Category Archives: Propaganda

UPDATED: Is ‘Multidisciplinary’ the Academic Equivalent of ‘Multiculturalism’?

Ancient History, Education, Free Markets, Human Accomplishment, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Multiculturalism, Propaganda, The West

Looking over the impressive resume and interests of an academic—an acquaintance of a friend— in the applied sciences, the following occurred to me: In the world of the boffins and scientists of research and development (R&D), “multidisciplinary” education is the equivalent of “multiculturalism.”

“Multidisciplinary” education seems to be the buzzword—key to showing how “relevant” and contextualized you and your field of endeavor really are in a hip and evolving world.

My suspicion was reinforced while watching a C-Span segment in which a leading female head of department at MIT engineering waxed fat about what fun she was having designing “work spaces” that “brought together” just about every other department in the world (social work, education).

The aim of all the fun? Coaxing America’s lazy kids into thinking of science and math as fun. (A better, more-sustainable approach would be to teach America’s already dumbed-down, increasingly dispensable secondary-school students that most things worth learning are never plain fun, but are a function of effort and practice, i.e. a good deal of rote. The fun comes when the tough stuff has been mastered.)

Naturally, engineer and physician will collaborate in the design of a prosthetic limb. But the trend observed goes beyond preaching about practical cooperation in bringing beneficial products to markets, something that already occurs spontaneously in the market.

Like “multiculturalism,” the “multidisciplinary” concept is an ideological construct designed to bring about “change.”

What kind of change?

“Intellectual disciplines,” historian Keith Windschuttle has written, “were founded in ancient Greece and gained considerable impetus from the work of Aristotle who identified and organized a range of subjects into orderly bodies of learning. … The history of Western knowledge shows the decisive importance of the structuring of disciplines. This structuring allowed the West to benefit from two key innovations: the systematization of research methods, which produced an accretion of consistent findings; and the organization of effective teaching, which permitted a large and accumulating body of knowledge to be transmitted from one generation to the next.” (The Killing of History, Keith Windschuttle, Encounter, pp. 247-250)

The concept of the intellectual discipline is inseparable from Western canon and curriculum.

Yet this has been the aim—and, arguably, the signal achievement—of the postmodern tradition: to completely dismantle one of the greatest achievements of Western Civilization: the intellectual discipline. (This is why your fun-addicted kids “study” not history, but so-called “social sciences” or “cultural studies” in secondary and tertiary educational institutions.)

Is “Multidisciplinary” yet another one of those clever catchphrases that couches a contempt for the traditional Western notion of an intellectual disciplines?

UPDATE (Aug. 30): CHINA. I’m always amazed that Americans would call China militant, when it is the US that is starting and conducting wars all over the world. Our esteemed reader below sounds a little like Donald Trump, which is not a good thing.

A Storm in a Nanny State

Democracy, Government, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Journalism, Liberty, Media, Private Property, Propaganda, The State

Take this post to be part of the blog series, “What They Do In Dictatorships.” In a highly evolved Managerial State such as ours, where the population has been cowed into submission, storms—even—Category 1 storms—give rise to forced evacuations. Just about half the country has been terrorized, or threatened into fleeing. It’s called “leadership,” and subjects seem to apprecaite being coaxed from their homes by lazy bureaucrats and oink-sector workers who’d rather run themselves, than stick around and do the job taxpayers pay them to do: rescue taxpayers.

In “bad” dictatorships—Libya being the latest one the US and its allies have just voided of a dictator—people might have been left in their homes. OMG. The horror! But not in the US, because the American Managerial State is so much more efficient in encroaching on its citizens than are these tin-pot dictators, whom we have built-up into mega-monsters in our infantile, Disneyfied minds.

In any case, the crappy media in this country forms a cartel of cretins. Such is the nature of this monopoly that all news outlets can safely decide to hype one story—in this case, the storm that petered out—and none of these media see the need to hedge their bets, or moderate the level of hysteria on this most fickle of topics: weather.

Here’s the definition of a “Category 1 storm”:

They “usually cause no significant structural damage; however, they can topple unanchored mobile homes, as well as uproot or snap trees. Poorly attached roof shingles or tiles can blow off. Coastal flooding and pier damage are often associated with Category 1 storms. Power outages are typically widespread to extensive, sometimes lasting several days. Even though it is the least intense type of hurricane, the storm can still produce plenty of widespread damage and can be a life-threatening storm.”

UPDATED: Media Top-Dogs Kick Underdog Ron Paul (Look Inside the ‘Cannibal’)

Ethics, Free Markets, Journalism, libertarianism, Liberty, Media, Propaganda, Republicans, Ron Paul

The following is from “Media Top-Dogs Kick Underdog Ron Paul,” now on WND.COM:

“Republican and Democratic media whores briefly came clean about ignoring presidential hopeful Ron Paul. Then they promptly returned to ignoring him.

