I generally don’t like to buy into university rankings, but to pretend an unranked satellite campus is as good as say, oh let’s say whatever is 20 places below Georgetown is disengenuous IMHO.
I’d like to think it’s punching up to puncture this stupid myth Bundy was some supergenius.
He was a lazy, slightly above average white guy who gladhanded with bad people to get things he would not have gotten on merit, and even then he barely could get into even a very bad school.
A momentary pleasure, true, , but ultimately playing his game. He needs to face an unending stream of calm, savvy, merciless and funny debate opponents who can cut through all of his cheap debate tricks (like talking over the opponent and spraying nonsense questions) and get to the inherently indefensible foundations of his premises. And then demonstrate the absurdity of those in such a simple way that all the people who still think of him as ‘an intellectual’ lose any faith of getting an intellingent answer to a question more complex than ‘where is the nearest bathroom’ out of him.
I was referring to the more famous UPS.
You have just described a stereotypical sociopath. Glibly charming, but with no real motivation and no ability whatsoever to see beyond the immediate present.
Wow, you make them sound positively deplorable!
I’ve seen fascism described, most simply, as a rejection of Enlightenment ideals. (previously on BBS) It’s a reaction to modernity and, I think, the same could be said for various (even most, if not all) types of fundamentalism.
ETA:
“One man who struck up a conversation with the writer apologized right away for his poor dental health, which he couldn’t afford to improve, but said he’d rather do without health care than pay for someone he didn’t think deserved it. “I’d rather take care of my own self with tape than be stuck in a system where I pay for everyone else,” the man told Cunha.”
This guy doesn’t seem capable either of empathy or of grasping that Medicare means everyone else is paying for him, too.
Serwer gives an excellent interview on this week’s episode of the Intercepted podcast.
My main problem with every book like that is that it has been published over and over again about every generation. Almost copy-paste from one to the next, subbing in the disliked generation’s moniker.
ETA:
These ones didn’t get that chance:
well I was trying to make a measured argument but see now that my comment has been deleted. Oh well.
The difference in size of the Boomer generation is often exaggerated. The so-called “boom” was only a 3% bump in population relative to the existing trend line, along with an extra 5-6 birth years lumped into the cohort compared to the “generations” that bracket it.
When it comes down to it, the demographic groups that get called generations are arbitrary and artificial. Trying to make claims about any group as a whole is doomed to the same irrelevance as the proverbial old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn.
ETA:
That’s weird. I liked it.
ETA2: Ah, it was swallowed in a chain of post deletion following @longtimelurker’s flagged post.
The majority of boomers weren’t always ‘evil’. The latter members of the boomer cohort in particular were the ones that embraced civil rights and formed the leading edge of the ecology movement.
Where things change is during the aging process; once any group in modern society nears retirement, they begin to pull back from their youthful ideals and try to protect themselves as they see their mortality in the mirror.
This protection takes many different forms - station in society, financial security, ability to stay physically safe, trying to stay connected to others as their parents, siblings and long time friends die off.
Old folks are terrified; ‘conservative’ political and social groups ruthlessly exploit that as they suck the economy dry, preying on those unwitting victims that don’t understand they’ve been thoroughly gamed by a well-oiled, obscenely wealthy, highly experienced and ruthless cadre of hucksters at all levels of industry and government.
That’s an interesting take on it. Great comment. But it seems only certain individuals who have done pretty well for themselves seem to be affected by the hucksters. I’ve found that most boomers who are middle-to-lower class are much more tolerant of the idea that wealth should be spread around and not distributed via nepotism, that race and sexual orientation don’t matter, and that we need to invest in the next generations. Those at the high-end of the economic spectrum seem to want to keep it in the family. I don’t care how terrified that particular demographic is, and I still insist that most of them are “evil” once you really get to know them.
Try this game: when having a conversation with a “compassionate conservative boomer” start making up more and more extreme right-wing opinions about poverty and race. See how long it takes them to stop saying “exactly!” before it takes them to say “well now, I don’t know about that”.
I’ve seen a few exceptions, but we’re talking single-digit percentages.
That is a frighteningly accurate summation of the aging process I see around me, although I must also point out that mean, racist old folks were usually mean, racist young folks who just had more social pressure to keep a lid on it. But yes, as we age, fear becomes a pretty constant companion if my parents and inlaws are to be taken as examples. As I go into my mid-50’s I try to keep this in mind and stay “out there.”
I’m only 47, but I find myself leaning further and further left the older I get. I’m hoping I’ll get to see some genuine societal improvements before I die (which hopefully won’t be for a while yet), and I’m actively trying to listen and keep my mind open to new ideas instead of focusing on how things used to be. It isn’t always easy, but I think it’s worth the effort. 
I think it depends on the form the fear of mortality takes. For me, I dread the type of world I will leave to my descendants and will do everything I can to make that a better situation. For some, I think, it is more fear that the little I have will be taken away by the scary dark skinned newcomers. I def lean further left, esp in issues around climate change and healthcare, but I can sort of understand how some might go more right if that’s all they hear about is the scary immigrants coming to take their pittance away. “Fear is the mind destroyer” and damn if this doesn’t bear that out in spades!
I agree with you, but one important thing to understand about “The Cruelty is the Point” is that fascism needs cruelty to work, and the article says so, although it doesn’t use the word “fascism”. Serwer agrees with you, too.
The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected . [. . .] The white men in the lynching photos are smiling not merely because of what they have done, but because they have done it together.
Fascism requires party loyalists, and the way you test their loyalty is with displays of cruelty. Those who flinch or turn away are suspect. The rest cheer at first because they’re supposed to and later because it seems to be working in their favor.
Interesting. Are they a sociopath if instead of murdering people they just suck at their job and aim to work as little as possible? If so I’ve met a few in my time
And sorry I did not pick up on your joke, I get it now and smiled
Ignoring the subject of his rant for a second, Shapiro’s entire body language and voice are like someone still in their awkward adolescent, going-through-puberty stage. Talk about “arrested development.”
They may be intentionally obstructing because of antisocial tendencies, yes.
Or maybe they just suck at their job.
