Thinking Will Now Cease

Discussions about questionable judgment frequently remind me of the president of the Los Angeles branch of the Thin Thinkers Society, Ms. Erin Aubrey Kaplan. As one of the leading purveyors of philosophical paucity at the Los Angeles Times, every Wednesday morning the permanently offended Ms. Kaplan drives her horse-drawn wagon-load of victims to the front steps of the newspaper. Almost unfailingly, she deposits a few self-anointed victims and growlingly goes on her unhappy way. Ms. Kaplan, it seems, was born black. She never quite has gotten over it. She decided sometime ago that she was a victim. She further ordained that anyone who looked like her or thought like her also would be stamped with what she regards as the prestigious label of victim of an oppressive society. Adhering to the principle of the hole-digger who kept complaining that the ground was falling out of sight, Ms. Kaplan forlornly cries “woe is me, woe is us” every week in her commentary.

A Crooked View

I am sorry that the hopelessly pessimistic Ms. Kaplan wakes up depressed every morning, and happily shares her grim view of America with the vast audience of Times readers. Except for being black and being a girl, she has never revealed any qualifications for serving as a societal arbiter. If she thinks at all, it is with her mouth. She never has shown an inclination toward mature insight, depth of reasoning, a grasp of logic, a savvy world view or philosophical sophistication. Her only qualifications are her race and her stridency. Oh, I see. She is pretty good, though, at foot-stomping, writing volubly and flashing shallow anger. Directions for learning these reactions are included in the handy-dandy toolbox that is mailed, free, to all practicing liberals. Ms. Kaplan’s excuse this week was a kid-like foray to Los Angeles High School. She must have felt at home among the teenagers because, in her essay, she made as many childish, bigoted observations as they did.

The Voices of Inexperience

Opening with an assertion that she is much in demand, Ms. Kaplan says she could not resist an invitation to participate in a panel discussion, “The Hidden Truth,” at Los Angeles High for the following reasons: The students are “almost entirely black and brown,” the school is “overcrowded and underperforming.” Sounds like a potential house full of victims. Ms. Kaplan fell for the line, too. She leaped as if the campus were dessert. “I decided that I would go to be supportive,” she writes. Supportive? Of what? As a non-thinker, Ms. Kaplan typically ducks an explanation. Being a liberal means reacting mechanically not maturely, perspiring over self-consumed “victims.” Approvingly, Ms. Kaplan relays the sins of America and the world, as seen through teen eyes. With soul music and hip-hop music playing in the background, she says, the four students on her panel “all argued against the exploitation of workers in developing nations by multinational corporations that help fuel global trade. They detailed how the U.S. and the World Bank encourage the indebtedness of developing nations, how even when immigrants ‘succeed’ here, a wage and job gap opens between native- and foreign-born, black and white, male and female.” Meet Ms. Kaplan, the bean-counter.

Your Bigoted Slip Is Showing

Ms. Kaplan’s racist tendencies were less thinly veiled than usual this week. Into this orgy of self-indulgent victimology during the question-and-answer period walks a teacher whom Ms. Kaplan pointedly describes as white. Why? Because this is what bean-counters do. The distinction also was made because the ‘white” teacher aired a series of strongly pro-American views — what a novel experience. These contrary opinions made Ms. Kaplan chafe. She was not alone. By the darnedest coincidence, everyone else in the room who believes in tolerance and diversity disagreed because someone contradicted their unassailable contents. The students (apparently all non-white),Ms. Kaplan reports, “murmured their puzzlement and displeasure.”
After smugly noting that her fellow panelists heroically quieted the crowd, countered each of the teacher’s points and finally convinced the teacher to sit down, Ms. Kaplan concludes in the predictable manner of a lockstep liberal. “Everyone left feeling charged,” she writes, “certainly dissatisfied, but not murderous.” Does that mean we should be grateful that no one was killed?