What saddens me about this is that As far as Christian academics in the academy go, she might be the best we've got. And the best she caN do during a time of war is to snark conservatives about masculinity.
Christianity will lose in the academy, and it deserves to lose....
We will lose because we lack talent, we have no originality, and we can't say anything meaningful or relevant.
Whag our academic think is meaningful, beautiful, deep and important, makes no impact outside a small slice of upper middle class evangelical faux Aesthetes...
We have no vision to offer the world. Most of our writers have been reduced to writing Christian knock offs of secular books.
Like when Rachel Held Evans wrote 'A year of Biblical Womanhood' (in 2012), which is a knock off of 'The Year of Living Biblically' (written 2007)
Our authors produce social justice with a side of Jesus, Nadia Bolz-Weber has rebellious profanity laden biker chic with a side of Jesus. We have music with a side of Jesus and literary criticism with a side of Jesus. We don't even have any comedians (except maybe Brad Stein)...
Our humanities departments have produced no to tier painters, no top tier artists, no top tier poets, no top tier anything at all...and they are the most caustic, sarcastic, snarky, snide, passive aggresive, nitpicky, cynical people on the planet.
And they make nothing good...
We have produced few if any great up young philosophers. At best our young philosophers regurgitate and rehash Alvin Plantinga or William Lane Craig, at worst they revurgitate James Smith and John Caputo. They show no imagination, they offer nothing new, they have no fresh ideas.
We have no great cultural producers coming out of the humanities.
We have some good art coming from people who never studied art at a Christian College and thus avoided having their spark of creativity snuffed out by sub par Christian humanities education. Some, but not much...
All our humanities have to offer is stale, boring, Christianized knock offs of secular culture.
This is why we can't make anyhing that anyone cares about.
"I serve the Church!" they say.
No, you don't. Almost nobody in the church is blessed by anything you do.
Because we suck
I know one guy who is under 40, is a Christian, and has made music that has actually had an impact in the culture (He knows who he is).
It's one guy. God bless him though cause he's actually really good (no Christian Humanities education to snuff out that creative spark)
And, while I'm at it, there is one Young, very talented Christian Philosopher: @DavidDecosimo.
That guys is a machine. Creative and rigorous. He's very good. But again, he's just one guy, and he has little help.
See the problem?
We are going to lose the battle in the academy, and we deserve to lose.
That's it. We will lose, we deserve to lose.
Maybe in a generstion we will have some renewal, but right now we lack originality, creativity, vision, and talent. Our top tier people are few and far between.
So, yeah.
That was depressing to write. But it's true.
(If you make art and it doesn't suck drop it in the comments below so we can have hope for future generations. Please. I'm begging you. I really would like some hope)
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The biggest problem with letting illegal immigrants stay is that it is unjust. Why does nobody make this simple point?
It is unjust to ask immigrants who come legally to work for years to become citizens while letting those who enter illegally to be rewarded with citizenship.
When there is a set clear of fair rules for how immigration is to be done in a in orderly fashion, it is unjust to allow illegal immigrants to break the rules, skip to the front of the line, and then be rewarded with visas or citizenship just because left wing activists demand it
It is unjust to allow illegal immigrants to be rewarded for breaking the law and skipping to the front of the line. It doesn't matter if you feel empathy for the person doing the law breaking and the line skipping - it is unjust to reward that person with residency in the country
Leftists are having a tough time with Venezuelans celebtrating Maduro's arrest and the persians overthrowing Irans Islamic regime, because it means the people are rejecting both the communist and islamic halves of the leftists new islamo-communist/third world marxist coalition.
The left wanted to harnass the energy around the palestinian issue and use it to advance western marxism. So, they created an alliance between western marxist activists and Islamic fundamentalists/Hamas supporters using third-world marxism and postcolonial theory as the bridge.
They thought by getting the popular support of global south "subaltern" third-world groups, along with the support of the Islamic world, they would have a coalition big enough the challenge the United States, and which they would control by virtue of having organized it.
1/ The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) created a DEI program focused on:
-Power, privilege, and oppression
-Understanding microaggressions
-Centering Native Voices in Atmospheric Sciences
-Knowledge that "does not come from science"
2/ The NCAR had two programs. The first was called UNIEON (which stands for "UCAR/NCAR Equity and Inclusion program"), and the second was a program they funded called "rising voices," which was about bringing "indigenous knowledge" into science.
And it's funded by tax dollars.
3/ The goal of the DEI program (UNIEON) was to bring DEI into the NCAR, and then get the participants to start implementing the DEI ideology via "Bystander intervention." That is, it invites people to insert themselves into other peoples social interactions in order to spread DEI
1/ If you want to understand influencer behavior, read Former WWE executive Eric Bischoffs' book "Controversy Creates Cash" about the inner workings of pro wrestling.
He said controversial things, regardless of morality, generates attention, creates buzz, and sells tickets.
2/ The title of the book comes from a chapter where he discussed bringing in Dennis Rodman for an event because Rodman was controversial and "controversy creates cash." Much of what is happening online, including the Charlie Kirk conspiracies, is driven by exactly this dynamic.
3/ While there is certainly more to it (parasocial relationships with influencers, foreign influencers, etc) one of the major factors that incentivizes outlandish claims and conspiracy theorizing is that the controversy generates attention, creates buzz, and drives engagement.
1/ There's a genre of woke-posting where they state their views as if they were talking to toddlers as a way of making their views look obvious (even kids get it!), grabbing moral authority (I'm the teacher!), and leveraging condescension to imply their opponents are beneath them
2/ These women are not actually trying to explain anything, the explanation is just a front for their condescending tone. The real goal is to "put you in your place" by treating you like a toddler so they can grab the social high-ground in the conversation
3/ The reason they do this is because by adopting the posture of a kindergarten teach it forces you fight through layers of snark, sarcasm, and condescending tone while being put in the social position of a child talking to a teacher.
Making the Friend/Enemy distinction the fundamental axis of politics is to reject the Aristotelian claim at the heart of western civilization that says politics is about human flourishing and pursuing the good, and to replace it with the political ideology of 3rd world tribalism.
If you want The West to turn into Somalia, tell people that the fundamental distinction all political motives and actions revolve around is "who is on my team and who isn't," and the goal is to reward your friends while harming enemies.
Cause that's how Somalia works
There are a whole lot of people running around acting like "friend/enemy" is some kind of deep idea, or profound simplification of politics, when in fact it's little more than the rejection of the grand political tradition of western civilization in favor do 3rd world tribalism.