"Postmodernism has created a generation of semi-psychotic, semi-neurotic, ignorant, and hostile whim-worshippers."

Philosopher Stephen Hicks writes on the long reach of postmodern philosophy, its insistence on the social construction of reality, and its practical results in the Arday tragedy. 

If influential philosophers teach that “reality” is merely a social construct, then what happens to us in the next, taught generation? We focus primarily on the social — on doing whatever we can to construct social reality according to our wills. We focus on what everyone is thinking and feeling and saying, and “real” reality becomes less significant, even irrelevant, to our psychology. And whenever “reality” is being obstinate — “facts” intrude upon us — that just means we have not been social-constructing hard enough. ...

Phrased neutrally: After first-generation (1960s-1980s) postmodernism’s anti-realism, social subjectivism, and conflict collectivism, the second generation (1980s-2000s) applied the high philosophical theory to their teaching (and non-teaching) in history, law, journalism, education, and politics. We (2000s-2020s) are [now seeing] the third-generation result.

Phrased uncharitably: Postmodernism created a generation of semi-psychotic, semi-neurotic, ignorant, and hostile whim-worshippers.

"What's far worse than the Arday tragedy is the philosophical state of higher education that erodes all of this."

"[W]omen, men, of all backgrounds discover, invent and create in ways that uplift themselves and others, thousands, millions ... applying reason, thought, research, enquiry and philosophy to humanity, the world and the universe. ...

"[W]hat's far worse than the Arday tragedy is the philosophical state of higher education that erodes all of this."

~ Liberty Scott from his post 'The real tragedy of the Jason Arday story'

Universities do not exist to engage in social justice activism."

"Universities do not exist to promote 'marginalised voices.'

They do not exist to promulgate social engineering experiments.

"They do not exist to engage in social justice activism.

"A university exists to expand the boundaries of human knowledge, to defend truth, and to create an ecosystem for intellectual enrichment. Once a university optimises the wrong variables, we end up with the parasitised minds that we now see populating academia, business, politics, journalism, culture, etc.

"The West in general and the US in particular were founded on a set of key ideals that are unique to human history. Do not presume that these ideals are the default reality. There is always a tsunami of miscreants who are working day and night to end our liberties and freedoms, and destroy these ideals. Be vigilant. Fight for our civilisation. Activate your inner honey badger."

~ Gad Saad

"Universities are, today, the most dangerous institution in this country.”

 

“I feel that this country is being destroyed by its philosophy. Specifically, by its universities: the most dangerous thing in this country today are the universities, because they are teaching the kind of ideas that would necessarily have to lead to the destruction of this country.... 

"[T]oday, when all those institutions ... are preaching collectivism, mysticism, and above all altruism -- self-sacrifice of yourself ... the disgusting kind of ideas that the whole world has been nurturing for centuries, then when they do that this country cannot [long] survive....

"[W]ith all the faults in American intellectual equipment and there were a lot of holes, at least people were taught pride in their own country and in the good aspects, the great achievements of this country. Today you're supposed to apologise ... because you are ... prosperous. Because you've earned your money you have to feel guilty and apologise for it. That's what we're being told."

~Ayn Rand, from her interview with Tom Snyder [from 14:00]

"And that's before getting into the other myriad reasons to criticise govt education."

"The fact that so many graduates leave [govt] education believing capitalism is simply plutocracy or corporatism should be a sufficient indictment of the system on its own. 

"An education system that cannot distinguish voluntary trade and property rights from political favouritism has failed at teaching even basic economics and civics. 

"And that's before getting into the other myriad reasons to criticise it."

~ Rock Chartrand

"Modern schools have largely abandoned the task of preparing young people for independent adult life."

"Modern schools have largely abandoned the task of preparing young people for independent adult life. Instead, they function as institutions of ideological formation. 

"Hordes of students now leave education with weak literacy and numeracy, almost no understanding of basic economics or finance, and little practical knowledge of how to think clearly or argue rigorously. Instead, they are exposed to a curriculum shaped by critical theory and political activism, frameworks that encourage students to interpret the world primarily through lenses of oppression, privilege and systemic guilt rather than through evidence, reason and individual agency. 

"The state’s near-monopoly on schooling and teacher training has inevitably made education a vehicle for the dominant political and cultural worldview, resulting in a system that produces graduates who are often poorly equipped to create value in the real world, but well-versed in the language of grievance and institutional critique. 

"The problem is compulsory, state-controlled education. When schooling is funded and directed by the government, it tends to serve the interests of those who control the state rather than the interests of individual students and their families. True educational improvement requires breaking that monopoly - through genuine parental choice, competition between providers, and a curriculum focused on knowledge and capability rather than political formation."

