The "Long March" has gotten so bad that, 99% of the time, if I see someone presented as an expert or authority figure I immediately disregard whatever it is that they are advising.
This is the same 'expert' nonsense that supreme court justice hid behind at her confirmation. Remember that...she wasn't a BIOLOGIST so she couldn't tell if she was a women......not an expert.....so....guess it's not her call to make. Good thing she's only in charge of interpreting the constitution!
It was found that children in homes with books became more proficient in reading. Instead of asking why that might be, the state decided to ship books to their students.
I think I read that in Freakanomics. Head Start showed zero improvement, but the number of books were the indicator. Not, parents likely read to their kids, modeled reading as a habit, developed healthy learning habits at a young age--no, it was just the inanimate books that delivered the higher test scores.
My step dad was the guy who set up the magazine sales for summer camps and stuff for elementary schools. Our garage was filled with books and all the give-aways for those who sold magazine subscriptions.
He was also a tyrant and I was grounded ALL OF THE TIME...no phone, no TV, no music, no friends...so I began to read all of those books. Still love to read. I listen more often these days-I can listen to a book while I do chores and mindless tasks.
Phonics produces a higher percentage of students who will read for pleasure in future. The satisfaction of 'sounding out' a word from a book produces a tiny dopamine hit in the brain, best when reinforced by the praise and attention of a parent. In many ways it's like Pavlov's Dog.
Phonics is one of the driving forces behind the improvement in Mississippi. Many states in America still use 'balanced literacy' which contains an element of phonics, but nowhere near enough. In 2006 England abandoned balanced literacy in favour of systemic phonics. It's impossible to assess impact given other factors at play- demographic change, smartphones and social media, etc, but PISA scores in reading rose by 10 points and PIRLS (International Benchmark for Primary Reading Comprehension) showed an improvement within five years, from 539 to 556.
BCS70, a British longitudinal study which examines the growth and change of people born in 1970, shows that reading for pleasure improves peoples lives. Against baseline pre-existing measured scores, reading for pleasure was shown to improve reading, mathematics and other cognitive abilities by the equivalent of 5-7 IQ points. The rise was also reflected in socioeconomic life outcomes.
Let the poppies grow tall!
From Grok: No exact "odds ratio" (e.g., "2x more likely"), but proxies like book exposure suggest phonics boosts recreational reading probability by 15-30% long-term, especially for at-risk kids (who comprise 20-30% of learners).
A program at my middle school kid's school just lost its federal funding. It was called Gear Up. It was meant to "help students visualize college education as part of their future". All I ever saw it do was take them on field trips to local campuses, not so they could talk to professors or students, not so they could attend educational programming ... to walk around and visit the gift shops ... so they could better "visualize". This school's proficiency scores on state tests hover between 12 and 20 percent.
I worked for that program. Because of special education laws, they had to accept special education students into the program if they asked to join. So they had to spend money to hire me as a one-on-one for a girl with severe autism to participate in the program. She couldn't function without one-on-one support. So, I don't know if the program itself would have been that terrible, but given what they had to deal with, there was no way it could succeed. Succeed. Our program was supposed to provide some tutoring for kids who were tier 2 students who may or may not be able to go to college. And to encourage them to be college-minded. But what happened?
In the leftist framework, all people (excepting themselves of course) are interchangeable. Since there are no differences between people, any differences in outcomes must be due to something else. The most readily visible thing is the books. Therefore the books are the reason they can read.
Most any leftist program is just sympathetic magic (cargo cults) with lofty terminology.
Before that, tho, books were bad just because reading books does not equate to learning. That's what I was taught in teacher education school in the early 2000s. When I read that, I thought to myself, "What am I doing?" I did finish my degree but I'm happily teaching Pre-K. I still get to teach letters, sounds and numbers.
The whole credentialist phenomenon is EXACTLY a cargo cult, and that’s all it is. It mistakes the symbol for the thing, the garment for the power, in our day the degree for the competency. Sure, the fact of getting a Harvard degree as a signifier means SOMETHING - since you still have to get in, and getting in still is adjacent to being a smarticle-particle. Harvard doesn’t forcibly improve its incoming smarties any more though - A- is a floor grade even if you don’t do anything while you are there, whereas you can still flunk out of Salem State.
But the advent of admitting or appointing to the faculty (relative) dummies has had something of a destabilizing effect on the ecosystem. There are now more than a few emperors and empresses wandering through the commons naked, and more than a few rude little boys giggling.
To answer the rhetorical question: certainly not young people. I live downtown in a big city and I’ve seen the memes about these boomer-driven protests but wow I was shocked by how true it actually was. Didn’t see a single person in the city with a sign all day who was under 50 years old. A substantial number of older couples seemed to be using the protest as an activity to bring them into the city before date night. First we protest Literally Hitler and save democracy, then when the dark night of fascism falls we spend $200 on sushi.
Sample conversation between two boomer women I overheard on the street this morning: “How was shopping?” “Great! How was the protest?” in the same chipper tone as the shopping remark… fundamentally unserious.
Yes, but it’s the destruction they’ve caused along the way that is the problem. They might be ridiculously incapable of accomplishing their end goal, but so was Japan after Germany surrendered. They still caused a lot of harm to people of occupied countries, POWs, and the soldiers and sailors who had to put them down once and for all.
We just saw Charlie Kirk get assassinated. There is violence at federal facilities around the country.
We shouldn’t be flip.
And consider that the FBI was not broken up. Its decades of bad behavior in America has still not been punished, it can (and will) revert to form. And the people who could break it up clearly are not going to do it.
They took possession of the One Ring (the government)and they still think they can wield it. We all know they can’t. You can only toss it into a volcano.
I agree that it’s all ridiculous. I agree we average citizens should mock and ignore them. But that doesn’t mean they will go away or become de-fanged.
Maurice: Right. They will not go away…until they can no longer have the social status their egos crave. That loss of status only starts with being mocked and ignored. They can insulate themselves from that…for a while.
