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598 | 21stcenturywire--2019-09-14--The Turkish Rap Attack Fighting the Status Quo with Loaded Words | 2019-09-14T00:00:00 | 21stcenturywire | The Turkish Rap Attack: Fighting the Status Quo with Loaded Words | It’s been said that art has the power to change the world, but does it have the power to reverse Turkey’s current Islamist trajectory? The New Turkey is all but an Islamic state in the making, a modern country caught between a seductive yet escapist modernity and a strict yet prayerful authoritarianism, caught between pleasure and duty, as it were. And somewhere in the middle is Turkey’s youth, busily participating in the digital world like their peers elsewhere while listening to Rap music and partaking of other licit and illicit pleasures . . . And, lest we forget, the majority of Turkey’s population of nearly 84 million at present is young, with the “median age . . . at 30.9 years . . . [and with] 27% ranging from 0 to 14 years of age,” and “12.97 million people aged 15-24,” according to the TÜİK (or the Turkish Statistical Institute) – that means that young Turks (aged between 0 and 24) make up about 40% of the country’s total population. And these young people are basically no different from young people elsewhere. Last April, the unemployment figure in Turkey was at a staggering 14.7%, with the “youth unemployment rate [at] 20.3%,” or one fifth of Turkey’s youngsters are experiencing joblessness. The TÜİK research furthermore indicated that “[m]ore than half of young people in the country (55.4%) said [nevertheless that] they were happy last year,” which also means that nearly half of Turkey’s young population last year experienced some kind of discomfort and felt that they were not reaching their full potential in the country. Arguably, prospects of impending joblessness, and resultant hopelessness leading to escapist stratagems involving video games, drug abuse, and other harmless and less innocent pastimes – factors that could very well transform these young Turks (arguably about 20% of the population) into rebels with a cause, particularly if we keep in mind that “[o]fficial figures . . . showed that 93% of [the] young population had internet access in 2018,” opening the prospect of the nowadays much-vaunted and -feared ‘internet radicalisation.’ In contrast. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (or the Prez), the Islamist politician who has been leading his party (the Development and Justice Party or AKP) and the country into the current post-Kemalist century, seems happily oblivious of these young people and their proclivities. After all, Erdoğan belongs to a very different demographic – born in 1954, at present 65 years of age. Rather than thinking about integrating his country’s younger generations into a global network of young people and their hopes and cares, since 2012, he has been adamant about his desire to rear pious generations that will work and pray for the benefit their home country and their god (Allah). For that reason, the 19th National Education Council (or Şura), held in December 2013, issued a momentous 179 “recommendatory decisions,” in line with the Prez’s desire for future generations of pious Turks. These recommendations “included the introduction of religious courses into the curriculum of primary schools. Whereas, middle school pupils undergoing training to memorize the Quran (known as hafızlık in Turkish) would be able to leave school for the duration of two years but will still be allowed to sit exams. At the same time religious instruction in high schools will be doubled, while the teaching of the history of Turkey’s reforms and the principles of Kemalism in middle and high schools will be subjected to a critical revision more in line with a contemporary understanding and current needs. But the most spectacular ‘recommendation’ or decision was arguably to turn the instruction of the Ottoman language (Osmanlıca, in Turkish) into a compulsory course for vocational religious high schools as well as social science high schools.” In January 2015, I put forward the notion that “these classes in the Ottoman language are more like a backdoor to learning the Arabic alphabet, which is a prerequisite for reading the Quran.” And that is indicative of the new Turkish status quo that has replaced the Kemalist version of secularism that kept Islam hidden from view yet alive and well behind the scenes. In reality, these recommendations were all but following the facts on the ground, as already in 2012 religious or “Imam Hatip education was extended to middle schools for pupils aged 10 to 14,” as noted by Reuters‘ Daren Butler. The Turkish state had originally founded İmam Hatip Lyceums or High Schools to educate young men to be imams (or prayer leaders) and preachers. And according to statistics recently released by the Ministry of National Education (or Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı, commonly acronymsed as MEB), a grand total of 3, 286 İmam Hatip Middle School are at present active in the country, of which 427 are İmam Hatip Lyceums or High Schools (İHL). In time, the Prez and his henchmen would arguably like to turn all educational establishments in the land into religious establishments. These educational policies are in stark contrast to those originally espoused during the Kemalist years, when “religion was banned altogether from the schools for fourteen years between 1935 and 1949,” as remarked by Marmara University’s Dr Aylin Akpınar. On the other hand, the social scientist Turan Bilge Kuşcu conducted some research of his own into the matter of