~ Creative Deduction

There was a time when they just taught "the 3 Rs"

"Victoria University of Wellington wants the teachers it trains to be ‘agents of change.’

"According to the university’s handbook for teacher education programmes, teaching graduates must be committed to 'social, cultural, and ecological justice.' Decoded, that means attending protests about political causes the activists lecturers find important.

"Providing teachers with skills to manage a classroom is not part of the brief. Neither is ensuring they can teach their students even a modicum of knowledge. It is crucial, however, that new teachers can critique their ancestors.

"Yes, you read that correctly."

~ Dr. Michael Johnston from his post 'Grading your grandmother'

ENTIRELY UNRELATED:

"More than 5000 teens have failed the critical NCEA numeracy test four times or more. ...
    "A Qualifications Authority report said ... 2508 failed the reading test at least four times and the figure for the writing test was 2687. ... 'This data shows that there is still a population of students for whom more intensive or specific support is required,' the report said."

~ More than 5000 teens fail NCEA numeracy test four times or more - RNZ

Choosing careers in an AI world

The daughter of a Microsoft AI tech bloke was choosing careers, so he ranked them. 

First problem: how would she even get started?

The most important thing to understand [he discovered] is also the most counterintuitive. AI is not demolishing careers from the top. It is removing the bottom rungs of the ladder first.
    Think about how almost every professional career develops. A “Big Four” trainee at the accountancy firms Deloitte, KPMG, EY or PwC reconciles spreadsheets and drafts standard documents. A junior solicitor reviews contracts. A graduate analyst builds financial models. These are the apprenticeship stages. They are how young professionals develop the judgment that eventually makes them irreplaceable.
    AI performs many of those tasks faster and more cheaply.

So that's a potential problem for the first in modern history: a whole generation graduating without a clear way to become experienced. An apprenticeship without the material on which to learn.

So is it time to give up?

Robots are going to take your job? No doubt. 

What if robots take all the jobs?  Hint: They can't.

Comparative advantage tells us that "new kinds of jobs will appear, as they always have when technology advances."

Ironically, most of the jobs people are afraid of losing -- such as programming jobs or truck-driving jobs -- were themselves created by technological advances....
    What new types of job will be created? I can no more project that than a man in 1956 could have projected that today there would be jobs in something called “social media”; or that money can be made by driving for Uber and by renting out living space through AirBnB.

One estimate is that alongside all the jobs displaced, around 170 million will be created. "The net picture is not collapse. It is transformation. And transformations reward the families who understand them early."

What's to understand, says the tech bloke, is the four things in which human beings do have a comparative advantage over any machine: Emotional intelligence. Creative vision. Physical dexterity. Ethical judgment. Based on that insight, the tech bloke ranked careers 

across nine categories including emotional intelligence, creative thinking and vulnerability to AI tools. A score closer to 100 per cent means the role depends heavily on things AI cannot replicate. A score closer to 35 per cent means much of the work is already within reach of automation.

Biggest winners: 

• healthcare 
• education
• skilled trades
• creative industries (for genuine creatives)
• tech, finance and law (for those at the level required to exercise judgement)
• diplomacy

Biggest losers are box-ticking jobs, "where tasks are most predictable and repeatable" -- oddly those where intelligence is least demanded:

• paralegal
• accountant
• data entry
• admin

And in this age of transformation, the biggest new career paths might just be something sitting "in the intersections between disciplines" -- something requiring "deep knowledge in a substantive field combined with genuine AI fluency."  A good metaphor for what that looks like, suggests author Derek Thompson, is how Alexander Dumas used to write his fiction, with a zillion research assistants and a writing programme looking like a small factory, "industrialising what he saw as the boring parts of his creativity—research structure, workflow—freeing his brain to do the thermonuclear storytelling." In other words, putting the "AI‑accelerated firehose of information" in the service of creativity, without losing that spark along the way.

And after all that, what did our AI-engineer's daughter decide to do in the end? "After many dinner table conversations, Thea said something that stopped me cold: 'Diplomacy cannot be outsourced to robots, Dad.' Instead of finance she chose to do international relations: learning how humans negotiate, build trust and resolve conflict. Every one of those skills is in the 90th percentile for AI resistance."