But the thing that will ultimately yank the rug out from under them with be the emergence of alternate systems with REAL authority, by which I mean that they successfully provide whatever service the “official” institutions fail to provide. And that includes government, a service that the state increasingly fails to provide.
Ask this question: “What is the purpose of government?” Then stand back and brace yourself for the rising tide of BS from the vast majority who still believe that “the political state” equals “government”.
But it’s not a hard question, except for those who are incapable of recognizing rational and moral principles, and have been seduced by the APPEARANCE—the image—of legitimacy, rather than the substance thereof. The answer to the question is right up front in the Declaration of Independence, right after it declares the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: “…to secure these rights, Governments are instituted…”
That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Nothing else: “…to secure (protect) these rights”. If it does anything else—especially if it violates those rights, for anyone at all—it is not government.
The political state has declared itself a monopoly provider of the service of government. Yet, that monopoly tends to eliminate competition, with the predictable result that it is no longer accountable for its failure to fulfill its sole purpose.
The remedy is alternative (parallel) systems. The next revolution (if it is truly revolutionary) requires no violent overthrow of the state. It will simply be the emergence of systems that actually protect people’s rights, and their other properties. It’s all property, especially including the intangible properties of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the most important properties of all. Relationships. Ideas. Freedom of choice. The things people are willing to die to protect.
When people have the choice to become customers of the services that fulfill the services the “official” institutions and systems fail to provide, the official institutions will lose market share, whatever shreds of credibility they might still have, and there goes the prestige they once enjoyed.
There is still time to develop such parallel systems. Forbidding them will only hasten the demise of the official institutions, aided and abetted by the state; that will only serve to reveal the depth of its failure to satisfy the market demand for the service of government. The people the market comprises aren’t as stupid as their current slavish and lazy devotion to the official institutions suggests.
All volitional beings live to pursue happiness. It’s hard-wired into us. It is a vastly more potent force than the legalized coercion of the state, or the fraud of failed institutions.
Ive long thouht that David French’s entire output is based on pleasing his wife. Lots of RINO men are exactly the same. Them having power makes their wife like them more, but their wives are lefty’s. Not so for George Conway obviously!
This is the missing link I've been searching and searching for for years. I've seen the lack of substance growing over the last 20 years, at least, but didn't catch the unearned "cultural markers" component. For example, after ensuring I had no sharp implements or firearms within reach before sitting down to a Zoom meeting on "Fighting Implicit Bias in Law Enforcement," one of the nine "Ph.Ds" on the panel had this to say to counter solid statistical information refuting the entire purpose of the "training" from an audience member: "It's time we abandon studies and statistics as a means of understanding the world and how we interact in it by listening to the lived experience of a people," with all of the serious-faced Ph.Ds on the panel nodding in agreement, almost in unison.
Suddenly, I had to purchase a new laptop that day because I threw up all over the keyboard. I wasted a precious hour of my life on such ignorant drivel, but I did get a "cultural marker" on my CV.
“It's time we abandon studies and statistics as a means of understanding the world and how we interact in it by listening to the lived experience of a people," with all of the serious-faced Ph.Ds on the panel nodding in agreement, almost in unison.” It’s interesting how they state this, except when they can twist the statistics to support their narrative, like using flawed studies or data to first support covid vaccines for all people, then for low risk people “to protect high risk”, or then to push them on kids. Instead of people being able to say, I’ve had it, I’m fine, I don’t need a shot. Or more recently when they used flaw studies to claim there is significantly more right wing that left wing violence, because we can’t believe our own lived experience. It’s invalid in this case, apparently.
The action that replaces abandoned studies is “listening”. Like PhDs are truly going to listen to other people’s experiences. What, take notes, make podcasts, write lengthy summaries of what they “listened” to? And what does listening to lived experiences even mean - gossip about where your summer vacation cruise went? “Oh, I’m listening, yes, yes, that must have been quite the experience… jumping whales, you say. Fascinating. Tell me again what you had for dinner. Mm..hmm. Yes, I’m taking notes..mm..hmmm”
Female. She said it very slowly with great authority and a calming smile as she talked down to the professionals in the audience, almost as if she believed she was explaining it to grade schoolers (ya know, the ones she be screaming into the phone to respond immediately after dialing 9-1-1 to solve some of the most complex human interaction problems while under time pressure with lives on the line).
Im very careful now in choosing Doctors or other professionals and almost always choose men, because I just don't trust the women anymore. Anytime I see "woman owned business" label, I automatically run the other way.
I understand being wary of the professionals. But MAGA women are business owners. If interested in the service or product offered, try to meet the owner or check references.
Susan, it is not that I care that they are women--it is if they have the label that they are "woman owned." It is a sticker, or label that is used. I see it on Amazon all the time. I assume that if you have to use a DEI label to make people buy from you, then you probably don't have a very good product.
With you on this. "Lived experience" ---- and so many other phrases ---- are major red flags to know what the person's agenda really is and that they are likely full of it. And a Marxist, too! It's not just women, though, it's men who say it too. Kinda glad they have these identifiers, though, where you can tell who they are pretty quickly. Saves time.
I knew our (thus far "trusted") L.A. County Public Health Officer, Fake Doctor Barbara Ferrer, was a Marxist lunatic at the very beginning of Covid hysteria because she said the word "Latinx."
Were they so stupid as to make up Latinx as an English word regardless (or because of) the much more gendered nature of the Spanish language ??
They’re really just a bunch of force and fraud lying cheating accusers. They wouldn’t talk or debate because the theories can’t hold up but that was also the point at an operational level: the con was meant to provoke reaction… they said so though mostly to one another. AND Remember they’ve spiraled so far now, they’re not trying to make sense to anyone whose brains aren’t already puréed by their nonsense double binding & blinding Hatecraft.
YES, 1) they are so stupid, but also crass (to do that to the Spanish language with its feminine and masculine suffixes) and 2) they just LOVE rubbing our noses in nonsense like this. The good news is, "Latinx" never took hold or took off, most especially in the Hispanic community, even though Ferrer & Friends are probably still stubbornly saying "Latinx" as we speak.
