23 years ago when I was teaching kids actual physics and math, including earlier introduction into the math analysis--and most of those kids did just fine, when properly taught--Wall Street Journal published this piece.
Nowadays, with "scientific" opinions like one below, one has to admit that the experimentation in indoctrination certainly succeeded and even plethora of STEM degrees is no guarantee against people being stupid in a broader human sense, nor, for that matter being just plain simple ass-holes. (Pseudo) Scientific American already publishes things of this nature:
Physicists Need to Be More Careful with How They Name Things. The popular term “quantum supremacy,” which refers to quantum computers outperforming classical ones, is uncomfortably reminiscent of “white supremacy”.
Mind you, out of three cretins who wrote this sappy piece of shit, this one
has an impressive C.V. which reads like that: Ph.D., Mathematics, University of St. Andrews MSc, Applied Physics, The Johns Hopkins University BSc, Mechanical Engineering (Minor: Philosophy), University at Buffalo.
The other two authors are altogether some cuck non-entities and you would expect this from the guy above:
These kinds of linguistic
hotfixes do not reach even a bare minimum for diversifying science; the
most important work involves hiring and retention and actual material
changes to the scientific community to make it less white and male. But
if opposition to improving the language of science is any indication
about broader obstacles to diversifying it, this is a conversation we
must have.
I think, this dude is an embodiment of a tragedy which befell America's science field, nor is he good as a physicist, because the person with male genitalia who harbors these kind of thoughts has to seek a psychological help immediately. I would suggest to forego that altogether, and go directly to a good psychiatrist. This guy's signature, among many others, also appears in a letter to SCOTUS supporting the affirmative action--so the guy is a classic American cuck and, despite numerous degrees, is a product of the American system of public education which provides next to zero value (I would argue, it is negative) when teaching humanities' subjects and which is responsible for the murder of the American meritocracy and F-35 and Boeing-737 Max among many other disasters it co-authored with the Modern Monetary Theory, Free Trade and Stock Buybacks, courtesy of FIRE economy.
But, if despite the unfolding wholesale idiocy in the US academic STEM realm some islands of the top-notch scholarship in math-physics-chemistry still remain and try to fight off ideologization and politicization of the natural sciences, the humanities field, by the virtue of not being really scientific and primarily opinion-driven, is altogether--a house of madness, or a cesspool in the US. Make your own choice of wording. But there is very little difference between Critical Race Theory and, say, whatever the so called Political (Pseudo)Science produces nowadays in the West because all of it is a plain simple demagoguery and compilation of random economic, historic, pop-science and current events' "facts" which are good only for fitting prevailing narratives. That is why the loony so called American (or European) Left and nominal Right are close relatives, a connection both will deny, since they are both an embodiment of a systemic crisis which is self-perpetuating because it is based on false premises.
Here is one such example of a hallmark of the American academe lack of awareness of the outside word, lucidly noted by Paul Gottfried who, being a man of a conservative calling, evidently had it with this BS about "Cultural Marxism" and other primitive sloganeering intrinsic in a tawdry American political discourse.
The swear words “Marxist” and “revolutionary” are now thrown around by conservatives, such as those at Heritage, the New York Post,
and Fox News, with the same abandon with which the left speaks about
“human rights” or “marriage,” particularly in relation to the concept of
Critical Race Theory (CRT). But as someone who has studied Marxism
extensively, I believe it’s necessary to state that CRT is most
definitely not Marxist, nor is it in any sense revolutionary. Instead,
it is an instrument of repression brandished by those in power against
those whom it is feared might resist them, and those labeling this
instrument as Marxist misdiagnose the problem to their detriment.
You see, at least somebody tries to keep a head above the putrid surface of the Western political BS, passing for "science" and tries to establish the actual causality. But, this is the exception, not the rule in the United States and the reason I write about systemic crisis all the time, is because this is not a mechanism, across the board, from economy and military, to academe, which would work just fine if you can tweak it and tune it up and things will go as planned after that. This is not the case at all. It is the whole machine whose design is unworkable and no amount of small fixes can save it anymore. It is a runaway train.
