The Mediocre Death Spiral

John Carter explains how the university system and academia is doomed now that it has become women’s work:

If you want your society to produce transcendent excellence in a given field, the only way to do so is to attach a competitive male status hierarchy to it. With status on the line, men will throw themselves into the arena, immersing themselves completely, devoting their every waking moment to mastering a skill or subject, making it their life’s purpose to push a discipline beyond its limits. Competitive pressures between the best of the best then raises performance to its apogee. Iron sharpens iron.

Conversely, if you want reliable mediocrity, then you want women’s work. Women don’t have the same sexual incentive to compete with one another in performance, and so, by and large, don’t (they compete in other ways). Their instinct is to perform to a perfectly acceptable standard, but not, in general, to push themselves to exceed it.

For men, the play-by-play events of a competitive environment are high drama. Not so for women. Women, as the old saying goes, don’t care about the struggles of the competitors: they just wait at the finish line and fuck the winner. The drama women tend to care about focuses more on the heroine’s struggle to distinguish winners from posers, to decide which winner she wants, and/or to stand out from the other girls so she can catch the eye of the winner. “I’m so torn … do I go with the musky barbarian warlord werewolf rapist, or the the aloof immortal billionaire vampire knight?” the heroine asks herself for three hundred pages. How he became an immortal billionaire vampire knight in the first place is of much less interest than whether or not he’s really interested in her.

Men are constantly on the lookout for arenas in which they can prove their worth, and thereby attract a mate or, more accurately, as many mates as possible. Across the myriad competitive arenas that men have invented, there is one common element shared by all of them, which both men and women are exquisitely sensitive to:

An arena cannot be dominated by women.

The reason for this is obvious. The purpose of the arena, from the male point of view, is to demonstrate his worth relative to other men. To enter an arena filled with women is to engage in a lose/lose proposition: if one does poorly, one has been beaten (up) by girls; if one does well, one has beaten (up) girls. Neither outcome is going to impress the girls. Or, for that matter, the guys.

For this reason, men who enter a social environment in which women predominate will tend to make a hasty exit. There is nothing for them there. This is not a social construct which can be corrected with sufficient nagging. It is hardwired into human sexual psychology. There is nothing that can be done about it, short of redesigning human beings from their genes on up. At which point you’re not talking about humans anymore.

You might make people pretend that men do not prefer to compete in male-dominated arenas; you might, through sufficient emotional abuse, give them bad consciences about their natural instincts; you will not, not ever, not even once, change those natural instincts. If you ignore those instincts, you will only awaken the Gods of the Copybook Headings.

This explains two related phenomena, both much deplored by feminists, who are in the business of ignoring human instinct.

  • The first is male flight: the tendency of male involvement in a given profession, occupation, institution, or industry to drop precipitously once a certain threshold of female involvement is surpassed.
  • The second is the low value assigned to women’s work.

Men are no more welcome in any field that becomes female-dominated than they are in the women’s bathroom. Any man who insists on entering such a field is regarded as a metaphorical transgender whose decision to compete with the female majority there is considered intrinsically unfair. Any man choosing to do so will be considered an interloper and opportunist by the women and as less of a man by the men.

As Carter lays out in considerable detail, this process is natural, inevitable, and absolutely unstoppable. We’ve witnessed it taking place in our lifetimes in several fields, and while academia is not something that most of us pay any attention to, we’ve seen it in books, we’ve seen it in comics, and we’ve seen it in video games. Once the women get involved in a field and start demanding mediocrity while simultaneously decrying excellence, the men start walking away. Competition is replaced by consensus, quality collapses, prestige vanishes, and eventually the entire field becomes a wasteland of posers and imposters pretending to be impressed with each other, producing nothing and selling to no one. Profitable productivity is replaced with political parasitism off financial hosts, and when the ability to parasitize is eventually lost, the entire field collapses.

