The poster, who didn’t created the bad “Calvin and Hobbs” meme, is a Facebook freind, a Harvard grad, a performing arts executive and very nice man. I left his name off this because I don’t want to embarrass him. He made the silly and wrong comment on top of the meme, which he got off the page of the user below the meme, who authored the fatuous idiocy under it. He once was smarter than this. He is hopelessly Trump-Deranged: I have posted his symptoms on Ethics Alarms before.
Christina Lorey is a journalist who has hundreds of thousands of followers all over social media, and claims to be a “Good News” reporter. Is it “good news” that a journalist has so many followers who take such self-contradictory junk as what she wrote under Calvin and his friend (after having dumb words cruelly rammed down their throats) seriously?
I think her display is self-indicting (res ipsa loquitur) but to start you off:
1. Woke” does not mean “treating everyone the same” (it is the condition of trying to prove to doctrinaire progressives that you embrace all of their cant, narratives and delusions no matter how harmful and illogical, and thus deserve to exits), nor does “treating everyone the same” describe what DEI aims for. That definition is a radical concept, because people are, and always should be, treated according to their conduct and positive (or negative) value to society. It isn’t even a concept that my demented fried and his fellow travelers believe in or practice. Heck, they don’t even believe that elected American Presidents should be “treated the same.”
2. Calvin’s statement, in addition to being dumb and depressing in its stupidity unlike Calvin’s real observations, which were wise and funny, is self-rebutting. What it advocates is presumed racism, the rotten heart of the George Floyd Freakout, in which discriminating against whites is declared to be the necessary means of keeping the intrinsically evil race and the organizations members of that race lead from discriminating against minorities, which they will always do. A clogged toilet full of glaring examples renders this proposition null and void: disgraced DEI Harvard President Claudine Gay; Kamala Harris, of course (Do Democrats really believe that she was the best nominee they could find for either President of Vice-President?), the Worst Paid White House Liar Ever, Karine St.Pierre, now embarrassing herself and her party coast-to-coast on a book tour, the two DEI SCOTUS Justices, Sonia The Wise Latina and Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson; finally fired MSNBC host Joy Reid, the current and previous mayors of Chicago…you can add to the list if you have the time and stomach for it. Sure, no white candidates were more qualified and able than those villains and fools.
Ah, but it is Christina’s screed after the meme that is a virtual playground for critics, grammarians and logicians. For example, “equity” does not mean treating all people fairly unless you re-define fair to mean unfair: everyone should have the same amount of success regardless of effort, work, demonstrated ability and talent. “This all seems so obvious, right?” she writes, sounding like Kamala. “It’s a simple as that!” Yes, the ancient demagogue and con artist tactic of asserting an untruth by declaring that it is so simple that it doesn’t need to be supported with facts or logic is simple, and effective with the simple-minded, or those who bias has made stupid.
Ethics Alarms 
I have had it with these “woke” totalitarian progressives!
They say that DEI stands for DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION…
I CALL BULL SHIT!
As I observe the pattern of tactics used by the “woke” progressive political left around us, it’s become clear to me that DEI functionally stands for:
Dogma Enforced Indoctrination
It’s a descriptive phrase for the process of indoctrinating others with a very rigid set of beliefs in an authoritative and unquestioning manner, with the intent of the recipient accepting the beliefs as uncontestable truth without any critical thinking. It’s an attempt of totalitarian minded people at pure psychological manipulation of the masses.
Dogma is is a set of very rigid, authoritative beliefs presented as uncontestable truth. Dogma is generally not presented in an educational manner, education encourages critical thinking and varying perspectives, dogma tries to limit thinking and demand obedience.
There is a pattern of persecution directed at anyone that contests the belief structure of the dogma. In other words they are trying to enforce the indoctrination of their dogma beliefs as uncontestable truth. The pattern, as I see it, is not to debate their dogma on the merits, instead they attack and/or persecute the heretic messenger(s) in an attempt to either silence them or force them to submit. They also enable and encourage indoctrination by pushing their single set of beliefs on those that are in authority over others, usually with threats of some kind if they don’t comply.
Indoctrination usually involves repetition, emotional manipulation, persecution of non believers, and attempts at restricting available information especially if it’s considered to be contrary to the belief structure. Dogma targets minds that lack effective critical thinking skills making them more susceptible to believing the dogma at face value with no skepticism.
The “woke” progressive political left (cult of fools) can spout any bull shit they want regarding DEI, I know full well they’ve swallowed the propaganda and they’re all completely full of shit. They’re trying to undermine the core beliefs of the Constitution of the United States of America, they’re anti-American and pro Orwellian styled totalitarian control – as long as they’re the ones in political control.
DEI is a totalitarian progressive political power grab.
“it’s become clear to me that DEI functionally stands for“
The alternative I prefer: Didn’t Earn It.
PWS
What Calvin says in the comic strip, like the words that DEI stands for, are the sales pitch. Just as there wasn’t a while lot of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité to go around in the early years of the French Revolution, these slogans are a lie.