No kidding, we have to laugh don't we, this stuff is so ridiculous.
Seems like we're entering the era of Potemkin Institutions: the superficial form is there, but behind it are wobbly sticks that can be blown down in a slight breeze. Not a bad development, actually.
Chris, would love to see you do a thought experiment on what the world looks like 10 years from now when the remaining captured institutions have lost all authority (cultural, social, moral, intellectual etc). How will normies react to the loss of authority, or better yet, what will normies develop to take their place? eg homeschooling vs public school, trade school vs university, etc Might be a pretty hefty lift looking at faith institutions. I realize you are a commentator not a prognosticator, but I like the way your brain works.
The bizarre thing is that in my suburban Los Angeles social world, no one notices the loss of authority. The discussion about colleges is all about how prestigious and rigorous the colleges are. Oh, she got into OBERLIN, that's so prestigious! It's really known for academic rigor!
Barring a course correction, some sizable fraction of those institutions can run on with the strength of the people who still believe in them. There's a shift south in college preferences -- kiddos who would have applied to Williams or Bennington are looking below the Mason-Dixon line -- and the shift will deepen. There's also a shift among young men to trade school. But Vassar isn't at risk of death.
About a decade or so ago I made the comparison of a college degree today being the equivalent of a Communist Party membership card was in the USSR, is in China. Needed to get any position of authority. Politburo, commissar, manager, officer, any position where you're in a position to influence, direct, lead others. Jobs with degree criteria to be hired into aren't as much anymore about proficiency in the discipline as they are proof of adherence to the values and goals of the Party. Proof that the degreed person is reliably loyal to the *system* that is in power.
So when mask and vax mandates were required to attend school, even when schools refused enrollment to anyone found to violate lockdown rules, study from and remain confined to dorm rooms I saw my comparison come to vivid life. And if any student chose to disobey, not agree to the rules that demanded adherence to the values and goals of the Party, they were expelled - with no refund! And the record of the expulsion precluded them from entry into other Party indoctrination schools that had the best pipeline to the best, highest paying jobs that place graduates into positions of authority.
Of course this was just following on to the partisan DEI/Social Justice/CRT curriculum that I was noticing when I first made the comparison a decade+ ago. Schools are immersive Party indoctrination training, degrees are proof of Party loyalty, cards that grant entry to positions of power.
I'm sure there's more to it that would become a good stand-alone piece. But I'll leave it at that.
I had a student in a sane university during the vid. Back on campus in fall of 2020 with hybrid classes, never mind that a vaccine, and isolation essentially stopped by late spring of 2021. Things were pretty normal fall of 21 of course, this was south of Mason Dixon line.
I thought Adam Carolla nailed it when he compared the whole masking (and by extension lockdown, vax mandate) regime over schools to crate training puppies.
See, once it's normalized and obeyed the next time a command is given to the puppies (students--->young adults) they will obey. They didn't resist before, it was eventually eased, just go along, do as you're told, and you'll be "free" again.
But the fundamentally changed the citizen-authority model operates. No longer do those in positions of authority need the consent of the governed. They are master, the citizen is the slave/servant. Even in the south, at sane universities, the training class, Obedience 101, taught the lesson that was intended. Many may think that was it. No. There's Obedience 201, Obedience 301, Obedience 401 still waiting to be taught. And for the future Obedience trainers there's Obedience 321, 331, 421, 441, etc they'll be taught so they can be good, solid commissars, executives, managers, rulers. Likely found in the social sciences hiding under "Behavioral Science/Economics/Health" designations. Like Oracle's Larry Ellison proclaimed a few months ago, with widespread deployment of his technology, "you will behave!" You will obey! Crate training is just to ease you into the new submissive servitude way of things.
I wrote before I read and (sorry) made essentially the same point. "Prestigious" colleges and other institutions are extremely hard to kill (and maybe impossible to rebuild). With some people? With most? Comes from living amongst the same suburban snob class I guess: All form, no function. People who insist you call them "doctor." People who ruin the school board and the city council. People who have the "in this house, we..." signs on their lawns. Etc.
most colleges which have been around for any length of time are basically hedge funds with a boutique sideline in education. iirc harvard devotes less than 10% of their budget to faculty and students
Oh yes, and they are also known to have HUGE endowments. Enough to pay for free tuition for students, room and board, and probably an annual cash payment for walking-around money, too. For awhile, anyway......
You're right. Maybe one piece of good news from all of this wreckage is that many are saying 'no thanks' to the colleges and learning trades. Which is WONDERFUL.
" -- kiddos who would have applied to Williams or Bennington are looking below the Mason-Dixon line."
Yes! On top of that, in my northern deep blue neck of the woods, southern universities are tossing scholarship money at good students who would have easily been accepted into the once excellent flagship State U, but are now being edged out by foreigners and minorities with lower test scores.
A few years ago, I heard some kids grumbling at the gym about the injustice of a classmate being denied acceptance into UW-Madison despite scoring a 35 on his ACT.
Sad but true. I suspect there is more reaction to come, Im just not sure how different it will look from what you describe, but I am sure it will. Maybe we start to see more balkanization (progressive vs conservative colleges, congregations, media, etc)
Chris, you are absolutely right about this. But it TAKES SO LONG to get the word out and for most to get on the same page that, say, Harvard is crappy school now, or that the Girl Scouts have abortionist and transgender guest speakers now, or being an Eagle Scout from Year X to the present means NOTHING now, that the left has won, in a way. Then when all the normal people regroup and figure out they really need to bar the doors from predators and infiltrators at their local church, much of the damage has already been done. Can we ever succeed in building back the trusted brand name or building a solid, trusted alternative?
Biggest obstacle I see is that the rot has been going on for so long. The boomers and maybe some millennials remember what it meant to "qualify" for something - anything from school sports and student council and good grades, to business and work success. But the boomers are aging out quickly (thanks to help from the jab industry & pharmacy) and the millennials are caught between two opposing standards. I hope there are enough participants who remember what a "solid, trusted alternative" actually is.
