTube cancelled his professional show, and at this point no big media company wants anything to really do with him (Admittedly, he shot himself in the foot saying the N-word).

>>15908233
Gotta love the NY Post for publishing an article the other day about how the original founders of the NYT owned slaves. Haha. The NY Post also was the first to talk about the Wuhan virology lab, and all kinds of other based shit the bourgeois papers won't touch.

>>15908233
did you see there was a sort of coup by the younger staff there recently? the NYT is literally itself part of 'the elites in those cities', it doesn't offer much money but it offers a lot of power and prestige.

>>15908246
I think he did it on purpose as a publicity stunt. He said the "n-word" once before on a live stream when he was gaming or something, and it went viral and helped him get a lot of exposure, so I think he tried to push his luck again and did succeed in getting as far as the front page of the WSJ, but caught more blowback than it was worth.

>>15908203
WSJ is still the paper of Neoconservatives (The center of right who don’t like Trump and agree with neoliberals about interventionist foreign policy and cutting taxes for the rich).

>>15908259
Yep, saw it. It’s just new elites getting rid of the old ones so that they have more power.

>>15908266
They were the only voice of sanity during the Russia Hoax though, so even if Trumpism isn't their preferred approach to capitalism, they didn't go wacky and start posting fake news.

>>15908249
Isn’t the Post at this point mostly for the Italians in Staten Island who still vote Republican?

>>15908266
WaPo has the nastiest anti-Trump Republicans on staff of any of them. Jennifer Rubin is always writing some disingenuous concern trolling bullshit about Trump. I stopped looking at The Post. It's the same shit as the NY Times, but a day late and with an uglier typeface.

>>15908273
Yeah, they are publishing guys like Michael Tracey who rails against what journalism has become (And gets a ton of hate on Twitter because of it, he just mocks everyone).

>>15908288
It's the cheapest paper (other than that free one they give out in the subway, i forgot the name now that I'm doing remote work I don't see it) and the writing is basic, and has a lot of juicy crime shit, so working stiffs tend to read it on the train. It's def low brow, but doesn't pull any punches.

>>15908292
>I stopped looking at The Post.

To be clear, I stopped looking at the Washington Post, and started looking at the NY Post.

Also, it really does suck all these local papers are being out of business so that people are forced to read these elite-driven papers.

>>15908301
>has a lot of juicy crime shit

Speaking of that, they're reporting there was just a hit on a federal judge's family in NJ. Damn, DeBlasio even got the fucking mob comin' back.

>>15908325
>a hit on a federal judge's family
I can hardly imagine they didn't deserve it but who and why?

>>15907850
The problem with this argument is that it's completely unverifiable. You can always claim that people are supporting a cause because they secretly believe the opposite, much harder to prove that.

>>15908319
Things cost money and nobody wants to pay for news anymore.

>>15908355
But it’s not that hard to imagine many white elites growing up barely being around black people (And if they do a lot of times it’s servants).

Life is hell
Agriculture was a mistake

>>15908340
>Salas, 51, has handled cases involving members of the Grape Street Crips, in connection with a long-running drug-trafficking network that was taken down by the FBI in 2015. She was also the judge who sent Real Housewives stars Joe and Teresa Giudice to prison.

Looks like they didn't die, just got shot. So a warning not a hit. Still, this is like some 80s shit.

>>15908358
Which is why papers go “woke.” They make themselves as essential to the causes so people will feel a duty to support it.

>>15907666
Society almost entirely operates on subconscious currents.

>>15907929
>I don't necessarily think they'd join a coalition with whites

That's where they are being stupid.

>>15908380
Her son was murdered and her husband is in critical condition.

https://newjerseyglobe.com/judiciary/son-of-federal-judge-slain-husband-in-critical-condition/

>>15908389
Asians are conservative but they still don’t really identify with Trump-supporting whites (A lot of his immigration policies would stop family members who want to immigrate).

>>15908039
Not really the fact that different groups might on average perform worse on a test says nothing about inherent intelligence.

>>15908383
it used to be that public figures were accountable to the press, the press now appears to be accountable to retards on twitter. As much as I generally don't like journalists this strikes me as an even worse setup

>>15908403
So many journalists live on Twitter now they consider it the real world.

>>15908403
The thing is though, the NY Times is consistently on the wrong side of history. If you go read some shit from the archive 100 years ago, it's gonna be straight yikes. 100 years from now the shit they're printing today will look equally bad. The future Asian elite class in America will probably look back at early 21st century white bashing as poor taste and cruel.

The press has always been shit, why do people defend it at any point in history?

>>15908011
They're trapped. Just finished reading ISaiF last night and this is the epitome of what Ted is saying. As technology advances, there's increasing redundancy at the lower levels, so low-end jobs get phased out. The reaction is to press the required education further and further in intensity and demand to keep the newly-opened tech positions filled. This process is exhausting. The amount of information required is often ridiculous and much of it is redundant or even outright unnecessary. The masses are sold on this because "These are high tech jobs, they'll pay well!" but that's a lie. The jobs are high tech but they're just the common factory jobs of a century ago, with more requirements. Your average code monkey IT specialist is the equivalent of a union man of the 20's , but with years of required training beforehand.

Parents have started to grasp this as of the dot com bubble but their reaction is "Well you just have to work HARDER, so you can get MORE education and get HIGHER UP!". No one has yet conceived of a solution. The answer is probably communes of families living in shared areas and with shared utilities, to reduce redundancies, and encouraged not to aim high but to be content and rely on each other. That way they can be financially stable without needing to be upper-middle class. But that would require an enormous shift in the way modern industrial life is organized, so it's unlikely to happen overnight if at all.

>>15908266
>>15908273
I gotta give WSJ credit for publishing Heather MacDonald and Jason Riley on why #BLM is nonsense. Cops are not especially violent towards blacks. In fact they're *less* violent.

They won't talk about the fentanyl, but fuck it, that's just one guy. They tell the truth about the big picture.

>>15908383
Disagree. They pander to what their presumed base is. If going woke was the only way to make money as a news outlet then Fox News/OAN/Alex Jones and all the other right journos would go under. Heck the Sinclair Broadcast Group is center right and they own most of the local broadcast news channels in the US.

>>15908459
The papers that go woke usually were always marketed towards coastal liberals, who are going woke.

The people you name were always aimed at middle class inland America.

>>15908367
Oh for sure large swaths of white America have little to no contact with Black people. Is it theoretically possible that a lot of the hand wringing from whites about racism might be motivated from some sort of guilt? Sure it's theoretically possible, but again pretty hard to know, and even if all the concern about racism today was motivated by guilt--which it surely isn't--even then that wouldn't make their support necessarily wrong if the issues they describe are real.

>>15908459
>>15908470
the problem is that newspapers are an essential component in the beliefs of the people who read them, so it's not simply about pandering, they are also shaping the cultural landscape within which they pander.