This is probably a good time to start developing alternative credentials based on objective standards. They will be increasingly in demand as the value of academic credentials continue to collapse. Apprentice systems and guilds are also likely to become more important, as the need to demonstrate an actual ability to do the work required replaces paper certificates of implied potential capability.

DISCUSS ON SG


Banning Christian History

It’s only a “trigger warning” at this point, but we all know that an academic ban on teaching Christian history, and eventually, Christian literature, is coming eventually.

They are the acclaimed works of medieval literature that tell the story of a religious pilgrimage to one of the most important cathedrals in all of Christendom. But to the astonishment of critics, a leading university has slapped a trigger warning on Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales – because they contain ‘expressions of Christian faith’.

Nottingham University has now been accused of ‘demeaning education’ for warning students about the religious elements of Chaucer’s stories – saying that anyone studying one of the most famous works in English literature would hardly have to have the Christian references pointed out.

The Mail on Sunday has obtained details of the notice issued to students studying a module called Chaucer and His Contemporaries under Freedom of Information laws. It alerts them to incidences of violence, mental illness and expressions of Christian faith in the works of Chaucer and fellow medieval writers William Langland, John Gower, and Thomas Hoccleve.

It was obviously a mistake for the universities, which were historically Christian institutions, to permit secular membership in the first place. First the enemies of Christ infiltrate, then they subvert, and eventually, they ban. It’s rather astonishing that so many Christians can’t recognize this historical process at work despite observing it happen again and again in their schools, in their companies, and even in their churches.

This is why the Catholic Church had so many inquisitions in the first place, to root out the false believers who they knew were intent on subverting the various institutions. As I pointed out 18 years ago, tolerance is “the Sin of Jeroboam”.

Anyhow, it may be time for Castalia Library to contemplate the need for a third series, something akin to Library and History, only specifically devoted to Christian History and Classics. That, or at least putting THE CANTERBURY TALES and PILGRIM’S PROGRESS in the production queue. If you’re a subscriber, or someone who would be interested in subscribing to that, let us know in the discussion on SG.

In other Castalia Library news, we’ve got most of the Library titles now prepared as ebooks, all of which will be made available for free to subscribers as soon as we can figure the best way to do so in an economical manner given the size of the files. We may consider putting them up for sale on Amazon for non-subscribers as well, but that’s not a priority at the moment.

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The Terrifying Decline

A university professor laments the precipitous decline he has observed in the ability of his students:

I work as a professor for a uni on the east coast of the USA. What strikes me the most is the decline in student writing and comprehension skills that is among the worst I’ve ever encountered. These are SHARP declines; I recently assigned a reading exam and I had numerous students inquire if it’s open book (?!), and I had to tell them that no, it isn’t…

My students don’t read. They expect to be able to submit assignments more than once. They were shocked at essay grades and asked if they could resubmit for higher grades. I told them, also, no. They were very surprised.

To all K-12 teachers who have gone through unfair admin demanding for higher grades, who have suffered parents screaming and yelling at them because their student didn’t perform well on an exam: I’m sorry. I work on the university level so that I wouldn’t have to deal with parents and I don’t. If students fail– and they do– I simply don’t care. At all. I don’t feel a pang of disappointment when they perform at a lower level and I keep the standard high because I expect them to rise to the occasion. What’s mind-boggling is that students DON’T EVEN TRY. At this, I also don’t care– I don’t get paid that great– but it still saddens me. Students used to be determined and the standard of learning used to be much higher. I’m sorry if you were punished for keeping your standards high. None of this is fair and the students are suffering tremendously for it.

If there were any chance of salvaging the USA as a means of organizing heritage America, this might be lamented. But there isn’t, so this is a very positive thing for those who are propagating heritage America, as the intellectual capabilities of the ruling elite and the invaders who prop them up are in a steep decline.

Political collapse and balkanization is inevitable, so it is paramount for heritage Americans to ensure that their descendants are a) numerous and b) well-educated. This is the way that America will survive and eventually thrive again, stronger and wiser than before.

