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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024

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HR having a "Cluster hiring" policy literally gives them a party cadre within a few hiring cycles, and then you're fucked.

Wow... you weren't kidding. I looked up the term "cluster hiring" and was greeted by this helpful description (in an academic context):

Cluster hiring, a recruitment practice known to increase diversity and promote interdisciplinary collaboration, is becoming increasingly popular among colleges and universities looking to diversify faculty and advance research related to social justice.

That's almost, but not quite, the most on-the-nose self-aware description of the long march through the institutions I've ever seen. I also enjoyed the one HR blog that described it as "an approach that aims to aggressively onboard diverse candidates", which sounds rather, um, unnecessarily violent. (Perhaps it's just a microaggression.)

The most self-aware description of the long march I've ever seen was from a book by a progressive theologian, described in an academic article I read like this:

"I do think the church is well placed to bring about some significant change in the world. And change in the world is desperately needed." The church’s "new mission" will be to “develop spiritual awareness in individuals and communities around the world”. Because the church – at least in North America – is so widely distributed throughout the community it is well placed to effect widespread consciousnessraising about such issues as AIDS, Global Warming, equitable access to technology etc. "The church has ground level access to millions of people. And millions of aware, reflective, conscious people is exactly what this world needs."

(Students of history may be reminded of suicide-cult-leader Jim Jones, who -- before drinking the Kool-aid -- attempted to convince the people of Indiana to "put real socialism into practice" through the guise of Methodism and then Pentecostalism. Sometimes a wolf comes as a wolf.)

I do appreciate all the evidence we're gathering on how progressives are wearing all our institutions as a skinsuit, but one wishes they might try to be more subtle.

The Kraft Heinz Company would kindly like to insist that it wasn't Kool-Aid®. The Kraft Heinz Company products have never been used to facilitate a mass murder-and-suicide.