Charles Bolden’s Greatest Quotations

Reader Mike B. sends the page of NASA’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity (ODEO), which has some inspiring statements by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden (the Obama appointee’s incisive visage is shown here in a photo from VFR’s not-to-be missed 2010 entry, “NASA’s foremost purpose: to increase Muslim self-esteem”).

Here is one of Bolden’s quotations on the ODEO page:

Journeying beyond Earth’s orbit, as NASA is committed to do, will require a diverse team of many individuals with the best minds, the most comprehensive expertise, the broadest knowledge, the strongest talent, and the greatest integrity. As NASA’s Diversity and Inclusion Champion, I believe it is incumbent on every member of the NASA community to advocate for, promote, and most importantly, practice the principles of diversity and inclusion in everything that we do. This means making diversity and inclusion integral in our efforts to identify and develop the best talent, create and serve on high-performing teams, achieve scientific and engineering excellence, maintain integrity in all that we do, and ultimately, realize mission success.
—Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. NASA Policy Statement on Diversity and Inclusion, June 8, 2010

Now that is simply a wonderful pronouncement, perhaps the greatest and most eloquent statement on behalf of excellence and diversity—and, more importantly, the irreducible unity of excellence and diversity—that I have ever seen. How reassuring it is to know that at every step of NASA’s endeavor to reach the stars (or whatever it is that NASA is doing nowadays), diversity will be at the very center of the effort. Why, isn’t that the way Columbus discovered the New World? Isn’t that what made the Wright Brothers’ flight possible? And how could the Manhattan Project have developed the atomic bomb without diversity? Enrico Fermi. J. Robert Oppenheimer. Gen. Leslie Groves. Diversity!

In reality, of course, the more diversity becomes the main purpose of an organization, the more hyperbolic become its claims to excellence. Look at Bolden’s boasts of the strongest talent, the most comprehensive intellects, the greatest integrity, etc. Did NASA circa 1960 issue such over-the-top statements about itself? Of course not. It had a big, incredibly challenging job to do and was focused on doing it. But as soon as an organization loses any legitimate purpose, or takes on an illegitimate purpose (such as diversity) that is opposed to its ostensible purpose, it starts to issue this type of overblown rhetoric. Its indulgence in such grandiose claims about itself is a sure sign that it has lost the very excellence, integrity, etc. of which it is now boasting.

On another point, it strikes me how perfectly suited blacks are for such bureaucratic positions as Bolden now holds. Bureaucrats are by profession empty suits, self-importantly seeming to be engaged in some useful task while in reality being devoted to maintaining their own positions, privileges, and power. And what racial group—or rather what racial group’s professional class—consists pre-eminently of such empty suits, exceptionally skilled at uttering important-sounding verbiage that lacks all connection to reality?

* * *

I would add that even among the stated NASA missions that are to be centrally informed by diversity, there is no real mission (except maybe at the very end), but rather bureaucratic hole-punching.

NASA must, Bolden says,

practice the principles of diversity and inclusion in everything that we do. This means making diversity and inclusion integral in our efforts to identify and develop the best talent, create and serve on high-performing teams, achieve scientific and engineering excellence, maintain integrity in all that we do, and ultimately, realize mission success.

Let’s break that down:

“to identify and develop the best talent”
Of course this means nothing other than recruiting an acceptably “diverse” mix of employees. This is explicit, since the identification and development of the “best talent” is to be done by “[practicing] the principles of diversity and inclusion.”

“create and serve on high-performing teams”
This is an extension of the recruiting and hiring process, involving the creation of suitably diverse groups within the larger organization, so that not only NASA as a whole, but all its subordinate parts, are diverse. It also echoes today’s classroom, where pupils do everything as members of groups so that the slower ones are not left behind and everyone gets the same grade.

“achieve scientific and engineering excellence”
What this sounds like is filling out forms certifying that “We have achieved excellence, thus demonstrating that diversity and excellence are compatible.” Again, can you imagine NASA in the 1960s saying that one of its purposes was to “achieve scientific and engineering excellence”—as though such excellence was to be considered as some abstract objective apart from the pursuit and completion of NASA’s actual mission?

“maintain integrity in all that we do”
Translation: we correctly follow all the bureaucratic procedures, i.e., the procedures that involve the practice of the principles of diversity and inclusion. We are conscientious and flawless diversity bureaucrats.

“and ultimately, realize mission success.”
The success of the undefined “mission” is way down on the list of priorities.

- end of initial entry -

Mike B. writes:

Exactly.

It’s comparable to when you hear some bombastic person constantly spouting, “I’m a proud black woman.” (Yeah, lady, we see you’re black and we see you’re a woman and frankly, we don’t care if you’re “proud” or not. We just hear someone who’s loud, arrogant, obnoxious, and obviously not too keen about white people and/or men.)

