On diversity training, language police, Hyman Rickover, middle fingers, golf scores, and more
Since February 24, when Russia launched its all-out assault on Ukraine — since late 2021, actually, when Russia was building up along the border — I have written a lot about Ukraine. And I have wanted to write about little else. I think the situation is immensely important. For Ukrainians, of course, and for Russians, true, but also for all the rest of us. Two days ago, I had a series of notes on Ukraine, followed by a post, commenting on Russia’s latest war crime: a missile strike on a shopping mall, as hundreds of people — innocent civilians — went about their business, or tried to. And, of course, Putin’s apologists here in the Free World are numerous. Perhaps even more numerous than were the apologists for the USSR. And there were scads of those, trust me.
In any event, this is where my “head is at,” as people today say. But, of course, a thousand other issues swirl through my head as well, which is the point, practically, of my Impromptus column. Before I move on — from Ukraine — let me note a piece by Tod Lindberg, in Commentary. It is quite long and quite interesting. I would like to quote but a single passage in it. On February 24, writes Lindberg, Vladimir Putin “returned the question of morality or values to the foreground of international politics. He did so by showing the world in no uncertain terms what a tyrannical aggressor looks like.”
• On Monday, I recorded a podcast with David Mastio, and I later wrote a post about him, and our podcast. Dave is a longtime journalist, long associated with USA Today. In fact, he has worked there three separate times, in three separate stints — always in the opinion section. Dave is a conservative, and an opinion journalist. He’s also a straight arrow. Someone who respects and seeks to uphold the values of journalism. In fact, he is now the executive editor of Straight Arrow News.
Why doesn’t he work at USA Today anymore? He was hounded out, basically, by wokeness. He said that “pregnant people,” to use the current argot, are also known as “women.” For this, he was demoted. He soldiered on for a while and then had the opportunity to jump somewhere else. Wokeness at institutions such as USA Today is rampant and fierce. We have ample testimony — redundant testimony. Intolerant and bossy leftism has migrated from campus out to the broader world.
In my post yesterday, I said, “I don’t like to use this term, for reasons I could get into” — I was talking about “wokeness.” “But we need a shorthand — something that people can understand, and quickly — and ‘wokeness’ will have to do.” Well, why don’t I get into it now? Why don’t I get into my reluctance to use the term “wokeness,” or my hesitation about it?
The crux of it is: “Wokeness” is subject to overuse, and also to abuse. People use it to mean “that which I don’t like.” It’s like “fascism,” as Orwell pointed out. To call someone a fascist is not, probably, to say that he is a fascist but to say “I hate you.” I have been called a fascist, and a racist, my entire life. That’s by the Left. The Right calls me other things. “Wokeness” is a little like “fake news” — indeed, a lot like it. When people say “fake news,” they usually mean “news I find inconvenient.”
Earlier this year, Mike Rounds, a Republican senator from South Dakota, gave an interview to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. Stepho questioned Rounds about the 2020 presidential election. Said Rounds, “The election was fair, as fair as we have seen. We simply did not win the election, as Republicans, for the presidency.” Donald Trump did not take kindly to this, as you can imagine. So he wrote, “‘Senator’ Mike Rounds of the Great State of South Dakota just went woke on the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020. He made a statement this weekend on ABC Fake News . . .” Etc.
If refusing to endorse the Trumpian election lie is “going woke,” then “woke,” or “wokeness,” has no real meaning. You see what I’m saying.
There is fast-and-loose use of “CRT,” too. “CRT,” as you know, stands for “critical race theory.” Which is a real thing. And a pretty lousy thing, in my book. But for some people “CRT” is a handy label with which to tar things that bug them — things related to race. Norman Rockwell’s painting of Ruby Bridges, for example. Rosa Parks’s autobiography. Lessons on the civil-rights movement. “CRT” is a branding mechanism, and therefore when someone cries “CRT!” I wonder whether it is really true. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t.
