Here in Los Angeles, I think the homelessness issue is becoming this way. In liberal circles, one isn't permitted to express disgust with the the encampments taking over sidewalks and making things feel unsafe. I hear politically incorrect frustration anytime I talk with working class people or people outside circles dominated by progressive thinking, like people playing pick-up soccer. I could be wrong, but I think a focus on this issue could give the outsider developer candidate Rick Caruso a path to victory in this fall's Mayoral race over the establishment candidate Karen Bass, who actually seems a normal, reasonable Democrat.
Agreed. I saw this in Portland and the Bay Area. Even the insistence on shaming people who use the world homeless- "They're the un-housed"- feels disconnected from reality to me. I do not want homeless people to be harmed or endlessly thrown in jail, nor do I want homeless camps and all of the social ills they can bring to bear to remain a part of urban life. There has to be a solution beyond the liberal clarion call, "We just need to spend a crap-ton more money."
I have also heard "houseless" and "people in transition". We can't find solutions because we are so far behind in building housing so all we can offer are new euphemisms.
There was a New Yorker article not that long ago that basically compared sleeping on the street to camping.
I live in NYC and, having grown up in the 1970s and 80s, I'm feeling pretty bad about the prospects for big cities in the near- to medium-term. Not because of remote work, but because things like large populations of troubled and sometimes aggressive homeless people, rising crime, declining services like trash pickup are going to make the calculus of where to live a no-brainer for most normal people, especially if they have or want to have kids. Add in the supply issues Tracy Erin notes, and the associated ridiculous prices, and it begins to look like a no-brainer for a whole lot more people.
I don't have much faith in the current crop of electeds here to bring about meaningful change - I was cautiously optimistic when Adams was elected, but having seen how the administration operates that's gone - and am seriously thinking of pulling up stakes while real estate prices are still pretty good.
You and your husband are the problem Josh! I kid, but I do think the rapid change in popularity of same-sex marriage has convinced a lot of these activists that their avant-garde ideas are - at worse - not wrong just early. The arc of history and all that. But it’s just not clear to me that “punctuality is white supremacy” and similar exotic views are on any path to popularity.
Two thoughts: one must recognize that most people politically opposed to you are doing so in good faith with an approximation of a consistent ethic. Very few people vote to intentionally undermine a common good.
Personality and value traits related to political alignment matter and are relatively deep seated. Specifically, openness and valuing authority/loyalty. If you view the classroom as a place to openly explore ideas vs viewing the teacher as an authority, you get very different takes on what and how things should be taught. The whole notion that one racial group has social debt to anther racial group because of historical injustice is fairly philosophically loaded; if you're values are individualistic (I am not) this is a complete nonstarter.
I guess my point is that difference are real, not ignorance or stupidity, and they are in good faith. There is plenty of common ground to be found in policy, without fully bridging philosophical gaps: you can get Evangelicals and conservative Catholics to agree on environmental policy (as a biblical mandate) but you won't convince them "humanity is the disease" or other hard left framings. Similarly pro-life/pro-choice folks can find commonality in supporting early childhood support and aggressive prosecution of rape. By minding the ideological gap, you can progress on policy. Dismissing idea generally stems from dismissing the value framework other citizens are operating from.
Well, that was frustrating as shit. I wish we could have had this inane party struggle session in 2012 when I could have comfortably, if unhappily, voted for Mitt Romney.
One challenge for Democrats is the degree to which elite news media outlets are also gaslighting readers about issues like CRT. The Washington Post has decided its job is to insert truth bombs into its reporting because its apparently incredibly stupid readers can’t be trusted with information. So WaPo is constantly telling readers that, eg, CRT isn’t actually being taught in schools when it reports on parents or R politicians making an issue of it. That will keep redounding back onto Democrats.
The "there's no CRT in schools" discourse really highlights a tendency for pedantry among progressives. It's mostly not malice. It's literally that they want to be the smartest kid in class: "Oh, you don't know the difference between Neomarxism and Foucault metatextual theory? You fucking rube." Even though most progressives don't actually know the fine details of what they're saying either. They just know that that's the "right answer."