>>15908478
Like the article says it might also be a new version of religion, since the old ones are decreasing rapidly (Especially in major cities).

>>15908478
Are you unironically doing the w/B thing

>>15908436
Part of the push for higher education for everyone is delaying entry into the workforce for the next generation. Boomers and older are still holding onto their jobs. Industry feed into the higher education industrial complex by forcing even the most entry level positions to have college educations.

>>15908480
But with the Internet decreasing their profits they do have to more and more write things that will get more subscribers.

>>15908499
that's true. maybe in the future they will just tweet from their account lel

>>15908489
People have the need to be a part of a struggle/culture. This and fervent Trump support somewhat fills it.

>>15908494
Not familiar with what w/B is, you'll have to explain it to me.

>>15908478
The only people from rural predominantly white communities who are pro-BLM are the ones who are ashamed they live in rural white communities and dream of living in places like NYC/LA. They don't feel guilty, they think it makes them chic. The rest of their neighbors don't give a shit beyond "If those fuckers come here and pull this shit we'll shoot them/tell the police to shoot them".

>>15908513
white and Black

>>15908509
Michael Tracey basically already does that. He has a career because he uses Patreon and isn’t afraid to criticize the journalist establishment and do go against their narratives (While still criticizing Trump and conservatives).

>>15908497
There's a small part of me that wants to hope that we'll have an "American Renaissance" in this country when all of the Boomers are dead.

I genuinely am sometimes in awe of what a complete disaster Boomers have been as a generation. The degree to which they have utterly destroyed this country is astounding.

>>15908497
Some Silicon Valley places like Google have started phasing degree requirements. Instead they just have a multi-day hazing ritual involving doing leetcode trick problems on a whiteboard for 8 hours a day

>>15908513
you capitalize Black but not White

>>15908530
Maybe, even young conservatives criticize them now.

>>15908527
MT is based as hell. Shows what you can say when you don't have to suck the cut cock for your rent. The presstitutes HATE him to the point where they curse at him publicly but those frauds couldn't make a penny writing directly for an audience.

>>15908524
Not an argument.

>>15908530
Too bad the "boomer remover" didn't really live up to the hype.

>>15908535
My apologies.

>>15908535
And? It wasn't intentional I type really fast. I'm not in on all the latest /pol/ terminology so you'll have to educate me.

>>15908535
Yeah it’s a new thing some newspapers are doing when they mention races. In their style guide white isn’t capitalized but Black is. There’s a weird stupid reasoning behind it.

I saw one place decided they’ll capitalize both Black and White, but won’t capitalize white for things like white supremacy and white nationalism.

Elite overproduction is a meme term designed to pull attention away from the very real economic pressures that immigration, visas, and outsourcing have had on the economy.
>who the fuck do you think you are, believing that you deserve to have a good job? All those good jobs are for the Chinese now and my cousin.

>>15908530
Millennials are breaking like 75/25 woke and alt-right. But a lot of the woke are just going with the flow whereas the alt-right is a.) objectively correct and b.) actually committed. Vanishingly few people would suffer for wokeness, go underground, spend their own money, etc. They are angling for positions in institutions.

>>15908558
>capitalize White
like the Occidental Observer lol? I can't imagine that. Once White is a proper noun it's over

>>15908530
Don't worry. They will probably be worse on their way out than they are now while they cling to their positions. They will figure out a way to die in the most expensive/damaging to those around them ways possible. I don't mean damaging psychologically like suicide, but financially and environmentally. Watch it become a trend where they all want to get shot into space or have their bodies preserved in cryo so they can be woken up in the future when a cure for aging is found. Giant gray buildings dotting the American landscape full of cryotubes eating away at the electric grid 24/7. As the last of the boomers go, they have to build new substations while those who are still alive have to live with rolling brownouts.

>>15908561
Google/Apple/Amazon coming out in defense of the international student visas by saying American's aren't smart enough to fill our job openings made me laugh.

>>15908563
>the alt-right is a.) objectively correct
The entire realm of Christendom within it is backwards stupidity. That's the only thing keeping the alt-right from being objectively correct.

>>15908563
>They are angling for positions in institutions.

That's one of the main things that disillusioned me about the left. When I graduated, I realized all the activism I had spent time working on with my comrades were just extra-curriculars for their law school applications. Like I thought you were really down for the cause my dude! Ahh, I was fucking stupid.

>>15908563
I feel like the alt-right is waning in influence. But I do see a lot of younger Catholic paleoconservatives who are socially conservative but are for things like Universal healthcare and other welfare state stuff. They aren’t racist but are against open borders on economic grounds since they believe in economic nationalism.

>>15908573
They want cheap labor. You can easily control an immigrant worker by threatening to take their visa away.

>>15908561
Seriously though. The "elite overproduction" meme isn't going to be used for just journalists. It's going to be used for all the out-of-work tech workers that American companies don't want to hire because they'd have to pay them more.
A lot of people complain that this country is turning into South Africa but the worst part is that even assuming the worst exaggerations of race war are false we're still all massively screwed and likely to become Brazil if we don't start getting policies that protect American workers. Which let's be honest, just won't happen.

>>15908573
It's complete nonsense and everyone knows it. The jobs that Google/Apple/Amazon fill with Chinese and Indian workers are the ones that would have been filled by average American workers had they not been deemed too expensive. The remaining jobs for Americans are either all nepotistic management "jobs" or 100x programmers workaholic jobs.
We are heading towards a very awful world and no one cares enough to fix it.

>>15908568
Holy shit, boomers would totally do that! Or, get embalmed and seated on an autonomously driving Harley that tours the country based on the locations of a Grateful Dead tour from the 70s.

>>15908578
>The entire realm of Christendom within it is backwards stupidity.
found the racist

>>15907559
What a load of crap. Even if there was some standard-easing with respect to whites, all of the other facets of 'denouncing whiteness' would conspire to ensure that whites would not benefit from the new state of affairs. Affirmative action, quotas, inherent white racism, reparations, etc.

The REAL white fragility is our predisposition towards humanitarian social strategies (perhaps due to higher empathy capacity). This allows us to be 'gamed' by ethnocentric outgroups — to be guilted into surrendering our racial identities and concerns while silmutaneously accepting an increasing 'duty' towards those of outgroups. We are vulnerable to accepting these double-standards, because we are too trusting, too compassionate, too individualistic. These traits which were advantageous in the context of generally homogenous white nations have now become the matrix of real white fragility, and pose an existential threat to the entire European genetic cluster.

tl;dr REAL white fragility is our growing lack of ethnocentrism

>>15908599
Nah. Backwards stupidity comes in all colors.

