Roger Clegg, National Review Online, May 15, 2009
. . . this really bothered me. The Washington Post had an op-ed today [see below] regarding the decision of the College Board to discontinue the AP exam for Latin literature, “which covers Cicero and four lyric poets.” Buried in the penultimate paragraph, and stated not at all uncritically, is this sentence: “The College Board said this decision was related to the number of minority students taking the exam.”
Now, I don’t know if the exam should have been continued or not, but it is very sad if the reason it was discontinued was because the racial mix of students taking it was politically incorrect, and it is equally sad if this is considered an acceptable reason even by a teacher who is otherwise outraged at the College Board’s action. O tempora, o mores!
Original article
(Posted on June 5, 2009)
Jane Miriam Epperson Brinley, Washington Post, May 14, 2009
{snip}
Across the nation, Latin programs are changing because the College Board announced last spring that while it would continue the other Latin AP exam, which covers Virgil, May 2009 would be the last time it offered the Latin lit exam, which covers Cicero and four lyric poets. While specific figures are not yet available, it seems likely that this decision by the testing giant will lead to significant enrollment declines and reduced course offerings across the country. In effect, our entire discipline is reduced to the study of a single—admittedly great—author, Virgil. In the gap created by our national reluctance to centralize education policy, the College Board, an unelected body, has ended up as the de facto Education Ministry, and when it makes decisions we have no recourse.
With the termination of the AP Latin literature exam, high school programs nationwide will change. Because AP exams set the standard of academic quality for college-bound students, high school curricula are often reverse-engineered to prepare students for AP tests. So principals who have been willing to support small Latin programs because they added to the number of bodies in AP seats or AP scores about which they could boast are likely to decide that the Latin program’s resources can be better spent elsewhere. Teachers who have nurtured multiyear programs that keep students engaged until they can tackle Catullus’s hendecasyllabics will then throw in the towel. Parents who have encouraged their children to stick with Latin because they could add this AP Latin score to their transcript will decide that Junior should look for something more alluring to college admissions officers.
The College Board’s curriculum-setting role goes beyond the AP course itself. Latin courses for elementary schools (a growth area), middle schools and high schools will now change, and textbooks will change along with them. Since teachers favor textbooks that lay the groundwork for the advanced study their programs anticipate, they have recently been selecting series that emphasize, for example, Catullus’s vocabulary and themes—love, manners and literary issues—over those that emphasize, say, Caesar’s (politics and war). But now textbook publishers are likely to revise their products, and teachers will gradually replace their books to reflect the single-author focus of the remaining Latin AP exam.
{snip}
Until recently, many believed that the College Board felt responsible to the public good, but its termination of the Latin literature test and a few others that served only a few thousand students nationwide suggests that this is really about money. The College Board said this decision was related to the number of minority students taking the exam. But when it ended its Italian exam, a decision announced at the same time with the same excuse, the College Board (with annual revenue of half a billion dollars) left that decision open to reversal if supporters of the Italian exam could raise $1.5 million. (They could not.) Meanwhile, Latin, revered by Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders—John Adams declaimed the speeches of Cicero, once even in a toga—has been placed in the hands of a bunch of administrative functionaries.
{snip}
Original article
Comments
Immodica ira insidiarum creat, as Cicero once said.
And as no Roman author has ever wrote, illegitmati non carborundum.
I find NR’s opposition ironic, because NR for the last decade and a half if not more has been Republican pandering to minorities central.
It’s worse than just ‘sad’. Once again white kids can’t learn about their own culture because of just the mere presence, or absence, of non-whites, who mostly don’t have the brain power or the interest to take something like Latin anyway.
Full-blown metasticized deracination.
It is not sad that blacks cannot advance in Latin; it is sad that Whites shut down other Whites who were showing mastery.
But, after all, all men are created equal, so if blacks cannot advance in Latin, it must be due to some pernicious influence.
Also, it is good that the Whites have, as it were, girded themselves with a towel and stooped down in holy humility to wash the feet of their black brothers.
(The last two statements about equality and humility were delivered in boiling-hot sarcasm, by a person who took three years of latin in high school, and two years in college.)
Let us all be equal, which means: The least of these thy brethren will rule over everyone. EVERYONE.
The insanity continues and will soon turn into terror, because Whites have lost their (beep!). No! They have voluntarily cut off their own (beep!)!
