Our unseriousness is going to get us killed
There will be no grownups to heal our illnesses or prevent the nation's defeat at the hands of foreign enemies
Two matters about which pretty much all human beings want reassurance are
having their health issues addressed and resolved, and
that the countries of which they are citizens are stable and impervious to defeat by hostile forces
Well, forget it.
Our cultural arbiters have determined that it is more important to accommodate the infantile narcissism of the New Person - the individual completely untethered from any sense of tradition, propriety or transcendence, the one who reserves the right to define itself with no reference to anything beyond its primitive impulses.
The medical field is a leader in this headlong rush for the edge of the cliff:
Five years ago I was associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, and prior to that, codirector of its highly regarded kidney division. Around that time, Penn’s vice dean for education started to advocate that we train medical students to be activists for “social justice.” The university also implemented a new “pipeline program,” allowing ten students a year from HBCUs (historically black colleges or universities) to attend its med school after maintaining a 3.6 GPA but no other academic requirement, including not taking the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test). And the university has also created a project called Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery Project(PMAS) in order to “reshape medical education. . . by creating social justice-informed medical curricula that use race critically and in an evidence-based way to train the next generation of race-conscious physicians.” Finally, twenty clinical departments at the medical school now have vice chairs for diversity and inclusion.
Although some discussion of social ills does belong in the medical curriculum, I’ve always understood the physician’s main role to be a healer of the individual patient. When I said as much in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2019, “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns,” a Twitter mob—composed largely of fellow physicians—denounced my arguments as racist. Over 150 Penn med school alumni signed an open lettercondemning me. Meanwhile, my name has since been scrubbed from the university’s website and I’ve been excised from a short history of the kidney division.
Similar outrage greeted the outgoing president of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, John Calhoon, when, in a speech to members in January, he encouraged them always to “search for the best candidate” and noted “affirmative action is not equal opportunity.” Within 24 hours, the society denounced Calhoon’s speech for being “inconsistent with STS’s core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and its incoming president announced, “We are going to do what we can to re-earn the trust of our members who have been hurt.” Apparently no one thought to ask the 170,000 Americanswho annually undergo a coronary bypass—the most common form of thoracic surgery—if they, too, might prefer to be operated on by “the best candidate.”
The United States Navy has turned to a drag performer in its efforts to reach younger recruits on digital platforms and social media.
Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, whose stage name is Harpy Daniels, announced on TikTok in November that he would be the Navy's first 'digital ambassador,' highlighting his journey from performing on board beginning in 2018 and growing to become an 'advocate' for those who 'were oppressed for years in the service.'
Kelley, who identifies as non-binary, was one of just five active sailors to participate as 'digital ambassadors' for the Navy in its 'efforts to reach a wide range of potential candidates,' a spokesperson told Daily Caller.
We're inviting self-styled freaks to bring their sense of entitlement - their sense that the military exists to accommodate their narcissism and the middle finger they've given to the basic architecture of the universe - to the very serious, and core, function of the federal government.
And Precipice, for one, is going to have to be very careful as the next year and a half unfolds not to sow any confusion about whom and what it’s aligned with.
Choosing a political side is not an option, for reasons I’ve discussed many times here. Unless fate intervenes in a big way, I foresee staying home once again on the first Tuesday in November 2024. The Republicans are on track to once again cast their lot with the least fit and most spiritually grotesque figure to ever get involved in American politics.
There will no doubt be some response to this piece along the lines of “You are aware you have only two choices, aren’t you? MAGA-era Republicanism is the only available weapon against woke-ism.” There always is.
Save it for somebody who hasn’t been dealing with it since 2015. Donald Trump is no less horrible than he’s ever been, and to support him requires moral laziness, cowardice, the same detachment from history’s lessons that characterizes the Left, or a combination thereof.
And Bulwark-style “centrism” or whatever it is they’re peddling, is of no help. Bulwark-ism concedes as a done deal the damage the wrecking ball has done to basic human identity and social roles adhered to throughout history the world over until five minutes ago. What it actually stands for is not clear.
That sliver of terrain under my feet of which I write frequently is as narrow as ever.
I honestly don’t know how to keep my balance on it at present, beyond praying.
And, yes, I’m about as mediocre a Christian as you’ll find. But the ground I stand on is solid. I know this in my gut.
So I’ll just pray and wait for indications as to how to proceed.
You’re invited to join me.