>>15908596
There is a Christopher Buckley novel called Boomsday that just makes fun of the fake extravagance of Boomers. One point in the novel describes how instead of tombstones every Boomer wants a mausoleum and inside there is a screening of the self produced film adaptation of their lives played on infinite loop as if their lives were so important that they need a movie.

>>15908603
IMO the increased """meritocratic""" standards of today's society ARE a problem. The issue is that the only alternative involves giving up everything we have to ethnic outgroups that hate us. But if we don't start assessing those problems internally, we WILL get the alternative solution.

Christopher Lasch has been talking about elite overproduction and the decline of academic standards since the 70’s

>>15907929
Asians are extreme followers. They, more than anyone else, will vote against their best interest if public sentiment tells them to.

>>15907929
Asian Americans in America aren't a monolith. They absolutely bring their previous East Asian ethnic resentments with them.
Hell, a lot of "reporting" in America on the anime industry is pretty much the domain of gooks who use Americans' lack of nuance on race to deem themselves "experts" simply because they're Asian while they subtly try to enact petty revenge on Japan for WWII.

>>15908563
>Millennials are breaking like 75/25 woke and alt-right.
Identity politics is for retards only. If you are EITHER "woke" OR "redpilled", you need to be gassed. Millennials were a mistake.

>>15908631
It seems like the opposite to me, Asians seem to vote very much for their own interests.

>>15908018
Just because it isn't perfectly applicable to 100% of environmental backgrounds, doesn't mean it should be done away with.

And that kid from the ghetto likely benefited far more from AA than he was penalized for not having access to literature growing up.

>>15908389
I agree. Both groups are negatively targeted in different ways. Both groups are told to ignore nigger crime. In some areas Asians have been heavily targeted by niggers but the media refuses to cover it. Both groups are discriminated against by way of affirmative action like policy, especially Asians. But Asians don't like standing out, biological cowards, so they vote the way the Jewish media tells them to vote.

>>15908652
AA only applies to racial minorities and women.

>>15908340
>I can hardly imagine they didn't deserve it
kek

>>15907620
>For instance: Once you dismiss the SAT as just a tool of white supremacy, then it gets easier for elite schools to justify

Accepting bribes for admissions. Fixed it. Also top lel:

>Not that anyone is consciously thinking like this.

Trying to cover his ass.

>>15908628
That's just another symptom of our ponzi-scheme 'growth at all costs' economic model. If most women didn't work, if we didn't consume so many cheap/disposable consumer goods, didn't predicate so much wealth on increasing stock values, didn't allow endless mass immigration... Then many of these downstream symptoms wouldn't exist or would be less severe (elite overproduction/malignant credentialism included).

>>15908651
You mean like how they keep voting for Democrats who enact the policies that discriminate Asians applying for college?

>>15908657
Ah I assumed you were speaking about a black/hispanic person. Well libraries are free and there's a plethora of free prep courses available online.
And I'd imagine those Raven's Progressive Matrices can be gamed just like the SAT's, meaning that those from affluent backgrounds would perform marginally better.
As a matter of fact, I can't think of any test that wouldn't give the advantage to a wealthy kid versus a poor one, assuming IQ and work ethic were similar.

>>15908355
>much harder to prove that.

In a discussion with a Socialist friend of mine, he accidentally compared Blacks today to cavemen, only to retract his statement the moment I pointed out what he had just typed.

So.... Sometimes the proof just presents itself. Freudian slips man.

>>15908673
I agree. But now that we're here it's clear that we're operating on two different standards. And I think that's where a lot of conservatives fail. They see the rock bottom standards for blacks and think "damn kids, they don't have to do anything anymore!"
Meanwhile, for straight white males (even the ones with mental ilnesses like autistics) the standards have never been higher. We need to cover for everyone else AND give up any work-life balance we thought we deserved to have. My Dad still gets mad at me about why I don't want to work every single second of every hour when every time I've visited him at work he's chatting with his coworkers.

>>15908631
I disagree, they are very conformist with respect to their own people's authorities, but they tend to remain more ethnocentric than whites.

>>15907590
His thesis isn't wrong, he's just so mired in the midst of it and such an utter faggot that he can't make the logical leap required to any sort of conclusion...

also, "... price of adult goods and housing has been bid up dramatically, while important cultural industries - especially academia and journalism- supply fewer jobs even in good economic times".

How conceited and self-proud do you have to be to write "important cultural industries"?

>>15907962
You can also prepare and train for IQ test, the margin of progression is lesser than for the SAT but it's there. And measuring preparation isn't entirely bad since you want to be able to tell minimal-efforts students from dedicated and well-disciplined ones. Likewise a culturally neutral measure (assuming such a thing can exist) would fail to capture the many cultural traits that are desirable in an Ivy league student.

As a non-elite white male, I don't feel that participating in and aiding the growth of this society has any benefit to me (the opposite actually). I think the sort of anti-racist tripe that OP posted misses the underlying points of everything since it still buys into the system on the whole. And why wouldn't it? The people he's making a very tiny effort to nudge a little are his colleagues and fellow elites. The column is in the fucking New York Times. Fuck all of it.

>>15908058
>describe your family traditional meals in 300 words or less using your own language

>>15908578
so are you another jew who's shilling for materialism?"

>>15908682
Haha, yeah I've seen that boomer oblivousness too. It's like they've never honestly compared inflation of prices to stagnation of wages (especially with respect to capital goods).

>>15908721
If I get told that $15/hr is a lot of money one more time I'm just gonna kill myself.

>>15908719
>materialism
If you mean culture, political structure, and physical well-being, then yes. None of these things start with metaphysics.

>>15908603
white isn't an ethnicity so how could it have ethnocentrism? Best it could have is racialism, so perhaps the better answer is "lack of racialism"

>>15908679
At some point, 'gaming' an IQ test just means you are raising your actual IQ. In the case of the SAT, you can spend days memorizing lists of obscure words and get a perfect score on the verbal without raising your IQ a single point.

>>15908728
>culture doesn't start with metaphysics
the soviets found out that it did, the hard way. What

>>15908736
I think a lot of working class Italians and Irish still have some ethnic pride.

WASPs have pretty much gone the way of the dodo.

>>15908728
>>15908741
*what culture do you think can be justified and sustained without metaphysics, exactly? Despite the globohomo nihilistic progressive one, that is.

>>15908568
>Giant gray buildings dotting the American landscape full of cryotubes eating away at the electric grid 24/7.

Why wouldn't you just put them up in nowhere Canada, underground? Minimal energy requirements, and they can be forgotten in their high-tech grave.

>>15908728
>>15908741
>>15908751
>metaphysics
Stop using words you don't understand, spergs.

>>15908674
They were split half/half until Trump. We have to keep in mind that East Asians are still non-white, so many are still likely to ally with other non-whites for the purpose of ending the White West (many non-white communities despise eachother, yet will still cooperate in this regard).