His final words of advice:

We are facing a particular moment in history. It is not one that will announce itself. There is no letter from school, no official notification that the world your child is preparing for has quietly become a different one.
    The families who will look back on this decade without regret are the ones who had the conversation early and trusted that a child who understands the world they are entering is far better equipped than one protected from it. Here are some first steps:
    If your child is 10 to 12, build the foundations: teach them to be curious by reading carefully and arguing a point. Curiosity is the hardest quality to automate.
    If your child is 13 to 15, have one conversation this week. Not a lecture. Ask what they think AI is doing to the world. Help them begin using AI tools, not to do homework for them, but to understand what these systems cannot do. That understanding is the first superpower.
    If your child is 16 to 18 and making real choices, look hard at where the four human superpowers appear in the careers they are considering. AI fluency is not optional any more. The wage premium for those who have it is visible and growing fast. “Wait and see” is not a neutral position. It is a decision. The data says it is the wrong one.

NB: The Economist magazine's analysis suggests AI may already be harming some graduates’ job prospects

We found that graduates in fields more exposed to AI have suffered markedly worse outcomes. Between 2022 and 2024 graduates in the least-exposed quintile—studying subjects such as education, philosophy and civil engineering—saw their average full-time employment rate fall by just 1.5 percentage points. Those in the most exposed quintile—including computer science, computer engineering and information science—suffered a 6.6 percentage-point drop (see chart 1 above). ... the trend continued for the class of 2025 (see chart 2 below).

RELATED:

"Which jobs can AI learn to do? We examine this for every occupation in the US economy."

What Jobs Can AI Learn? Measuring Exposure by Reinforcement Learning - CORNELL UNIVERSITY RESEARCH PAPER, 4 May 2026 

"We investigate the potential implications of large language models (LLMs) on the U.S. labour market."

An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large LanguageModels - UNI OF PENNSYLVANIA, Aug 2023

 

"The danger to 'the West comes not from a handful of terrorists crossing borders, but from the millions of university graduates crossing from academia into adulthood."

"Globalisation is here and cannot be stopped. With cheap and easy transportation around the globe (unless a country walls itself off--like North Korea--with similar meaning and consequences), the differences in race and culture of 100 years ago are going to melt away.

"Take the worldwide growth of English, and American English in particular. The French reportedly hate the growing use of English words. It cannot be stopped. Take the growth of interracial marriage, unheard of 60 years ago. It cannot be stopped. Neither can interfaith marriages and other 'mixed marriages.' ...

"You may bemoan the loss of national or regional identity, but it cannot be stopped.

"Generally, what goes into the mixing process are the best elements of each culture. Or so it seems to me, and it makes sense: why would people of culture B value the things about [a] culture A that are objectively inferior? ...

"So, to the extent that people feel turned off or threatened by people coming into their country who look different and act differently, that concern is going to fade into the background over the next 20 years.

"Differences over ideas, not foods or dress, are an entirely different matter. The difference between Islamic jihadists and [others] is a matter of literal life and death, not something optional. Even there, globalisation will have a big impact. The ultimate defeat of Islamism will be accomplished by young people in the Islamic countries seeing the rational values of the West. That's unless the West commits suicide---a distinct possibility.

"The oft-noted "moral weakness of the West" has become "God damn America!" [and god damn the West]. The cause is not immigrants; the cause is the (Kantian) ideas taught in our schools and universities.

"The danger to [the West] comes not from a handful of terrorists crossing the border[s], but from the millions of university graduates crossing from academia into [adulthood]. ... "

~ Harry Binswanger from his post 'Immigration—some mostly new thoughts'

No, the state did not ban speaking te reo in 19C schools.

While considering Elizabeth Rata's recent Research Report into the History of New Zealand Education -- which I recommend, by the way -- I remembered a long-ago 'Cue Card' that appeared here on the topic of Education, contrasting liberal, conservative, and libertarian views on the subject:

The 'liberal' view [of education] is that all that is wrong with state education can be fixed with more money, better staff-student ratios, greater control of curriculum, more qualified teachers and more paperwork. But as more and more money spent on education has shown that more of the same just produces more and more failure.  

The view of conservatives is generally that public education needs to be made more efficient. With more efficiency, they say, 'delivery' of education will be better.

Libertarians however maintain that state education is all too efficient: it has been ruthlessly efficient at delivering the state’s chosen values. After generations of indoctrination at the knee of the state we now have several generations who are 'culturally safe' and politically correct -- ‘good citizens’ unable to use the brains they were born with, unthinkingly compliant in every respect with the values in which they've been totally immersed; braindead automatons to whom group-think is good and for forty-two percent of whom the reading of a bus timetable or the operation of a simple appliance is beyond them.

In previous decades the government's chosen values included banning the speaking of Maori in schools; speaking Maori in schools is fast becoming compulsory, along with the teaching of the ordained versions of Te Tiriti and the inculcation of the ideas of multiculturalism and the inferiority of western culture. Governments and their values change, but their use of their factory schools for indoctination doesn't.

