Our recently departed, beloved Havelock-cat was not the brightest bulb in the string. Or if you prefer, while not precisely dumb (he could figure out how to manipulate us a treat) Havey had two enormous areas of mental blindness: One was hygiene. We assumed he lost his mommy early and was never taught to clean himself. As far as he was concerned there was one part of his body he was supposed to groom: his left paw. His being a very fluffy cat this caused incidents of chasing him through the house while he distributed the poo in his tail and backside all over the carpets. His other huge blind spot was more endearing and also more exasperating: Havelock-cat was incapable of imagining that anyone — ANYONE — human or animal could wish him ill. (Which is one of the reasons we made d*mn sure he didn’t go outside, ever.)
The inside of our house should have been a perfectly safe place except that when we acquired him the house already contained D’Artagnan. I’m not going to cast shade on D’Artagnan, who was adorable and also older son’s cat, but his nickname was Slinky McEvil for a reason.
We had — still do, I’m looking at it — a glass fronted bookcase that is antique and was bought a millionth hand or so, for which the key has long been lost. You can open it by grabbing the upper edge and pulling. Which requires either a human hand at chest level or a cat standing on it.
Havey would inexplicably end up on the bottom shelf, looking piteous and trying to get out. I had to hide to find out what was happening. And the sequence was this: D’Artagnan would jump a top the bookcase, pry the front open just enough, then toss “coveted disputed toy” (a realistic mouse) in the bottom shelf. Along came Havey and went in to retrieve the toy. at which point D’Artagnan body-slammed the door closed. Voila, piteous, crying, stuck Havey.
Now for this to work once makes perfect sense. I mean, it was pretty d*mn devious for a cat to do that. But it happened over and over and over again, till I wedged a shim in the door that had to be removed before the door opened (and which cat paw from above couldn’t reach.) It’s like after getting trapped ten times, Havey came along and went “Oh, wow, there’s the toy and no D’Artagnan inside, I’ll just nip in!” “What could go wrong THIS time?”
My mantra when freeing him quickly became “Havey, this cat is not your friend. This cat does NOT mean you well.”
This story came to mind yesterday when I was thinking of DEI, particularly in the arts (though honestly, to an extent, in everything else.”
Because I keep looking at people (and enterprises) caught in it and going “These people are not your friends. These people don’t mean you well.”
And yet– I was talking to my husband and said the only people hard-sure that writers will be replaced by AI soon are people who have no understanding of technology and the fine flowers of trad pub, particularly “literary” who were published on the strength of being called “I’m Foreign and Oppressed” and writing about their oppression. And in their case it’s because their entire work could be replaced to advantage by ChatGTP (Or a small PERL script. Whichever.)
So, I understand the temptation. Look, heaven knows I do. When I was a struggling writer, trying to get in, if I had half a clue how to sell “exotic tale of hardship” without lying, I’d have tried it. Yes that’s different from nowadays when rather inexplicably all of trad pub (with the obvious exception, thanks guys) has gone headlong for “must have exotic name and Marxist-story-of-oppression” to be published at all. But still. When you’re in the phase that you’re flinging manuscript after manuscript into the maw of an establishment that will reject you for the stupidest reason and sometimes no reason at all, and which will often NOT TELL YOU when you’re rejected, after year two or three you’ll take anything that gives you a hand (or foot. Or nostril. Or eyebrow) up.
So what is the problem with that?
The problem is that while most publishable — heck, most bestseller-quality — manuscripts never got out of the slush pile (for the simple reason for about ten years slush piles weren’t even read. But that’s a long story) the reason these people got out of the slush pile had nothing to do with readibility let along reader appeal.
In fact, let me tell you as someone with a non-standard back story, it might relate INVERSELY to finding a wide audience. Why? Well, because story telling is the art of evoking a whole world from a half dozen details. To know which details to pick, you have to be VERY plugged in to the culture. As I tell people, most of the 13 years it took me to break in was acculturating enough. Because storytelling is a form of communication. And communication is harder across cultures.
On top of which if you are randomly selecting people for reasons other than quality QUALITY ALWAYS SUFFERS.
And that applies not just in writing, but in every single front of human endeavor.
Do I mean that EVERYONE advanced by DEI is mediocre? Oh dear Lord, of course not. Just the vast overwhelming majority.
In which they partake with the rest of the human race, because of most human endeavor is a mire of mediocrity, most people (duh) never rise above average (half never make it that far) and even geniuses are pretty hopeless at things that are not their core competency (TRUST ME in this. I raised two of them.)