I like Ross Douthat but this whole "le meritocracy" thing is getting old

>>15908674
"Fuck white people" is in their own interest, so yes.

>>15907958
What does performance anxiety mean in this context?

>>15908741
>>15908751
Culture starts with a sound political structure which must be built on the practical needs of the people. That's how the Greeks did it.

>>15908789
tl'rd modern lifestyle of school and work for the achievers is so stressful that nuking the system is actually a better alternative for your average middle-class white than keeping the status quo alive.

>>15908736
You're just being obtuse & pedantic. Obviously the difference between ethnocentrism and raciocentrism is one of scale and not kind (such that there is no real need to employ an additional term).

>>15908806
Greeks were religious and believed in gods and fate. They didn't make their culture out of political structures but made their political structures out of their culture.

>Hello fellow white person. I'm your token "conservative" writer for the New York Times and I'm here to tell you what the *real* problem is. It's... um... let's see... ah, yes, college admissions standards are too high for my wealthy white colleagues. So calm down and get with the program okay?

>>15908806
Read Spengler.

>>15908815
You have it backwards. Their cultural strength emerged from the previous generations painstakingly developing a powerful political structure. The city-states were already established.

>>15908712
Agreed.

>>15908689
>How conceited and self-proud do you have to be to write "important cultural industries"?
They're objectively important and prestigious within our current culture, it's another debate whether they are deservedly so.

>>15908292
WaPo went to shit after Bezos bought it. Used to be my go to

>>15908818
Yeah it's also a very convenient way to dismiss almost any argument you disagree with: "you say you care about racism .. but really you're just expressing anxiety at meritocracy and actually are trying to make college easier for white people or something idk"

He also never makes clear how caring about racism is connected to loosening merotocratic standards. Like how exactly does "wokeness" make college easier for wealthy white people?

>>15908845
>Like how exactly does "wokeness" make college easier for wealthy white people?
by dumbing down the standards for everyone.

>>15907627
>you’re still likely to have a much better life with a Bachelor’s degree then a person without one.
I mean yeah, but the cost/benefit ratio of that has seriously gone up in recent years

>>15908741
Metaphysics is a late intellectual development, it generally comes centuries after the formation of cities and the fixation of mythologies.

>>15908857
>Metaphysics is a late intellectual development
Homer had metaphysics you pseud.

>>15908583
There are days I genuinely think the Catholics are going to be the salvation of this country. Maybe I am biased because I am a practicing Catholic myself. But if you are at all plugged into what's going on on the ground of seminaries and diocesan churches in the United States there's a lot of sign that the rot is genuinely being cleaned out, sometimes completely against the will of the people in charge. Some of the rotten old bishops and monsignors are simply dying, while many of the younger priests and quite a few of the younger (age 60 and younger) bishops absolutely have their shit together. The Church is picking itself up off the mat in this country. Also Catholics still have more children than most other white religious groups, and TradCaths have EVEN more children than that.

Fuck, Douthat himself is a Catholic convert. Rome will always get its shit together in the end, just in time for the ship to be stable when EVERYTHING ELSE falls apart. The Church got over the Arian Crisis and pulled itself together just in time for the fall of Rome in the West, so the Church could function effectively and efficiently as the entire civilization of Western Europe collapsed. The same thing may happen in our lifetimes. The Church always fixes itself just in time to be very useful in a period of major crisis.

>>15908853
They only dumb it down for minorities. The goal is to create advantages for minorities while removing advantages from whites.

>>15908861
I'll say this: Rome is going to last longer than the "ivy" league colleges, which is good riddance to bad rubbish.

>>15908822
Spengler would precisely tell you that metaphysics don't come first. Mythology precedes metaphysics in Spengler's system.

>>15908869
>Mythology precedes metaphysics in Spengler's system.
mythology /=/ political structure.

>>15908853
But it doesn't do that. This is exactly the double-standard I was talking about earlier. This is what conservatives get wrong.

It's like their objection to welfare. "Welfare is so easy to get!" It really isn't. The only reason it is for blacks is because government work is a black jobs program and all the black people fast-track their black friends' applications.

>>15908681
I mean that's a cool anecdote, but an anecdote doesn't prove that every leftist is motivated to care about racism out of wanting to obscure their own racism.
There's a reason nobody can prove that claim, it's because any claim that an entire group of people is only doing an action in order to obscure a secret motivation that is the opposite, sounds cool, but is once again completely and totally unverifiable.

>>15908860
No, Homer has mythology. Metaphysics is a way of talking about the thing older mythologies talk about, but in rational and systematized fashion. We're so stepped in metaphysics that we lump everything non-materialistic under metaphysics even when talking about ideas that predates the rise of metaphysics. Saying Homer has metaphysics is like saying Aesop has biology.

>>15908867
Rome is going to last longer than the United States as we know it. There are too many people all around the world, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people, who love it, who are willing to fight for it and die for it. People willing to attack its flaws and fix them.

500 years from now, I am not sure if the United States will still exist in any conceivable form. But I bet the Catholic Church will still exist.

>>15908876
More Whites are on welfare than blacks, welfare isn't that hard to get at all. Go to rural america and everyone is collecting some sort of government cheese or the other.

>>15908872
I'm not the anon arguing political structure comes first. I just point out, like he did, that metaphysics isn't the first form of discourse civilization have about their most important values and entities, far from that. The evolution from Greek cosmogonies to Greek metaphysics is actually quite fascinating and worth studying.

>>15908883
>Metaphysics is a way of talking about the thing older mythologies talk about, but in rational and systematized fashion.
that's just your snowflake definition. The Fates = Metaphysics

>>15908860
Nonsense. Metaphysics started with Thales.

>>15908888
Not where I live, it isn't.

>>15908898
I believe you, but that doesn't change the reality of it.

>>15908845
If you're "concerned about racism" you are anti-white.

>>15908872
Mythology would be culture, not political structure.

>>15908853
Okay, how does wokeness dumb down standards specifically? Douthat provides no evidence other than some randos calling tests "white supremacist". Even then, while certainly ridiculous, this random example doesn't prove that most elite people only care about racism out of some sub-conscious desire to make school easier.

>>15908901
Well to be fair, aren't the majority of those white welfare recipients in Appalachia after the warehouse jobs left? Everything I've seen of appalachia looks like an entirely different country.

>>15908913
and it was born from the people's spirit, not their political structures. Call it "the collective unconscious" if you want. The main thing is that it was idealistic not material.

>>15908897
Most philosophers would say between Heraclites and Parmenides. Thales was doing physics (in the ancient, literal sense).

>>15908931
This is all crap that doesn't line up with history at all. High culture, or mythology, first needs a strong political structure, which first needs a healthy and neatly organized society of people (tribes, villages, cities, etc.). Metaphysics comes from high culture. It's the last thing of all these to appear on the scene.