Latin? Mighty Rome? Yes, bring back the Graeco-Roman philosophers! They would have much to say about our malady, especially Celsus and Porphory, who warned against the dangers of the altruistic practices of the Christians. These practices have a strong, if undefined, influence on our culture, and their origin is only vaguely felt.
It is everywhere, like some vague, undefined belief in UFO’s and aliens.
Small ideas, like transistors, controlling much bigger flows of power.
Why would minorities want to study the ancient roots of
What a shame!
Unless it is absolutely necessary, avoid college. Science or engineering, OK, and the teaching bureaucracy will force you to squeeze through their programs, but for the most part, a B.A. degree is a ticket to a life spent in an office doing make work. If you’re smart enough to get into college (without remedial courses), you’re smart enough to make a living by skilled labor. If you want an active mental life, turn off the TV, read good books, and talk to smart people.
The Post editorial not only avoids criticism of the diversity mentality, but suggests, in all seriousness, that a centralized education ministry would be more responsible to high culture than the College Board. It is more likely that non white values in the curriculum would enjoy a great victory on the day education is centralized. For it is easy to imagine how the doctrines of political correctness would come exercise a sort of absolute sway over the spirit of such a monstrous bureaucracy.
4 — Eric the Red wrote at 8:15 PM on June 5:
I think you meant ‘bass violin’—the way it is played in jazz unlike classical music, right?
Excellent article that goes to the real heart of the issue.
“Mike from not-Queens wrote at 6:49 PM on June 5:
It’s worse than just ‘sad’. Once again white kids can’t learn about their own culture because of just the mere presence, or absence, of non-whites, who mostly don’t have the brain power or the interest to take something like Latin anyway.
Full-blown metasticized deracination.”
Abandon not your hope, my friend! The answer is again, personal initiative. And it probably doesn’t cost anywhere near as much as a so-called “world history” class taught by brain dead, PC leftists. It’s called March Of The Titans by Arthur Kemp. It’s a fantastic place to start.
I work (but not teach) at a state university & am occasionally exposed to student compositions. The degree of illiteracy is staggering. American young people of all races can barely write an English sentence, much less a composition, that is not littered with errors of all kinds: grammatical, punctuation, spelling, logic, you name it. The hand-written stuff is painful to look at. These students have attended school for 12 years & most have not mastered their native language above the must fundamental level.
Truly, we are screwed.
We’re living in the age of the antithesis of the European Renaissance. The Renaissance movement, which led to the Age of Enlightenment and the subsequent ascendancy of Whites as masters of the globe, had been spawned by a return to the Greek and Roman classics. The West conquered the world by abandoning superstition and embracing logic. The ancients were in the minds of our great conquerors and heroes, speaking to them in their original tongues.
In the early 20th century schools abandoned teaching the classics. The result was the substitution of wisdom for knowledge. People now know the minutiae of passing technology but do not have a grasp of eternal principals. Modern Westerners are technical and overfull of information yet without virtue or reason. The people of the West lost their minds when they lost the classics. The doctrines of the worldwide socialist movement —propagandized on an industrial scale in the 20th century— filled the void left by the removal of the classical curriculum. In effect, socialism’s maxims became the morals of the West.
There are very effective classical education programs still in existence. Look to colleges or universities using a “Great Books” curriculum, that is, colleges that teach directly from the great books of Western Civilization. For a list of such books, see the Wikipedia article of the same name. By educating yourself in such a way, you remove the often-biased modern textbook’s “frame” and hear unaltered the wisdom the ancients wished to impart to the inheritors of the West.
I taught at an international school in Europe for three years. The school had students from about 60 nations. Instruction was in English. Which nationality was the worst in ENGLISH? Which nationality was the worst at mathematics? It will come as no surprise to the readers of AmRen that the answer to both questions is “American”. Worse yet, when I returned to the States to teach at an American college, I told these facts to one of my classes. Were they ashamed that their fellow countrymen were last in everything intellectual? No at all, the whole class laughed!!! I think that the worst thing about the American educational system and American society in general is that the idea that it is okay to ignorant and stupid.
The Chair of ‘the college board’ is Youlonda Copeland-Morgan.
If you do a google image search, you will see she is clearly, you guessed it…
“Abandon not your hope, my friend! The answer is again, personal initiative.”
Actually, I do everything I can to help my teenage daughter be as racially conscious as I can. Luckily my ex-wife doesn’t oppose that and in fact does as much as she can to teach our daughter to be wary. But it is a struggle in this environment. We do have to take our own kids in hand and at least partially home-school them, to at the very least undo the damage from their brain-dead teachers.