Gen Z seems to be on it (fingers crossed) ---- judging by who so many of them voted for and their obvious interest in the Charlie Kirk shared knowledge and truths (quite different from their college curricula, I'm guessing), the embrace of Christianity for many, and the conservative streak that appears to be running through much of their generation. They seem fed up by the lies and the dysfunction and are looking around for new ways; ways that work for them and for their futures, both personally and financially. So maybe that's something.
This is a misunderstanding and a dangerous under-estimation of the Gramscians:
"The hegemony theorists were unable to penetrate the markers to get to the substance. They were unable to see the ways that the institutions had authority because they worked — as, for example, religious faith gave people a sense of comfort and purpose, and religious instruction offered a set of rules that enabled people to live in ways that produced order and satisfaction."
They were and are absolutely able to fully understand the substance of the markers and symbols of authority, else they wouldn't have been able to infiltrate over the past seventy years. The time-scale is important here: virtually no-one in the 1950s argued openly for real for what we are seeing today. If you really dig you can locate articles from specific intra-academia publications pointing to this direction, but there's no central thesis-manifesto to find. Instead, every next step followed logically from the theoretical precepts and tenets and emirical failures were explained as failures to adhere to theory or as being caused by people opposing the theory.
Don't forget that what they did was analyse how the Christian cults managed to infiltrate and overtake the Roman Empire. The method is not tied to Christianity or any other idea; it is universal.
Target the women. Then the children. And the weak men. The strong men will be isolated, alone and adrift and will gradually be replaced by women frantically trying to appease god (here: the theory) for their sins (being guilty of implied structural racism f.e.), children without fathers who instead imprint on the state and its authorities ("the experts"), and weak men managing it all since there are no longer any strong men to oust them and step on their necks.
You can fight it.
But not by thinking they don't know what they are doing, or do not understand what they started opposing in the 1950s. They know, and they see their cluster of theories as superior to what they oppose.
They are fundamentally atheists, and so must be evolutionists and environmentalists and must create their own standards in opposition to God's. They are the Sadducees and Pharisees of our times.
I might split hairs over if they are atheists properly or if they are anti-Christian, but that's not really an important detail except for matters of nomeklature and such.
Perhaps it is a US vs. Europe phenomenon when it comes to atheism? American selfstyled atheists seems almost puritan and fanatical in their aggressive hate for Christianity (since they rarely if ever deny Judaism, islam or other faiths of not-White peoples they aren't really atheists at all, just anti-Christian would be my argument here) wheras European ones are much more of the shoulder-shrug variety with a live-and-let-live attitude to religion in general: "you do you bro, as long as their's no coerc ion involved" is the prevailing attitude on display among atheists.
I've seen it suggested that the term "apatheists" be used instead do differentiate the two kinds.
Perhaps one might say they are religious in their fervour and franticness, in their ritualism and dogmaticism, but not religious in any spiritual or divine sense?
But as said, I'm splitting hairs (for fun, if not profit) here.
"...They know, and they see their cluster of theories as superior to what they oppose." And that is why they are insufferable when even gently challenged.
Reynolds’ Laws Reynolds’ First Law “Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.”
Reynolds’ Second Law “The more a government wants to run its citizens’ lives, the worse job it will do at the most basic tasks of government.”
Reynolds’ Third Law “Whatever politicians’ control, they will use against you to get what they want.”
Reynolds Fourth Law “Longevity of political service does not make a politician more qualified. It only ensures they are more corrupt.”
Reynolds Fifth Law “Proposed legislation will fail if there is not enough opportunity for graft or control”
Reynolds observations “Matriarchies exist primarily in failed or colonized societies, or in those about to fail or be colonized.”
“Under capitalism, rich people become powerful. But under socialism, powerful people become rich.”
“Nothing that’s happened with this pandemic has made me want the government to play a bigger role in health care.”
Chris, have you heard that the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman (with controversial views on same sex marriage which is anathema to African Anglicans). I believe in her former life she was the Chief Nursing Officer for England. She is also dyslexic (which makes me worry somewhat about her ability to accurately dispense medicines). She sprang to mind immediately when I was reading that excellent essay you referenced in Compact about wokery and women.
Hah yeah I just had a mini-rant earlier today about leftoids mistaking signifier for signified. It seems to be a big problem with the way they think. They exist in a little bubble of hyperreality and refuse to acknowledge there is a ground truth beneath it that must ultimately be reckoned with.
That anyone, like, officially related to Christian things, can wear something as horrifying as a planned parenthood vestment/ garment, is beyond my scope of understanding. Well, that and the fact that it's a woman wearing a priest collar what the fuck.
Another commenter on another site calls them “flaminicas,” a Latin word for priestesses. IMO they could be presiding over worshipping Jupiter. Or Moloch.
The "Long March" has gotten so bad that, 99% of the time, if I see someone presented as an expert or authority figure I immediately disregard whatever it is that they are advising.
It's all so tiresome.
The "Long March" has become "The Short Pier of Authenticity".
I tend to respond with the same suspicious attitude I learned back when infomercials were a thing. What are they selling?
"If you aren't paying for it, you're the product that's being sold" kind of applies here.
at least some of the infomercials were amusing.
Pray always.
This is the same 'expert' nonsense that supreme court justice hid behind at her confirmation. Remember that...she wasn't a BIOLOGIST so she couldn't tell if she was a women......not an expert.....so....guess it's not her call to make. Good thing she's only in charge of interpreting the constitution!
.
"See, people listen their ministers and their professors, so if we get jobs as ministers and professors, people will listen to us."
Taken to it's logical end, it results in psychopaths taking over any meaningful position of authority.
It was found that children in homes with books became more proficient in reading. Instead of asking why that might be, the state decided to ship books to their students.
It's like a weird cargo cult.
I think I read that in Freakanomics. Head Start showed zero improvement, but the number of books were the indicator. Not, parents likely read to their kids, modeled reading as a habit, developed healthy learning habits at a young age--no, it was just the inanimate books that delivered the higher test scores.
bsn
My Aunt was a librarian. My Mom was an Elementary School Teacher. Any guesses as to why I read? 😉😊😋
My step dad was the guy who set up the magazine sales for summer camps and stuff for elementary schools. Our garage was filled with books and all the give-aways for those who sold magazine subscriptions.
