Tea at Trianon: Academia’s ‘Infection’ with Identity Politics

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Academia’s ‘Infection’ with Identity Politics

From The Conservative Review:

Friday night on the radio, LevinTV host Mark Levin picked apart the problems with the recent move to weight SAT scores with “secret adversity scores.” Levin pointed to a recent Daily Mail story that explained how the organization behind the widely used aptitude test plans to introduce a secret 15-point scoring system designed to supposedly level the playing field by giving students from certain economic or racial backgrounds extra points. “This whole mentality has taken hold of our society,” Levin said of identity politics. “Now it’s taken hold of the SAT.”

Levin compared reactions to the news about the SAT with the widespread outcry against the recent admissions scandal involving Hollywood actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman and made it clear which is a bigger problem for qualified, aspiring college students. “The issue of identity politics has seeped its way into college admissions, and it’s been this way for some time,” Levin explained. “There’s a hell of a lot more kids who are disadvantaged as the result of a system that is infected with identity politics than kids who are affected by what a handful of starlets have done for their children.” (Read more.)