If reality falls short of the abstraction, it is reality that is at fault

Although I have a Ph.D in psychology and can run circles around most psychology professors, there is no way I could ever be hired as a professor at most universities. And even if I were hired, I would be in deep trouble after my very first class. In fact, Petey would make certain of it. If you can be hauled before the inquisition for the banal observation that men and women have some intrinsic differences, imagine suggesting that some cultures are deeply sick and dysfunctional or that children do better with a mother and father. How about telling the class that they'd better get married and practice a religion, or face the approximate health risk of smoking a pack of cigarets a day? Or let them know that belief in leftism is highly correlated with personal unhappiness?

As Lee Harris notes in Civilization and its Enemies, the conventionally educated man--who is really more of an indoctrinated man--simply internalizes a set of predigested concepts that are presented to him as finished products. The mind is not trained to first deal with the practicalities of the concrete world, but to immerse itself in abstractions, which are then projected onto reality. As a result, reality is constantly coming up short for the leftist, so it becomes his responsibility to “force the issue.” (In case it isn’t clear, I am not talking about science, but the the traditional humanities and the newer subhumanities, such as Gender Theory.) That is, if reality falls short of the abstraction, it is reality that is at fault, and there is usually hell to pay when peace-loving leftist intellectuals are pissed off at reality. And they are very, very pissed these days. You can feel it. Just try dipping into dailykos for a few minutes. posted by Gagdad Bob at 9:00 AM 28 comments One Cosmos Under God Robert W. Godwin