Last year, George F. Will wrote a column that made my blood boil. It was an excellent column (of course). Let me paste the beginning:
In a June 8 YouTube video that should be watched especially by parents of school-age children, but also by everyone else, Dana Stangel-Plowe says, “Today, I am resigning from a job that I love.” She had taught English at New Jersey’s private Dwight-Englewood School since 2014 but could not continue.
The school “has embraced an ideology that is damaging to our students’ intellectual and emotional growth — an ideology that requires students to see themselves not as individuals, but as representatives of either an oppressor or oppressed group.”
This is not the story of one tony school in New Jersey; it’s the story of many, many schools. CRT (as I understand it) is inimical to liberalism (properly understood) and Americanism (as many of us have conceived it, down the generations).
But let me cite also an article from ProPublica, by Nicole Carr: “White Parents Rallied to Chase a Black Educator Out of Town. Then, They Followed Her to the Next One.” The educator in question is Cecelia Lewis. I very much doubt she was treated fairly. I very much doubt that she is the CRT witch of her opponents’ depiction.
Okay, back to “wokeness.” We need our shorthands, I’m afraid. Our generalities. We can’t speak without shorthands, generalities — labels. But we should try not to be promiscuous with them, as Bill Buckley would say. I always smiled when he used that word, “promiscuous.” He was virtually the only person I knew who used that word outside a sexual context. “Wokeness” is new (the word, I mean). When I was coming of age, we said “PC.” This predated the personal computer, I’m pretty sure. We meant “political correctness.”
An aside: Do you know, I remember a time when “political correctness” was used unironically? When it was used in earnest? People actually said, “That is not politically correct,” or, “This is politically correct,” and they meant it. “Political correctness” was not a phrase invented by the Right to mock the Left. It was a phrase that came from the Left, which the Right turned against the Left, if you will.
When music departments downgrade, or omit altogether, the music of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, on grounds that these composers represent “the patriarchy,” or white maleness, what do I call that? “Lunacy,” yes. “Cultural vandalism,” perhaps. But “wokeness” also seems apt. And wokeness is a curse upon life in many of its aspects. I am all for racial, sexual, and other sensitivity. Awareness. Conscientiousness. Kindness, for heaven’s sake. “Be kind and courteous,” writes Shakespeare (dead white male!). But wokeness? That is something else: ideology and intolerance forced on others.
In our podcast, Dave Mastio was telling me about the “diversity training” he had to undergo at USA Today. Obviously, USA Today is not diversity-minded enough to appreciate Dave Mastio. But we can leave that aside for a moment. In diversity training, they teach you what words to use, I gather — and what words not to use. “Pregnant women” would be verboten. I would last about a day. No, not a day, an hour. No, not an hour, a half-hour. I would never make it, out in the “real world” of diversity sessions and the like. I would say “Go jump in a lake” so fast . . . (I am Bowdlerizing, of course, what I would say.)
I have always, always had an aversion to the language police. That was one of the things that, early, turned me against the Left. They were always policing your language, and not with justice. We have language police on the right, too. What do I mean?
Well, I once moderated a panel and apparently said “gay marriage.” Afterward, an audience member admonished me to say “homosexual marriage.” I was not in a mood to comply (and the audience member, to her credit, was understanding and gracious).
Last fall, I said “Eskimo,” while moderating a panel. Afterward, a young woman thought she’d “educate” me (her word) and inform me that “Eskimo” is a “slur” (again, her word). I was a little roiled on the inside but relaxed on the outside. I could not really blame the young woman. She was undoubtedly reflecting her own education. She was probably trying to save a lost soul — me — or teach an old dog new tricks — again, me.
But I was talking about the Right — not don’t-say-“Eskimo” types. Just about every year — and the time is fast approaching! — I’ll say “Fourth of July.” And someone will invariably say, “What happened to ‘Independence Day’? I guess you want to rob the holiday of all meaning, right? It’s just a date on the calendar to you, huh? I suppose you refer to Christmas as ‘the Twenty-fifth of December.’ Why do you hate America?” To which the answer is: Go blow it out your . . .