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Tell Me You’re Low Status

Without actually telling me you’re low status. The Educated Hillbilly attempts to psychoanalyze a bitter success:

Imagine knowing you’re better than everyone else & having to share a school bus with them. A lunch table. A class room. The rage builds for 18 years.

This idea has never made any sense to me. What sort of person is angry about their own perceived self-superiority? I’ve never seen a woman who knows she is prettier than everyone else being angry about it. She’s perhaps a little standoffish due to being preemptively labelled a bitch or worse by all the women on the mere basis of her appearance, but she isn’t angry. I’ve never known anyone who is genuinely smarter than everyone else being angry about having to put up with the relentless retardery that is necessitated by human contact, it’s just a quotidian reality that has to be endured with stoicism lest one slip into existential despair.

What athlete is angry about being forced to compete on the athletic field with his sporting inferiors? Isn’t that the whole point of winning? So, who imagines that intrinsic superiority is a source of anger?

The answer, of course, is the gamma male. Now, this is not to say that the Educated Hillbilly is a gamma male now, but the evidence suggests that he may have been in his youth. Perhaps he has graduated to delta, perhaps he is still a gamma, it really makes no difference because this isn’t about him, but rather, his diagnosis of the Columbia professor.

Now, I was fortunate in my choice to attend an elite Ivy League reject school rather than an Ivy, which is why I a) actually had a good time in college and b) remain capable of meeting people without informing them of where I received my university education in the first thirty seconds of conversation. While in retrospect I would have done better to attend either a) Stanford or b) Arizona State, it was a reasonable, if suboptimal, decision. However, even at an Ivy reject school, there was a fair amount of the “ex nihilo” population, most of whom had one chip or another on their shoulder about their backgrounds, and all of whom were varying degrees of bitter about not getting into their top choice of schools. Some, like my freshman year roommate, were defensively proud of their deprived backgrounds, others went in the opposite direction and began speaking like characters out of Monte Python and dressing like characters out of PG Wodehouse.

The professoressa in question was clearly more inclined to the latter, although not so much so that she invented a new and more impressive family history for herself in preference to the real one. Instead, she tries to ingratiate herself into her new and preferred surroundings by expressing her disdain for her humble background in a way that will no more impress the New York Brahmins than a pencil-neck dork talking down Aaron Rodgers will impress the jocks.

What drives this woman is not anger, but rather insecurity, combined with a very reasonable feeling of betrayal. First, her insecurity about her own superiority; if she was that confident in it, she wouldn’t have feared her potential inability to escape her original surroundings or being mistaken in any way for being one of those inferior beings. Second, her well-placed insecurity about her place in her new surroundings; she will never be a high-status WASP, Jew, or media celebrity, no matter how many academic credentials she collects.

A credential is piece of paper that aspirational failures are awarded as participation trophies in lieu of genuine accomplishments.

All of her complaints and ever-more-elaborate fictions serve no purpose except to remind her betters that she is not, and never will be, one of them. She would have done much better to never, ever, speak of her unfortunate roots; then she might, possibly, have had a chance of passing, at least among those who met her later in life. The Great Gatsby addresses this very subject; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s entire life and his literary career were shaped by his love-hate relationship with his Midwestern background and his failure to graduate from Princeton.

DISCUSS ON SG


No Honor in the US Military

One can’t complain they haven’t made it very clear that the US Army officer corps is no long concerned with duty, honor, or least of all, country.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has made the decision to remove the “Duty, Honor, Country” motto from its mission statement.

As we have done nine times in the past century, we have updated our mission statement to now include the Army values [of] loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, integrity and personal courage,” Army Col. Terence Kelley, a West Point spokesman, told Fox News. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth and Army Chief of Staff Randy George both approved the change, according to Gilland.

“Our updated mission statement focuses on the mission essential tasks of Build, Educate, Train, and Inspire the Corps of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character, with the explicit purpose of being committed to the Army Values and Ready for a lifetime of service,” Gilland explained.