He was also a tyrant and I was grounded ALL OF THE TIME...no phone, no TV, no music, no friends...so I began to read all of those books. Still love to read. I listen more often these days-I can listen to a book while I do chores and mindless tasks.
bsn
I used to listen to books at work. It's very enjoyable, but I still prefer visual reading. Sadly, it does keep me from work.
The same thought process that says guns kill.
Blaming obesity on forks.
bsn
ban forks and they'll just use spoons!
Phonics produces a higher percentage of students who will read for pleasure in future. The satisfaction of 'sounding out' a word from a book produces a tiny dopamine hit in the brain, best when reinforced by the praise and attention of a parent. In many ways it's like Pavlov's Dog.
Phonics is one of the driving forces behind the improvement in Mississippi. Many states in America still use 'balanced literacy' which contains an element of phonics, but nowhere near enough. In 2006 England abandoned balanced literacy in favour of systemic phonics. It's impossible to assess impact given other factors at play- demographic change, smartphones and social media, etc, but PISA scores in reading rose by 10 points and PIRLS (International Benchmark for Primary Reading Comprehension) showed an improvement within five years, from 539 to 556.
BCS70, a British longitudinal study which examines the growth and change of people born in 1970, shows that reading for pleasure improves peoples lives. Against baseline pre-existing measured scores, reading for pleasure was shown to improve reading, mathematics and other cognitive abilities by the equivalent of 5-7 IQ points. The rise was also reflected in socioeconomic life outcomes.
Let the poppies grow tall!
From Grok: No exact "odds ratio" (e.g., "2x more likely"), but proxies like book exposure suggest phonics boosts recreational reading probability by 15-30% long-term, especially for at-risk kids (who comprise 20-30% of learners).
A program at my middle school kid's school just lost its federal funding. It was called Gear Up. It was meant to "help students visualize college education as part of their future". All I ever saw it do was take them on field trips to local campuses, not so they could talk to professors or students, not so they could attend educational programming ... to walk around and visit the gift shops ... so they could better "visualize". This school's proficiency scores on state tests hover between 12 and 20 percent.
I worked for that program. Because of special education laws, they had to accept special education students into the program if they asked to join. So they had to spend money to hire me as a one-on-one for a girl with severe autism to participate in the program. She couldn't function without one-on-one support. So, I don't know if the program itself would have been that terrible, but given what they had to deal with, there was no way it could succeed. Succeed. Our program was supposed to provide some tutoring for kids who were tier 2 students who may or may not be able to go to college. And to encourage them to be college-minded. But what happened?
In the leftist framework, all people (excepting themselves of course) are interchangeable. Since there are no differences between people, any differences in outcomes must be due to something else. The most readily visible thing is the books. Therefore the books are the reason they can read.
Most any leftist program is just sympathetic magic (cargo cults) with lofty terminology.
Haven't you heard, books are racist now.
Before that, tho, books were bad just because reading books does not equate to learning. That's what I was taught in teacher education school in the early 2000s. When I read that, I thought to myself, "What am I doing?" I did finish my degree but I'm happily teaching Pre-K. I still get to teach letters, sounds and numbers.
Oh yeah, I forgot.
The whole credentialist phenomenon is EXACTLY a cargo cult, and that’s all it is. It mistakes the symbol for the thing, the garment for the power, in our day the degree for the competency. Sure, the fact of getting a Harvard degree as a signifier means SOMETHING - since you still have to get in, and getting in still is adjacent to being a smarticle-particle. Harvard doesn’t forcibly improve its incoming smarties any more though - A- is a floor grade even if you don’t do anything while you are there, whereas you can still flunk out of Salem State.
But the advent of admitting or appointing to the faculty (relative) dummies has had something of a destabilizing effect on the ecosystem. There are now more than a few emperors and empresses wandering through the commons naked, and more than a few rude little boys giggling.
Related, and LOL:
https://x.com/jake__traylor/status/1979901454346334395
To answer the rhetorical question: certainly not young people. I live downtown in a big city and I’ve seen the memes about these boomer-driven protests but wow I was shocked by how true it actually was. Didn’t see a single person in the city with a sign all day who was under 50 years old. A substantial number of older couples seemed to be using the protest as an activity to bring them into the city before date night. First we protest Literally Hitler and save democracy, then when the dark night of fascism falls we spend $200 on sushi.
Sample conversation between two boomer women I overheard on the street this morning: “How was shopping?” “Great! How was the protest?” in the same chipper tone as the shopping remark… fundamentally unserious.
Yes, but it’s the destruction they’ve caused along the way that is the problem. They might be ridiculously incapable of accomplishing their end goal, but so was Japan after Germany surrendered. They still caused a lot of harm to people of occupied countries, POWs, and the soldiers and sailors who had to put them down once and for all.
We just saw Charlie Kirk get assassinated. There is violence at federal facilities around the country.
We shouldn’t be flip.
And consider that the FBI was not broken up. Its decades of bad behavior in America has still not been punished, it can (and will) revert to form. And the people who could break it up clearly are not going to do it.
They took possession of the One Ring (the government)and they still think they can wield it. We all know they can’t. You can only toss it into a volcano.
I agree that it’s all ridiculous. I agree we average citizens should mock and ignore them. But that doesn’t mean they will go away or become de-fanged.
Maurice: Right. They will not go away…until they can no longer have the social status their egos crave. That loss of status only starts with being mocked and ignored. They can insulate themselves from that…for a while.
But the thing that will ultimately yank the rug out from under them with be the emergence of alternate systems with REAL authority, by which I mean that they successfully provide whatever service the “official” institutions fail to provide. And that includes government, a service that the state increasingly fails to provide.
Ask this question: “What is the purpose of government?” Then stand back and brace yourself for the rising tide of BS from the vast majority who still believe that “the political state” equals “government”.