Gird your loins, folks.
I have never commented before on a story posted here, however, this is on a subject so near and dear to me I must.
Before me, someone mentioned Great Books Curriculum. Well, I recently finished my freshman year at one of these schools and the study of classics has so altered me that I am now one of it’s fiercest defenders.
I would have to disagree with Schoolteacher; training in technical skills is satisfactory enough to survive, but not what created the mighty Western World. JTaverner has put forth pretty much what I would say; the hellenistic world and its classics are the path to greatness.
Last year I graduated high school. I was always an encyclopedia and it saw me through. I could store in my head all the answers to every test. I got a respectable 32 on my ACTs through my astounding ability to regurgitate information. This year I was finally able purge myself of that ‘gift’. What matters is not being able to memorize, but to reason, to challenge, to defend, and to understand.
Reading Plato and Aristotle has awakened in me the ability to think. It means so much to be able to read texts where ideas are put forth and considered, rather than to pour over text books or lecture notes where answers are given. None of this would have happened if I did not go to college, but perhaps only the right college is worth attending.
My friends make fun of my school when I explain that I study Ptolemy and Galen, but when I hear how their schools run, I pity them. My friend had to take a class where they learned ‘tolerance’, another had to memorize who was held various positions in world governments, and others simply slept through classes and crammed for finals. I may live to regret receiving a more or less useless degree in the eyes of employers, but I will not regret my education. I truly fear, as Schoolteacher suggests will happen to me, working in an office. I hope that studying the liberal arts will truly liberate me from the mundane, materialistic, uncultured American Dream.
I do not study Latin; I study greek, and not very well, but I do feel that any opportunity to study the classics that is lost, is a grave blow. I am not a white supremacist or separatist like many on this site; I simply feel a great sadness and anger towards whiny minorities and those who cave to their weaknesses rather than encourage overcoming them. My college is likely more than ninety percent white, we read two minority authors out of a total of perhaps a hundred or more, and we unabashedly ignore historical, marxist, feminist, or afrocentric analysis of what we read. I pray to God it will not be forced to change because of the above.
I’m sorry for rambling, and let me say, I make no claim to wisdom. I only wish to say, it seems to me that the study of the classics is most worthwhile and it is tragic that this opportunity was lost for high school students of Latin in the name of diversity.
Anonymous: I didn’t mean Afro-Americans, but actual Afri-
This insanity aimed at helping African-Americans will like all good intentioned ideas take more blacks down that well known road to Hell.You will find no Black Muslim agreeing that this is a wise course.
Anonymous wrote:
I am not a white supremacist or separatist like many on this site; I simply feel a great sadness and anger towards whiny minorities and those who cave to their weaknesses rather than encourage overcoming them.
Oxymoronic, that’s the essence of white supremacy. Better learn to live with it.
In the middle of an otherwise great post, and definitely not a “rant” in mine eyes, that’s a rather condescending thing to say. Do you not realize that opposition to white supremacy or separatism is the very force that has dismantled real education at formerly great educational institutions, such that your “friends” sneer at you? The same force that “integrated” South Africa and Alabama went right to Stanford and took away Western Civ and put in its place Tolerance Studies. Globalism is globalism.
To Question Diversity:
Excellent post; I’m not sure what NR has been working to accomplish.
A little help though…I’m trying not to use a dictionary:
Great anger creates a trap?
I teach courses as an “adjunct” instructor at a relatively small midwestern college. I’ve had to assign short essays, which I dread doing. Even though the students write their essays on their computers, which have spell-check, their papers are still full of errors of all kinds. They don’t spell check. Their grammar is practically nonexistent. Every other English mistake is made. The logic and reasoning is childlike at best. The race or ethnicity of the student hardly matters: It’s all bad — except for the essays from the occasional foreign student whose command of English is inevitably far superior.
There’s no need to teach the American kids Latin. For them, English is a foreign language when it comes to writing and thinking.
QP: Excessive anger creates insanity. A perfect phrase that comes to mind when thinking about our most protected minority.
Another one of my favorite Latin phrases applicable to our time is Oderint dum Metuant. Literally, fear while you hate. More specifically, it was the Roman Empire’s philosophy when dealing with imperial subjects, they did not care if the subjects hated the Romans, as long as they feared them more. That’s probably what we should do with the Middle East — although not in the form of imperial occupation, we need certain members of the religion of peace to fear us more than they hate us. They will always hate us, in spite of BushObama delusions. The only way out is to instill massive fear.