None of us looked in a mirror back then (or now) and proclaimed, “Damn, I’m a proud white male.” Nobody (I know) ever even thought about it or mentioned it. It just … was. You didn’t think about it anymore than you consciously thought about breathing.

For an example to which I can personally relate, I’m a combat Vietnam Veteran and we learned a long time ago to spot what we called bar room bullsh*t artists. e.g. (said loudly), “Yeah, I remember the day I took Hamburger Hill all by myself. As a matter of fact, I ate Hamburger Hill.” The more you have to tout how great you are, the more you are insecure about yourself. That’s why we (for the most part) stick together. We’ve all been through the same stuff and don’t have to say a word to each other about the bad times. There is an exception to that. Once in a while, we’ll swap stories about our R&R or funny/ridiculous things we went through or saw. “Hey, you remember that chick in Bangkok?!” (etc.) We simply relate. It’s one of those things for which the following expression applies perfectly: “If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand.”

Back then, NASA (and pretty much everyone else) didn’t have to go rambling on about how wonderful they were. It was simply the unspoken norm. They were an example of what we strove to be someday, if we were smart enough and worked hard enough (and were qualified, of course).

“Diversity” and “multiculturalism” and “inclusiveness,” etc. are a multi-billion dollar shake-down industry, which has infected every sector of our society since the mid Sixties.

To put a spin on the original expression, “Those who can—do; those who can’t—get an affirmative action job.”

LA writes:

Here are some other links Mike B. sent:

Wikipedia article on Bolden.

Outreach to Muslims, etc. (pdf)

NASA Diversity Policy (pdf)

NASA Non-Harassment Policy (pdf)

James P. writes:

It always amuses me to replace “diversity and inclusion” with “Marxist-Leninism” in such statements:

Journeying beyond Earth’s orbit, as NASA is committed to do, will require a Marxist-Leninist team of many individuals with the best minds, the most comprehensive expertise, the broadest knowledge, the strongest talent, and the greatest integrity. As NASA’s Chief Commissar for Marxist-Leninist Thought, I believe it is incumbent on every member of the NASA community to advocate for, promote, and most importantly, practice the principles of Marxist-Leninist Thought in everything that we do. This means making Marxist-Leninist Thought integral in our efforts to identify and develop the best talent, create and serve on high-performing teams, achieve scientific and engineering excellence, maintain integrity in all that we do, and ultimately, realize mission success.
—Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. NASA Policy Statement on Marxist-Leninist Thought, June 8, 2010

Gintas writes:

It’s a Cargo Cult, too. Why, if a bunch of crew-cut white engineers wearing those horn-rimmed glasses and short-sleeved dress shirts (hey, they were all Dilberts) could get men to the moon, just think of the things that will happen with diversity. Diversity is magic!

For fun, I replaced “diversity” with “magic” in the quote:

Journeying beyond Earth’s orbit, as NASA is committed to do, will require a magical team of many individuals with the best minds, the most comprehensive expertise, the broadest knowledge, the strongest talent, and the greatest integrity. As NASA’s Magic Champion, I believe it is incumbent on every member of the NASA community to advocate for, promote, and most importantly, practice the principles of magic in everything that we do. This means making magic integral in our efforts to identify and develop the best talent, create and serve on high-performing teams, achieve scientific and engineering excellence, maintain integrity in all that we do, and ultimately, realize mission success.
—Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. NASA Policy Statement on Magic, June 8, 2010

Richard W. writes:

Here is a poster of the faces of all of the men (sorry, no women) who walked on the moon.

To date the wonderfully diverse modern day NASA has not been able to duplicate this feat, despite all the advantages of supercomputers and modern materials like carbon fiber. (Slide rules were used extensively to calculate things during the Apollo missions.)

And of course they invented velcro, too.

Karl D. writes:

I often wonder what bureaucrats like Bolden do all day? If you are a waiter you wait tables all day. If you are a customer service agent at a call center you answer phone calls all day. But what do he and his ilk actually do on a daily basis? You can see this with all sorts of agencies and special interest non-profit organizations. They have lengthy mission statements of what they believe and are aiming for, but when it comes down to brass tacks it often seems as if there is no there there. It is all just talk. What in God’s name do they do all day?

Steve F. writes:

All of what you post, and all of the comments, are correct, but you have to give Bolden credit. I mean his bio is incredible, and I don’t think he could have achieved what he did being an affirmative action baby. In fact, his current diversity mantra seems totally contradictory to how he has lived his life—pursuing excellence. And, yes, his current stance is hypocritical. But he’s no mere bureaucrat.

