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Librarian of Celaeno's avatar

When I was younger I wanted to be a professor like Lewis and Tolkein. It wasn't until much later and after much effort and debt that I realized that not only was that life no longer possible, but that institutions like the ones they served actively hated me. It would have been far worse if I had actually gotten some tenured position; having to hide my thoughts every day, parrot opinions I despise, etc. The sad part is, and perhaps others might relate to this, they'll never know how much I would have given. I would have endured poverty, obscurity, toil, all that, to be a university scholar. But in the end, it has forced me to become creative, to make my own way. I teach at the secondary level and do adjunct work, but my real efforts at scholarship are online. Discovering communities like the ones on Substack is a great blessing. For some, I suspect (bearing in mind the sad statistics you note in your article) such outlets are a lifesaver.

John C. Calhoun thought that Jefferson's paean to equality in the Declaration of Independence was fatuous nonsense. He noted that men are born rather than created, and of the only two created beings, one was immediately made subordinate to the other. That men are born means they enter an existing world in different places and with different personal characteristics which are the legacy of their forebears. There is no way to get around this; it is the natural and supernatural order, and efforts to legislate equality will always amount, in the end, to worse oppression than they were meant to remedy.

What galls most people is that the existing order so manifestly rewards mediocrity. People would more readily accept social inequality if the people at the top weren't demonstrably vicious and incompetent. Our society has been peaceful for so long that our elites have been literally able to paper over their weaknesses. That time is coming to an end.

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Yuri Bezmenov's avatar

Respect for a brilliant and fast take. Down with the demoralized DIEvy League! Of course affirmative action justices and VP dissented. If Hillary won, the court would have a permanent majority of affirmative action supporters. Meritocracy lives on for now, let’s breathe new life into it.

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