Sisyphus, condemned in Greek mythology to roll a boulder up a hill only to see it roll back down, renewing his endless task, is the perfect model for our times—or at the minimum for businesses and government agencies in our times.
Take the current kerfuffle over Bud Light and the Dodgers. Not aware? Well, Budweiser steeped itself in controversy by having a declared “trans” person advertise Bud Light, causing the majority of its consumers to switch beers. And the Dodgers? They invited, disinvited, and re-invited an anti-Catholic trans group called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to appear at the stadium during their Alphabet Night, causing uproar among the team’s many Catholic fans and leading to a million-buck boycott campaign by CatholicVote.
The Equity Boulder
So, Budweiser, the Sisyphus of Beers, and the Dodgers, the Sisyphus of sports teams, tried to woo back irate customers by offering appeasements: Budweiser trying out a campaign of “Folds of Honor” and the Dodgers trying some version of a Christian Pride Night (though that term, my invention, would be a definite oxymoron in light of Christ’s call for humility). “Here we go, Sisyphus. Here we go, Sisyphus.” Or should the cheer be “Defense, Defense, Defense”? For certainly, both Budweiser and the Dodgers now have to defend themselves and their actions. Roll that rock back up the hill. Anyway, both businesses, now plus Target and some clothing companies, find themselves trying to undo what some manager thought would put them in a light favorable to a specific audience—but not their traditional audiences. The problem is that at their outset years ago, all these companies were in the business of business, you know, selling as much of a product as it could to make an ever-increasing profit. They have now become manifestations of Seinfeld’s famous Soup Nazi, the chef who had a good and popular product, but who limited the sale to those who followed his strict code; otherwise, “No soup for you.” No beer for you, no baseball games for you, no off-the-rack clothes for you—unless you are willing to acquiesce to a specific perspective even though it might run counter to your long-held views and the very reasons you shopped where you shopped and bought what you bought, beer, tickets, clothes and stuff.
So, what happened to these businesses? They find themselves condemned to rolling a perspective out only to find they have to roll it back by trying to roll a counter perspective uphill to their former customers. Can anyone say “Boycott”? Can anyone say “Gross miscalculation”?
Taffeta Bullets
And the same can be said for government agencies like the Pentagon and particularly the US Navy that are now seemingly immersed in gender education while enemies of the state are immersed in learning ways to break our things and kill us. Gender soldiers? Isn’t the primary purpose of our military the prevention of actual physical harm to the citizenry and the nullification of any enemy foreign or domestic? Sisyphus in uniform is still Sisyphus relegated to Enslavement to the Boulder of Gender Equity.
Boulders, Boulders, Everywhere Boulders, and Most Are Artificial
Given what some government managers see as a way to mesh their agencies with “the times,” federal and state agencies find themselves pushing boulders up hills, such as Mt. Climate Change, Mt. Electric Cars, Mt. Gender Indoctrination, and Mt. Title IX. All those mountains are so steep that the gravity of antithesis, a natural force, makes the task increasingly difficult, increasingly controversial, and increasingly futile, ineffective, and inimical to the perspectives of the constituents—call them consumers of government controlled programs.
Title IX
Take that Title IX business, also known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. Its purpose was to provide greater opportunities for women in education. It resulted in the proliferation of women’s college sports teams. In some universities, the athletic departments had to either eliminate or downgrade certain men’s sports to meet the needs of “equal opportunity,” meaning that scholarships previously spent on male athletes went to the growing population of female athletes. AND THEN THE TRANSGENDER BOMB HIT. Goodbye women’s sports for females—sorry, that is goodbye “cis” females only. Now women must compete with biological males. The boulder that Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink worked so hard to roll up the hill, rolled down. And right now there are people in government who are pushing a new rock uphill, the rock of “It doesn’t matter whether you were born male and are stronger and faster; you get to compete with humans born female.” “Go team, go, but shade your eyes in the locker room if you don’t want to see naked males in your shower.”
The Mountain Called Climate Change
Do I have to point out that humans have cooked with fire for maybe all of their 200,000-plus years or that even pre-Homo-Sapiens-Sapiens species might also have cooked their food? But Bud-Light-like, some in government want to ban gas stoves. How’s that boulder moving uphill? What will replace those stoves? Wood-burning fireplaces in New York City polluting the air as it was polluted during the time of coal furnaces in every home? There go the forests whose burning will increase the dreaded carbon dioxide and denude landscapes that will become victims of erosion. Or will the gas stoves be replaced by the boulder of green energy technologies with their attendant downhill roll caused by the gravity of more mining of rare earths and more overfilled landfills with toxins and windmill blades—all while being subject to the downhill pull of bad weather like cloudy days and calm air? Nevertheless, state and local government Sisyphuses will roll their special agenda boulders based on the cultural movements du jour up hills of their own making until they realize that the weight is too great; the boulder will roll back down, and they will be required as necessity dictates to roll another boulder, like burning fossil fuels to supplement insufficient energy networks, back up the hill.