LA replies:

Could you fill this out a bit, tell us a little about his achievements?

Steve F. replies:

I just went to the Wikipedia site. He was graduated from the USNA, was a Marine Corps aviator, saw combat in Vietnam, was an astronaut, etc. I never heard of the guy before. Sounds like a typical idiot bureaucrat, but then his bio (per Wikipedia) is impressive. That’s all. You have a link to his bio on your entry. It seems he pursued excellence and achieved it; definitely not what he’s promoting at NASA.

You have a courageous blog. Thanks for writing it. I do get the sense that the tide is turning somewhat.

LA replies:

Let’s say for the sake of discussion that Bolden’s previous career was genuinely impressive. It wouldn’t change anything that’s been said here. As NASA Administrator, he is standing for the things that he is standing for.

But, based on the stupidity of the man’s statements (which was discussed in the 2010 entry linked at the top of this one), I doubt that his career has been one of exceptional achievement. Ok, he was an astronaut, but the space shuttle period of space flight was already a highly bureaucratized affair, with the crews carefully selected for their racial, national, and sexual diversity, not for having the Right Stuff.

Ken Hechtman writes:

Meanwhile, the next few men to walk on the moon may well be non-white and NASA will have nothing to do with it.

Of the missions on the list, India’s is probably the most likely to happen. Iran’s is probably the least.

NASA can’t even do a shuttle launch anymore without relying on private business.

LA replies:

I wonder if it occurs to Mr. Hechtman—and if it did, would he feel good about it?—that a primary reason for America’s increasing and future decline relative to other countries is the inclusionary and egalitarian policies he supports. Other countries are seeking to achieve things, while we’re spending a massive part of our national energy on the lowering of all our standards for the sake of including and “equalizing” blacks; on the massive lies we tell ourselves in order to justify this effort; and on the constant, paralyzing obsession with “discrimination.” When I wrote The Path to National Suicide in 1990, I was speaking of non-Western immigration and only mentioned blacks in passing. But it occurs to me that the madness involved in our crusade to placate blacks and raise them up to equality with ourselves is so extreme, and has messed us up to such a degree, that it could, by itself, even if there were no other diverse groups in America, lead to national suicide.

Gintas writes:

You wrote:

… the space shuttle period of space flight was already a highly bureaucratized affair, with the crews carefully selected for their racial, national, and sexual diversity, not for having the Right Stuff.

I believe the shuttle program long ago ran out of many useful things it could do. I remember in the late ’90s there was a NASA promotion to elementary schools for experiment ideas. It was positioned as a way to get children involved in science, but I do not believe that serious hardcore scientific experiments on the shuttle would be displaced by some schoolchild experiment with chameleons or toads. Hence, there must have been a place in the queue for filler. As the filler grows, you see a program ripe for loss of purpose and then bureaucratization.

I made up the reference to chameleons and toads, I have no idea what the winning entry was, but wouldn’t it be a cool experiment to see a toad try to catch a fly, in zero gravity?

Gintas writes:

And who is the Deputy Administrator of NASA? Lori Garver.

Not much of a resume, the kind you could get from a catalog, actually, and one that oozes bureaucrat. She did participate in several NASA Launch Tweetups, though.

Paul K. writes:

I drafted a new mission statment for Charles Bolden.

Race: the final frontier. These are the meanderings of the Space Agency NASA. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new priorities; to seek out new forms of diversity and new opportunities for inclusion; to Boldenly go where no black man has gone before.

D. Edwards writes:

Minor quibble:

Richard W. wrote: “And of course they invented velcro, too.”

From Wiki:

“Velcro is the brand name of the first commercially marketed fabric hook-and-loop fastener, invented in 1948 by the Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral. De Mestral patented Velcro in 1955, subsequently refining and developing its practical manufacture until its commercial introduction in the late 1950s.”

April 18

A female reader writes:

My sister is a professor at a medical school. A number of years ago, they had a full-time Director of Minority Recruitment who had an impressive salary and seemingly unlimited expense account funds to fly around the country, play golf, and stay in fancy hotels, “networking” with other minority faculty and staff members at various colleges, and of course, recruiting minority candidates for the medical school. But the school was private and very expensive, and most minorities with workable GPAs and test scores ultimately were accepted and chose to enroll in a state school with far lower tuition. In a five-year period, the Director of Minority Recruitment did NOT successfully recruit a single candidate. His annual salary, benefits, and expense account could have provided full scholarships to multiple minority students over the years, but NOBODY would ever suggest that the program was a failure or that the money could be re-directed.

And I’ll bet that nearly everybody who has worked in a diverse environment has seen something similar to this.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 17, 2012 02:10 PM | Send