And here I come to the matter of this meandering piece of mine. Few days ago Politico published an opinion piece by Matthew Rojansky who passes in the US for "realist" in US-Russian relations and was effectively blocked by the establishment from getting a position of a chief adviser on Russia in Biden's Administration. Yet, Rojansky's "reputation" as a "realist" (quotation marks are intentional) did not prevent him from producing this whopper of a middle-school essay writing and a complete unawareness of the world outside in general, and Russia, in which Rojansky is allegedly a specialist, in particular. Writing about cheering US troops when hearing Biden promising to be "tough" on Russia, Rojansky writes:
Yet the fact is, the cheering troops are right: Biden is being tough on
Putin, but not just because he’s saying the right things. When it comes
to the difficult, high-stakes U.S.-Russia relationship, toughness
doesn’t mean refusing to talk to the other side, even when they’ve
engaged in bad behavior. American presidents over the years have shown
that successfully managing this relationship demands three different
kinds of toughness: talking tough, toughing it out, and hanging tough.
Though they can be easily overshadowed by the political theater of
U.S.-Russia conflict, these three kinds of toughness are essential
foundations for any communication between Washington and Moscow to bear
fruit.
It took me a good five minutes to understand (after few readings) what Rojansky is trying to say here about "three kinds of toughness". And then it occurred to me--no matter how I try to understand in any practical sense what Rojansky is trying to convey here, it will not do any good because when one has no substance, as Rojansky does, the only thing which is left is to go into the Humpty Dumpty mode and do what I describe in my last book, and I quote:
In the post-modernist world of sheer emoting and of the alleged validity of all and any narrative, the whole notion of right and wrong, and the whole notion of truth which is knowable become irrelevant. The epistemological closure comes by the way of informational noise where everything is true and valid—and is not, at the same time. It is truly a contemporary iteration reminiscent of the Orwellian world of double-speak or even of an earlier version of that, the world of Humpty-Dumpty in which words mean “just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” By now the puzzle of who is the real master in choosing the meaning of words, thus determining what is real, has been solved—a financial oligarchy and a self-proclaimed intellectual class from both “left” and “right” which finally failed to predict just about anything, since objectivity is not only impossible but irrelevant, and therefore, as Hitchens noted, whatever is put forward as truth is necessarily “ideology.”
Rojansky is an Exhibit A of this epistemic closure of the American "academe" which either is not capable to view the outside world through objective lens, or is afraid to, or both. If you look at Rojansky's biography it becomes patently clear that huge swaths of the American diplomatic-national security establishment are utterly unqualified to be in or around any political body responsible for a development of sound policy, the emphasis on "sound". The reasons for that are numerous and I will go over, again, some of them.
1. History of modern Russia, including, especially, her Soviet period, does not exist in the US in any operational sense because majority of it is either a political caricature or outright solzhenitsified lie, provided primarily through Russian/Soviet dissidents or, primarily, not exclusively, Jewish immigration with well-defined agenda and scores to settle--this is the main source of information about Russia in the US. Bar some few important exceptions, modern Russia history is served in the US only within the Cold War 1.0 propaganda framework and has very little to zero value in any practical sense. Most of it exists not to study Russia but to support American exceptionalism.
2. The United States and its "intellectual" class are extremely inefficient not only in studying outside world in general and Russia in particular, but the systemic flaw of the US foreign policy establishment is its gross failure in internalizing even what little precious they learn about any subject, which is the first sign of a systemic dysfunction. Empirical evidence of that is overwhelming and reads like: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan among many other things, including America's military policies and doctrine-mongering. Few exceptions merely confirm and underscore the rule.
3. The tawdriness of the American political discourse and its elections' expedience-driven nature dictate its grandiosity of statements which is an obverse side of primitivization of media sloganeering and shallowness of "expertise" required to serve this discourse much of which is a show for plebes. Hence a specific and well established verbiage most of which is designed to avoid substance and obfuscate any unpleasant facts.
4. You cannot teach an average American political "scientist", lawyer or "diplomat" anything on the power balance and what actual "tough" means in the real world. Most people in the US establishment never served a day in uniform and have zero military and intelligence background. It is one of the major factors, together with being in the pockets of ethnic and military-industrial lobbies, driving their aggressiveness and militarism. It is a desperate desire to look "tough" and macho. Having no background in military-intelligence service they cannot produce realistic assessment of alleged America's "enemies" and of the state of the United States itself, whose propensity for self-aggrandizing and gross overestimation of own power and importance became legendary and is in the foundation of the current existential American crisis.