I’m afraid I’m too cantankerous for the modern world. The whole concept of “diversity training” is obnoxious to me. You know what people ought to do? Acquaint themselves with the Golden Rule and try to obey it. They’ll find it way back in Leviticus. “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” asks Jesus, of the lawyer who wanted to know how to inherit eternal life.
Let me give you a memory, from way back in college daze. Actually, let me Google, for I know I’ve told this story in Impromptus before. Okay. Here’s a snippet from a column in November 2005:
Was amused, and a little disgusted, to see that White House staffers have been forced to take “ethics classes” — keep ’em from leaking classified information and so on. I always thought ethics classes were kind of insulting, an emblem of this age, which might be called a post-moral one.
I’m sure I’ve told you this story before [!]: I’m in college, and Adm. Hyman Rickover (Uncle Hymie) comes to speak. The crowd is insanely hostile, of course. During the Q&A, one girl — think she has a mohawk — asks whether it would be a good idea if nuclear-physics students were required to take ethics classes.
Rickover looks a little nonplussed. “No,” he says. “They should go to Sunday school or temple.”
Alarm, outrage, hisses, etc.
Wonderful.
We have our problems on the right. We sometimes build our own forms of political correctness. We plant our own minefields to navigate. (Try saying the “wrong” thing about guns or immigration.) But I know I’d be toast out in the “real world” of USA Todays, major corporations, college campuses . . . If there’s no room for Dave Mastio — decent, measured, judicious, professional — there sure as hell is no room for mouthy, mercurial me. I’d use the wrong pronoun or something and I’d be finished.
Recently, I heard about a professor who addressed a class as “ladies and gentlemen.” A student reported the professor to the administration. Apparently, “ladies and gentlemen” suggests a “binary” approach to humanity. The professor, choosing not to die on this particular hill, vowed not to use the offending expression again.
Lordy, I’d be toast. I am so, so lucky to be where I am, in a thousand different ways. Unbelievably lucky. I feel almost guilty about it, as well as grateful. “Shine, sweet freedom / Shine your light on me,” goes a song. My heart goes out to all who have to grin and bear it, or grimace and bear it. You are better men and women — ladies and gentlemen — than I.
Cripe, that was going to be the first item in an Impromptus containing about ten items. And I have gone on and on. Rant-o-rama. Let’s have a little music and sports and then get out.
• I have a new podcast for you, a new Music for a While: here. Called “Beyond the sabre,” it presents a little program of Khachaturian.
• Jesse Winker is a player for the Seattle Mariners. The other day, he lofted two middle fingers toward fans in the Los Angeles Angels’ ballpark. Ben Verlander of Fox Sports tweeted a photo of the scene and said, “Jesse Winker with the ol’ double bird to the crowd.” Man, I loved that expression: “the ol’ double bird.” Warmed my heart.
So, that’s a language item, as well as a sports item.
• Okay, one more language item: Isn’t “Los Angeles Angels” a redundancy?
• Another item about birds — birds of a different sort. On the golf course, the albatross is the rarest of birds. A birdie, as you know, is one under par (on a hole). (A three, let’s say, on a par 4.) An eagle is two under par — a three on a par 5, typically. But an albatross? Three under par. How do you get that? Well, by holing your second shot on a par 5. Or holing your tee shot on a par 4 (very, very rare). At a tournament in Germany, Maximilian Kieffer made an albatross, holing out his second shot on a par 5. Have a look.
• This was the scene two days ago, at the range in Manhattan — the only one in that fair borough:
As anyone else my age would — any male, I guess I should say — I thought of a line from Caddyshack: “I’d keep playing. I don’t think the heavy stuff’s gonna come down for quite a while.” Behold.
Bless you all. I’m out. See you.
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