No One Defends the Status Quo
photo by the author
[As my friend Bill Ferriter would say, "cranky blogger alert!"]
It’s time to retire the cliché “defend the status quo.” Just. Stop. Now.It’s misleading, insulting, and worst of all… it’s such an overused cliché, which makes for dull writing and dumbed-down debates. We need an intervention to help people who can’t help themselves when it comes to repeating this worn-out phrase.
This blog post has been drafted, revised, and held back a number of times. What pushed me to finally click “Publish” was last week’s debate over SB-441* – a California Senate bill that aims to improve teacher evaluations. Supporters of the bill who took the debate online via Twitter grabbed this tired cliché and attempted to shame the bill’s opponents with the hashtag #protectthestatusquo.
Perhaps they felt clever getting that little dig in, but the problem is, no one is actually satisfied with the general