Horace Mann Would Be Horrified
And what of education? Could there be anymore pertinent example of Sisyphus in action? Decade after decade some new group of Sisyphuses tries to “improve” upon simple hard work, analytical thinking, and, yes, rote learning, by pushing some “new” boulder uphill. Critical race theory comes to mind; its an equity boulder that ignores the commonsense reality of individual differences and the dignity of individuality. You’re white, you’re corrupt. You’re black, you’re victimized. The so-called Outcomes Based Education (OBE) program, one of those “improvements” rolled out in the 1980s required schools to re-administer a test when 70% of a class failed to make at least 70% on that test. Yes, the boulder of learning pushed up the hill by students who made a 100% on the first test rolled back down the hill, requiring them to roll it back up by retaking the test they aced. Fortunately, that rock of OBE rapidly fell down the hill of pedagogy.
Education managers and their proponent Sisyphuses recently discovered that a special interest foisted on the population of “consumers” who desire a “plain and good” product leads to an inevitable downhill roll. The gravity of commonsense centered on equality of opportunity makes the boulder of equity very, very heavy, especially since in most instances it inordinately favors favoritism and instilled laziness in those told they are victims who deserve an easy or even a free ride. Eventually, as education managers who are caught up in the fashion of the times discover, the Gravity of Commonality pulls the boulders of exclusive special interests back down the hill of humanity.
Is There Any Hope That the Rock Will Remain at the Top?
Can the Sisyphuses of our time not learn this lesson? Probably not. For just as the boulder reaches the bottom of futility, so another Sisyphus tries to push a new boulder up the same hill. Condemned to constant repetition, we humans find ourselves incapable of dealing with the avalanche of boulders, even after we caution new Sisyphuses about rolling the boulders of special agendas uphill.
The Modern Sisyphuses Are an Angry Lot
Disturbed that everyone won’t help push the next special agenda boulder uphill, the modern Sisyphuses become angry and vindictive. They shout whatever derogatory term they can at those who won’t help roll the rock they choose to roll: Racist, Misogynist, Fascist, Supremicist, Homophobe, Transphobe, and…I can’t name them all, mostly because there appears to be a new special interest group each week.
But you have to have a bit of empathy for all the Sisyphuses. They are addicted to rolling their boulders uphill, regardless of the inevitable downhill roll. Caught in an unavoidable repetition, they continue to push the boulders of conformity upward to the top, trying to pass over a mountain of chaotic individuals who just won’t help.
*About the title: For whatever reasons scientists deemed necessary to abandon the designations for the time before and after Christ’s birth (Before Christ, BC, and after Christ, AD, or Anno Domini, “in the year of [our] Lord”) and replace both with BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era), they failed to realize that their new designations still centered on the birth of Christ. We can blame Johannes Kepler for starting the usage of “common era,” but it snowballed in twentieth century academic papers, when it was anathema to give any hint of religious affiliation lest one be dismissed as “not a serious scientist.” But using both BCE and CE still makes the birth of Christ a special moment in Earth’s 4.5 billion year history. What does the supposed secularization accomplish? An objectivity devoid of any religious connotations while still centering time’s division—which is, indeed, arbitrary and an artifact of Christianity and the calculations of Dinoysius Exiguus—on that birth. Why not, if scientists wanted to be secular, designate some other event as a “starting and ending point” or “pivotal point in time”? Say, the birth of Rome, for example. After all, the Romans did that. They would not have labeled the death of Caesar as the Ides of March, 44 BC or even BCE. Figure it out: For the Romans, the first year was by our reckoning 753 BC (BCE). Forty-four from 753 puts Caesar’s assassination in the Roman year 709 AUC (Ab urbe condita or Anno urbis contitae, essentially designations for “in the year since the city’s founding” or “from the city’s founding”). Ah! Will wokeness ever have a rational reckoning? Why have any such division or pivotal point if there were records of more ancient people, such as the Egyptians or even older Sumerians along the timeline of humanity? Ramses II was a king. Why not use his coronation as a start for a “common era”? That would make this year 3302, not 2023.