>>15907559
This isn't related to literature whatsoever, it's just some Marxist shitpost. Your world view is retarded and as we can see is just leading to everything turning into shit.

>>15908896
No, that's the literal history of the word. Just ask any historian of philosophy. Metaphysics was coined by a commentator of Aristotles to refer to his last treatise, the one after his treatise on physics (hence the name, metaphysics = after physics). Presocratics from Thales to Heraclites were doing physics. Before that you had priests doing cosmogonies. There's a very clear change in language and form of discourse and to some extent it can be dated using archaelogy and ancient texts.

There is no clear attempt at rational discourse on the causality of human life in the Fates as portrayed by mythology, instead the issue is dealt with stories, characters and dramatization. Unless you think ancient stage play and academic sociology operate under the same conditions you have to admit there's a big difference.

>>15908951
>tribes are strong political culture
lol

>>15908924
The Appalachian has always been the dumpster of America, originally is was the border region where you kept away the things and people you didn't want too close.

>>15908940
>Most philosophers would say between Heraclites and Parmenides
Absolutely false. Every philosopher would say Thales. In his age, physics was the same subject as metaphysics. It is only after Aristotle that a distinction between the two subjects began to be made.

Here's how Wikipedia (correctly) defines "metaphysics":

>Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality. The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century AD editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle’s works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (ta meta ta phusika, 'after the Physics', another of Aristotle's works). Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions: What is there? And what is it like? Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility.

Thales contributed to all those topics.

>>15908971
Tribes are part of the organic formation of peoples towards the fulfillment of immediate needs. From there, strong political structure may form. They aren't the strong political structure themselves.

>>15908861
Do you think Cardinal Sarah would make a good Pope?

>>15908877
>but an anecdote doesn't prove that every leftist is motivated to care about racism out of wanting to obscure their own racism.

But it does show it's true of some of them; at least to me. You can doubt my anecdote, though it's saved in Fbook chat...

>>15908980
>Absolutely false. Every philosopher would say Thales.
Heidegger explicitly says the opposite.
> In his age, physics was the same subject as metaphysics.
Precisely for that reason there was no metaphysics per se. Metaphysics only appears when physics becomes insufficient to account for the totality of the world.

>It is only after Aristotle that a distinction between the two subjects began to be made.
Exactly my point, again, see above.

>all that wikipedia quote
Most of that is actually part of physics, and still is to this day. Metaphysics study those topics insofar as they can't be accounted for physically. Thales had no metaphysics because he is trying to account for everything with (the ancient Greek form of) physics. It's only when suspicion towards physics arises that metaphysics can appear as a specific subject. Parmenides' On Nature is the clearest ancient expression of that.

>>15907559
I read the text by David Brooks before reading this one.
I don't know if Douthat is wrong - I don't live in the USA - but holy fuck his writing is so shitty.

>>15909003
My top Pope candidates right now, based on my limited knowledge:

-Sarah
-Burke
-Muller
-Ranjith

Don't sleep on Cardinal Ranjith out of Sri Lanka. He's actually quite Trad, he demands that everyone in his Sri Lankan archdiocese receive the Eucharist kneeling and on the tongue. And he had his shit together during the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka a few years ago, he responded very ably to them. He'd make a fine Pope, and his star may have risen as a result of those bombings.

But Sarah would be extremely excellent as well.

Another candidate to watch out for is another American: Cardinal O'Malley, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Boston, who has been cleaning up the mess of the sex abuse crisis basically for his entire time as a cardinal. He would probably be a very serious reformer and purifier if he became Pope.

>>15908629
>Christopher Lasch

Was waiting for his name to come up, he's a good read.

>>15909061
Seems like a lot of the third world Catholics are the most trad.

>>15909034
>Heidegger explicitly says the opposite.
Lol. Heidegger is a pseud who wrote gibberish.

>Precisely for that reason there was no metaphysics per se.
Wrong. Thales addressed every topic within the definition of metaphysics. Every topic in Aristotle's Metaphysics was first addressed by Thales.

>Most of that is actually part of physics, and still is to this day.
Utter nonsense. Physicists don't address metaphysical topics. Their job is to create mathematical structures that predict the results of observation.

>Metaphysics study those topics insofar as they can't be accounted for physically.
Nonsense. Empirical science can never by itself answer questions about the nature of reality. It can only provide constraints on the answers. Metaphysics must conform to the physical theories developed by physicists, but it is often difficult to interpret exactly what physics is telling us about the underlying reality, as in the case of Quantum Mechanics. Hence the need for metaphysics.

>Thales had no metaphysics because he is trying to account for everything with (the ancient Greek form of) physics.
Everything that exists is physical, so obviously any metaphysics has to be based on physics. Space, time, causality, and modality are all metaphysical topics that are constrained but not fully determined by results in physics.

>>15908018
This viewpoint is about 15 years out dated. They started bias testing all words used in the SAT a long time ago. You won't see it reported almost anywhere because neo-liberal institutions have a huge interest in keeping up the illusion that black students lower academic achievement is due to the boogy man of 'cultural bias' as this allows them to avoid addressing any problems within the black community. Another great example of similiar lie to this is that inner city schools low performance is due to "under-funding" ignoring that school districts such as NYC, Philadelphia and Baltimore hugely outspend the surrounding districts on a per student basis. I would suggest doing your own research after reading articles alledging cultural bias as I have read dozens that directly contradict the publically available data on school funding.

>>15909111
>I would suggest doing your own research after reading articles alledging cultural bias
I'm basing this on my own experience. I got a perfect score on the Verbal part of the SAT (almost perfect on the Math), just by memorizing lists of obscure words. Now, you could be right that my experience with the test is out of date, since I took it in the early 90s. Maybe they improved it since then. But for the version I took, to suggest it was reflective of IQ in any serious way would be absurd.

this whole thing is so tired.
I don't know why cultural critics, even ostensibly intelligent ones like Douthat, are always years behind laymen on these topics.

>>15908689
Our current liberal-democratic regime is utterly dependent on journalists and academia to enforce it's control. Regardless of your opinion of them you should be able to acknowledge this.

>>15909131
I also took the test in the late 90s, It has changed signigantly since then. I agree that the SAT is no where near an IQ test, but it does do a decent job testing academic ability (i.e. sitting down and memorizing lists). Their is a reason elite schools don't except students with low SAT scores.

>>15907610
There is too much bloviation, as if the writer were paid by the word.

>>15909107
Heidegger is a recognized philosopher, like it or not, this factually disproves your first statement that all philosophers should agree Thales was the first metaphysician.


>Thales addressed every topic within the definition of metaphysics.
In his time they were topic of natural philosophy, ie physics, and he adressed them as such.