The government's recently chosen values are "fairness, opportunity and security." We know that because [then-Prime Minister] Helen Clark said so. Orwell would have recognised these words, as he might the rigid orthodoxies of what passes for teacher training. "What happens in our schools is a very big part of shaping the future of New Zealand," says Ms Clark in the same speech, acknowledging that this is the way to make subjects out of citizens. Libertarians agree with Ms Clark's statement, which is precisely why we want governments away from the schools and away from control of curricula. 

Both Liberals and conservatives endorse state control of schools and of curricula, and they both seek to be the state. Libertarians don't.

They still don't.

But I made an error in the above 'Cue Card,' which Ms Rata's Report neatly corrects.

It is of course a historical fact that it's wasn't so much that the state banned the speaking of Māori in schools. What actually happened, as she reports, is that from George Grey's Education Ordinance of 1847 on, Māori were insisting that their children be taught in English, the lingua franca of the day. This is from Māori parents, Māori politicians, and Māori tribal leaders.

This is unsurprising. English was the entry into 19th century industrial technology – metallurgy for the new era of factories, rail, road and steamships, animal husbandry for livestock farming, and soil cultivation for grain and fruit production. Older crafts included leatherwork and blacksmithing. Combined with the English language, technological knowledge added to the already established Māori involvement in national and international business and trade.

The 1858 Native Schools Act continued the 1847 Ordinance's requirement for English language and industrial training. ...

The purpose of the Native village schools was to ensure that children would be bilingual: Māori at home and in the community and English acquired at school. English was a foreign language to many children so second language teaching methods and English content was used.

These were schools located in Māori villages, at the specific request of Māori elders, often with Māori parents attending classes as well, And in those "native schools" as they were called 

W. Rolleston, first inspector of Native Schools ... noted [in 1867] widespread dissatisfaction with the syllabus and with Māori as the language of instruction.

There was too much of the Bible taught, and too little of other subjects. They were taught moreover in their own language, whereas what they wished to learn was English.

The 1867 Native Schools Act directly addressed these concerns. Māori Members of Parliament supported implementing the Act. Karaitiana Takamoana (Eastern Maori) noted that the missionaries had been teaching the children –

“for many years, and the children are not educated. They have only taught them in the Maori language. The whole of the Maoris in this Island request that the Government should give instructions that the Maoris should be taught in English only”

Four more petitions to Parliament followed: In 1876 from Te Hakairo and 336 others; in 1877 from Renata Renata Kawepo and 790 others; and in 1877 from Riripi Ropata and 200 others. 

The schools gently prised education from the hands of missionaries into those of the state. They were funded by the taxpayer, with control of government funding and the school management transferred to village committees "at least 5 who are elected annually by parents of the children at the school." But above all:

The [Native Schools] Act required teacher competency, English language instruction, and syllabus quality:

The English language and the ordinary subjects of primary English education [said the Native Schools Act, 1867, S. 21] are taught by a competent teacher and that the instruction is carried on in the English language as far as practicable.

In short, while training Māori in English was one of the state's chosen values, it was at the express invitation of Māori parents, patriarchs, and politicians -- and was not to the exclusion of the Māori language itself.

* * * * 

Ms Rata discusses this topic and much more in a fascinating podcast interview with the NZ Initiative's Michael Johnston:

1 in 4 people born in New Zealand live elsewhere by age 30

Some fascinating research by Tim Hughes and his team at Treasury reveals that "25-30% of people born in New Zealand are living elsewhere by age 30."

We find that only about a third of emigration each year is of the NZ-born, and about 40% of NZ-born emigrants return to live in NZ again. Those with the highest qualifications are most likely to leave but also the most likely to return. Those who return earn more and pay more tax than those never to leave.
    Yet much emigration is permanent and the diaspora is still substantial, with 25-30% of each birth cohort living elsewhere by age 30. Approximately $4b of public investment in human capital [sic] each year is ultimately lost to emigration, needing to be replaced with migration from other countries.

Complementary research further reveals that this "human capital [sic] is replaced via migration of people born elsewhere. 

Foreign-born residents contribute a disproportionate share of personal tax revenue, reflecting their age structure and other factors.
    In 2024, foreign-born NZ residents made up 32% of the population, and paid 38% of the personal tax.
    This analysis helps demonstrate the growing importance of migration policy settings for fiscal sustainability.