Which is why if you are not selecting for excellence at “the thing” (Whatever the thing is) what you’ll get is mostly crap. Sometimes by sheer accident you’ll pull up a diamond, but the vast majority will put a hoover to shame, they will suck so badly.
And it doesn’t matter if they were advanced for being able to tan, having a family that worked on a tan for the last ten thousand years, or being female, or any other reason. If there were a DEI program initiated for left-handed blind-in-one-eye, one-legged Samoans, we’d end up with a lot of useless people there too.
The thing is that for the people thus selected, this seems like mana from heaven. It’s “I don’t have to struggle so hard” and it’s “Advancement for me and my family” and…
Look, I’m not saying I’d resist it if someone offered me a million dollar contract for aging people of Portuguese origin who have trouble losing weight (Curse you thyroid, couldn’t you have gone the other way?)
BUT–
For the group, in aggregate, it’s a disaster. Part of the perception that women just aren’t as competent, that even all the propaganda about girl bosses can’t counter is that we’ve been randomly advancing women on the flimsiest excuses for decades. Thus most women found in positions of authority are… not worthy of being there, and screw up at higher than average rates.
The same goes for every single protected category.
On the other hand if you want to make a group hyper-competent? Discriminate AGAINST them. (No, I’m not recommending this. I think everyone should get a fair shake, but historically this works.) Why? Because the people who make it to the top are by definition those with the ability to work harder, to work smarter and to just be more ambitious and focused than anyone else.
We’ve been applying this refining process to Jews for generations, and now idiots think Jews run the world, because they’ve run into enough examples of hyper competence. Also, it’s what’s at the back of weird ideas of female or black supremacy. Because back when they were discriminated against those categories threw some spectacular examples of genius and drive. I suspect my sons’ generation is going to see, in ten to twenty years a lot of examples of spectacularly hyper achieving white males. Because they’ve been discriminated against since kindergarten and most are lost boys, which means the VISIBLE and powerful ones will have had to swim through shit to get there.
I’m not advocating for discrimination. I’m advocating the reverse of discrimination. Treat every person as an equal competitor and concentrate on his/her/it/hamster’s ability to DO THE THING.
You’ll get the occasional dim bulb that slips in. (Look, every boss has a nephew or a son in law, okay?) but by and large, you’ll be picking the best people for the job if you pick for competence and ignore irrelevant characteristics.
The alternative is to destroy how everything works (Every incompetent person in a position of power will have a knock-down effect that affects hundreds, if not thousands) and to create actual hard-set racism and sexism in people who are affected by this.
Because in the end, why would people advance you for no reason? To be helpful and kind to you?
Well, no. Since these are politicians it’s most to own your group’s vote forever. And to make you more and more dependent on them.
Falling for it once is one thing. But it’s been decades. We know the knock-on effects of these policies.
Like Havelock in the glass case, it’s time to consider: These people are not your friends. These people don’t mean you well.
According To Hoyt 
I thought of Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football. 😉
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Poor, trusting, Charlie Brown.
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A bit Off Topic (for Sarah’s post), but a few years ago I remember seeing a “Trailer” for a Charlies Brown movie.
We see teenaged versions of Charlie and the gang (it was live-action so Snoopy was played by a real dog).
In this “Trailer”, Charlies goes nuts and starts killing his “friends”.
While it apparently was not a Trailer for a real movie, I could “see’ it happening. [Twisted Grin]
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Forgive me … but I couldn’t help thinking of a cuddly parody of Eichmann, The Man in the Glass Booth!
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mea culpa.
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You, personally? Why?
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Minor contention, I’d argue discriminating against a group won’t make the group hyper competent. Just d sure that the only ones that survive will be the ungodly scary ones. But it will still diminish those.
Consider, if Musk had stayed in South Africa, he’d still likely be scary successful in that pond. But would he be launching the overwhelming share of all tonnage put into orbit? I strongly doubt it.
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Yes. It will, if you’re discriminating long enough.
HOWEVER what I mean is it alters the perception of the group in one generation. Because the visible ones will be amazing.
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Some folks, a rather rare and small corner of the population, absolutely thrive under increased pressure. In fact, up to a surprisingly lofty point, the more pressure the better. Thus, less pressure leads to lesser results, long term.
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Being an historian (amateur, to be sure, but no less good at it; back in the day I used to bandy Byzantine historical trivia with Harry Turtledove and held my own) I equate DEI to the system of “purchase of commission” used in the British Army up till about the 1870s. Basically, this started as a way to ensure that army officers were people with stakes in the country, and as a reaction to Oliver Cromwell’s men’s excesses. And during wartime, it didn’t work too badly. The gilded youths who came in that way either died or learned their profession; the first Duke of Wellington was a product of that system.