>Utter nonsense. Physicists don't address metaphysical topics.
Such as cause and effect or the relation between mind and matter? I should have broadened the term and said empirical scientists instead. Most of what you mentioned is among the thing still studied (though not understood) by natural sciences.

>Their job is to create mathematical structures that predict the results of observation.
They also create discourses about what it means and to some extent what is the nature of the things behind the models. Not all physics is 1950s "don't ask what it means" quantum physics.

>Empirical science can never by itself answer questions about the nature of reality.
Yes, but that's a post-Parmenidian observation. Once again rephrasing my point under the guise of disagreeing.

> Metaphysics must conform to the physical theories developed by physicists
Not necessarily, some would say it is the opposite, some would say metaphysics is now unnecessary. The relation between the two is still unsettled.

>Hence the need for metaphysics.
Sure, and that need comes from a realization of the limits of physics, which is what Parmenides explicitly mentioned in his On Nature.

>Everything that exists is physical
Debatable, some would disagree, although Thales probably wouldn't, which, again, is kinda my point.

We're not that much in disagreement really. I think it's fair to say metaphysics starts with Heraclitus or Parmenides (or rather that it arises as a separate discipline somewhere around the time their schools were working). You seem to think anyone who doesn't say it starts with Thales must be a philosophical heretic. Aside from that we agree on the principles, I just point out physicists try their hand at a lot of fundamental questions, and the "reserved domain" of metaphysics (o the extent that there is one) is historically a consequence of a development starting with Parmenides.

>>15908355
In college, a very liberal girl was talking about some bs and in a magnificent slip she referred to socially well adapted blacks as “domesticated blacks.” We never let her live it down.

>>15909095
That's exactly right. Somewhat ironic, isn't it? The Catholics from Africa and Asia and South Asia are very Trad. Asian and African Catholics absolutely do not fuck around, I would love any of their cardinals to be Pope.

>>15907602
>describing things like “perfectionism” or “worship of the written word” or “emphasis on the scientific method” or “delayed gratification” as features of a toxic whiteness.
lol. Douthat is a such a charlatan. The first half of this article is actually not bad, but right here he pulls a little trick to try and sneak in his bullshit psychoanalysis. Open the smithsonian's article on whiteness in the United States.

https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/whiteness

Where is the term "toxic" whiteness ever used? Just fucking ctrl-f it. Of course there's no results. Douthat can never actually cite a real publication, because he's just making it up.

The trick here is that what he's really referring to is some fucking twitter posts that probably pissed him off. So why can't he cite twitter posts? Why can't he link them? Because he knows that no one fucking cares about some twitter post, so he has to smuggle it in by pretending that powerful institutions actually talk like that.

>>15907620
>For instance: Once you dismiss the SAT as just a tool of white supremacy, then it gets easier for elite schools to justify excluding the Asian-American students whose standardized-test scores keep climbing while white scores stay relatively flat. Or again: If you induce inner-city charter schools to disavow their previous stress on hard work and discipline and meritocratic ambition, because those are racist, too — well, then their minority graduates might become less competitive with your own kids in the college-admissions race as well.
This is where he cashes in on his charlatanism. You write an article that's mostly true (with a bit of made up anger porn smuggled in) about how everyone is fucking burned out of being a middle class drone because it's exhausting, and then pretends this is some kind of unconscious nazi scheme to keep down the poor minorities who are just about (any day now!!) to climb themselves out of poverty through Working Hard and Going to School.

He literally jumps from "people think being a middle class schmuck sucks and want to drop out" to "but they want to drop out only so that they can continue to BE middle class." What the fuck does every leftist he's babbling about here want but more equal wealth distribution, more equality, less class and race stratification.

What a little fucking jewish faggot he is.

>>15909288
It's almost like Christianity and "trad" are useless identifiers and only whiteness has any substance.

>>15909247
>Such as cause and effect or the relation between mind and matter?
Correct. Not a question for physics.

>I should have broadened the term and said empirical scientists instead.
Doesn't matter. Empirical scientists do not address issues like the nature of causation or the relation between mind and body. Metaphysicians do.

>Most of what you mentioned is among the thing still studied (though not understood) by natural sciences.
No, those topics are inherently incapable of being addressed through empirical methods alone.

>They also create discourses about what it means
Only if they write "pop science" books, which is not part of their job.

>Yes, but that's a post-Parmenidian observation. Once again rephrasing my point under the guise of disagreeing.
No, Thales didn't reach his conclusions via empirical methods.

>Not necessarily, some would say it is the opposite, some would say metaphysics is now unnecessary.
Both of those people are wrong.

>Sure, and that need comes from a realization of the limits of physics, which is what Parmenides explicitly mentioned in his On Nature.
Metaphysics is a different subject from physics, yes. Physicists don't address metaphysical topics in their work. They certainly assume metaphysical stances, but they don't directly argue for them.

>Debatable, some would disagree, although Thales probably wouldn't, which, again, is kinda my point.
No, it directly undermines your point. The thesis that everything is physical is a metaphysical thesis.

>I think it's fair to say metaphysics starts with Heraclitus or Parmenides
You would be wrong. Thales was the first to address core metaphysical topics like the nature of space, time, substance, causality, modality, mentality, etc. After him, the next most important in the ancient world are Democritus and Aristotle. Heraclitus and Parmenides are nonentities in serious metaphysics, mentioned briefly in passing at most.

>>15908759
Glory

>>15909299
How you got to that conclusion is beyond me.

>>15909323
> Not a question for physics.
Yet physicist study the former and neurologists study the latter.

>issues like the nature of causation or the relation between mind and body.
They certainly do the latter, and also try the former in a pragmatic sense.

>incapable of being addressed through empirical methods alone.
You're not hearing me. Those are in part being investigated by empirical science right now. "B-but they can't answer it", yes, I agree, that's not my point, the point is they try, by the way metaphysics has failed to prove uncontroversially that it can answer those questions as well.

>Only if they write "pop science"
Most scientist do, have done, and will do that. Pop scientist communicate science to the masses, the don't decide on which interpretation is more prevalent in scientific circles. It's simply a fact of scientific practice that it involves a certain amount of interpretation.

>Thales didn't reach his conclusions via empirical methods.
He reached them by observation of natural phenomena. It's not science by 20th century standard but certainly natural philosophy by the usual ancient standard.

>Both of those people are wrong.
Prove it in a definite and compelling way.

>Metaphysics is a different subject from physics, yes.
We agree, as I said.

>Physicists don't address metaphysical topics in their work.
They don't because by definition and as a result of the metaphysical inquiry started by Heraclitus and Parmenides, metaphysics is distinct from physics and deals with what physics can't deal with. However since the question of what can be dealt with physics is not settled, a lot of subjects will have an ambiguous status and both disciplines engage with them, often with different standards of answer. Existence of God is out of limit for physicist, nature of causality is not (see discussion on entropy and the arrow of time).