Charles, Farakhan has a 150 IQ?
Isn’t this the same person who believes that there is a gigantic UFO mothership hovering about the earth?
And that the Egyptians were black?
And that some black “doctor” created Whites and marched them across the desert in loincloths?
Upon what are you basing this bit of information, Charles?
Is this IQ based on a certified test, recognized by the APA or Mensa?
What is the name of the test he took?
I received an article from a colleague that stated that Hindi and other Indian languages are being pushed in schools in England because they are complex and exacting languages
NO! they are NOT exacting. These languages have no words for technical terms or practices, they use the ENGLISH words as does ARABIC which ALSO has no words for the terms we take for granted in the West. Those languages are begionning to be taught in the U.K simply because SO MANY FROM THAT COUNTRY ARE IN the Emerald Isles. I deal with these languges all time and I know!
“…The degree of illiteracy is staggering. American young people of all races can barely write an English sentence…These students have attended school for 12 years & most have not mastered their native language above the must fundamental level…”
It’s worse than that:
The teachers that teach them in the K-12 educational-industrial complex can barely write a sentence! Their writing, including those with so-called advanced degrees is painful to read—misspellings of common words, misuse of possessives, elementary mistakes (mixing up its and it’s, your and you’re, they’re their and there, weather and whether) and so on.
There was an unbelievable drive to de-emphasize grammar and syntax in the 80s as part of the same drive to recruit more NAM teachers—some of whom are barely literate or understandable. The mechanics of the English Language were seen as ‘irrelevant’ as long as the teacher could garner some understanding of the underlying ideas the students were writing about. Some ed schools mandated that red pens/pencils not be used lest a student became ‘intimidated’ by all the red marks (I’m not making this up). Proper grammar and spelling were sneered at as being ‘restrictive.’
‘Holistic’ grading of students’ written work in the classroom and on state tests used to measure ‘literacy’ became the norm. Graders were told to ignore grammatical errors, spelling, common punctuation errors, syntactical errors and to ‘seek the underlying ideas’ of the essays (no matter how lame). Essays displaying little or no understanding of anything were routinely passed. Remember the prevailing dogma of the educational system: If the scores of NAMs are not the same as the scores of Whites/Asians, the tests are racist. NO other explanation is acceptable.
I spent one year teaching so-called gifted high school students and dreaded grading their essays because they fiercely defended their sloppy writing, lack of knowledge of basic grammar and spelling and cliche-ridden ideas that they thought were brilliant and evidence of great, deep thinking. This is because they’d been told their for their entire short lives that they were geniuses, the world was theirs and that they could do ‘anything they set their minds to.’
And, it’s not just English where students struggle. One of my relatives teaches math at a large, very prestigious university in California. He tells me many freshmen students cannot compute well and struggle with basic math, especially fractions.
Bon
Question Diversity wrote at 1:17 PM on June 7:
QP: Excessive anger creates insanity. A perfect phrase that comes to mind when thinking about our most protected minority.
“Another one of my favorite Latin phrases applicable to our time is Oderint dum Metuant. Literally, fear while you hate. More specifically, it was the Roman Empire’s philosophy when dealing with imperial subjects, they did not care if the subjects hated the Romans, as long as they feared them more. That’s probably what we should do with the Middle East — although not in the form of imperial occupation, we need certain members of the religion of peace to fear us more than they hate us. They will always hate us, in spite of BushObama delusions. The only way out is to instill massive fear.”
Hmmm,…. You have me musing; What caused Japan and Germany’s conversion to peace loving societies? It would be so wonderful if human societies could learn without the necessity of such extreme and costly remedies.
To those of you who see white American students’ relative lack in language proficiency: I think the answer is twofold:
(1) Mainly to pander to black and (to a lesser extent) Hispanic low IQs, the general overall curriculum, language and otherwise, has been slowly dumbed down. This marginally hurts whites.
(2) Even though there are extravagant amounts of money spent by the official literacy-industrial complex on the concepts of literacy education, it doesn’t work very well. Until recently, phonics was shunned for various “whole language,” “see-and-say,” or “holistic” methods. The reason for it is that The System really doesn’t want people to learn how to read, based on the rantings and ravings of kook neo-Marxist American university professors that say that “reading is bourgeoise,” and that it’s a hurdle to government-run social experimentation. If you read, you might not liberal Democrat.
Miss Vendredie Prochain wrote at 6:57 PM on June 5:
“It is not sad that blacks cannot advance in Latin; it is sad that Whites shut down other Whites who were showing mastery.
