Category Archives: Social Commentary

The Hugo Wars

On the sad state of science fiction:

Wherever they emerge, social-justice warriors claim to be champions of diversity. But they always reveal themselves to be relentlessly hostile to it: they applaud people of different genders, races, and cultures just so long as those people all think the same way. Theirs is a diversity of the trivial; a diversity of skin-deep, ephemeral affiliations.

This is one of the reasons I haven’t read as much as I did when I was younger. And sadly, the situation is similar on many college campuses.

Grubby Jobs

Every teenager should work one.

Yup. I was a service-station attendant/mechanic (among other things). Between all the work rules and minimum wage, a lot of teens aren’t getting started on the first rung of the employment ladder. They’re not being properly taught in school, and they’re not being allowed to learn in the school of hard knocks. This won’t end well.

[Update a while later]

As noted in comments, working jobs like that teaches you the value of an education. I wasn’t that motivated about college after high school until I had a job as a VW mechanic at the local dealership, then got laid off in the recession of 1973 (it was a recession for the country, it was a depression for Flint and Detroit). I went to community college, took pre-engineering courses, then transferred them to Ann Arbor a couple years later.

The Civil War Over Political Correctness

Jonathan Chait has kicked one off within the Left.

Good. These people view the world as a re-education camp, with them as the instructors. And guards.

[Update a while later]

A few observations from a “mansplainer.”

[Saturday-morning update]

“The obvious thing to say about Jonathan Chait’s war against the Left is that we are rooting for casualities.” Yup.