Winning through intimidation

Peter H. Schuck writes,

Dissident students know that university leaders at the most prestigious schools (with rare but notable exceptions like Robert Zimmer and Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago) are prepared to pay a dear price to secure campus peace. And since they and their faculty are overwhelmingly liberal politically—almost 90 percent identify with and often contribute to the Democratic Party—they tend to sympathize with the protesters’ agendas, even when more radical than their own.

There are many other passages in the essay that I was tempted to excerpt.

Winning Through Intimidation is the title of a business book from the 1970s, at the height of the “me generation.” I don’t know what is inside the book, but I suspect it is mediocre pablum. The title, on the other hand, seems to me to describe how the Woke movement succeeds.

24 thoughts on “Winning through intimidation

  1. Here is the pull quote…

    “This brings me to the second point about DEI. Its ideals are rhetorically appealing only so long as they remain undefined. Who, after all, can be against “diversity” and “inclusion,” at least in the abstract? The reality, however, is that as abstractions these concepts are merely aspirational and essentially empty. What they actually mean in practice—and what the cancellation cadres plainly mean by them—is strict regimes of affirmative action based on race, ethnicity, gender, and a few other attributes.”

    • Increasing the amount of affirmative action beyond what people were already comfortable with was the entire point of all of this.

      Namely, once these AA graduated college there was some degree of AA out in the free market, but not as much as college. The entire country needed to be made into a university campus.

      And let’s not forget random hundred million dollars lawsuits because some elevator operator makes some off color remark.

      It won’t end until AA and “civil rights” ends. And I can’t see AA and civil rights ending until we admit that the reason for black failure is their genes. Otherwise people will just keep saying that blacks SHOULD be X% of everything, and it must be racism why they aren’t (MLK said this is 1967, so its not like this wasn’t baked into civil rights from the start).

      • “I can’t see AA and civil rights ending until we admit that the reason for black failure is their genes’, as opposed to the policies of Dem mayors etc. being main the reason for black failure?
        You might give Sowell’s views a look.

    • Who, after all, can be against “diversity” and “inclusion,” at least in the abstract?

      George Soros, acting through one of his foundations, effectively bought the Commwealth’s Attorney election for Buta Biberaj, who belonged to a private Facebook group where leftists discussed how to punish and silence Loudoun County parents who opposed CRT. People who pretend this kind of dynamic shouldn’t influence how one views “diversity” and “inclusion,” even in the abstract, is something worse than stupid. As John Searle wrote in another context, “it’s not easy for me to imagine how someone who was not in the grip of an ideology would find the idea at all plausible.”

      The problem isn’t that “diversity” is code for “affirmative action.” The problem is more immediate: diversity encourages pointless tribalism and the cultivation of resentment against the majority and its culture.

  2. The latest in VA election Dem bullshit.

    They have decided to close Loudoun County schools for election week because of a bus driver shortage. Teachers will get Election Day off (I wonder what the voting demographics of teachers are) while the parents that are splitting way Younkins way will have to juggle watching their kids on Election Day and maybe not get to the polls.

    These people are shameless.

  3. It’s clear enough how it works when a marauding horde of horse-archers or even a gang of street toughs wins by intimidation; but even this is only possible under certain certain conditions.

    But when that strategy works for crybabies complaining to teacher, then you have to ask what peculiar conditions did teacher create?

  4. Winning through intimidation – not only a strategy of the left I dare say.

    Heres some more about the incident in question. Link in the original piece:

    MIT said in a statement that the public outreach Carlson lecture “will not be held this year at the discretion of the department. At the same time, Professor Abbot was invited by the department to present his scientific work on MIT’s campus to students and faculty. This was conveyed by the department head in a conversation with Professor Abbot last week.”

    Abbot “embraced this offer,” MIT said, and he and the department are working on setting a date.

    Abbot did not immediately respond to a request for comment about this second lecture opportunity. He did not mention a second invitation to talk at MIT in his Substack piece.

  5. The most monstrous thing about these cess pits of political indoctrination is the enormous amount of tax heating that nourishes their depravity. The first thing we should do is eliminate tax exempt status for them and toss out the tax deductibility of donations to them. Perhaps as part of a phase in for a generally applicable VAT to replace the corporate income tax.

    “But the market would fail to provide the optimal level of education without subsidized student loans and grants” will reply every single academic economist to a man, completely ignoring the reality of over a million student loan borrowers in default and that 40 percent of student loan borrowers never complete a degree. Universities do more harm than good and grease the skids of the Great Immiseration. All of the grifters in this sordid scam need canceling.

    • Completely agree that the marginal social benefit of college education is way below the marginal social cost. States which the GOP controls should remove the ability of businesses to discriminate on the basis of educational attainment. Businesses can test applicants for skills instead, or use certifications or licenses. Enrollment will fall 50% or more if a college degree is no longer seen as a talisman that opens the door to a high paying career.

  6. WTI is by Robert Ringer and is much more about persuasion than business. He also wrote “Looking Out For #1.”

  7. Here’s two professors silenced in Florida.

    Those wacky Oberlin sophomores are at it again: (ed. Joke referencing the banh mi controversy)

    Three University of Florida professors have been barred from assisting plaintiffs in a lawsuit to overturn the state’s new law restricting voting rights, lawyers said in a federal court filing on Friday. The ban is an extraordinary limit on speech that raises questions of academic freedom and First Amendment rights.

    University officials told the three that because the school was a state institution, participating in a lawsuit against the state “is adverse to U.F.’s interests” and could not be permitted.

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