But, after all, all men are created equal, so if blacks cannot advance in Latin, it must be due to some pernicious influence.
Also, it is good that the Whites have, as it were, girded themselves with a towel and stooped down in holy humility to wash the feet of their black brothers.
(The last two statements about equality and humility were delivered in boiling-hot sarcasm, by a person who took three years of latin in high school, and two years in college.)
Let us all be equal, which means: The least of these thy brethren will rule over everyone. EVERYONE.
The insanity continues and will soon turn into terror, because Whites have lost their (beep!). No! They have voluntarily cut off their own (beep!)!
Latin? Mighty Rome? Yes, bring back the Graeco-Roman philosophers! They would have much to say about our malady, especially Celsus and Porphory, who warned against the dangers of the altruistic practices of the Christians. These practices have a strong, if undefined, influence on our culture, and their origin is only vaguely felt.
It is everywhere, like some vague, undefined belief in UFO’s and aliens.
Small ideas, like transistors, controlling much bigger flows of power. “
Thank you, Miss Vendredie Prochain! You eloquently reassert the theme that I have been hammering on via this site for years; Christianity and White insistence on it as part of a successful White future is a HUGE error. Christianity in fact, is the root of the White European illness of spirit that has it marching to its destruction.
Many posters hate it when I point out the violence done to Europeans by and through the Christian conquest. I always advocate a new religion for those who need it - based on European pre-Christian models. At least they saw their own land as sacred and their own people as important as who and what they were. Many objectors know little or nothing about them, falling into the well-trained Christian reaction (witches, pagans, heathens!) but the very philosophers you quote had influence on many of them. Knowledge of the Graeco-Roman outlooks had reached as far as Scandinavia before Christianity arrived, using the same intellectual pathways - with its trickery and culture destroying practices - not to mention its later inquisitions.
Regard Islam, Judaism and even Eastern Orthodox Christianity; they all succeded in linking their religion with their ancestral lands. Christianity took over indigenous European (West) gods and holy places with a Middle Eastern lore that was only slightly Hellenistic or Roman in structure. It divorced the people from their land. Once you have no sacred ground, you have lost a leg of the tripod of culture. It took a very long time to destroy the Europeans love for their own land and people, however, the major cause of this has been the religion that calls on people to forget their earthly connections and look to a promised “eternity.” This has served as a great ploy as that very religious movement seized power and wealth - and control - here on the material plane.
The White man needs to be spiritually free in order to survive. He needs to use all that great intellect to become truly objective in reviewing his condition and likely paths to survival. Truly, some learning from the past would help a great deal. A good start would be for all would-be White race realists would be to read Gibbons’ classic; “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
The White man must be free to be encouraged by his own natural culture for his kind’s survival. The problems of the NT and its many contradictions in theory and practice are a huge stumbling block to this end. Oswald Spengler made the central issue of this in his “Decline of the West.” Think about it.
Miss V. Prochain, you mustn’t take the grousings of crotchety old codgers too seriously. And Bacchus not only loosens the tongue, as they say, but apparently the pen (or keyboard) as well.
16 Anonymous, any chance you’re going to Thomas Aquinas College out in California? Good for you, whatever honest college you’ve gotten into. But most students are stuck in multi-cultural degree mills, and the trade school/library card option is their best bet. Even if they don’t educate themselves by good reading, most are better off not going to a four year school at all. It’s better to be uneducated than to be falsely educated. Honest, useful labor will teach them a lot in a few years anyway.
“There’s no need to teach the American kids Latin. For them, English is a foreign language when it comes to writing and thinking.”
I learned more about English grammar while studying Latin in college than I did diagramming sentences in Middle School. I decided on Latin because I didn’t think the Hispanic civilization had anything to teach me compared with the Ancient Romans; besides, I wanted to be able to read my church missal at the traditional Catholic Church I attend. I haven’t kept up with it over the years, but the experience was worthwhile.
Emphasis should be placed on English and the old Germanic and Celtic languages. As much as I respect Latin and Greek, it wasn’t the Romans or the Greeks who formed the United States. ‘Twas the British. The Saxons and the Celts knew much about freedom; the Romans knew much about empire.
Minister Farakhan graduated from Boston Latin at age 16. He played the violin on Ed Sullivan at age 7. He recieved a full academic scholarship in music. He was a Calypso sensation. He conversion to Islam seems to have only enlightened him. He made a Hadj. His black seperatist ideas are the only cure for race relations in America. His schools average three years ahead of NY public schools in test scores. If his IQ isn`t at least 150 it might just be higher.