[hat tip Eric Crampton]

AUT's dean steps down to go away and work quietly in a corner [updated]

Legal battles can be very personal, but arguments about the law less so. Yet when barrister Gary Judd criticised the impetus from AUT's law school dean Khylee Quince to "embed tikanga" in students' first year -- to be taught that tikanga is "the first law of the country" -- her reply was that Judd, a King's Counsel (KC), should "go die quietly in a corner."

Judd is fortunately still with us. And Quince, still unapologetic, is now stepping down as dean to go away and work quietly in a corner. Her legacy however remains: that those wishing to take up law as a reasoning discipline should try to find a university with a faculty whose leadership has greater respect for that argument.

And issues remain. As Samira Taghavi says (a barrister and practice manager at Active Legal Solutions and a member of The Law Association’s council and Criminal Law committee), 

Khylee Quince’s belittlement of Judd KC raises important questions about the lessons we impart to the next generation of lawyers. Are we equipping them to confront and counter challenging viewpoints effectively? Or are we teaching them to resort to personal attacks?

So let's leave the personal and look at law. As Judd pointed out, quite simply: tikanga cannot be "first law" because tikanga is not law at all, it is a collection of beliefs; to tell students it is law is cultural indoctrination.

[T]ikanga” ... is a set of beliefs, principles of a spiritual nature, a way of life (“the right Māori way of doing things”). When beliefs result in people consistently behaving in a certain way, the behaviour may become customary. Then, in certain carefully confined circumstances, customs may attain the status of law.
    If “tikanga” were confined in its meaning to customs which had attained the status of law, there would be no problem. Introducing a regime which would impose beliefs, principles of a spiritual nature, a way of life of some of our people, on the nation as a whole is a completely different proposition. Beliefs and principles of a spiritual nature are not law. The way of life of some is not part of the law of the land. ...

Where tikanga beliefs have been acted on, they may have given rise to customary behaviour and those customs might [mature] into a species of customary law applicable for specific purposes, for example for determining who owns Māori land, but [one cannot simply declare] that tikanga [is] first law.
Calling tikanga something which patently it is not, not only offends reason but undermines the value of what it actually is. Making a falsehood a fundamental part of the description of its nature is not a good way to ensure its survival. ...
Beliefs, even if common to the entire population, are not law. However, beliefs may cause people to act in a certain way. Those actions may become customary and may even mature into customary law.

But they are not yet law, let alone first law. And hissy fits still won't change that.

UPDATE: Her time is up, literally -- her five-year term has expired. But judging by the results of last September's AUT staff survey, it looks like few of her colleagues will be mourning. Kiwiblog reported:

I have been leaked a copy of the latest staff survey from AUT Law Faculty and it is very clear that it is a very unhappy place. Here are some of their results:Would recommend AUT as a great place to work 45%

• AUT is in a position to succeed 42%
• Have confidence in senior leaders at AUT 35%
• AUT has a thriving research culture 35%
• Am comfortable reporting inappropriate behaviour 30%
• Workloads are divided fairly 25%
• Innovation is recognised and rewarded 20%
• At AUT we are good at learning from our mistakes 20%
• The right people are recognised and rewarded 20%
• If someone is not delivering in their role we do something about it 5% ...

As you can see [in the above Powerpoint screenshot] the results for the Law Faculty are much much lower than AUT as a whole. So this would suggest the major issue is not the central administration, but the faculty management itself. I [David Farrar] am told by sources that everyone knows what the major problem is, but people are too scared to say so.

"It’s training to be an entrepreneur, and an employer—not an employee."

Q: Governments and central banks have inflated asset prices for decades—making housing, education, and healthcare unaffordable for many.

Is the 'system' designed to turn Millennials and Gen Z into lifelong renters and debt-serfs? Is there a way out?

Doug Casey: It’s a natural consequence of Statism.

First of all, taxes are high and have been increasing for decades. After taxes, you have less money left over to save. And if you do try to save, inflation eats away at the dollars that you put in banks or investments. Worse than that, welfare and government benefits make saving feel unnecessary for many people. They feel they don’t need as much because the cradle-to-grave welfare state will cover them. There’s a reason why Klaus Schwab famously said, 'You’ll own nothing and be happy.'

A lot of people believe it. This feeling is abetted by schooling, where everyone is inculcated with this collectivist meme. On top of that, the rich are viewed as parasites. And who wants to be a parasite?

This is all caused by State intervention in the economy. Schools almost always teach students that the State is their friend. It’s not; it’s their enemy. ....

Q: We’re seeing a collision between AI/automation and a credential-heavy job market. Which parts of today’s white-collar economy do you think are most fragile?