Take the current kerfuffle over Bud Light and the Dodgers. Not aware? Well, Budweiser steeped itself in controversy by having a declared “trans” person advertise Bud Light, causing the majority of its consumers to switch beers. And the Dodgers? They invited, disinvited, and re-invited an anti-Catholic trans group called Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to appear at the stadium during their Alphabet Night, causing uproar among the team’s many Catholic fans and leading to a million-buck boycott campaign by CatholicVote.
The Equity Boulder
So, Budweiser, the Sisyphus of Beers, and the Dodgers, the Sisyphus of sports teams, tried to woo back irate customers by offering appeasements: Budweiser trying out a campaign of “Folds of Honor” and the Dodgers trying some version of a Christian Pride Night (though that term, my invention, would be a definite oxymoron in light of Christ’s call for humility). “Here we go, Sisyphus. Here we go, Sisyphus.” Or should the cheer be “Defense, Defense, Defense”? For certainly, both Budweiser and the Dodgers now have to defend themselves and their actions. Roll that rock back up the hill. Anyway, both businesses, now plus Target and some clothing companies, find themselves trying to undo what some manager thought would put them in a light favorable to a specific audience—but not their traditional audiences. The problem is that at their outset years ago, all these companies were in the business of business, you know, selling as much of a product as it could to make an ever-increasing profit. They have now become manifestations of Seinfeld’s famous Soup Nazi, the chef who had a good and popular product, but who limited the sale to those who followed his strict code; otherwise, “No soup for you.” No beer for you, no baseball games for you, no off-the-rack clothes for you—unless you are willing to acquiesce to a specific perspective even though it might run counter to your long-held views and the very reasons you shopped where you shopped and bought what you bought, beer, tickets, clothes and stuff.
So, what happened to these businesses? They find themselves condemned to rolling a perspective out only to find they have to roll it back by trying to roll a counter perspective uphill to their former customers. Can anyone say “Boycott”? Can anyone say “Gross miscalculation”?
Taffeta Bullets
And the same can be said for government agencies like the Pentagon and particularly the US Navy that are now seemingly immersed in gender education while enemies of the state are immersed in learning ways to break our things and kill us. Gender soldiers? Isn’t the primary purpose of our military the prevention of actual physical harm to the citizenry and the nullification of any enemy foreign or domestic? Sisyphus in uniform is still Sisyphus relegated to Enslavement to the Boulder of Gender Equity.
Boulders, Boulders, Everywhere Boulders, and Most Are Artificial
Given what some government managers see as a way to mesh their agencies with “the times,” federal and state agencies find themselves pushing boulders up hills, such as Mt. Climate Change, Mt. Electric Cars, Mt. Gender Indoctrination, and Mt. Title IX. All those mountains are so steep that the gravity of antithesis, a natural force, makes the task increasingly difficult, increasingly controversial, and increasingly futile, ineffective, and inimical to the perspectives of the constituents—call them consumers of government controlled programs.
Title IX
Take that Title IX business, also known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. Its purpose was to provide greater opportunities for women in education. It resulted in the proliferation of women’s college sports teams. In some universities, the athletic departments had to either eliminate or downgrade certain men’s sports to meet the needs of “equal opportunity,” meaning that scholarships previously spent on male athletes went to the growing population of female athletes. AND THEN THE TRANSGENDER BOMB HIT. Goodbye women’s sports for females—sorry, that is goodbye “cis” females only. Now women must compete with biological males. The boulder that Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink worked so hard to roll up the hill, rolled down. And right now there are people in government who are pushing a new rock uphill, the rock of “It doesn’t matter whether you were born male and are stronger and faster; you get to compete with humans born female.” “Go team, go, but shade your eyes in the locker room if you don’t want to see naked males in your shower.”
The Mountain Called Climate Change
Do I have to point out that humans have cooked with fire for maybe all of their 200,000-plus years or that even pre-Homo-Sapiens-Sapiens species might also have cooked their food? But Bud-Light-like, some in government want to ban gas stoves. How’s that boulder moving uphill? What will replace those stoves? Wood-burning fireplaces in New York City polluting the air as it was polluted during the time of coal furnaces in every home? There go the forests whose burning will increase the dreaded carbon dioxide and denude landscapes that will become victims of erosion. Or will the gas stoves be replaced by the boulder of green energy technologies with their attendant downhill roll caused by the gravity of more mining of rare earths and more overfilled landfills with toxins and windmill blades—all while being subject to the downhill pull of bad weather like cloudy days and calm air? Nevertheless, state and local government Sisyphuses will roll their special agenda boulders based on the cultural movements du jour up hills of their own making until they realize that the weight is too great; the boulder will roll back down, and they will be required as necessity dictates to roll another boulder, like burning fossil fuels to supplement insufficient energy networks, back up the hill.
