Oh, if everyone could just sit back and laugh at the idiocy spawned by our higher educational institutions
Leftists crack me up: Senator Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, asked whether Amy Comey Barrett has ever sexually assaulted someone.
It's this kind of idiocy that gets 75-year-old women searched at airports.
It's ironic. We live in an age of identity politics. Everything revolves around one's tribe, as determined by shared characteristics. But if you draw distinctions between people based on their membership in such a tribe, the Left screams like someone getting tape ripped from their hairy leg.
The mere identification with a tribe establishes that the tribe has a distinct identity, but for others to recognize that identity? It's considered an outrage.
So in this case, I suppose it's fair to ask a man, especially one with a penis, whether he has ever sexually assaulted someone. But to ask a woman? Unless she used to work as a female prison guard, it makes no sense. It's simply a formality born of vague multiculturalism and gender elimination that has leaked out of our colleges and universities into the general consciousness.
It can all be traced back to concrete academic causes. As Richard Weaver noted years ago, ideas have consequences.
If you're interested in learning more, I recommend Cynical Theories. I haven't read it yet, but I've listened to the authors on podcasts for hours. I've also been flipping through it, just waiting for a chance to read it straight through. This was an area of study I embarked on a few years ago, so much of the stuff in the book isn't new to me, but the authors appear to have done a good job of organizing the history of ideas and presenting them in a clear format.
I haven't watched any of the Barrett confirmation hearings, but she appears to be "crushing it." Even CNN admits it.
Are we witnessing a saint-in-the-making juxtaposed against the halls of secular power, presenting them with a phenomenon they've never seen, much less grappled with?
Could be.
She certainly seems to be the "real" Catholic deal, and our common acquaintances out of ND Law School assure me she's great (I never knew her . . . she's six years younger).
I have concerns about how a mother of seven honors the Catholic ideal of a stay-at-home Mom and cultivates enough political connections to get a Supreme Court nomination, but that's an intensely personal matter that I never tread on. Each family has to work out such things for themselves and, by all indications, she's 10x better a Catholic than I'll ever be.
Plus, as Joseph Epstein once pointed out, there is no greater impropriety than questioning someone's religious convictions, so I'll continue to pray for her, especially in light of the two recent Republican defections.
Desert Father Corner
"[E]ach man judges others by his own state, that is, by what he is himself--in virtues or sins." Symeon the New Theologian.
Okay, Symeon wasn't a desert father, but this Corner feature isn't really just the "desert fathers." It's the whole hesychastic tradition, which is out of the East, which is where the deserts are.
So close enough.
And this quote is excellent for understanding yourself and others. Many thinkers, such as Marcus Aurelius, made this same observation.
The Amazon link takes you to an excellent book about Symeon. Like all books in that Paulist Press series, it has a great introduction.
Continuing my four-day series to help the highly sensitive person. Today, I address traits 4-6. Tomorrow, I'll conclude with traits 7 and 8.
4. Uncomfortable with change.
I'm afraid there's not much you can do with this one. Obviously, you should cultivate routines and not go out of your way to pursue change, but life is change. When change hits, try to go into heavy detachment mode and, if nothing else, don't think about all the potential outcomes of the change. Someone once said, if you don't let your mind run through the million different outcomes of a situation, stress flies out the window.
5. You don't react well to criticism and conflict.
These are two separate things. Criticism is criticism. It might be just, it might be unjust. Shrug it off. If it's unjust, try to think of all the times you weren't criticized when you should've been.
With respect to conflict, just try to avoid it whenever possible. Try to sense it, like a bomb-sniffing dog, from as far away as possible, then retreat. Nobody needs it, especially an HSP.
6. You don't work well under pressure.
Obviously, you should avoid pressure whenever possible, but when it finds you anyway? I'd just recommend you bring every trick to the table (deep breathing, saying a “Hail Mary,” etc.). If the pressure really builds and you start feeling like everything is falling apart, maybe try this three-part approach from Fr. Robert Spitzer: short prayer, try to exercise patient trust (i.e., slowing down and remembering that everything is in God's hands), and writing down ideas and a backup plan in case things really do fall apart.