Doug Casey: .... The bright side is that while AI and robotics will destroy huge numbers of jobs—starting now—they’ll also level the playing field. A person of less than average intelligence can have AI do things for him that he might otherwise be unable to do. A further benefit is that the world doesn’t need paper pushers and cubicle dwellers who are sitting around doing marginally productive labor. Very much like the world no longer needed people working like drones in textile mills 200 years ago, at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

While AI is going to create some major problems in the short run, it’s going to be a very good thing after those bumps in the road. Just like the Industrial Revolution itself created problems while vastly improving the world. ....

Q: What should a 25-year-old do to build real, durable earning power in the next 5–10 years?

Doug Casey: Ayn Rand answered that question in a speech I heard 40 years ago. When asked, she said: 'The best way to help the poor is not to be one of them.'

I confronted this problem with my friend Matt Smith when we wrote 'The Preparation.' The book explains why young people should avoid college. In fact, it urges them to treat college like the poison that it now is, showing how college has become a serious detriment in almost every way. More importantly, we describe what young men should do instead during the four years between 18 and 22, a time which is critically important, but generally wasted.

We demonstrate—exactly—how a young man can qualify himself with the equivalent of a BA, a BS, and elements of an MBA. That’s in addition to learning practical things in a hands-on way. We divide the four years into 16 quarters. The student will learn everything from flying a plane to sailing a boat around Cape Horn to operating heavy equipment. He’ll qualify in welding and metalwork in Canada. Cooking at a professional level in Italy. He’ll be farming in one quarter and building a house in the next. He’ll learn martial arts skills in Thailand, as well as shooting and scuba. You get the idea. It’s a productive and busy four years.

The critical thing, since we don’t know how the world is going to evolve because of AI, is to become a Renaissance man, enabling students to do anything and go anywhere. To avoid trying to climb a greasy corporate ladder, but build a web where you can reach out in any direction. That’s necessary in the world of AI. It’s training to be an entrepreneur, and an employer—not an employee."

~ from an interview with investor 'Doug Casey on Why Millennials and Gen Z are Trapped by Debt, Inflation, and Broken Promises

'Education Through Recreation'

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both. Enough for him that he does it well."

~ Lawrence Pearsall Jacks from his 1932 book Education Through Recreation (pp 1-2)

"This should be basic teaching for school children. And their teachers..."

"Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification."

~ Ayn Rand from 'Galt's Speech' in her book For the New Intellectual

"What is the actual structure of human reasoning when we engage in deduction?"

~ Leonard Peikoff from Lecture 15 of his lecture series 'History of Philosophy'

"To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes. Centuries ago, the man who was—no matter what his errors—the greatest of your philosophers, has stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. A thing is itself. You have never grasped the meaning of his statement. I am here to complete it: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.

"Whatever you choose to consider, be it an object, an attribute or an action, the law of identity remains the same. A leaf cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A. Or, if you wish it stated in simpler language: You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.
...

"The law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it, too. The law of causality does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it. . . .

"The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature."

~ Ayn Rand from 'Galt's Speech' in her book For the New Intellectual

[Hat tip Louise LaMontagne]

"More than two decades on, the speech reads less like a product of its time and more like a warning that New Zealand chose to ignore."

 

"Today [now yesterday] is the last Tuesday of January. It is a date that should matter more in New Zealand’s political memory than it does.

"On the last Tuesday of January in 2004, Dr. Don Brash stood at the Orewa Rotary Club and delivered what remains one of the most important political speeches given in this country in modern times. It was calm, forensic, unapologetic and, most importantly, correct.

"More than two decades on, the speech reads less like a product of its time and more like a warning that New Zealand chose to ignore.

"Brash opened by setting out five priorities that would be familiar to anyone paying attention today. Declining relative incomes compared with Australia. An education system failing the least privileged. Welfare dependency eroding personal responsibility. A justice system more concerned with offenders than victims. And finally, the issue he focused on that night, the dangerous drift toward racial separatism and the entrenchment of what he rightly called the treaty grievance industry.

"That phrase alone was enough to end his political career.* Not because it was wrong, but because it was accurate."

~ Matua Kahurangi from his post 'The last Tuesday of January and the speech New Zealand still refuses to confront'

* To be fair,  his political career didn't end immediately; but it had been put on notice. Even a near-reversal in National's worst-ever election loss under Bill English wasn't enough to save it.

One step forwards, three steps back.

"Oops." Luxon-led policy-making takes a tumble

It's a rule in politics. The devils is not always in the details. It's often that the details reveal the real devilry.

If the large print ever giveth, then the small print will surely taketh away.

Let's look at a few examples in an area I know something about: Building.

