From Self Esteem to Narcissism in Four Decades

Alert! Schadenfreude ahead!

As I look back over the issues I have faced in my life, both in my private and professional lives, I swear it sure looks like about 90% of them I can blame on one person.

Me.

I either walked myself into them or at least planted the seeds that produced bitter fruit later in my life. Things often boomerang.

Some of you no doubt heard about the Le Affaire Chemerinsky (aka the Erwin Chemerinsky student dinner) fiasco.

Chemerinsky and his wife, Catherine Fisk, are law professors at Berkeley, Erwin is actually the Dean of the Law School. Both are died in the wool progressives (they passed “liberal” decades ago), Catherine was even a student “activist” during her undergrad and early law school days.

In true George Floyd tradition, NBC makes the aggressor the victim in their story just like the AP tried to turn the Dexter Reed story into the next George Floyd incident, focusing on that the police “fired 96 shots” at Reed while leaving out the fact Reed refused to comply with police direction and fired 11 shots at the police first, striking one of them.

Look at how NBC “News” framed a situation in which students were invited to a private residence for a dinner and then started agitating and grandstanding for media attention – which the leftist media was eager to supply:

A UC Berkeley law professor confronts a pro-Palestinian student during a backyard dinner

Catherine Fisk and her husband, law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky, asked the woman to leave their home, and when she didn't, Fisk tried to grab her microphone.

A dinner for graduating law students at the University of California, Berkeley, has become the latest flashpoint over free speech and concerns about Islamophobia and antisemitism on college campuses as the war in Gaza rages on. 

Video shot by a law student and shared with NBC News shows law professor Catherine Fisk trying to grab a microphone out of the hands of a Palestinian student during a protest at an invitation-only event this week.

Really NBC? You are going with that take?

The “Palestinian student”, Malak Afaneh, has a history of “activism” with the radical Islamists of Students for Justice in Palestine, her actions include posting distasteful caricatures of Jews in general (and of Chemerinsky in specific) on social media and nobody “confronted” Afaneh, she was asked to leave – and under California law, she immediately became a trespasser when she refused to do so.

Surprising no one (except maybe Erwin and Cat), Afaneh has taken to social media claiming Cat inappropriately touched her and put her in a choke hold, none of which is true based on the video, and has released a statement calling for both Erwin and Cat to be fired and a demanded (as if she had the standing to “demand” anything) a shit load of Palestinian-specific fiction be taught in courses to be initiated and sustained by the university.

You are as shocked as I am, I’m sure.

I have no love for Chemerinsky or Fisk. I became aware of Chemerinsky about fifteen or so years ago when Eugene Volokh would do point-counterpoint with him when the Volokh Conspiracy blog was still independent (it was bought by the Washington Post and is now under the umbrella of libertarian Reason Magazine). I have been aware of Fisk for about that long as well.

I admit that I felt a combination of schadenfreude and anger when I saw this reporting. Schadenfreude because this is just the kind of stuff Chemerinsky and Fisk have encouraged over their entire careers. Like the mythical ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, their own left-wing foot soldiers are turning on them – and in a very public way. Anger because Erwin and Cat are also private citizens who don’t have to put up with shit throwers like Malak Afaneh on their own property.

It was inevitable in a culture that began teaching children that “self-esteem” was something given rather than being earned by working to become a human being people would esteem.

After decades upon decades of inculcation where kids were not only taught to be Stuart Smalley, but treated that way in every kid gets a trophy no matter how the sucked/team dinners even if you finished the season in last place scenarios, it should be no big reveal that they turned in to raving, malignant narcissists who thing hurt feelings are a crime, they are entitled to lecture people about issues of which they have little understanding, and assault/harangue rational people with irrational, emotional arguments.

Erwin and Cat brought this on themselves – but they also brought this down on the rest of us as well, and that is the unforgivable sin.

You really should take a gander at the video – but be prepared for the wave of schadenfreude that will wash over you.