Unfortunately, in peacetime it was routinely abused. Foppish young men who fancied themselves in pretty uniforms would buy commissions and then go on “half-pay” until an opening came in a fancier regiment. They worried far more about their fancy uniforms and blooded horses than about their men. The regiments in areas where there was actual fighting going on (India, mainly) had a much less fashionable set of officers than the ones in Britain did; when such a regiment was transferred back home, the professionals would transfer to other regiments while the young men-about-town came swarming in.
The Earl of Cardigan (of Light Brigade fame or infamy; the Charge wasn’t his fault, but he could have prevented it had he been more intelligent and willing to buck his superiors) was a textbook example. While he had some soldierly qualities (he was brave as could be, an excellent horseman and had a keen eye for detail) he was also a martinet and a crashing snob. He hated “Indian” officers (men who’d served and learned their jobs in India) and did his best to drive them out in place of sparkling young sons of wealth. And he was just the most prominent example. This was one of several reasons why the Crimean War was such an awful mess.
The US had a parallel problem during the Civil War. While many West Point graduates had gone on to “civvy street,” and returned to the colors when war came, there were a lot of “political generals.” These were men of political importance whom Lincoln was forced to give generals’ commissions to for the sake of their support. While some weren’t bad, on the whole they were blunderers, just because they were amateurs up against professionals.
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In the Civil War, it went further down the ranks than that; many regiments were raised by the individual states (see 20th Maine), and the Governor got to make the initial officer appointments, which meant that you could have politician types all the way down. That was another reason for “political generals”; when you’re expanding your army radically, and all your colonels are Governor’s friends, well…..
Sometimes, that worked out pretty well (see 20th Maine, again); sometimes not.
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Then there were the militia groups, like the Richmond (Va.) Light Infantry Blues, which organized in 1789 and served in every war after that, as part of various military units. Their officers were chosen from “young men of good family” in Richmond, and it was understood that participating in all the balls and other events of Richmond society was a prerequisite for officers.
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“Nope, it’s Political Officers all the way down.” ☹️
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I’ve thought now and again about whether we could’ve stopped this whole thing. Maybe we could have, I don’t know. We would’ve had to realize very early on that NONE of those people meant well. And the thing is, maybe a large number of them did mean well, by their lights at least; they thought they were helping, but they didn’t know that the means they’d bought into could only have evil ends. The whole thing is evil, no matter what the people in it think (and mostly they don’t think; they don’t have to, which is a large part of the evil).
In the ’80s and early ’90s when I was in high school and college, our attitude was either ignore them until they grow up/get a clue or just give them this one stupid thing right now so we can get on with the real work. We didn’t know that they (the large “they”) didn’t mean well, and it wasn’t going to stop. It wasn’t designed to ever stop. If somehow enough of us had grokked that it wasn’t well-meant and would only get worse, could we have stopped it? By then, maybe not. Education, media, the arts, and much of government had already been swamped.
Millennials get a lot of (deserved) flak for the whole SJW thing, but Gen X seems to have mostly escaped the blame game…unjustly. Where do you think those Millennials came from, eh? Who raised them? Who laid the groundwork for their cultural stinkbombs? Mea culpa. I couldn’t have stopped it by myself, even if I had been aware of the nature of the thing back then. But I wasn’t aware until much later than I should’ve been. Mea culpa.
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As technically a tail-end boomer but in reality one of the whatever is between boomers and genX, I will note that during my decades in cubical-land there were very few boomers in the HR ranks as the whole Diversitate-or-Die thing was rolling out – a few female boomers at the top, but mostly it was genX females.
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There actually is a term for us transitional lifeforms between Boomers and Gen X, but it hasn’t caught on widely: “Generation Jones.” Now you know why it hasn’t caught on widely!
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I don’t LIKE it. My brother called us (sneeringly. He’s a boomer) “Reagan’s Kids.” I like that better.
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LBJ’s “Affirmative Action” policies baked DEI into our legal system and into our culture. I don’t see how we could have stopped it much sooner than we actually tried to (we haven’t quite succeeded yet as governments and businesses are still trying to do DEI under different wording).
In 2003 Sandra Day O’Connor, in a case about affirmative action in college admission wrote that while she upheld those policies she expected they would no longer be necessary in 25 years. That was considered the moderate position.
The 2008 election showed that she was overly pessimistic…
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My understanding was that Z was X’s children and Millennials were late boomers’ children, but, yes, GenX has been in the work force for a while and are well-represented among those making decisions of that nature.