I work (but not teach) at a state university & am occasionally exposed to student compositions. The degree of illiteracy is staggering. American young people of all races can barely write an English sentence, much less a composition, that is not littered with errors of all kinds: grammatical, punctuation, spelling, logic, you name it. The hand-written stuff is painful to look at. These students have attended school for 12 years & most have not mastered their native language above the must fundamental level.
EVERY WORD IS TRUE!! I often must read resumes of “people” 80% of which are likely to be black, applying for overseas work paying more than $100,000 U.S. taxfree. Those types of resumes mentioned go in the “round file”
YOULONDA!! is also “Youlonda Copeland-Morgan Named Vice President of Admission and Financial Aid at Harvey Mudd College” She is also in control of quite a number of other things involving MONEY!!! and ADMISSIONS!!!!
Charles B. Tiffany wrote at 9:04 AM on June 7:
“Along with John and John Quincy Adams, Minister Farakhan graduated number 1 from Boston Latin High School. He attributes his absolute command of the English language to his latin training, of course his 150 IQ doesn`t hurt. When asked why he could quote more Shakespeare than the Sacred Koran, he said,” To destroy the power of the white man I will need to know his langauge better than he does.”
Charles B. Tiffany
A fan of Farakhan I see…. Rather be killed off directly or by genetic domination by a Black Muslim than live with one “liberal” - (one man’s liberal is another’s conservative) - or an atheist - heaven forbid that your fantasy religion should be proven nothing more than a myth!
I watched several of Mr. Farakhan’s speeches during the height of his anti-White campaigns. In one of them, he sought to use this IQ you allege, to reason that Blacks are better than Whites genetically. “The White man fears extinction!” he said. But he obviously had no knowledge of genetic science. He claimed that Black skin and brown eyes are “dominant” traits, while White skin and blue eyes are recessive. All to the acollades of his Black audience - not realizing the meaning of his words. The term tranmuted from a scientific term to a political one by his “charisma” but not his intelligence. In genetic language used in this context dominant means the least mutated and therefore the older, more stable trait. In the context of race differences, it means that Whites are the most evolved of human species - the latest model, if you like, while Blacks represent the oldest, more undifferentiated - primitive set of genetics on the planet.
At the time I laughed at his error and idiotic reasoning. But I knew that ignorant Whites would also be taken in. Things are to such a state than whenever a Black shows up, everyone gives up trying to compete. Farakhan may have been in error, but his political manipulation has been largely effective. It has been effective because too many Whites think more of their religion than they do of real education - an education that would have prevented Farakhan’s words to ever gain so much as a toehold in the public mind or discourse.
But you would rather burn books and see the White race go to your imagined afterlife than change the type of government you demand or question the faith you so blindly wish us all to die for….
The concept of freedom and individual responsibility is a uniquely white trait that is ingrained in white DNA.
He made a Hadj. His black seperatist ideas are the only cure for race relations in America. His schools average three years ahead of NY public schools in test scores. If his IQ isn`t at least 150 it might just be higher.
He and his gang also murdered a number of White people in D.C. in ‘68 and he was one of, if not the primary reason of the black D.C. riots and all the destruction that followed….I was there with an Army SF unit.
Farakhan’s IQ test was administered by the aliens aboard the mother-ship.
Mr. Tiffany, Forgive me for asking: are you black or white? I’ve often wondered.
— Anglo Saxon wrote:
I learned more about English grammar while studying Latin in college than I did diagramming sentences in Middle School.
Much as I love it, Christianity is problematic because of
Wild Eyed Charlie (#10), are you suggesting that one consequence of integration is that Western Civilization can’t be taught because it would be insensitive to do so?
Bon, Tax Slave of the NWO wrote:“…The degree of illiteracy is staggering. American young people of all races can barely write an English sentence…These students have attended school for 12 years & most have not mastered their native language above the must fundamental level…”
It’s worse than that:
The teachers that teach them in the K-12 educational-industrial complex can barely write a sentence! Their writing, including those with so-called advanced degrees is painful to read—misspellings of common words, misuse of possessives, elementary mistakes (mixing up its and it’s, your and you’re, they’re their and there, weather and whether) and so on…
Our entire public school system has been dumbed down and degraded by the same leftists who promote “diversity” at every turn. If I had any children I would home school them.