But it’s not a hard question, except for those who are incapable of recognizing rational and moral principles, and have been seduced by the APPEARANCE—the image—of legitimacy, rather than the substance thereof. The answer to the question is right up front in the Declaration of Independence, right after it declares the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: “…to secure these rights, Governments are instituted…”
That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Nothing else: “…to secure (protect) these rights”. If it does anything else—especially if it violates those rights, for anyone at all—it is not government.
The political state has declared itself a monopoly provider of the service of government. Yet, that monopoly tends to eliminate competition, with the predictable result that it is no longer accountable for its failure to fulfill its sole purpose.
The remedy is alternative (parallel) systems. The next revolution (if it is truly revolutionary) requires no violent overthrow of the state. It will simply be the emergence of systems that actually protect people’s rights, and their other properties. It’s all property, especially including the intangible properties of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the most important properties of all. Relationships. Ideas. Freedom of choice. The things people are willing to die to protect.
When people have the choice to become customers of the services that fulfill the services the “official” institutions and systems fail to provide, the official institutions will lose market share, whatever shreds of credibility they might still have, and there goes the prestige they once enjoyed.
There is still time to develop such parallel systems. Forbidding them will only hasten the demise of the official institutions, aided and abetted by the state; that will only serve to reveal the depth of its failure to satisfy the market demand for the service of government. The people the market comprises aren’t as stupid as their current slavish and lazy devotion to the official institutions suggests.
All volitional beings live to pursue happiness. It’s hard-wired into us. It is a vastly more potent force than the legalized coercion of the state, or the fraud of failed institutions.
Ive long thouht that David French’s entire output is based on pleasing his wife. Lots of RINO men are exactly the same. Them having power makes their wife like them more, but their wives are lefty’s. Not so for George Conway obviously!
What do they call them? Soy Boy Beta Cucks?
David French has a wife?! Probably a beard.
This is the missing link I've been searching and searching for for years. I've seen the lack of substance growing over the last 20 years, at least, but didn't catch the unearned "cultural markers" component. For example, after ensuring I had no sharp implements or firearms within reach before sitting down to a Zoom meeting on "Fighting Implicit Bias in Law Enforcement," one of the nine "Ph.Ds" on the panel had this to say to counter solid statistical information refuting the entire purpose of the "training" from an audience member: "It's time we abandon studies and statistics as a means of understanding the world and how we interact in it by listening to the lived experience of a people," with all of the serious-faced Ph.Ds on the panel nodding in agreement, almost in unison.
Suddenly, I had to purchase a new laptop that day because I threw up all over the keyboard. I wasted a precious hour of my life on such ignorant drivel, but I did get a "cultural marker" on my CV.
“It's time we abandon studies and statistics as a means of understanding the world and how we interact in it by listening to the lived experience of a people," with all of the serious-faced Ph.Ds on the panel nodding in agreement, almost in unison.” It’s interesting how they state this, except when they can twist the statistics to support their narrative, like using flawed studies or data to first support covid vaccines for all people, then for low risk people “to protect high risk”, or then to push them on kids. Instead of people being able to say, I’ve had it, I’m fine, I don’t need a shot. Or more recently when they used flaw studies to claim there is significantly more right wing that left wing violence, because we can’t believe our own lived experience. It’s invalid in this case, apparently.
The action that replaces abandoned studies is “listening”. Like PhDs are truly going to listen to other people’s experiences. What, take notes, make podcasts, write lengthy summaries of what they “listened” to? And what does listening to lived experiences even mean - gossip about where your summer vacation cruise went? “Oh, I’m listening, yes, yes, that must have been quite the experience… jumping whales, you say. Fascinating. Tell me again what you had for dinner. Mm..hmm. Yes, I’m taking notes..mm..hmmm”
Ah, but your "lived experience". Was the PhD who made this statement a male or a female?
Female. She said it very slowly with great authority and a calming smile as she talked down to the professionals in the audience, almost as if she believed she was explaining it to grade schoolers (ya know, the ones she be screaming into the phone to respond immediately after dialing 9-1-1 to solve some of the most complex human interaction problems while under time pressure with lives on the line).
Why am I not surprised. Most days, I want to disavow at least half of my sex.
Im very careful now in choosing Doctors or other professionals and almost always choose men, because I just don't trust the women anymore. Anytime I see "woman owned business" label, I automatically run the other way.
I understand being wary of the professionals. But MAGA women are business owners. If interested in the service or product offered, try to meet the owner or check references.
Susan, it is not that I care that they are women--it is if they have the label that they are "woman owned." It is a sticker, or label that is used. I see it on Amazon all the time. I assume that if you have to use a DEI label to make people buy from you, then you probably don't have a very good product.
I’m with you
With you on this. "Lived experience" ---- and so many other phrases ---- are major red flags to know what the person's agenda really is and that they are likely full of it. And a Marxist, too! It's not just women, though, it's men who say it too. Kinda glad they have these identifiers, though, where you can tell who they are pretty quickly. Saves time.
"My truth" is another red flag.
YES! There are SO MANY. We should make a cautionary list and publish it, ha ha.
hey that's MY truth you've got there!
I knew our (thus far "trusted") L.A. County Public Health Officer, Fake Doctor Barbara Ferrer, was a Marxist lunatic at the very beginning of Covid hysteria because she said the word "Latinx."
Were they so stupid as to make up Latinx as an English word regardless (or because of) the much more gendered nature of the Spanish language ??
They’re really just a bunch of force and fraud lying cheating accusers. They wouldn’t talk or debate because the theories can’t hold up but that was also the point at an operational level: the con was meant to provoke reaction… they said so though mostly to one another. AND Remember they’ve spiraled so far now, they’re not trying to make sense to anyone whose brains aren’t already puréed by their nonsense double binding & blinding Hatecraft.
Let’s Laugh 😂 and just: No.
