Who saw this coming? Screwtape, that's who.
Yesterday, Ace wrote a great post: California School District Implements "Equity Grading" -- A Students Will Become B Students, and D and F Students Will Become C Students
Even if you read it once, the details are almost unbelievable, so you might want to read it again (but don't comment on old threads).
Related: Renegade anti-woke former teacher Chalkboard Heresy explains why it's impossible to get woke teachers to stick to the curriculum and leave their politics at home.
There is no reasoning with them. They are on a mission. Might as well understand it and maybe find a way around it.
And this:
Why can't a middle school in Utah deal with kids presenting as "furries"? Why are other students and parents motivated to protest?
Don't worry, though: A local media propaganda outlet interviews a furry calling themself (yes, themself) "Strudel" who says this is all overblown.
And if you can't trust a nonbinary that dresses up like a cartoon dog and calls themself "Strudel," who can you trust?
C.S. Lewis Saw All This Coming
I posted on this back in April of 2021, so it's sort of a Blast from the Past, but it seems to be coming to full fruition now:
Jared Whitley wrote about a piece Lewis wrote shortly before he died:
"We now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell." -C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
A masterful piece of religious prose disguised as satire, C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters is a series of messages from senior devil Screwtape to his protege Wormwood on how best to corrupt mortals. Originally released during World War II, its tight 175 pages provide charming, timeless wisdom.
In an addendum released shortly before the author's death in 1963 - Screwtape Proposes a Toast - Lewis pivots from dispensing universal wisdom to directly criticizing social trends of his day, trends which have gone from mere whispers on college campuses 60 years ago to become orthodoxy with the power of law today. Reading it today, it feels like the author was more prophet than professor.
In the 15-page essay - full text available here - the devil Screwtape outlines how the term democracy can be warped into destroying excellence, first in the halls of education then to society at large to make sure everyone stays "equal."
"Democracy is the word with which you must lead them by the nose," Screwtape tells his fellow devils. "The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be 'undemocratic.' "
Several examples are given at the link, with some not-too-obvious warnings about the wiles of tempting demons. And notes on the abolition of the middle class. Remarkable. And this (full of hyperlinks):
"For 'democracy' or the 'democratic spirit' (diabolical sense) leads to a nation without great men, a nation mainly of subliterates, full of the cocksureness which flattery breeds on ignorance, and quick to snarl or whimper at the first sign of criticism. And that is what Hell wishes every democratic people to be. For when such a nation meets in conflict a nation where children have been made to work at school, where talent is placed in high posts, and where the ignorant mass are allowed no say at all in public affairs, only one result is possible."
Lewis also warns about changing the meaning of words. That's one of the ways we get to the state in the paragraph above.
Well, 1963 was a long time ago. Screwtape and his buddies have a head start. Time to wake up now?
Say it again with that senior demon, Screwtape:
On the Lighter Side (sort of)
Ammo Grrrll includes some school-related remembrances about things that were once permissible but no longer are permissible in this week's Thoughts from the ammo line:
As I have written about before, the very last gig I had in Minnesota before moving to Arizona was for a School District's Teachers' confab three days before they had to get back in the classroom. It was about 15 years ago. And almost all the sessions were about addressing the "gap" between academic achievements of various ethnic groups. With the distinct impression that any gap that existed was solely the fault of the racist teacher and racist white people in general and had nothing to do with any differences in culture, self-discipline, study habits or regular attendance in class which may have existed among the several groups.
As my little entertainment set - their reward for sitting through all the drivel - was last, I got to listen to many people with all the expertise of Dr. Jill Biden whining and caviling about this horrific gap, inexplicable by anything other than malignant deliberate racism. There was an irony so delicious you couldn't have made it up in that the Hispanic expert speaker, working for some government agency of course, showed up more than an hour late for her racist boilerplate presentation.
When it was my turn, I offered a few quips sure to please: "Teachers feel about Memorial Day the way parents feel about Labor Day..." and so forth and then near the end I said, "I've heard a lot of concern today about how some students are not keeping up with others. Couldn't you just solve this by asking the white kids to do WORSE?" Oh my. Dead silence for a few long seconds, and then raucous laughter and applause.
Today, of course, they would all cover their mouths in horror or drive me from the stage. Anyone who laughed would have to go to reeducation camp and reapply for her job. And the gap embarrassment has been mostly solved by forbidding testing at all. No test, no gap, no problem. You get into college now not by test scores anyway, but by skin color, so it's all good.
Brave!
The whole piece is full of interesting musings on risk aversion and such.
Music and Drama
Passover is coming
I still haven't found any Passover music that really sings to me. This scene from "Prince of Egypt" is dramatic.
Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.
This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.
Last week's thread, April 13, It's been a long week for NPR's new CEO
The following week was EVEN LONGER for the new CEO. Take a cruise through the AOSHQ archives for the week. This is from J.J. Sefton's Morning Report on Thursday, about her time at Wikipedia. She did a great deal of damage even before starting at NPR.
Much more under Sefton's heading FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH, just on one day.
Remember not to comment on old threads.
It's interesting that her friends are not defending Katherine Maher. They are loyal to the ideology, not to her. She'll have a soft landing somewhere, someday, though.
BTW, who funds the Atlantic Council, where she also served?