All Men Are Created Equal, Under the Law. Not in every aspect of life.
If everyone were equal to each other in talent and intelligence, then there would be no Star Football Players, Classical Violinists, or gifted Scientists.
Each person has their own unique gifts and abilities. No two are the same, no matter how badly Hillary Clinton, and Barry would like to change that, or tell you otherwise.
As for Blacks learning Latin, forget it. These people can’t master the English language, which they have been in contact with for over 400 years.
No, Blacks would rather speak Ebonics, which is formally known as Jive.
Once again white kids can’t learn about their own culture because of just the mere presence, or absence, of non-whites,
Just how many white kids would really be into “Cicero and four lyric poets.” I don’t think you can blame minorities here.
In Hong Kong and China, you wouldn’t believe it but interest in history, both Chinese and Western, is huge. As is interest in Western arts (classical music), although as one poster has pointed out masting the ‘spirit’ of he music is another matter from technical proficiency. But some are getting better in this area also.
Chinese agonize over why we fell behind the West these past few centuries. So we are very interested in Western culture and history, not only for its inherent merits, but because we want to learn its strengths on the one hand, and where we are weak on the other hand.
The West conquered the world by abandoning superstition and embracing logic.
So true. That is why I am grateful for our communist government, which apart from some cargo-cult idiocy in the early years, is now promoting science, stamping out religion and superstition and beating up nutbar Falun Gong practitioners and benighted Tibetans. Embracing science and technology as the only way forward for China.
Thank you Western man. We will add your contributions to our own ancient culture and become powerful enough to rule you within a few short decades - and get payback for two centuries of plunder and humiliation.
In the meantime your people continue concentrating on really important matters like yes or no to gay marriage.
Charles, Farakhan has a 150 IQ?
Isn’t this the same person who believes that there is a gigantic UFO mothership hovering about the earth?
And that the Egyptians were black?
And that some black “doctor” created Whites and marched them across the desert in loincloths?
I can well believe Farrakhan is very intelligent. He is also extremely talented in different areas - musically gifted (he loves classical music) and plays the violin, athletically gifted in his youth, and obviously verbally gifted. A great and unique personality. I like him.
As for some of the hocus pocus stuff - that has nothing to do with IQ.
The ancient FengShui masters no doubt had high IQ, as did the ecclesiastical figures who tried and burned witches. Muhammed probably had a high IQ - in any event he was supremely gifted in the verbal area.
High IQ in itself is not the same as having a scientific spirit or scientific mindset.
High IQ society means nothing without the scientific method. China and Japan were backward not because of IQ deficiency but because they lacked the scientific method.
And the reason why the West got the scientific method first is problably because of monotheism - the idea that the world is governed by divinely ordained physical laws that apply everywhere. Thus, at least on the earthly plane, Christianity by-and-large eschewed superstition (apart from a few egregious examples where they did not).
“High IQ in itself is not the same as having a scientific spirit or scientific mindset.”
That is true, John. I, myself, have, basically, an artistic mindset (stereotype of a French femme?). I am also in Mensa. But I think that having a high IQ INVOLVES HAVING A CURIOSITY ABOUT THINGS, THINGS THAT ARE NOT EVEN A PART OF YOUR NATURAL MINDSET.
That is why I have looked into various things, like Christianity, UFO’s, genetics, quantum mechanics. I am equally at home with Fate magazine or National Geographic.
I have come to various conclusions, all of which are based on common-sense, or what is basically the scientific method, as far as I can apply it.
Cannot Farakhan, he of the supposedly high IQ, do the same?
Again, I would state that THIS VERY QUESTIONING IS PART OF HAVING A HIGH IQ. I see it all the time in my fellow Mensans.
Maybe the witch-burners, Feng Shui masters, etc. could not look into these things. But we can, with the librarie and internet.
And “the West got the scientific method because of monotheism”, by which you mean Christianity?!
John, the Greeks were doing spectacular things without monotheism, of any variety. And so did the Romans. Things that would not be seen again until Christianity diminished.
John, John, mon ami … je voudrais aider vous!
It seems that a black former politician (J. C. Watts) said it best:
The trait ascribed to blacks — “celebration,” AKA partying, getting wasted, etc — is a DESTRUCTIVE trait.
Did a black politician REALLY imply that all his people are good for is whooping it up at their annual Juneteenth fish-fry?
If so, that’s the most honest and unsparing appraisal of the African character I’ve ever heard from someone of African descent.