*** Building Minister Chris Penk seems a jovial character but unfortunately he knows little about his subject area. His first move was to promise faster building consents. Exciting. Encouraging. Mighty work.

Here's hist first step: "requiring councils to submit data for building consent and code compliance certificates every quarter." There are no other steps.

He adds "hope" to the idea of anything being faster. Council inspectors "must" issue building consents in a timely fashion, he insisted.  And yet every council inspector ever employed knows how to legally delay a consent application. In fact, if you fine a council for being legally overtime, they'll just legally delay applications for even longer to give themselves some head room. Which is what they've done.

Score One for the Grey Ones.

*** Another move by Building Minister Penk was "remove barriers to overseas building products." At least, that's what it said in the headline. His idea, sensible enogh on its face, is that if enough similar jurisdictions to ours have passed a product (places like Canada, US, UK, Europe, Australia etc.) then that product would be deemed to pass here too.

Yay? No, not so fast.

First move by the Ministry who oversees these things was to rent several new floors in Wellington.  Because their idea of this (and it is they who are running it) is to set up a committee who will consider, one at a time, every morsel of regulation passed anywhere at any time to decide of we might be so lucky to have it here. 

So far, in the three months since introduction, they'e okayed some taps from Sydney. Next year, they might look at concrete codes in the US. Done properly, with due consideration, this will take most committee members through to retirement.

Score One More for the Grey Ones. 

** And then the Minister for Regulatory Reform (sic) stepped up to announce a new measure to "liberate" builders and designers. For years, some of us have suggested that instead of applying to councils for permission to build (which asks for more knowledge than council employees really have, and puts ratepayers on the hook for the risk should they fail) we instead use insurance companies to take the risk.

You know, like if you build a hot rod or street racer instead of a bog standard car, then you ask the insurance company to take the risk, and they use their acumen to discern the risk, and charge you accordingly.  

This allows for good design, with risk properly underwritten. 

But you see that word above: instead.

Rather than placing the risk and the onus on designers and builders and insurers instead of on councils and ratepayers, the Minister for Regulatory Reform is doing this as well as. So it's no more "liberation day" than were Trump's tariffs: we end up getting the worst of both worlds: councils assessing risk, and insurers granted a monopoly charging like wounded bulls. And the ratepayers? Still on the hook.

So it's Several More there for the Grey Ones.

** It's like education, where a "regulatory review" by the same Minister for Regulatory Reform intends to "clarify" and "simplify" Childhood Education's overwhelmed sector. One imagines a quick fix might be going back to say, 1996, when things were working tolerably well, and just before regulations began piling on and classrooms and centres became over-regulated, under-performing, and wholly unaffordable for parents.

Instead, the "reform" begins by (and I quote) "establishing a new statutory role, the Director of Regulation, with responsibilities for performing key regulatory functions in the Early Childhood Education system." Which means another red carpet rolled out in yet another floor of a new office building in Wellington.

Back of the Net with another great effort by the Grey Ones.

*** It's a bit like the "cap" on rate rises. 

Let's stop rate rises!! Yay!! Well, not so fast. 

We know that the "cap" will be supplemented for weepy boomers with top-ups for water use, for mayors who plead public transport debts, and councillors who claim infrastructure shortfalls. We also know that the minister "responsible" ( I use the world loosely) is happy with "soaring" council debt, just as long as the effects and the headlines are only felt after he's gone.

Not to mention that the "cap" includes a minimum rate rise as well!

Yes, a minimum. By law, councils must increase rates by at least 2% every year.

It a sop, not a cap.

Grey Ones score again.

** And not to mention that the new-fangled means by which councils can "fix" their bloody awful traffic problems—traffic jams being a clash of capitalism (in the form of car production) confronting socialism (in the form of too few roads). The "new" solution is a tax. A new tax to be called "congestion charging," which will of course not replace any other tax but just be added to all those under which we are already burdened.

And if history is any guide, may help finish off Auckland's CBD altogether.

I'm pretty sure that's a total victory for Grey.

 With this government, as with every other in recent times, it's always one step forwards, and three steps back. Too many ministers with too little nous giving too much help to the unproductive to whom too many of us must seek permission before we can do anything.

I look forward to this afternoon with trepidation.

"The result is not just boring playgrounds. It’s bored kids, with fewer chances to learn to solve problems."

"How did we get to the point where having an old-fashioned see-saw on the playground is something almost no park ... would consider? ...

"[I]t all began in the ‘60s. Not with the hippies – with the experts.

“'The idea we had back then was that we could prescribe the correctness of public choices with detailed rules,' say [Philip] Howard, author ... of Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America. 'But actually, that’s not correct. Practically every situation involves human judgment in the circumstances.'