Evil always tells you what it’s going to do, then tries to convince you that it doesn’t really mean what it just told you. Believe them when they tell you what they are, and what they stand for.

And it’s the third word that is the real target…

DISCUSS ON SG


Don’t Say Gay at Harvard

Harvard finally jettisons its plagiarist president:

After weeks of mounting evidence that Harvard President Claudine Gay essentially plagiarized her way to the top, Gay announced on Tuesday that she is resigning Tuesday afternoon, the Harvard Crimson reports.

Gay’s resignation — just six months and two days into the presidency — comes amid growing allegations of plagiarism and lasting doubts over her ability to respond to antisemitism on campus after her disastrous congressional testimony Dec. 5.

Gay weathered scandal after scandal over her brief tenure, facing national backlash for her administration’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and allegations of plagiarism in her scholarly work.

It’s fascinating to observe how repeated incidents of plagiarism weren’t enough to unseat her, but as soon as it became clear that she was plagiarizing her antisemitism, it was evident that she had to go.

Elite academia is a particularly clownish joke, even for Clown World. It has been for decades, but now they’ve got retards who can’t even rite gud in the place of what had become the traditional foreign midwit.

DISCUSS ON SG


Anger is the Tell

It’s never very hard to notice when people are defensive about the choices they have made concerning the way they live their lives. They overreact, usually in an angry and hostile manner, and more often than not, in response to their own actions.

You can usually judge whether or not a lifestyle choice is wrong by how angry.and defensive its practitioners become when you say that they’re making a bad choice.

Here’s an example, and it wasn’t even a judgment, but an assumption I’d made on Facebook about a couple with a child not being the parents because they weren’t wearing wedding rings.

So I figured the woman was the parent and the guy was a boyfriend.

Some woman I went to high school with went totally berserk in my comments. How dare I make that assumption! Oh, I must think I’m perfect! What a judgmental asshole! You don’t have to be married to raise a child you both created!

On and on, stalking every post Id made that month alerting everyone to what an asshole bigot I am up on my high horse.

I just laughed and deleted it all, didn’t even respond. She was living with some guy she’d had a kid with and I think he had kids from another woman. I guess I hit a sore spot.

But if she was comfortable with her choices, my simple generalization wouldn’t have made her raging mad. At most she would’ve felt a little annoyed.

People often think the anger comes from others judging them, but it’s not that they’re being judged. It’s that deep down they KNOW they’ve made the wrong choice. That’s why the real or perceived judgment stings.

Spacebunny has noticed this, particularly with regards to parents who don’t homeschool their children. They know the option is suboptimal for their children, and when it isn’t a matter of necessity, the mere fact of someone else making a different choice makes them proactively defensive:

This is one hundred percent true.

Another example is homeschooling – when I started homeschooling I would get asked why I chose that path – honesty would get them immediately defensive of their choice and then, instead of listening to me, they would start telling why they would/could never do it and blah, blah, blah. To which I generally responded “I don’t care, I didn’t ask you, you asked me.”

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Junior Classics ebook editions

In order to maximize the availability of the Castalia Junior Classics to every homeschooling family, we’ve now made the Junior Classics volumes 1-8 available as ebook editions in DRM-free EPUB format for less than $35 for the 3,500-page set. Ebook backers of the project should check their emails tonight, as we’ll be sending out a code that will provide for a free download of all eight volumes, which are as follows:

  1. Fairy Tales & Fables
  2. Myths & Legends
  3. Tales of Greece & Rome
  4. Heroes of Chivalry
  5. Tales That Never Grow Old
  6. Stories of Boys & Girls
  7. The Animal Book
  8. Heroes of History

Readers have already seen what the covers and spines look like, but the interiors bear consideration too, as the layouts are done to the exacting Castalia Library specifications and feature literally hundreds of classic illustrations. Volume VII: The Animal Book contains the most illustrations of any book we’ve published to date; THE SEA OTTER is a particularly beautiful tale about one of my favorite animals.