YES, 1) they are so stupid, but also crass (to do that to the Spanish language with its feminine and masculine suffixes) and 2) they just LOVE rubbing our noses in nonsense like this. The good news is, "Latinx" never took hold or took off, most especially in the Hispanic community, even though Ferrer & Friends are probably still stubbornly saying "Latinx" as we speak.
No kidding, we have to laugh don't we, this stuff is so ridiculous.
Love what you said about "the con" and all related too in your 2nd paragraph. Exactly right.
Seems like we're entering the era of Potemkin Institutions: the superficial form is there, but behind it are wobbly sticks that can be blown down in a slight breeze. Not a bad development, actually.
Chris, would love to see you do a thought experiment on what the world looks like 10 years from now when the remaining captured institutions have lost all authority (cultural, social, moral, intellectual etc). How will normies react to the loss of authority, or better yet, what will normies develop to take their place? eg homeschooling vs public school, trade school vs university, etc Might be a pretty hefty lift looking at faith institutions. I realize you are a commentator not a prognosticator, but I like the way your brain works.
The bizarre thing is that in my suburban Los Angeles social world, no one notices the loss of authority. The discussion about colleges is all about how prestigious and rigorous the colleges are. Oh, she got into OBERLIN, that's so prestigious! It's really known for academic rigor!
Barring a course correction, some sizable fraction of those institutions can run on with the strength of the people who still believe in them. There's a shift south in college preferences -- kiddos who would have applied to Williams or Bennington are looking below the Mason-Dixon line -- and the shift will deepen. There's also a shift among young men to trade school. But Vassar isn't at risk of death.
About a decade or so ago I made the comparison of a college degree today being the equivalent of a Communist Party membership card was in the USSR, is in China. Needed to get any position of authority. Politburo, commissar, manager, officer, any position where you're in a position to influence, direct, lead others. Jobs with degree criteria to be hired into aren't as much anymore about proficiency in the discipline as they are proof of adherence to the values and goals of the Party. Proof that the degreed person is reliably loyal to the *system* that is in power.
So when mask and vax mandates were required to attend school, even when schools refused enrollment to anyone found to violate lockdown rules, study from and remain confined to dorm rooms I saw my comparison come to vivid life. And if any student chose to disobey, not agree to the rules that demanded adherence to the values and goals of the Party, they were expelled - with no refund! And the record of the expulsion precluded them from entry into other Party indoctrination schools that had the best pipeline to the best, highest paying jobs that place graduates into positions of authority.
Of course this was just following on to the partisan DEI/Social Justice/CRT curriculum that I was noticing when I first made the comparison a decade+ ago. Schools are immersive Party indoctrination training, degrees are proof of Party loyalty, cards that grant entry to positions of power.
I'm sure there's more to it that would become a good stand-alone piece. But I'll leave it at that.
FF, this is worth a read: https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/the-architecture-of-forced-indoctrination
I had a student in a sane university during the vid. Back on campus in fall of 2020 with hybrid classes, never mind that a vaccine, and isolation essentially stopped by late spring of 2021. Things were pretty normal fall of 21 of course, this was south of Mason Dixon line.
I thought Adam Carolla nailed it when he compared the whole masking (and by extension lockdown, vax mandate) regime over schools to crate training puppies.
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2022/03/17/adam-carolla-heres-the-real-reason-kids-were-forced-to-mask-in-schools-n1567248
See, once it's normalized and obeyed the next time a command is given to the puppies (students--->young adults) they will obey. They didn't resist before, it was eventually eased, just go along, do as you're told, and you'll be "free" again.
But the fundamentally changed the citizen-authority model operates. No longer do those in positions of authority need the consent of the governed. They are master, the citizen is the slave/servant. Even in the south, at sane universities, the training class, Obedience 101, taught the lesson that was intended. Many may think that was it. No. There's Obedience 201, Obedience 301, Obedience 401 still waiting to be taught. And for the future Obedience trainers there's Obedience 321, 331, 421, 441, etc they'll be taught so they can be good, solid commissars, executives, managers, rulers. Likely found in the social sciences hiding under "Behavioral Science/Economics/Health" designations. Like Oracle's Larry Ellison proclaimed a few months ago, with widespread deployment of his technology, "you will behave!" You will obey! Crate training is just to ease you into the new submissive servitude way of things.
larry ellison wants to watch you pee https://thewinepress.substack.com/p/crazed-technocrat-larry-ellison-founder
I wrote before I read and (sorry) made essentially the same point. "Prestigious" colleges and other institutions are extremely hard to kill (and maybe impossible to rebuild). With some people? With most? Comes from living amongst the same suburban snob class I guess: All form, no function. People who insist you call them "doctor." People who ruin the school board and the city council. People who have the "in this house, we..." signs on their lawns. Etc.
most colleges which have been around for any length of time are basically hedge funds with a boutique sideline in education. iirc harvard devotes less than 10% of their budget to faculty and students
Oh yes, and they are also known to have HUGE endowments. Enough to pay for free tuition for students, room and board, and probably an annual cash payment for walking-around money, too. For awhile, anyway......
they could afford to give everybody a free ride if they wanted to
although at this point in history that might not be such a great idea. subsidizing the markers ;)
You're right. Maybe one piece of good news from all of this wreckage is that many are saying 'no thanks' to the colleges and learning trades. Which is WONDERFUL.
" -- kiddos who would have applied to Williams or Bennington are looking below the Mason-Dixon line."
Yes! On top of that, in my northern deep blue neck of the woods, southern universities are tossing scholarship money at good students who would have easily been accepted into the once excellent flagship State U, but are now being edged out by foreigners and minorities with lower test scores.
A few years ago, I heard some kids grumbling at the gym about the injustice of a classmate being denied acceptance into UW-Madison despite scoring a 35 on his ACT.
Sad but true. I suspect there is more reaction to come, Im just not sure how different it will look from what you describe, but I am sure it will. Maybe we start to see more balkanization (progressive vs conservative colleges, congregations, media, etc)
Chris is living in the very place in which the rest of us will be residing in ten years, I'm afraid.
