We explore real-life reformation here in this informed, online community.
A college professor grades 95 student essays. Then writes this:
"Miraculously, in the last year, mistakes of spelling and grammar have mostly disappeared—poof!—revealing sparkling error-free prose, even from students who speak English as a second or third language. The writing is getting better.
"The ideas are getting worse.
"There’s a new genre of essay that other academics reading this will instantly recognize, a clumsy collaboration between students and Silicon Valley. I call it glittering sludge.
"At the same time, in a totally unrelated development, some students have adopted a bold academic strategy: citing books and articles that do not exist.
"(In one particularly amusing example, a student cited me in an essay, drawing from my book, Fluke. The only problem: the alleged author of the cited text in the bibliography was not listed as Brian Klaas, but one “Benjamin Fluke.” Right title, wrong author, wrong publisher, wrong year. Well played, ChatGPT).
"The death of the student essay is not merely an academic concern. It is not just a problem for young people hoping to get good grades, nor is it only relegated to the realm of my fellow elbow-patched nerds. Instead, the rapidly improving ability to impressively mimic human language poses an existential threat to traditional methods of crafting smarter minds—which thereby challenges the future of human cognition."
Professor Brian Klass
A few weeks ago, an image went viral. In Belgium a migrant used the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to cook an omelette. For many, the desecration brought to mind a quote from French author Jean Raspail, written in 1973 in his novel Camp of the Saints, about a sudden invasion of Muslim, Indian and African migrants into France:
“Your universe has no meaning to them. They will not try to understand. They will be tired, they will be cold, they will make a fire with your beautiful oak door.”
“Beware of two errors: despising the world God sustains, or worshipping the culture He restrains.”
— Abraham Kuyper, Common Grace Vol. 1, Ch. 30
"[Successful NY Mayoral candidate] Mamdani built his campaign on the infrastructure of the Democratic Socialists of America. The DSA and its city allies can dispatch activists across New York and, with a network of progressive partner organizations, can mobilize young people, get out the vote, and do the work of door-to-door politics.
"We saw this dynamic many times in the twentieth century: socialists rise to power, their policies degrade the quality of life, and, as they enter the endgame, they tighten their grip on power and offload resentments onto their ideological, racial, and economic enemies.
"...the twentieth century taught us that left-wing voters have extraordinary defenses against reality."
-- Christopher Rufo