>undermines your point.
My point regarding Thales is that he was doing physics in the ancient Greek sense, not metaphysics in the post-Aristotelian sense, which is the sense in which we conceive and define metaphysics today (and since the word was invented). That Thales would deal with phenomena insofar only as they are physical would certainly confirm my point.

>The thesis that everything is physical is a metaphysical thesis.
Thales didn't write treatises about how he had deduced by rational thinking that everything is physical, he observed nature and drew conclusions.

The idea that you need to refer to a rational standard of thought to decide whether everything is material is the starting point of metaphysics, as evidenced in Parmenides On Nature.

>core metaphysical topics
Four to five of those you mentioned are being dealt with by scientists. Thales was as much their ancestor as he is that of later metaphysicians, if not more so. We're just getting hung up on terminology.

>serious metaphysics
You mean the metaphysics personally vetted by yourself? Be serious now.

>>15907990
Because they control the legal system. The o key way to get around it is to close the law schools, shut down the bar associations, and turn law into a folk practice.

>>15909446
Yeah so otherwise completely worthless.

>>15909296
>This is where he cashes in on his charlatanism. You write an article that's mostly true (with a bit of made up anger porn smuggled in) about how everyone is fucking burned out of being a middle class drone because it's exhausting, and then pretends this is some kind of unconscious nazi scheme to keep down the poor minorities who are just about (any day now!!) to climb themselves out of poverty through Working Hard and Going to School.

This is why I was wary of this whole "elite overproduction" meme.
It was always a method of blaming the excesses of capitalism (outsourcing, immigration, visas) on the people who suffer most because of it.
"You aren't suffering because of immigration, no no no no. You're suffering because you never deserved a better job in the first place. Go work your shit 4-9 job at a grocery store. You fucking peasant."

>>15908394
Sounds like she deserves it.
Mexicans in our country import Mexican problems.

>>15908397
"Conservative Asians" are the same as natural conservative Mexicans. They're conservative in their own communities. But they always vote democrat. Because they know the excesses of the democrats will never affect them. Only the whites.

>>15909299
>It's almost like Christianity and "trad" are useless identifiers and only whiteness has any substance.

How did you come to this conclusion rather than coming to completely the opposite conclusion? If Catholics who love the Traditions of the Church can come from every corner of the world, wouldn't it stand to reason that it's those Traditions, the entire "Trad" idea, that has real substance, and "whiteness" is the thing that's only a meme? Half of "whiteness" is Catholic, at least. Huge chunks of the racial identity that American Whites have constructed for themselves are inherited from the Church. But Catholic identity isn't tied to racial identity so you can get neat stuff like hardcore Trads in countries like Vietnam and Poland and South Korea and Kenya.

>>15909860
You are deeply confused.

>>15909971
Please tell me how I'm wrong.

>>15907973
>"model minority"
Such a funny way of saying they value education and don't commit crimes

>>15909963
Catholicism explicitly states that a specific seed is destined to rule the world from the promised land.

>But he was entirely correct that most of my peers believed that meritocracy was fair and just and worked — because after all it seemed to work for us.

this is lebedoff's thesis of the "new elite"

the current coastal/managerial elite is identified by its belief that elite training and education works for selecting excellence, therefore they are excellent because they went to duke, therefore we should perpetuate the existing system in which we are confirmed excellent

>>15907973
Stop being an ugly Asian "male"

>>15907620
“Performative wokeness is a utility for progressives to advance their social/political/fiscal capital.”

Didn’t Zizek say this like 10 years ago

>>15910250
Marx said it 150 years ago.

>>15910267
I think Zizek was explicit about the ‘wokeness’ bit, but yes I suppose so.

>>15907559
>dems are the real racists

>>15907962
As someone coming from a turd world shithole country in which university admission tests are everything, I can tell you with confidence that SAT isn't at all like the memorization and preparation wank we got, it tests much more basic skills aside from stuff like the vocabulary questions which IIRC they took out anyway

>>15907659
The last point is a bit reaching, basically saying that whites are racists for dismantling "white" statistics like SAT. but I understand what he's saying about blm movements being a tempting outlier for all the stress the rat racers feel. It also promises less stress - "it's not me who's wrong, it's the system" (which I think is correct, but that's beside the point), and also gives an avenue to channel the anger and stress. It's a rebellion in a culture devoid of any.

>>15907850
>Classic Freudian...
Pseud. Attaching everything to one base need without real understanding. I hate Freud talk, 90 percent of the time they name drop him to give legitimacy to a basic opinion

>White people are obsessed with exposing racism because they are projecting.

That's what she meant.

Ross Douthat and also Michael Lind are essentially pointing out shit Christopher Lasch pointed out in Revolt of the Elites in the 1990s. It's quite interesting that everything Lasch said then is also true today but just vastly accelerated.

>>15909462
Bruh, the use of empirical science assumes a metaphysical position. You can't study what you are assuming in order to study.

"LIBERALISM IZ A POST-CHRISTIAN CULT!!! 1" article, number 2816.

>>15909963
>South Korea
>Kenya
>Vietnam
>Catholicism
>"Trad"
That's your entire problem. You're okay with Globalism, you're okay with the destruction of actual tradition and meaning, you just want the man on the TV to have BASED aesthetics and tell you that you're a good person because of this mass destruction of actual humanity. You don't actually care about any of this shit at all, which is why you latched onto "Traditional Catholicism", something so meaningless and detached from your daily life (99% of Americans have no idea what "Catholic Integralism" is, and if you tell them that you want the Pope to tell you that racism is bad they'll just ask why you need the Pope specifically to tell you that) that you're under absolutely no impetus to do anything about it except chuckle and act smug when you overhear people discussing anything even vaguely related to politics or culture. "Traditional Kenyan Catholicism"? Kenya converted to four dozen Protestant Denominations in the fucking 1950s.

You're just a more autistic version of the Boomer Republican whose only real political want is for the TV to tell him he's a good person a little more often, you just chose to also be an incredibly autistic hipster.

>>15908568
Terrorism on Cryo-boomers when?

>>15907590
>Hogwarts with SATs instead of magic

I'm starting to believe that these books were indeed harmful to children even though this nigger was an adult when they came out.

>>15910769
I just came here to say this is great take and I applaud you Sir.

From Elite to Pajeet: White Collar Work in the 21st Century

by Peter Turchin

>>15907780
I'm a classical musician and it's the same thing.
It's not the best of the best who are complaining about playing too much Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach, instead of some black composer who's music is dogshit, or complaining that there aren't enough black people in the uber competitive sphere of orchestral performance, it's the mediocre. The people that will most likely quit once they realize they have no job options or future in the business.
It doesn't help that Americans praise the underdog and the mediocre. It is completely absurd.