Chris, you are absolutely right about this. But it TAKES SO LONG to get the word out and for most to get on the same page that, say, Harvard is crappy school now, or that the Girl Scouts have abortionist and transgender guest speakers now, or being an Eagle Scout from Year X to the present means NOTHING now, that the left has won, in a way. Then when all the normal people regroup and figure out they really need to bar the doors from predators and infiltrators at their local church, much of the damage has already been done. Can we ever succeed in building back the trusted brand name or building a solid, trusted alternative?
Biggest obstacle I see is that the rot has been going on for so long. The boomers and maybe some millennials remember what it meant to "qualify" for something - anything from school sports and student council and good grades, to business and work success. But the boomers are aging out quickly (thanks to help from the jab industry & pharmacy) and the millennials are caught between two opposing standards. I hope there are enough participants who remember what a "solid, trusted alternative" actually is.
Gen Z seems to be on it (fingers crossed) ---- judging by who so many of them voted for and their obvious interest in the Charlie Kirk shared knowledge and truths (quite different from their college curricula, I'm guessing), the embrace of Christianity for many, and the conservative streak that appears to be running through much of their generation. They seem fed up by the lies and the dysfunction and are looking around for new ways; ways that work for them and for their futures, both personally and financially. So maybe that's something.
This is a misunderstanding and a dangerous under-estimation of the Gramscians:
"The hegemony theorists were unable to penetrate the markers to get to the substance. They were unable to see the ways that the institutions had authority because they worked — as, for example, religious faith gave people a sense of comfort and purpose, and religious instruction offered a set of rules that enabled people to live in ways that produced order and satisfaction."
They were and are absolutely able to fully understand the substance of the markers and symbols of authority, else they wouldn't have been able to infiltrate over the past seventy years. The time-scale is important here: virtually no-one in the 1950s argued openly for real for what we are seeing today. If you really dig you can locate articles from specific intra-academia publications pointing to this direction, but there's no central thesis-manifesto to find. Instead, every next step followed logically from the theoretical precepts and tenets and emirical failures were explained as failures to adhere to theory or as being caused by people opposing the theory.
Don't forget that what they did was analyse how the Christian cults managed to infiltrate and overtake the Roman Empire. The method is not tied to Christianity or any other idea; it is universal.
Target the women. Then the children. And the weak men. The strong men will be isolated, alone and adrift and will gradually be replaced by women frantically trying to appease god (here: the theory) for their sins (being guilty of implied structural racism f.e.), children without fathers who instead imprint on the state and its authorities ("the experts"), and weak men managing it all since there are no longer any strong men to oust them and step on their necks.
You can fight it.
But not by thinking they don't know what they are doing, or do not understand what they started opposing in the 1950s. They know, and they see their cluster of theories as superior to what they oppose.
They are fundamentally atheists, and so must be evolutionists and environmentalists and must create their own standards in opposition to God's. They are the Sadducees and Pharisees of our times.
I might split hairs over if they are atheists properly or if they are anti-Christian, but that's not really an important detail except for matters of nomeklature and such.
Perhaps it is a US vs. Europe phenomenon when it comes to atheism? American selfstyled atheists seems almost puritan and fanatical in their aggressive hate for Christianity (since they rarely if ever deny Judaism, islam or other faiths of not-White peoples they aren't really atheists at all, just anti-Christian would be my argument here) wheras European ones are much more of the shoulder-shrug variety with a live-and-let-live attitude to religion in general: "you do you bro, as long as their's no coerc ion involved" is the prevailing attitude on display among atheists.
I've seen it suggested that the term "apatheists" be used instead do differentiate the two kinds.
Perhaps one might say they are religious in their fervour and franticness, in their ritualism and dogmaticism, but not religious in any spiritual or divine sense?
But as said, I'm splitting hairs (for fun, if not profit) here.
"...They know, and they see their cluster of theories as superior to what they oppose." And that is why they are insufferable when even gently challenged.
Incorrect on the strong men:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban_Legion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Martyrs_of_Sebaste
Reynolds’ Laws Reynolds’ First Law “Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.”
Reynolds’ Second Law “The more a government wants to run its citizens’ lives, the worse job it will do at the most basic tasks of government.”
Reynolds’ Third Law “Whatever politicians’ control, they will use against you to get what they want.”
Reynolds Fourth Law “Longevity of political service does not make a politician more qualified. It only ensures they are more corrupt.”
Reynolds Fifth Law “Proposed legislation will fail if there is not enough opportunity for graft or control”
Reynolds observations “Matriarchies exist primarily in failed or colonized societies, or in those about to fail or be colonized.”
“Under capitalism, rich people become powerful. But under socialism, powerful people become rich.”
“Nothing that’s happened with this pandemic has made me want the government to play a bigger role in health care.”
As someone who was raised Presbyterian, I am tickled to see the “Presbyterian pastor” dressed like Father Antifa.
Chris, have you heard that the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman (with controversial views on same sex marriage which is anathema to African Anglicans). I believe in her former life she was the Chief Nursing Officer for England. She is also dyslexic (which makes me worry somewhat about her ability to accurately dispense medicines). She sprang to mind immediately when I was reading that excellent essay you referenced in Compact about wokery and women.
Nigerian Anglican Church has reportedly left the Anglican Communion, is it true?
I believe so.
Hah yeah I just had a mini-rant earlier today about leftoids mistaking signifier for signified. It seems to be a big problem with the way they think. They exist in a little bubble of hyperreality and refuse to acknowledge there is a ground truth beneath it that must ultimately be reckoned with.
I'm watching that little bubble float away... yes, I can still see it... almost gone...
you mean it's like a fat person drinking diet coke -- why am i still fat????
Omg. It’s because I eat fries with my Diet Coke , really !!
🤣😂You just made me choke on my lunch!
That anyone, like, officially related to Christian things, can wear something as horrifying as a planned parenthood vestment/ garment, is beyond my scope of understanding. Well, that and the fact that it's a woman wearing a priest collar what the fuck.
Another commenter on another site calls them “flaminicas,” a Latin word for priestesses. IMO they could be presiding over worshipping Jupiter. Or Moloch.