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On the west coast this applies to longtime Asian families as well. Frankly the filter of “stay home and smoke opium” vs. “get on a boat to a land where everyone hates you just for how you look, build a railroad through the Sierra Nevadas by hand, then make businesses work in the face of actual laws trying to keep you from success, then continue to get discriminated against because you do well anyway (hello, Hahvahd Admission Department)” means the scions and scionesses of old school Asian families are pretty much all a cut above.
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Like the way the Clinton regime ‘helped’ millions of low-income folks get mortgages they didn’t qualify for and buy houses they couldn’t afford. Then the initial ‘teaser’ rates expired and they couldn’t make the real mortgage payments. First, the increased demand pushed real estate prices unsustainably high, then enough of them were ‘helped’ right into foreclosure that it triggered the 2007-08 real estate crash.
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yep.
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Discrimination works to bring the cream to the top because it’s a form of adversity and hardship. People, especially children, need a certain amount of adversity and hardship to grow. Obviously, adults and children have different levels of adversity and hardship needed, just as that amount varies from person to person. But that’s one of the reasons why the easiest way to ruin children is to give them everything rather than making them earn it. It’s also probably why communalists often come from well-to-do families, they got born with a silver spoon in their mouths and never had to deal with the real world, and when they did, they couldn’t handle how unfair it is. Kind of like Heinlein’s example on how not to raise a dog. Our good buddy Karl Marx (May He Burn in Hell Forever) is another example of that.
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I think I’ve been summoned.
Actually, I work on some fairly complicated Perl scripts. I suspect they could writer better than the latest “I’m oppressed writer.” I’ve seen that ruin books.
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Thank you for the uproarious laughter during the read about Havey and Stinky McEvil. I was trying to read that while “watching” Please Kill Mr. Know-it-All, and I had to stop because my face was splitting from laughing out of both sides of my mouth at once.
When you started writing about adversity promoting the super-competent, my thoughts immediately went to “Jews” just before reading the next sentence. In fact I’ve always connected the Jews with your favorite Heinlein quote about bad luck, not that there’s anything inherently wrong with us goyim.
As to the hyper-competence weeding out process, I think of the Japanese. When Americans began to teach and learn Karate, they began to surpass their Japanese counterparts–on average. That’s because, in Japan, you were shown how to do something once. If you did not do it correctly, you were condemned to mediocrity. The Americans corrected their students on the spot, so they improved faster. It did not match the level of training to reach true mastery, but it graduated a bunch of “good enough” folks, much more than the elite training systems of the Japanese.
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Since everyone is now talking/writing about this issue, there have been some interesting takes showing up on my feeds in addition to our Hostess’; Helen Andrews’ piece at Compact, observing how “race communism” is no longer a joke, is a good one. But someone also mentioned how “John Carter” at the Substack Postcards from Barsoom understood and explained it better, so I went there next … to DNF and resolve never to return once he casually mentioned “the Jewish community” as one of many beneficiaries of DEI policies what will never give up that advantage for the good of society. (I wasn’t about to give him money for the privilege of inviting him to look up the 1968 NYC teachers’ strike; the history of Ivy League admissions policy, including not only the famous quotas, but also the replacement of general-knowledge admissions tests with evaluations of “character” and “leadership”; and the shameful record of how liberal Jewish advocacy groups were bullied out of their initial principled opposition to “affirmative action.” As for what is happening now since the Ascension of the Martyr George Floyd, plus a certain date almost 3 years ago….) **** Okay. Just had to get that off my back in a safe place. Thank you for your patience; we now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.
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“Postcards from Barsoom“
Little bro is so lame he has to steal somebody else’s IP for a blog title, I’m not expecting great things from him.
Talking schlitz about the “Jewish community,” that’s what I am expecting. It’s how you get cred with Certain Factions without actually doing anything to deserve credit.
Sometimes it’s better not to dig into the manure pile. The surface is bad enough, right?
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“Which is why if you are not selecting for excellence at “the thing” (Whatever the thing is) what you’ll get is mostly crap.”
See Hollywood since 2010. Or N. American AAA games. They not only can’t Do The Thing, they can’t even remember what the thing is that they got hired to do.
“Treat every person as an equal competitor and concentrate on his/her/it/hamster’s ability to DO THE THING.”
Oh, you mean a free country, where nobody gets a special deal? Like what we used to have when I was a kid? I like it.
One problem, what are we going to do with all the #Lefty retards in places of power, who never Did The Thing properly even once in their entire careers? They’re not about to go quietly, I don’t think.
Not to mention that as you say, they don’t mean us well. They’ll burn the whole thing to the ground and sell it to Communist China before they’ll let us win. We’ve watched them do it already.
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