Archive for November, 2022

BRUCE ROTTMAN: The Case for Bringing Back Neckties (and Classical Liberalism).

This doesn’t mean that some sort of return to an Edwardian, hierarchical society is desirable. But we do need a world in which we respect and emulate those who know more than us or are wiser than we are, or who practice amazing generosity, humility, or self-sacrifice. We need to honor traditions that have evolved, rather than chucking each of these into the dustbin of history.

As faiths and families have faltered, what we have is a society of atoms. With civility torn asunder, local autonomy usurped, traditions upended and genders deconstructed, we should not be surprised that we are divided and drifting as well, like flotsam and jetsam in the ocean.

Think about California, which has always been what the United States will be in a couple decades. This state helped pioneer today’s new world, a world of egalitarianism, relativism, identity politics, avocado toast, surfing, free love and flip flops. Of course, not all of these are bad (though I never caught on to either surfing or avocado toast). But what emerged from California—think Hollywood and Silicon Valley for starters—has some responsibility for the cultural drift in our country and the loss of “forms” in our modern era.

Colorado is very much a “wear your best jeans out to dinner” kind of state. But I’ve taught my sons that if the event involves a judge, a bride, or a casket, then put on a tie.

A LAWYER FRIEND WRITES: “I’ve got criminal clients with better excuses than Balenciaga.”

YALE LAW SCHOOL’S REVOLT OF THE ELITES:

But there was something strange about the spectacle of Dean Gerken denouncing as “profoundly flawed” a rankings system that identifies Yale itself as the #1 law school in the country—an evaluation with which, one would assume, she wholeheartedly agrees. The other quitters share rarefied air as well. . . .

While the boycott was framed as a bold, egalitarian blow on behalf of legal education writ large, the practical effect of responding to Dean Gerken’s criticism would be an increase in the already lofty standing of Yale and its elite compatriots. That’s what happens when the nation’s top universities reject a rankings system that was essentially reverse-engineered to replicate a status hierarchy that the schools themselves created, and continue to embrace. …

In critiquing U.S. News, Dean Gerken expressed particular ire about a provision that rates law schools based on the percentage of graduates who get jobs that require a Juris Doctor degree. Her concern is understandable. One of the odd things about Yale’s unassailable position as law school #1 is that it is famously uninterested in training people to become practicing attorneys. …

As legal commentator (and Yale Law grad) David Lat notes, some people have attributed more nefarious motives to Dean Gerken, claiming that the boycott is an attempt to preemptively delegitimize the rankings before Yale loses its decades-long chokehold on the top spot in the face of various controversies, dinner party–related and otherwise. That could be true.

I’m pretty sure it’s true.

I LINKED THIS BEFORE, BUT YOU KNOW, IT’S A GOOD SALE AND IT’S A HARD HOLIDAY FOR A LOT OF US THIS YEAR:  It’s a Cyber Monday Extravaganza.

Get some ebooks for close to nothing and escape our unpleasant reality for a little while.

SURE, LIKE THEY RENAMED WUHAN FLU BECAUSE OF RACISM:  WHO Renames Monkeypox to ‘Mpox’ Because Racism.

But in this case they’re reflecting their own racism. Only they think that “monkey” has anything to do with human races. Idiots. Pernicious idiots. Also verbalists who think language controls reality.