This is perhaps most plainly seen anywhere you have a years-long, multi-stage selection process. Take for instance the admission of new lawyers to the bar. There’s the SAT and undergraduate admissions, undergraduate performance and graduation, the LSAT and law school admissions, law school graduation, and finally the bar exam. What do these show us? That at every stage, DEI philosophy prioritizes the passing of low performers from favored demographics over higher performers from disfavored demographics.
To illustrate the first step, we need look no farther than the recent Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard case. It came out there Asian students at the top academic decile were being admitted at a rate just below African-American students in the fourth decile.
https://nypost.com/2023/06/29/supreme-court-affirmative-action-case-showed-astonishing-racial-gaps/
DEI apologists try to claim this is because standardized tests are biased against the latter, but if that were true we should expect to see AA students perform as well as Asians in their undergraduate years. This is not the case, AA students once admitted are more likely to require remedial courses and less likely to graduate.
https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/who-takes-remedial-courses-examining-the-landscape/
This pattern continues in Law School. AA students score lower on the LSAT…
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://arc.accesslex.org/di-law-school/22/&ved=2ahUKEwjW1KmF-viQAxWyANAFHfXODU8QFnoECFcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2OdxcK1uYfIMUDimDgltu5
But get admitted with those lower scores regardless,then proceed to struggle and drop out at a higher rate.
https://jamesgmartin.center/2023/03/law-school-mismatch-is-worse-than-we-thought/
When they graduate, they pass the bar at a lower rate:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/first-time-bar-exam-pass-rate-ticked-up-2023-while-racial-gaps-persist-2024-03-11/
The usual objection to these mountains of data is that the whole system is racist, from top to bottom. To this hypothesis I raise three objections, the first two of which are observational, and the third philosophical.
First, as can be seen above, Asians, though a racial minority, do as well or better than the whites for whose advantage the entire racist system is supposed to have been contrived by almost every measure. The construction by white supremacists of a system benefitting some racial minority would be an oddity defying explanation, which is why DEI apologists will typically mumble something about a “model minority myth” without ever addressing the substance of the question or its implications.
The second point is that these claims of bias against standardized tests have been going on for some half a century. In that time, academia has minted a great many scholars from various races, including quite a few specialized in psychometry, statistics, and pedagogy. It is to be wondered why none of them have produced a test that predicts future performance as well, but without the racial bias.
The third point is a matter of Popperian philosophy – namely that the top-to-bottom, “systemic” racism hypothesis is unfalsifiable. What test can we devise to measure performance that DEI apologists will agree is unbiased if it does not show all demographic groups performing equally well?
Nice analysis, DL!
PWS
Yeah, this was quite good! Thanks for taking the time to share it.
Years ago, Francis Menton wrote a post about the furious efforts made at Wilkie Farr to hire qualified associates “of color.” He was very involved with the recruiting effort. The problem was, all the other mega-firms were hunting for the same candidates graduating from the same schools. All the firms wanted to have plenty of “of color” faces on their web pages and wanted to appear to be diverse to their clients. He found that notwithstanding the adequate numbers of “of color” faces interviewing, very, very few were anywhere near up to the task of being mega-firm associates, a problem which was exacerbated by the fact all the mega-firms were looking for the same unicorns.
I’ve submitted a rather lengthy comment, with many links, and it seems to have gotten caught up in a filter somewhere.
It’s Up. Thanks!
I’ve seen this comic before — perhaps you posted it on EA in the past?
It seems just as inane and deceptive as it did the first time.
If I posted it before 1) I don’t remember it and 2) I misfiled it. I have posted C&H stuff, but I have no record of that one.
What the cartoon is obviously missing is the second panel…the one where Hobbes, with his simple but erudite logic, would carve up Calvin’s statement.
Or in the second panel, Calvin and Hobbes would both break into side-splitting laughter and roll around in the snow.
Or in the second panel, Calvin could say, “There! THAT should get me a cushy six figure no-show job at a so-called elite school as director of DEI!”
That meme is such a smear of “Calvin and Hobbes.” Inexcusable. A travesty, really.
Agreed.
I think Calvin and Hobbes is the greatest comic strip ever. I have the entire collection in a 3-volume hardback set. I’ve gone through that numerous times and I get to laughing so hard I have to put it down.
My dad is the same way.
“Bloom County” was pretty funny but Breathed has gone full “Trump is a Poopyhead” and is not very funny anymore.
jvb
Dang! Those are great. Your last name could be “Watterson.”
I’m pretty sure we have almost the entire oeuvre in the paperback books. Our son, now almost fifty, was a cross between Calvin and Bart Simpson growing up. We all loved reading C and H. I have a great deal of respect for artists such as Watterson and Larson and Scott Adams who retire once they’ve said all they have to say.
How do they know the load limit on bridges, dad? : r/calvinandhobbes
Ah, yes. That was a good one.
jvb
Barack Obama and the “Bitter Clingers”
This long piece includes an interview with a psychologist who treats patients presenting with TDS.