Author: David

Radical Regurgitation

On the incantations of progressive art:

I think it’s fair to say that, whatever her creative limitations, Liberal Jane, aka Ms Caitlin Blunnie, does like her slogans. One might say incantations. Almost all of which have an air of self-satisfaction, as if some previously unregistered profundity had been heroically unearthed.

One creation extols the radical virtues of skiving in the workplace and not doing the work one is being paid to do. “Craft is resistance in a late-stage capitalist society,” reads another. Also, “Self-love is self-care.” “Riots, not diets.” “Hex the imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy.” “Fantasy is for everyone.” “Abortion builds new futures.” Oh, and “Smash the state and masturbate,” and “Stretch marks are ubiquitous to the human experience.”

Oh, there’s more.

Our Little Secret

More educators titillated by the prospect of deceiving parents:

Teachers are also warned not to congratulate parents on their child’s performance in a school play. Why this humdrum politeness should be avoided, with the threat of disciplinary consequences, is not entirely obvious and no hints are offered as to the reasoning. It is, however, framed as equal in sinfulness to informing a parent that their child has been “snorting a white powder.”

Because if little Billy is chopping them out in class, it’s now a teacher’s duty to keep parents in the dark, you see.

Oh, there’s more.

Fake Tears And Hissing

Despite the competing feats of Olympic-level hyperbole, two formal investigations by the university uncovered no evidence of racism or indeed violence, whether colonial or of some other kind. However, the social work department – this bastion of “equity,” “diversity,” and “decolonisation” – was described in one of the reports as an intimidating and hostile workplace, with one witness favouring the phrase, “cliquey, scary, and tense.”

Or, when one Designated Victim Group collides with another.

Sales Will No Doubt Rocket

Presumably, the way to “redress the visual narrative that LGBTQIA+ people look a certain way” is to celebrate the existence of dysmorphic and autogynephile men who are also devotes of bondage and sadomasochism, and who like to share photos of themselves posing with sex toys while flashing their collection of ladies’ knickers to random passers-by.

It also seems that the way to become more authentically “queer” – to express one’s true, inner self and who one really is – is to elaborately accessorise and play dress-up, and to pretend to be something that, by definition, one isn’t.

Other John Lewis employees highlighted in the Identity Project include an in-store nursery advisor and enthusiast of the ‘pup’ and ‘furry’ communities, and who is helpfully pictured wearing a bondage harness. Because that’s the mental image you want when shopping for baby paraphernalia.

On the weirdly woke marketing of the retailer John Lewis.

One For The ‘Everything It Touches’ Pile

Apparently, San Francisco’s elementary-school children are expected to have, or at least regurgitate, strong opinions on the Israeli military.

Many young children are of course accustomed to being given a “word of the day,” though I would guess that such highlighted words don’t usually include “strike,” “ceasefire,” and “protest.” Nor, I suspect, would third-graders often be tasked with “disrupting whiteness,” which seems somewhat ambitious and just a tad question-begging, or with imagining “a world without police, money, or landlords.” Yet here we are.

Meet the radical educators of Woke Kindergarten.

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