No sooner had Fox News’ Megyn Kelly and CNN’s Piers Morgan interviewed Dr. Paul about his untouchable status among their colleagues, than John King of the eponymous CNN show could be heard recounting the winners of the Republican 2011 Iowa Straw Poll, to the exclusion of the man who secured second place: Congressman Ron Paul.

Michele Bachmann won 4,823 votes; Texas Rep. Ron Paul 4,671. With 152 votes separating the two frontrunners, one might even say that, in Ames, Iowa, Paul jostled with Mrs. Bachmann for first place.

A slick Drew Griffin, also at CNN, cracked up as he instructed a cub reporter on the ground: ‘If you get a sound bite from Palin bring that back to us. You can hold the Ron Paul stuff.”

Following the Republican Poll, Politico.com ran an article about Paul, the caption to which read: ‘Ron Paul remains media poison.’ The article featured an image of Ron Paul flanked by signs touting the stuff the press finds so poisonous: ‘Liberty and Freedom.’

As is often the case, satirist Jon Stewart stepped in to correct—and to make fun of—the farrago of misinformation spread by mainstream media. …”

The complete column is “Media Top-Dogs Kick Underdog Ron Paul,” now on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is now available. The errors of the previous copy have been corrected.

If you’re interested in syndicating my weekly, WND column, kindly email me for details at ilana@ilanamercer.com. “Return to Reason“ is WorldNetDaily’s longest standing, exclusive libertarian column.

UPDATE (Aug. 19): At last, after a lot of aggravation, Amazon has activated the “Look Inside” feature to “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.” This will enable you to read ten percent of the book online.

Amazon is simply amazing. To appreciate how magnificently Amazon operates, consider this and this lone: how would the government operate this highly complex, super-efficient online business? Still, when certain features are still in their infancy and are in the process of being streamlined—the individual (like myself) can lose perspective. Understandably so.

However, not a day goes by—when I interact with Amazon, Costco, or any other vendor—that I don’t stop to apprecaite the genius of spontaneous order. In the process of making a living, people cooperate voluntarily to bring about magnificent, munificent, mutually beneficial outcomes.

Where Magic Wins Out Over Reason

Africa, Colonialism, Economy, Ethics, Foreign Aid, Free Markets, Free Will Vs. Determinism, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Pseudo-history, Racism, Socialism, The West

The following is from “Where Magic Wins Out Over Reason,” now on WND.COM:

“The images coming at us from Somalia are too horrible for words. And I don’t mean the sight of celebrity journo Anderson cooper and his CNN sidekicks standing in the neighboring Kenya, and blaming, against all evidence, the ‘worst drought in 60 years’ for mass starvation in Somalia. As BBC tells it, the drought ‘has gripped only parts of Somalia,’ and then only ‘since June.’

You have flint for a heart if the images of children starving slowly do not reduce you to tears. Aidan Hartley of the London Spectator describes these distended-bellied, dying innocents as ‘martian-headed skeletons,’ whose emaciated little bodies have begun to eat up their fat reserves and muscle proteins. Many, if not most, will succumb to slow and agonizing organ failure.

In conjunction with ‘the drought’—isn’t Texas experiencing one of those—Cooper and company (joined by other cretins on Cable) have mentioned the menace of the Islamist group al-Shabab, which ‘rules over the population in a style reminiscent of Pol Pot’s Cambodia crossed with the Taleban.’

However, Hartley imparts what Cooper is incapable of imparting—and what any vaguely knowledgeable journalist writing about Africa knows: ‘war caused this famine.’ In this case, internecine warfare was compounded by foreign, military intervention courtesy of the duopoly I dub the ‘Anglo-American Axis of Evil,’ in my new book.

Washington and Westminster (and their special forces) galvanized a neighboring Ethiopian gang to invade southern Somalia and occupy Mogadishu. ‘The objective,’ explains Hartley, ‘was to expel Islamists alleged to have been linked to al-Qaeda.’ And never mind that, ‘Under the Islamists, the city was enjoying its first period of relative peace since Somalia collapsed into civil war in 1991.’

Hunger in the Horn of Africa is not something Cooper is capable of understanding, let alone explaining to his fans on twitter. Contra Cooper, Hartley has not pruned the evidence. As jaundiced a journalist as he is, however, Hartley has failed to look deeper into the heart of darkness that is Africa.

“Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa” fills this gap…”

“Into the Cannibal’s Pot” is available from Amazon.

The complete column is “Where Magic Wins Out Over Reason,” now on WND.COM.

If you’re interested in syndicating my weekly, WND column, kindly email me for details at ilana@ilanamercer.com. “Return to Reason“ is WorldNetDaily’s longest standing, exclusive libertarian column.