İmam Hatip Lyceums; and, his “results . . . show that 50% of parents indicated that they had chosen to send their children to “İHL” because of their desire for their children to receive a “religious education,” as published in the periodical Derin Maarif (or ‘Deep Education, ‘a name and word choice suggestive of the conservative and Islamic nature of its editorial line). Around the world, today’s youth culture seems centred around the phenomenon known as Hip-hop. As explained by National Geographic‘s Tom Pryor: “hip-hop culture has [currently] metastasized from its urban American roots into the global juggernaut it is today, [and] that’s largely thanks to the insistent, irresistible appeal of rap.” Nowadays, artists rap in English, in French, in Filipino, in any possible language, including Turkish. And last Friday, 6 September 2019, the Turkish public was exposed to a veritable rap attack targeting the nation’s youth (in the form of the rapper Ezhel‘s song/clip ‘Olay,’ released on YouTube), a musical assault on the status quo with the potential to rival the Friday Prayer (a weekly event that embodies and reinforces the status quo with governemnt-approved sermons). Ezhel’s ‘Olay’ is a musical release that caused a real storm in a tea cup (or maybe not) across Turkey’s computers and virtual landscapes. The Turkish writer and music critic Barış Akpolat queries whether the day will go down in history as the day a “revolution in Turkish Rap music” occurred . . . On Twitter, the University of California, Santa Cruz-PhD Candidate Kenan Sharpe stated that the “newest song by #Ezhel & crew is out. This bold music video features news clips/footage from the last 10-ish years of traumatic events in Turkish/world history. However you read the use of these images from our collective past, this video is certain to stir up discussion” (11:19 pm, 5 Sep 2019). The clip accompanying Ezhel’s track ‘Olay’ shows a wide variety of scenes of social unrest and protests in Turkey and across the wider world – visuals of the Ankara Massacre (10 October 2015), as well as of the 2013 Gezi protests and 2016‘s Coup-that-was-no-Coup, and many other instances of national and international outrage and unrest. Watch: . In fact, the previous day (Thursday, 5 September 2019), a collective of 17 Turkish rappers, under the wing of Şanışer, “one of the best rappers of the last years,” according to the ekşi sözlük user breuer, had released their own rap attack: “Rapper #Şanışer is causing a sensation in #Turkey with an epic video, #Susamam – “I can’t stay silent” – featuring more than a dozen other artists decrying injustices, environmental destruction, violence against women, inhumanity, and apolitical inaction,” as tweeted by the Istanbul-based journalist Jennifer Hattam (10:47 am. 6 Sep 2019). This nearly 15-minute epic rapfest includes a grand variety of words dealing with things and situations that are going wrong in the New Turkey. For instance, the female rapper Deniz Tekin deals with the issue of violence against women and sexual harassment, while Şanışer himself tackles the issue of street animals and animal rights, while others deal with topics like nature, the rule of law and justice (or the lack thereof in the country), education … All in all, #Susamam purports to be a real critique of the state of affairs in AKP-led Turkey, though never explicitly and definitely not openly referring to anything or anyone specific. And, as pointed out by Akpolat, conspicuous in its absence are LGBTİ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transsexual and Intersexed) concerns and matters – asking rightfully, “[w]hich non-homosexual rapper could do justice to this topic with his/her words?” Watch: The timing of both releases seems very deliberate, or maybe it is just the result of fortuitous marketting. Ezhel’s song was released on a Friday, and as is probably well-known by now, the last day of the West’s working week carries a exceptional status in the Muslim world: “On Fridays, Muslims gather for a special congregational prayer in the early afternoon, which is required of all Muslim men . . . It replaces the dhuhr prayer at noon [one of the five prayer sessions Muslims are meant to observe]. Directly before this prayer, worshipers listen to a lecture delivered by the Imam or another religious leader from the community,” as can be read on the educational website Learn Religions. In Turkey, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (also known simply as Diyanet, in Turkish) has been taking care of these sermons since 1924, when Mustafa Kemal (later known as Atatürk, 1881-1938) abolished the Caliphate in conjunction with the Office of the Sheikh-ul-Islam (or Meşihat/Şeyhülislamlık, in Turkish), which also included Ministry of Pious Endowments. The Sheikh-ul-Islam had been responsible for all aspects of religious life in the Ottoman lands, given that Islam had been the official religion of the state. And following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey (1923), the Office of the Sheikh-ul-Islam was simply replaced by the Diyanet or Directorate of Religious Affairs (1924), as a branch of government attached to the office of the prime minister. During the Kemalist period (1923-2002), the influence of the Diyanet was limited at best, and Friday Prayers were only sparsely attended. Particularly, as the day had become the end of the working week in 1935, with the “weekly holiday [commencing] from 1 p.m. Saturday until Monday morning,” centred around Sunday, as expressed by the eminent (yet Arab-hating) Islamic studies specialist Bernard Lewis (1916-2018). In January 2016, the official Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansı released the following statement: in Ottoman times, “there was no defined weekend for officials living in the Ottoman Empire. The overall tendency was to have a day off on Fridays for Muslims, on Saturday for Jews and on Sunday for Christians — holy days for each religion.” In Kemalist Turkey, by contrast, and particularly, during the years of One-Party Rule (1923-59), “Islam was literally crowded out of the public sphere,” as worded by E. S. Çarmıklı. But in the New Turkey, led by the Prez and his AKP henchmen, Islam has made a not-so sudden comeback to the public sphere and private as well as political life, and “on 8 Jan 2016, to be precise, [then-Prime Minster Ahmed Davutoğlu] issued the Friday Prayer circular that allows male public servants to attend the obligatory Friday prayers (Salatul Jumu’ah) without interrupting their office hours (female believers are obviously exempt from fulfilling this religious duty, as it would lead to a mixing of the sexes at the mosque),” as I related in March 2016. Hence, Friday has again acquired sacred and sacrosanct properties amongst many Turks, with men now regularly and fastidiously attending Friday Prayers to listen to AKP-sanctioned sermons, delivered by their local Imams emanating from the Diyanet‘s Ankara offices. As a result, public displays of personal piety have now become rather commonplace. And, many pious people thus tend to regard Thursday night equally sacred and sacrosanct, as it is but the preamble to Friday. As wordsmiths, clearly cognizant of what is happening all around, Ezhel and Şanışer released their visual and verbal assaults on the new status quo on symbolically charged days of the week The reaction was not slow in coming: in the Islamist propaganda rag Yeni Şafak, the columnist Ali Saydam published his response to these sounds ostensibly challenging the nation’s faith and political system. Saydam starts off his piece by indicating that “this type of music,” referring to Rap and Hip hop, “emerged as a product of black subculture in the western world.” And he continues that as a result, “characteristics of ‘protest’ constitute a large part of its identity.” He even utilises the term ‘counterculture’ in his argument, stating that in Scandinavian countries where the GNP is “high” and the “distribution of income balanced,” musical products of this nature do not find the same amount of “consumers” (or “buyers”) as in the United States, where “income injustice” is rife and social protests widespread. These insights lead Saydam to declare that Rap (and Hip hop music) is an “imported cultural artifact,” with its roots in “America’s Lumpenproletariat,” that as a natural consequence cannot fulfill an “oppositional function” in Turkey. Saydam literally declares that the “words used,” oftentimes “in broken Turkish, [and] sometimes in need of subtitles,” display a “mechanical understanding of protest,” and that, “in a way,” these songs therefore constitute “the most primitive dimension of protest.” In contrast, nowadays Rap music and culture is highly popular in Turkey, particularly among young and younger Turks. In other words, as a whole the country appears to possess a large potential audience for Rap and Hip hop music. And as a result, Şanışer and Ezhel do have a large market for their message. In fact, various members of the opposition CHP (or Republican People’s Party), recently on a high as a result of Ekrem İmamoğlu’s entry to the offices of the İBB (or İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality) in İstanbul’s Saraçhane district, quickly realised the explosive potential harboured by the Rap songs: the social media account of the Şişli Municipality in İstanbul, as well as those handled by the municipalities of Datça, Borçka, and the city of Eskişehir shared the “epic video, #Susamam” with their followers. Even Eskişehir’s Mayor Yılmaz Büyükerşen and İstanbul district Maltepe’s mayor Ali Kılıç shared the track on their personal social media accounts. In contrast, the lawyer and AKP member Hamza Dağ took to Twitter to criticise the rappers and their songs, saying that “[a]rt should not be [used] as a vehicle for provocation and political manipulation,” adding that “we know very well how those who say #Susamam [“I can’t stay silent”] remained voiceless during Turkey’s most critical eras,” insinuating that opponents of AKP rule are people who have in the past welcomed military interventions, a slur oftentimes used in connection with the CHP and its members. As such, Dağ also posted a link to a video on the YouTube channel Gayri Resmi Hesap, showing an anonymous man vocally criticising the Rap song, its singers and listeners. In addition, the speaker on the YouTube video easily manages to insert the PKK into his monologue, insinuating that the Kurdish terror group is responsible for most of the violence and unrest in Turkey. On Sunday, 8 September, the propaganda rag Yeni Şafak directly targeted the rapper Şanışer, calling his track #Susamam a “joint PKK/FETÖ production,” using the two favourite slurs used by AKP henchmen to slander enemies and malign malcontents. And now, Turkey’s television channels and internet broadcasters are busily discussing the songs and its contents, while the underlying message seems all but lost. Though the tracks are invigorating and stirring, the likelihood that these rappers will have an actual impact on the wider population of the New Turkey seems distant . . . Ezhel and Şanışer are all but preaching to the converted, Turkey’s voiceless urban youth mired in video games and 24-hour internet access – “this nation’s hopeless