Horace Mann Would Be Horrified
And what of education? Could there be anymore pertinent example of Sisyphus in action? Decade after decade some new group of Sisyphuses tries to “improve” upon simple hard work, analytical thinking, and, yes, rote learning, by pushing some “new” boulder uphill. Critical race theory comes to mind; its an equity boulder that ignores the commonsense reality of individual differences and the dignity of individuality. You’re white, you’re corrupt. You’re black, you’re victimized. The so-called Outcomes Based Education (OBE) program, one of those “improvements” rolled out in the 1980s required schools to re-administer a test when 70% of a class failed to make at least 70% on that test. Yes, the boulder of learning pushed up the hill by students who made a 100% on the first test rolled back down the hill, requiring them to roll it back up by retaking the test they aced. Fortunately, that rock of OBE rapidly fell down the hill of pedagogy.
Education managers and their proponent Sisyphuses recently discovered that a special interest foisted on the population of “consumers” who desire a “plain and good” product leads to an inevitable downhill roll. The gravity of commonsense centered on equality of opportunity makes the boulder of equity very, very heavy, especially since in most instances it inordinately favors favoritism and instilled laziness in those told they are victims who deserve an easy or even a free ride. Eventually, as education managers who are caught up in the fashion of the times discover, the Gravity of Commonality pulls the boulders of exclusive special interests back down the hill of humanity.
Is There Any Hope That the Rock Will Remain at the Top?
Can the Sisyphuses of our time not learn this lesson? Probably not. For just as the boulder reaches the bottom of futility, so another Sisyphus tries to push a new boulder up the same hill. Condemned to constant repetition, we humans find ourselves incapable of dealing with the avalanche of boulders, even after we caution new Sisyphuses about rolling the boulders of special agendas uphill.
The Modern Sisyphuses Are an Angry Lot
Disturbed that everyone won’t help push the next special agenda boulder uphill, the modern Sisyphuses become angry and vindictive. They shout whatever derogatory term they can at those who won’t help roll the rock they choose to roll: Racist, Misogynist, Fascist, Supremicist, Homophobe, Transphobe, and…I can’t name them all, mostly because there appears to be a new special interest group each week.
But you have to have a bit of empathy for all the Sisyphuses. They are addicted to rolling their boulders uphill, regardless of the inevitable downhill roll. Caught in an unavoidable repetition, they continue to push the boulders of conformity upward to the top, trying to pass over a mountain of chaotic individuals who just won’t help.
*About the title: For whatever reasons scientists deemed necessary to abandon the designations for the time before and after Christ’s birth (Before Christ, BC, and after Christ, AD, or Anno Domini, “in the year of [our] Lord”) and replace both with BCE (before the common era) and CE (common era), they failed to realize that their new designations still centered on the birth of Christ. We can blame Johannes Kepler for starting the usage of “common era,” but it snowballed in twentieth century academic papers, when it was anathema to give any hint of religious affiliation lest one be dismissed as “not a serious scientist.” But using both BCE and CE still makes the birth of Christ a special moment in Earth’s 4.5 billion year history. What does the supposed secularization accomplish? An objectivity devoid of any religious connotations while still centering time’s division—which is, indeed, arbitrary and an artifact of Christianity and the calculations of Dinoysius Exiguus—on that birth. Why not, if scientists wanted to be secular, designate some other event as a “starting and ending point” or “pivotal point in time”? Say, the birth of Rome, for example. After all, the Romans did that. They would not have labeled the death of Caesar as the Ides of March, 44 BC or even BCE. Figure it out: For the Romans, the first year was by our reckoning 753 BC (BCE). Forty-four from 753 puts Caesar’s assassination in the Roman year 709 AUC (Ab urbe condita or Anno urbis contitae, essentially designations for “in the year since the city’s founding” or “from the city’s founding”). Ah! Will wokeness ever have a rational reckoning? Why have any such division or pivotal point if there were records of more ancient people, such as the Egyptians or even older Sumerians along the timeline of humanity? Ramses II was a king. Why not use his coronation as a start for a “common era”? That would make this year 3302, not 2023.
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