John Hawkins interviews Lee Doren about his new ebook Please Enroll Responsibly: Avoiding Indoctrination at College.

"Feminism can be thought of as like a corporation."

Barbara Oakley, author of Cold-Blooded Kindness, is interviewed at Times Higher Education:

"Feminism can be thought of as like a corporation. It's interested in its constituents. Well-meaning feminists are often trained only to see a certain way, only to support their constituents. That is partly what underlies the spurious research on battered-woman syndrome. Anyone who questions whether battered women are only simple victims is put in the pillory and crucified."

Read the rest here.

Does the College Essay Suck the Life Out of Boys?

So it's pouring rain here in Knoxville and I spent the afternoon reading a terrific book called Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College. If you have a teen getting ready to apply to college, this is a great read and it's hilarious to boot.

The author, Andrew Ferguson, goes through the process of trying to help his son get into college and starts by discussing the lengths parents are going to to try and get their kids into a selective school. Some are even hiring $40,000 college counselors years before their kid applies to college to guide them through the process. Wouldn't it be easier just to give the kid forty grand and tell them to start their own business? But perhaps that is too simplistic.

One thing that caught my eye was how hard and depressing it was for the son to try and write the college essay. Many of the colleges ask for an essay about the student's "inner life"--usually a buzz word for some kind of sappy self-absorbed nonsense where the student "took a risk" of some kind and went on to become a better person or some variation of that theme.

In the book, Ferguson's son finally spits out a couple of paragraphs about his experience at a camp where there was a swimming test and he managed to swim the required distance while the rest were defeated. In the essay, the son wrote that he was "tired but proud; he sympathized with his classmates who hadn't finished and in his victory, accepted modestly, he learned the timeless value of persistence and determination, expressed with grim earnestness..."

But his father knew the truth: "which was the masculine truth. He didn't remember the race because it proved the timeless value of persistence. He remembered the victory because it was a victory: he had competed against this classmates, friends and rivals alike, and beaten them soundly and undeniably, and earned the right to a sack dance in the end zone. He knew he couldn't say this, though, and I knew he was right."

And that pretty much sums it up for the rest of college. Trying to please a bunch of people who care more about a PC stance than critically thinking with passion. It's no wonder that boys and men are bypassing college.

John Hawkins at PJM Lifestyle: "Quit Your Terrible Job Now! 7 Tips for Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs." A commenter to this post by the name of Yooper makes a good point:

Here’s Tip #10 – Be aware that the political environment has a direct impact upon your business, virtually any business. Don’t be one of those who says that you have no interest in politics. I didn’t have much interest in politics until I realized that what occurs in Washington can make or break my business in short order.

Another commenter by the name of Capn Rusty states:

Tip 8: Pick an industry or market segment that is totally unregulated, like software development in the early 90′s, or . . . blogging in the early 00′s.

Good advice.

Mark Perry at Carpe Diem blog: Social Security IS a Pyramid Scheme (via Newsalert).

Why so Quick to Call Business Leaders Psychopaths?

I was reading an article over at CNBC entitled "Think Your Boss Is a Psychopath? That May Be True."

In a recent study of more than 200 executives, nearly 4 percent scored at or above the traditional cutoff for psychopathy using the Psychopathy Checklist, which researchers regard as the "gold standard" for assessing this personality disorder, said Paul Babiak, one of the researchers who conducted the study and co-author of the book, "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work."

By contrast, just 1 percent of the general population is categorized as having psychopathic tendencies. Admittedly, it’s just one study, but it suggests that business leaders could be four times as likely to be psychopathic than the average person....

In fact, he often uses the phrase "parasitic predator" to describe corporate psychopaths. "They are parasitic in that they are looking for a host to support them," he said. "A big company is an easy place in which to hide."

I have to wonder about this study and the way that CNBC presented this article. It makes it sound like business leaders who are psychopaths are a dime a dozen. Why are they picking on business leaders and the corporate world? Is it because the study authors or CNBC have it in their own minds that corporate bosses are corrupt, kind of like the author of this kooky article entitled "Capitalism: A System Run By and For Psychopaths"?

I have taken a continuing education course from Robert Hare, the co-author of the book mentioned above and in the course, he told us that it is a very dangerous thing to diagnose someone with psychopathy. We dealt in the course with adults and juveniles who were jailed for violent and other crimes. Often times, Hare and his colleagues would warn us to be very careful in our diagnosis, lest someone who was charged with a crime end up being discriminated against because of the psychopathy label if untrue. Shouldn't his co-author, Paul Babiak, use the same good advice? Should he use a study of only 200 people to make such a generalization?

Why business leaders? Why not study SEIU members or liberal politicians? Where is that study?

How Bad will the Job Picture Get?

I just read that the job growth in August was zero. I believe it after my experience a couple of weeks ago in Atlanta. I was there on business and went over to Lenox Square Mall. On the way, I ran into a beautiful woman who said she was heading over to a job interview. I figured she was going for a job as a model or high level manager of a hotel or organization--given the way she was dressed. "Wish me luck!" she exclaimed as she headed off the elevator we were on. As I headed into the mall later, she was in a long line of women, all gorgeous and all meticulously turned out. The line was long and went around the store. What jobs were these women applying for? A co-manager or clerk at the Forever 21 store opening up at the mall. All of them looked eager and frankly, a bit desperate for a job. But in Atlanta, where the unemployment is high, people seemed happy just to be working when I talked to them in cabs or in restaurants. How much worse will it get? I don't know, but I think as more businesses "go John Galt" in the Obama economy, much worse.