A SLIGHT EMBARRASSMENT

I mentioned yesterday that I make an effort always to write simply. But in my posts of just the day before I described Dick McDonald's writing as "trenchant" -- a word not in common use. Dick had to look it up to see what I was saying about him -- though he was very pleased when he found out.

I have always made an effort to express myself as simply as possible even in my academic writing. I have always said that unclear writing is a sign of unclear thinking. But there are some examples here which suggest that obscure writing can be even more discreditable than that. Sometimes it covers up the fact that the author -- typically a Leftist academic -- has nothing to contribute at all.

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BROWN

Few people now remember that the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown decision (forcing racially mixed schools) was substantially based on evidence from a psychologist -- fraudulent testimony, as it turns out. As Jonah Goldberg comments: " "The watershed moment for this thinking was when the Supreme Court cited those famous "doll tests" conducted by Kenneth Clark in their Brown v. Board of Education decision. The tests showed that black kids in segregated Southern schools preferred white dolls, and hence had low self-esteem. This low self-esteem, in turn, was cited as a justification for getting rid of the segregation.... Indeed, as former NR bright light Ernest van den Haag noted in 1960, the tests Clark conducted were, at minimum, irrelevant--and Clark was more than a bit dishonest. Writing in The Villanova Law Review, van den Haag noted that Clark also ran doll tests in integrated schools up North, and got the same or even more dramatic results as he did in segregated schools. Black kids everywhere chose white dolls over black ones; segregation was irrelevant. Clark didn't tell the Court about those tests" More on the Kenneth Clark fraud here

Patrick Buchanan summarizes the great damage to democracy done by the Brown decision.

End government schools: "Government school racism did much more damage than private enterprise could ever have afforded to do. It would have been better if government had stayed out of the schools altogether. The Brown decision ignores how government schools started the problem that Brown ended. When government began socializing schools in the late 1800s, it expanded government-mandated racism. Brown is another example of government peeing on everyone and then claiming that it was rain."

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ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY

Stephen Karlson has been writing a lot about the absurdities of academic life lately and Anthropology & Economics has taken up his question about why people do "useless" social science and humanities courses at universities -- and why they do Ph.D.s in particular. I actually think that most (say 95%) of the social science and humanities Ph.D. candidates have no choice. They are psychologically unfit for the real world or a real academic discipline and their "studies" are just a sort of sheltered workshop for them -- which is why they often take a long time to get the degrees concerned and which is why they rely a lot on post-doc programs after that. And it sure beats driving a cab. As I myself have done both (driven a cab and gotten a social science Ph.D.) I guess I know a little about it all. I myself did well in both academe and in business but that seems to be extremely rare. Most social science and humanities academics would not last 5 minutes in business.

And I notice that Marginal Revolution takes seriously the claim by Anthropology & Economics to the effect that anthropology and economics are just two different ways of looking at human values. I taught for 12 years in a university Department of Sociology & Anthropology and I have also taught economics so maybe I know a bit about that too. From my observations, both Sociology and Anthropology are 95% Marxist claptrap -- in no way comparable with economics. Margaret Mead, the lying Leftist propagandist, was not so much an exception in Anthropology as the rule. It has also recently come to light that modern anthropology actually started out on the basis of deliberately fraudulent work designed to prop up Leftist beliefs. Franz Boas was the fraudster concerned. See also here

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ELSEWHERE

Why is it OK to bomb and remove from office one brutal Fascist dictator (Milosevic) but not OK to bomb and remove from office another brutal Fascist dictator (Saddam)? These three prominent Democrats don't seem to be able to tell us but there is no doubt that they do see the bombing of the Christian Serbs as OK but not the bombing of Muslim Iraqis. Not really surprising, given the well-known Democrat hatred of Christians.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Mirror sites here and here

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

All politicians seek power but conservatives bring with them some concern for the welfare of their country. Leftists bring only their hate-filled Stalinist hearts and their pretend compassion. Voters, unfortunately, often believe the compassion is genuine

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