>>15907559
No one cares about Asian test scores lel, contemporary Social Justice is a combination of upper-middle-class signaling piety towards the state ideology (which is Civil Rights) combined with the American tendency for religious revivalism. None of the whites getting rid of the SAT are trying to keep Asians out of power, they're trying to create a degenerate neo-aristocracy, perhaps better called an Ignobility, where you can't get access to top universities without being from the Right Families.

>>15911660
Also as >>15911638
>>15907780
and others said, merit is opposed at all times. The SAT alone has been made easier at least 3 times because blacks scored too poorly. The less merit-based the system is the more "informal" means can be used to sustain a system based on connections, wealth, and parentage, rather than on merit.

>>15907929
They're upper-class and getting the same insane indoctrination that everyone else it getting, so plenty of them are deluded, rapid SJW types. They're assimilating to the insane Puritan WASP culture that produced this garbage.

>>15908085
>And they have a point since the test is quite culture-bound relative to an IQ test.
This is bullshit. Back in the 90s they tested this. They had activists pick out questions that were 'culturally loaded', removed them, and had people take those tests, and found that the racial gaps increased - blacks were doing better on the questions supposedly biased against them than they were on the supposedly more objective ones.

100% of complaints about tests being biased or racists or bad are copes. I have yet to see a modern example where this isn't the case.

>>15909874
Pretty sure it's a judge related to the Epstein/Maxwell case. That's why they have a hit one them.

>>15907559
>>15907574
>>15907590
>>15907602
>>15907620
>Douthat was born on November 28, 1979, in San Francisco, California, and grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.

>New Haven

Ah, so another upper-middle class white throwing lower/middle class whites as a whole under the bus to gain good boy points and ingratiate himself with the rest of the elite whom he longs to join.

What a sniveling cocksucker. Just look at his face. He would throw open the gates for a barbarian horde if only they'd offer him a go at the camp catamite.

>>15912443

Douthat's grandfather was governor of Connecticut. He's an old ruling class WASP who recently converted to Catholicism for some reason.

>>15908088
>They do it because outwardly conforming to the current dogma is a requisite for short-term social advancement, even if in the long-term it would be detrimental to their career and life.

This. What a slimy gutless fucker.

Then again, conservatives have always been gutless closet homosexuals since Buckley pruned the right of anyone "dangerous".

>>15908629
Revolt of the Elites literally could have been written yesterday, it's amazing.

>>15912453
Well shit that's even better. Instead of a faggot striver, he's an actual elite. He should still be gelded and sent to a marble quarry for a lifetime of slave labor.

>>15912453
The WASPs were faced with the problem of being a declining elite (tl;dr WASPS can't actually act in ethnic interest, only familial interest), so they either became Catholics (which gives them an air of importance and prestige, and also divorces them from having to maintain WASP cultural mores) or more commonly Jews (wherein they're actually joining the ascending elite).

>>15912508
He's a declining elite though. His family went from governing Connecticut, to some lawyers, to a journalist. He must be aware his line is on the way out.

Black dude here.

It's all so tiresome.

>>15911638
>The people that will most likely quit once they realize they have no job options or future in the business
yeah we will see about that

>>15912512
>>15912527
Anxiety about being part of a declining elite is probably what drove him to write his article.

Pretty much the only reason SJWism is even popular is how much of Anglo status games are predicated on being a willing sucker. Flexing that you can afford to lose certain privileges and resources is the name of the game. That's why Supreme had its time in the sun. Mentioning that the whole brand of clothing was just cotton made in China made you the bottom bitch. "You have to actually care about what you spend your money on?"

>>15912639
Huh? The only people who are into Supreme are Asians and Blacks. Then again I live in the city, maybe it's different in the suburbs.

>>15912657
It's just an example. Supreme is over now anyways. Meme brands don't last more than a few months anymore.

>>15907559
I read this and had no idea what he was getting at. It seemed as he were saying successful kids were tired of what it takes to get into Ivy League schools and how competitive it is and that somehow has something to do with racism? Even though it clear does not? Fuck white people?
It must be his Ivy League education that allows him to express his ideas so clearly.

>>15909860
>It was always a method of blaming the excesses of capitalism (outsourcing, immigration, visas) on the people who suffer most because of it.
Just because the existence of elite overproduction can be used to deflect blame onto the "strivers" doesn't make it any less real. You could just as easily blame the people propping up the idea of a meritocracy from the "supply side" (unviersities, government, etc.)

>>15912663
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk1cLKpzHck

This is some of the best content marketing I've seen. Supreme has been around since the 90s.

>>15912673
Man, you fuckin' suck at reading. Are you black? He saying by calling WASP work ethic "white supremacy" it lets the tired children of WASP families have an excuse to slack off in the name of woke.

>>15912677
It's not that it isn't real it's that it isn't the whole story. Because of immigration and shit there's also prole overproduction. Basically we are turning into Brazil where no one has a job except the incestual members of the finance industry trying to find new ways to sell off America's wealth while everyone else lives in a literal tin shack.

>>15911638
>>15907780
Uncle Ted was almost right when he said that leftists are leftists because of their perceived weaknesses. They think they can't compete so they coalesce into a totalitarian mob.

However, in both of these posts, the weakness is a little more than perceived. These people actually can't compete so they're trying to gang up and flip the table. Maybe it's self fulfilling prophecy idk.

>>15912937
Ironic, since Ted couldn't compete in academia and had to become an ideological nut to try to distract from his failure. He was describing himself.

>>15912673
are you functionally retarded?
the article is basically "there's only certain of number of talented, smart people that are needed, a degree, hard work or being smart doesn't actually guarantee you shit and these fairly smart and competent people are getting disillusioned with the system"
there I distilled it for you

>>15910769
>You're okay with Globalism, you're okay with the destruction of actual tradition and meaning, you just want the man on the TV to have BASED aesthetics and tell you that you're a good person because of this mass destruction of actual humanity.

I'm okay with Globalism if it's run by the Church. Catholicism is the only religion that matters and deserves to dominate the entire planet. Wipe everything else out. Ideally through peaceful missionary work and conversion, of course.

>>15907929
many asians, especially females, who go to ivy league schools, usually end up getting brainwashed and try to pull of "as an asian ...." and try to kick down anyone trying to climb the ladder - and end up marrying some jewish dude. (e.g., zuck). its pretty obvious/funny sight that you see on daily basis on college campus, really.

>>15912978
Nice Ad Hominem you faggot

>>15912394
It's not 'bullshit', dummy. No one is born knowing the meanings of obscure words. The entire antonym section is culture-bound as fuck.

>>15912443
>throwing lower/middle class whites as a whole under the bus
WTF? Did you even read the column? It's the opposite.

>>15913183
"Uncle" Ted's unhinged screed was pure ad hominem. He was describing himself.

>>15907763
>seeing outside of his white privilege
Do you people here use these words unironically?