I have come to various conclusions, all of which are based on common-sense, or what is basically the scientific method, as far as I can apply it.
Cannot Farakhan, he of the supposedly high IQ, do the same?
We have his public utterances, which draw to himself an audience. He presents a useful history and a useful theology (if you can call it that), enough to draw to himself a decent following. In that sense he is smart.
And hearing him speak, he certainly seems gifted in at least the verbal area. He is a classical violinist, as well as an accomplished calypson performer - the guy is a very talented individual.
More than that, I can go along with his politics - his appraisal of the Darfur situation was right on the money.
Whether he believes all that other stuff he talks of, stuff like Dr Yakub - who knows?
By the way, funny how this site draws so many self-proclaimed Mensans. Is it really relevant to the topic at hand?
Cannot Farakhan do the same (look into things, via a scientific or common-sense method)?
Of course, John, but he has not.
Listen to the man—
“We have his public utterances, which draw to himself an audience.” Like THAT is some kind of endorsement—an audience of tongue-speaking, ecstatic-uttering National Enquirer readers?
He presents a “useful” history (you call that nonsense history?) and a “useful” theology—“in that sense he is smart.” No, in that sense he is a conniver and a huckster.
Of course he speaks well. So does Obama. Those who can do, work; those who can’t, talk.
And I am not a “self-proclaimed” Mensan—I was accepted by Mensa back in 1982. It is Mensa who has proclaimed me.
But what would you know, John?
I suppose you chose not to answer me about your assertion of “monotheism” being the mother of the scientific method,
A bientot.
“Whether he believes all the other stuff he talks of, stuff like Dr. Yakub—who knows?”
Farakhan knows!
And, as he has said, he believes it.
John Liu would have us think that if a person says something, he may or may not believe it, which renders any kind of meaningful communication an impossibility.
It also leaves the way wide open for “experts” to tell us what a person “really” believes.
What total condescending nonsense.
John, John, mon ami … je voudrais aider vous
Sorry, don’t understand French.
I suppose you chose not to answer me about your assertion of “monotheism” being the mother of the scientific method,
That’s a well founded point of view. I can’t be bothered debating it though - its not something I feel too passionate about.
And I am not a “self-proclaimed” Mensan—I was accepted by Mensa back in 1982. It is Mensa who has proclaimed me.
OK then - I accept you are a Mensan. Happy now?
John Liu!
If you want to take over the West, you must learn not only French , but Italian, and German!
I also admire Louis Farakhan. I admire anyone who stands for his people.
John, enchante de faire votre connaissance, but I must ask you this: Do you admire Jared Taylor, who stands for Whites, just as you admire Farakhan , who stands for Blacks?
I admire both.
Both are advocates of separation, because the two races are not mixable.
Your answer, s’il vous plait.
“Thank you Western man. We will add your contributions to our own ancient culture and become powerful enough to rule you within a few short decades - and get payback for two centuries of plunder and humiliation. In the meantime your people continue concentrating on really important matters like yes or no to gay marriage.”
Chinese agonize over why we fell behind the West these past few centuries. So we are very interested in Western culture and history, not only for its inherent merits, but because we want to learn its strengths on the one hand, and where we are weak on the other hand.
You’re right, and they always get it wrong, don’t they? Zhongxue wei ti, Xixue wei yong (i.e., Chinese science is the foundation, Western science merely something we make use of), Chinese imperial officials declaimed a century ago, and they were still defeated by the more Western-assimilating Japanese more than once over the next decades.
I’m not at all impressed by present-day China’s “power” (which is principally its overrated and overexpanded economy), any more than I would have been impressed by the first Qin Emperor’s mobilization of his corvée slaves to build the “impressive” Great Wall of China. The West didn’t manage to surpass China by being Pharaonic, or populous, or collectivist, or prickly ethnocentric, whereas I can’t imagine the Chinese ever being any other way. Childish Sinitic fantasies of racial vengeance and national vindication aside (which I’ve uncovered in more Chinese than just you, John), I don’t think Chinese are ever going to be powerful enough to “rule” white people, as much trouble as they have ruling themselves.
But your increasingly hateful screeds, John Liu, have made me start to wonder if white people in the West wouldn’t be better off fixing their own Chinese food, and embarking you and your brethren on a fast boat back to “zuguo,” China.
56 Zorba: My old man was a farm boy who knew how to cook. He tried Chinese food, liked it, and started making his own. If White men from Minnesota can make sweet and sour sauce, we don’t need to import any Chinese to do it.