There are many other points, but Rojansky's piece confirms these four points above perfectly and if Rojansky passes in the United States as "Russia realist" and makes these conclusions:
Biden impressed his audience in the United Kingdom with his tough talk
and his willingness to take on Putin. But the full measure of Biden’s
toughness will be whether he can bring clarity, credibility and
persistence to the enormous challenge of managing U.S.-Russia relations.
Biden will need that same arsenal of toughness on the home front, too,
to help Americans “build back better.” If he is up to that challenge,
then he will have more than earned those service members’ applause.
It becomes absolutely clear that Rojansky, let alone US establishment both on the "left" and "right" which is overwhelmingly ignorant on Russia, her history and her people, are not fit to conduct foreign policy under current circumstances and Rojansky should understand that:
1. Russia will talk with the devil himself if need be and Russians' opinion of the modern American establishment is very close to a definition of the devil. If it reduces some tensions, sure. But...
2. Russia knows that the United States is non-agreement capable and effectively ungovernable and any word or document signed with the US is worthless, as are any US promises. If Rojansky, and Biden Admin, think otherwise--they are in for a surprise.
3. Russia knows that this summit is primarily for the internal US consumption and for consumption of the US vassals in Europe, to show that the US "is back" and can talk "tough". Russia knows that the US doesn't know what real tough is. So, Putin and Co all take this whole premise with a smile, while understanding clearly that anti-Russian activities both clandestine and in the open will continue on the America's (and West's) part.
4. Rojansky needs an update on the main component of the global balance of power which is a military power. The United States lost the arms race both conventionally and, especially, in strategic weapons and this is the MAIN driving force behind US stalking Russians with the idea for this "summit" because the United States will do everything possible trying to put Russia's new strategic and operational-strategic weapons under some kind of treaty. Not to mention the fact of a very serious scare in D.C. after Zelensky's trying to play a game of chicken with Russia's Armed Forces--wrong plan. Rojansky rubbed shoulders with many US top brass, maybe he should inquire there about what systems such as 3M22 Zircon or Petrel (Burevestnik), or new iterations of 3M14 Kalibr mean for the US and NATO. They will explain to him, maybe, why Putin will be smiling at Biden's "tough talk".
5. China, China, China. Russia, Russia, Russia. Yeah, right, last desperate attempt to peel off Russians from Chinese. Don't tell me that they are not delusional in D.C.
But since the main thrust of Rojansky's piece is the necessity to be "tough" with Russia, what can I say, some lawyer from Scranton, who barely finished his law school at the bottom of the class, plagiarized the article, dodged the draft and accidentally became POTUS, and now is having serious mental issues, will be talking to not just a great lawyer himself but to a graduate of two serious KGB schools, including legendary KAI, former FSB Director, an intelligence professional, who, incidentally, survived number of attempts on his life, and now the President of the only country which can literally wipe the United States off the map, if Rojansky doesn't understand the meaning of mismatch, that only confirms everything I wrote in this piece. They ARE that stupid. Especially since they believe their own BS both about Russia and the United States, which by providence was given a chance after the collapse of the Soviet Union to build a better world--the task at which it failed miserably due to hubris, low intellectual and cultural level of its "elites", grossly flawed American mythology and inability to learn.
In this case the title of the WSJ's piece from 23 years ago should be rephrased: Why America Has the World's Dimmest Elites? Looking at the parade of mediocrities starting from the very top of the US governing class and its "intellectual elite" one can only conclude that the system cannot produce anyone else, at least for now, and the death, in reality the murder, of the American meritocracy promises nothing good to both United States itself and the world at large. If Putin and his people will find (I doubt it, but hope dies last) anyone in the US to talk to and build a dialogue in hopes of a new generation of the American political class emerging, at some point in the future, with which one can discuss serious issues of new, multipolar world, I would view this as a miracle.
In related news:
Beijing has dismissed the notion that G7 nations can chart the trajectory of global affairs, arguing that decision-making by small clubs has been replaced by genuine multilateralism.
Meanwhile Russia's Pacific Fleet (some of it) went to the Pacific to do whatever they usually do, you know.
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