The moderate voter. Too few of us to be a party, but very influential since that is how politicians get elected. Who can get the most votes of the 10% middle? Josh is right on about the opportunity to appeal to that group. The loud unreasonable minority of ultras on both ends are making it difficult for both parties to break thru effectively.
I genuinely would like to hear about what we should do so that trans kids don't have a worse experience in schools than cis kids. Or the fact that people learn about Sundown towns and the Tulsa Massacre when HBO makes a show about it.
I'm not of the opinion that we need to bring Kimberle Crenshaw and Judith Butler to 3rd grade but it seems what we're doing isn't working. And like so many of he left side critics of this that aren't more radical than me are making much more political arguments than policy ones.
I think there are ways to have a welcoming and inclusive learning environment without having explicit lessons or curriculum items on these issues. I don’t think schools should tolerate bullying of any kind and they currently don’t (at least in policy). And things like the Tulsa Massacre can be incorporated in history curriculum. I agree lots of US history is glossed over or ignored, but you can’t learn about everything in school. What you need to do is foster the curiosity in kids so they continue learning outside of school. Not everything has to be taught to children in a school.
I also think people on both sides overestimate how much school and teachers have an influence on what people will believe growing up. Plenty of people grew up hearing about creationism and they don’t believe it now and even at the time knew it was silly. I didn’t grow up learning anything about trans issues but I’m not anti-trans. Kids learn by example and observing the world. We have far more representation of previously underrepresented voices and kids will notice that subconsciously and if parents and adults around them treat those people with respect then children will learn to as well. Just like children observe and internalize prejudicial acts they also do the same for the opposite.
I used to be a high school English teacher. The idea that we could indoctrinate kids always makes me laugh- like, yeah right, like the students really even care about such abstract things, and the idea that teachers are charismatic enough to convince them to care is even more laughable.
Here in Los Angeles, I think the homelessness issue is becoming this way. In liberal circles, one isn't permitted to express disgust with the the encampments taking over sidewalks and making things feel unsafe. I hear politically incorrect frustration anytime I talk with working class people or people outside circles dominated by progressive thinking, like people playing pick-up soccer. I could be wrong, but I think a focus on this issue could give the outsider developer candidate Rick Caruso a path to victory in this fall's Mayoral race over the establishment candidate Karen Bass, who actually seems a normal, reasonable Democrat.
Agreed. I saw this in Portland and the Bay Area. Even the insistence on shaming people who use the world homeless- "They're the un-housed"- feels disconnected from reality to me. I do not want homeless people to be harmed or endlessly thrown in jail, nor do I want homeless camps and all of the social ills they can bring to bear to remain a part of urban life. There has to be a solution beyond the liberal clarion call, "We just need to spend a crap-ton more money."
I have also heard "houseless" and "people in transition". We can't find solutions because we are so far behind in building housing so all we can offer are new euphemisms.
There was a New Yorker article not that long ago that basically compared sleeping on the street to camping.
I live in NYC and, having grown up in the 1970s and 80s, I'm feeling pretty bad about the prospects for big cities in the near- to medium-term. Not because of remote work, but because things like large populations of troubled and sometimes aggressive homeless people, rising crime, declining services like trash pickup are going to make the calculus of where to live a no-brainer for most normal people, especially if they have or want to have kids. Add in the supply issues Tracy Erin notes, and the associated ridiculous prices, and it begins to look like a no-brainer for a whole lot more people.
I don't have much faith in the current crop of electeds here to bring about meaningful change - I was cautiously optimistic when Adams was elected, but having seen how the administration operates that's gone - and am seriously thinking of pulling up stakes while real estate prices are still pretty good.
You and your husband are the problem Josh! I kid, but I do think the rapid change in popularity of same-sex marriage has convinced a lot of these activists that their avant-garde ideas are - at worse - not wrong just early. The arc of history and all that. But it’s just not clear to me that “punctuality is white supremacy” and similar exotic views are on any path to popularity.
Two thoughts: one must recognize that most people politically opposed to you are doing so in good faith with an approximation of a consistent ethic. Very few people vote to intentionally undermine a common good.