"The post-war optimism about technocrats led America to start substituting regulations for what some of us call common sense. ... This combination, which was supposed to make our world safer and more fair, had the unintended consequence of making it stagnant and scary. Lots of rules meant lots of opportunities for punishment. ...

"The result is not just boring playgrounds. It’s bored kids, with fewer chances to learn to solve problems. “You no longer have the brain learning these social skills, because you have an adult overseeing them,” says Howard.

"Perhaps Howard’s biggest bugaboo is the burgeoning books of standards that schools and other institutions, like day care centres and nursing homes, are required to follow. ...

"And when we are busy trying to make sure that we have done things exactly as outlined on page 78, sub-paragraph 5-H, we’re not getting smarter. 'The regulatory state is literally mind-numbing,” Howard says. Load it up with rules and it can’t see the slide as anything other than a piece of equipment that is noncompliant, should it angle more than 43 degrees in a vertical direction'."

~ Lenore Skenazy from her post 'One Reason Childhood Is So Boring Now'

"Every so often, a critic of 'universal reason' appears who, in the course of denouncing it, inadvertently demonstrates why we need it."

Anne Salmond, the patron saint of the straw man 

"Every so often, a critic of 'universal reason' appears who, in the course of denouncing it, inadvertently demonstrates why we need it. ... 

"Anne Salmond ... goes after a recent article in the Herald by former Free Speech Union Chief Executive Jonathan Ayling, in which he called for 'an Enlightenment approach [to the school curriculum] grounded in universal reason' This is taken as proof that he wants all children to think in the same way, as though 'universal reason' means a kind of intellectual North Korea, complete with a Ministry of Correct Thoughts. The author writes that universal reason 'suggests there is only one right way to think.' The incessant quarrelling of Kant, Hume, and Voltaire surely makes a lie of that. 

"Universal reason, properly understood, means something so elementary it ought to be uncontroversial: that humans, regardless of tribe, tongue, or whakapapa, share the basic capacity to make and understand arguments. It is what allows a Māori scholar to critique a German philosopher, or vice versa. It is what allows any of us to read a book from another century, or to engage with the sciences, or to disagree at all. Without a universal reason, debate becomes a kind of cultural tourism in which we admire each other’s 'ways of knowing' from a polite distance, like exhibits in an epistemic zoo. 

"[Salmond's] column insists that because language and culture shape thought, there can be no universal reason. This is like saying that because people wear different clothes, there can be no human body underneath. Yes, thought varies, but its very variability depends on a shared structure that allows us to recognise a difference as a difference. If there were no universals of cognition, no common tools of inference or logic, the entire academic industry of “cross-cultural workshops” - which the author curiously cites as evidence - would be impossible. One does not attend a conference on how minds differ unless one assumes the participants have minds capable of discussing it. 

"Then comes the moralising: that the Free Speech Union lacks 'humility before truth,' that Māori voices are being 'silenced,' that universal reason somehow implies a political programme in favour of ignorance. But the only position in the piece that actively suppresses inquiry is the author’s own. What is more antithetical to free thought than declaring whole categories of knowledge off-limits to criticism because they belong to the wrong culture (or, as Salmond frequently argues, are immeasurable by a universal standard)? What is more hostile to academic freedom than demanding that educational policy be bound not by rational argument but by obligations to particular groups, with 'truth' distributed like government grants? 

"A liberal society cannot function on those terms."

~ Dane Giraud from his post 'Why Dame Anne Salmond Misunderstands the Enlightenment'

'Power-sharing' in the classroom

"Across New Zealand, schools are declaring that they will 'give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.'

"Many parents assume this means teaching New Zealand history or acknowledging Māori culture. In reality, in modern policy language, it means something far more structural.

"To 'give effect' to Te Tiriti generally means embedding Treaty principles into governance, leadership, and decision-making. It often involves redefining power-sharing arrangements, treating Māori as governance partners, and redesigning institutional systems around Treaty-based frameworks.

"This is not merely education. It is a constitutional and governance shift. The idea of 'partnership' is modern — not original. New Zealand did not operate as a partnership state for most of its history. The modern concepts of 'partnership,' 'principles of the Treaty,' and co-governance emerged largely in the 1980s through court decisions and Waitangi Tribunal reports. These ideas are not written into the original 1840 texts.

"What is happening now is not preservation of an old system. It is the adoption of a modern constitutional interpretation that remains highly contested within public debate."

~ Judy Gill from her post 'What “Giving effect to Te Tiriti” means in schools – and how zoning denies parents real choice'