    While Volume VIII: Heroes of History doesn’t contain as many illustrations as its predecessor, it does contain 35 stories about unforgettable historical figures from the most famous to the now-obscure spanning more than 2,000 years. Which means the young reader of this volume will come away with a grasp of human history that likely exceeds that of the average college history major.

    Volumes 9 and 10 are expected to be released next summer. We do not anticipate releasing these ebook editions as single volumes, but if we do, it will probably be via Amazon and not via the Arkhaven store.

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    Junior Classics 7 and 8

    As those who have subscribed to the Castalia monthly newsletter already know, Volumes VII and VIII of the Castalia Junior Classics are now a) being printed for shipment to backers this month and b) available for order from Arkhaven at a discount with free shipping and a free ebook edition included for those in the USA and the UK. The books will be available worldwide via Amazon and other booksellers next week.

    Volume VII: The Animal Book, contains illustrated stories by Beatrix Potter, Anne Sewell, Rudyard Kipling, and John C. Wright, as well as dozens of classic short stories about animals ranging from black bears and catamounts to woodchucks and sea otters. It will be a particular favorite of younger readers, due to its incredible collection of classic illustrations. Hardcover+ edition. 438 pages.

    Volume VIII: Heroes of History, includes stories about great historical figures such as Leonidas, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Horatio Nelson, Daniel Boone, and Andrew Jackson, as well as stories about lesser-known individuals whose courage and achievements will fascinate children. Hardcover+ edition. 434 pages.

    For those who did not back the Castalia Junior Classics or have not yet begun collecting what will eventually be a 10-volume set, we have made a partial set of volumes 1 through 8 available to order exclusively from the Arkhaven store. All eight volumes are hardcover+ editions, which means the ebook editions are also included with the purchase. All of the covers and spines feature the original artwork of Arkhaven’s Lacey Fairchild.

    The Junior Classics are, hands-down, one of the greatest educational tools you can provide your children, whether you homeschool them or not. A significant portion of my own childhood education was provided by the 1958 edition, and I can testify, without any shadow of a doubt, that the Castalia Junior Classics is the best, most attractive, and most comprehensive edition of the Junior Classics produced since the original set was published in 1919.

    If you are a Junior Classics backer whose mailing address has changed since the campaign four years ago, please email castaliashipping_AT_gmail_DOT_com with your backer ID and your new address.

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    Pseudoscience and the Stink of Sulfur

    In which it is claimed that reading alternative media instead of a healthy daily dose of narrative from the mainstream media is unhealthy for your heart:

    According to a pilot study led by Manchester Metropolitan University, those who do not read legacy mainstream media and opt for alternative sources of information demonstrate unhealthy symptoms of physical and mental stress, which can lead to heart attacks.

    The research study used so-called “sophisticated techniques” to monitor how people use media websites to measure their reactions to online information.

    The researchers claimed people with a low ID have a flawed ‘threat’ response when presented with misleading information in a stressful situation, which they say brings on cardiac responses and erratic reading behavior.

    The study also found that participants with low IDs also lacked self-confidence.

    It also claimed that reading alternative media from “unverified” sources (i.e., not reading CNN, MSNBC, BBC, ect) could negatively affect a person’s health and well-being.

    Ah yes, that fine and well-learned institution of Manchester Metropolitan University, whatever that is. Motto: Credimus omnia nobis erant.

    As always, the inversion of the wicked is a reliable guide toward the truth. If you read the mainstream news, you were not only frightened and stressed out by the non-danger of Covid 19, but you probably got vaxxed and boosted, which inflicted material damage to your heart and increased your risk of strokes and turbo cancers.

    The sum total of this is considerably worse than the “unhealthy symptoms of physical and mental stress” caused by reading sites like this which tend to make it clear over time how blitheringly credulous and easily led to their doom many of your acquaintances, friends, and family are.

    A happy subject receiving her daily dose of Narrative.

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