Personality and value traits related to political alignment matter and are relatively deep seated. Specifically, openness and valuing authority/loyalty. If you view the classroom as a place to openly explore ideas vs viewing the teacher as an authority, you get very different takes on what and how things should be taught. The whole notion that one racial group has social debt to anther racial group because of historical injustice is fairly philosophically loaded; if you're values are individualistic (I am not) this is a complete nonstarter.
I guess my point is that difference are real, not ignorance or stupidity, and they are in good faith. There is plenty of common ground to be found in policy, without fully bridging philosophical gaps: you can get Evangelicals and conservative Catholics to agree on environmental policy (as a biblical mandate) but you won't convince them "humanity is the disease" or other hard left framings. Similarly pro-life/pro-choice folks can find commonality in supporting early childhood support and aggressive prosecution of rape. By minding the ideological gap, you can progress on policy. Dismissing idea generally stems from dismissing the value framework other citizens are operating from.
Sounds like we need some grassroots activism for the new ‘reasonable adult’ coalition in the Democratic Party. For sure example, yard signs:
In this house, we believe that:
-Lax border policies are unpopular, including with many immigrants
-qualified immunity is bad, but adding more police lowers the murder rate
-Both Chris Rufo and Ibram Kendi are grifters who profit from sowing division
-Standardized tests are useful academic benchmarks
-Questions related to transgender participation in sports are difficult, with no easy answers
-Structural racism clearly exists, but race-blind policy solutions are more feasible politically
-Mayo is good
Well, that was frustrating as shit. I wish we could have had this inane party struggle session in 2012 when I could have comfortably, if unhappily, voted for Mitt Romney.
One challenge for Democrats is the degree to which elite news media outlets are also gaslighting readers about issues like CRT. The Washington Post has decided its job is to insert truth bombs into its reporting because its apparently incredibly stupid readers can’t be trusted with information. So WaPo is constantly telling readers that, eg, CRT isn’t actually being taught in schools when it reports on parents or R politicians making an issue of it. That will keep redounding back onto Democrats.
The "there's no CRT in schools" discourse really highlights a tendency for pedantry among progressives. It's mostly not malice. It's literally that they want to be the smartest kid in class: "Oh, you don't know the difference between Neomarxism and Foucault metatextual theory? You fucking rube." Even though most progressives don't actually know the fine details of what they're saying either. They just know that that's the "right answer."
The moderate voter. Too few of us to be a party, but very influential since that is how politicians get elected. Who can get the most votes of the 10% middle? Josh is right on about the opportunity to appeal to that group. The loud unreasonable minority of ultras on both ends are making it difficult for both parties to break thru effectively.
Are you ready for student loans to be cancelled???
Yes, yes, and more yes!
I genuinely would like to hear about what we should do so that trans kids don't have a worse experience in schools than cis kids. Or the fact that people learn about Sundown towns and the Tulsa Massacre when HBO makes a show about it.
I'm not of the opinion that we need to bring Kimberle Crenshaw and Judith Butler to 3rd grade but it seems what we're doing isn't working. And like so many of he left side critics of this that aren't more radical than me are making much more political arguments than policy ones.
I think there are ways to have a welcoming and inclusive learning environment without having explicit lessons or curriculum items on these issues. I don’t think schools should tolerate bullying of any kind and they currently don’t (at least in policy). And things like the Tulsa Massacre can be incorporated in history curriculum. I agree lots of US history is glossed over or ignored, but you can’t learn about everything in school. What you need to do is foster the curiosity in kids so they continue learning outside of school. Not everything has to be taught to children in a school.
I also think people on both sides overestimate how much school and teachers have an influence on what people will believe growing up. Plenty of people grew up hearing about creationism and they don’t believe it now and even at the time knew it was silly. I didn’t grow up learning anything about trans issues but I’m not anti-trans. Kids learn by example and observing the world. We have far more representation of previously underrepresented voices and kids will notice that subconsciously and if parents and adults around them treat those people with respect then children will learn to as well. Just like children observe and internalize prejudicial acts they also do the same for the opposite.
I used to be a high school English teacher. The idea that we could indoctrinate kids always makes me laugh- like, yeah right, like the students really even care about such abstract things, and the idea that teachers are charismatic enough to convince them to care is even more laughable.
Did I miss a post last Friday?
Apologies, there was no post Friday. But there will be a Friday issue this week.