youth.” The one-time Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, now famously infamous for supporting the guardian angel of the free press, Julian Assange, joined in the mood, tweeting Şanışer’s track to a much wider and non-Turkish audience. The journalist Burak Abatay seems optimistic: “[i]n a place like Turkey, where the youth’s life has been taken out of its hands for the past 17 [AKP-led] years, such a young ‘thing’ like Rap’s flag of rebellion should be flying very high.” Abatay sees Rap as a “raised first” moving into the future “with hope.” And, while it is true that the songs communicate a spirit of rebellion and youthful revolt, Ezhel and Şanışer hardly are the New Turkey’s Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious. Their words may be loaded with a strong message, but will these heavy words manage to penetrate the intolerable wall of silence surrounding the Prez and his AKP henchmen. Still, as tweeted by Pamela Anderson, “[a]rtists can change the world – artists are #freedomfighters.” Then justice died, and until it touched me, I just shut up, became complicit Now I think twice before I tweet Find myself fearing my own country’s police I’m sorry, your legacy is this nation’s hopeless youth *** 21WIRE special contributor Dr. Can Erimtan is an independent historian and geo-political analyst who used to live in Istanbul. At present, he is in self-imposed exile from Turkey. He has a wide interest in the politics, history and culture of the Balkans, the greater Middle East, and the world beyond. He attended the VUB in Brussels and did his graduate work at the universities of Essex and Oxford. In Oxford, Erimtan was a member of Lady Margaret Hall and he obtained his doctorate in Modern History in 2002. His publications include the revisionist monograph “Ottomans Looking West?” as well as numerous scholarly articles. In Istanbul, Erimtan started publishing in Today’s Zaman and in Hürriyet Daily News. In the next instance, he became the Turkey Editor of the İstanbul Gazette. Subsequently, he commenced writing for RT Op-Edge, NEO, and finally, the 21st Century Wire. You can find him on Twitter at @theerimtanangle | 21wire | https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/09/14/the-turkish-rap-attack-fighting-the-status-quo-with-loaded-words/ | 2019-09-14 14:29:34+00:00 | 1,568,485,774 | 1,569,330,301 | science and technology | social sciences |
5,033 | activistpost--2019-07-23--Americans Dont Trust the Govt the Media or Each Other Fading Trust is Sign of Cultural Sickness | 2019-07-23T00:00:00 | activistpost | Americans Don’t Trust the Govt, the Media, or Each Other: Fading Trust is “Sign of Cultural Sickness and National Decline” | Americans are losing trust in each other, in the government, and in the media, according to a concerning new survey. Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that conducts public opinion polls and social science research and informs the public about issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world. The organization recently published a new report called Trust and Distrust in America, which reveals that Americans think declining trust in the government and in each other is making it harder to solve important problems. “Two-thirds of adults think other Americans have little or no confidence in the federal government. Majorities believe the public’s confidence in the U.S. government and in each other is shrinking, and most believe a shortage of trust in government and in other citizens makes it harder to solve some of the nation’s key problems,” the report states. Many Americans think it is necessary to clean up the “trust environment”: 68% say it is very important to repair the public’s level of confidence in the federal government, and 58% say the same about improving confidence in fellow Americans. Diminishing trust is viewed by some as a sign of cultural sickness and national decline. Others believe it is linked to what they perceive to be increased loneliness and excessive individualism. Overall, 49% of adults think interpersonal trust has been tailing off because people are less reliable than they used to be. Levels of personal trust tend to be linked with people’s broader views on institutions and civic life. Those who are less trusting in the interpersonal sphere also tend to be less trusting of institutions, less sure their fellow citizens will act in ways that are good for civic life, and less confident that trust levels can rise in the future: Trust in government has been declining for decades, and for good reasons, according to the report: Long-running surveys show that public confidence in the government fell precipitously in the 1960s and ’70s, recovered somewhat in the ’80s and early 2000s, and is near historic lows today. By and large, Americans think the current low level of trust in government is justified. Just one-in-four (24%) say the federal government deserves more public confidence than it gets, while 75% say that it does not deserve any more public confidence than it gets. Similarly, among U.S. adults who perceive that confidence in each other has dropped, many think there is good reason for it: More than twice as many say Americans have lost confidence in each other “because people are not as reliable as they used to be” (49% support that statement) than take the opposite view, saying Americans have lost confidence in each other “even though people are as reliable as they have always been” (21% say that). (source) The rise of independent news sources like WikiLeaks that are not afraid to dump truth out there for all to see – exposing widespread government corruption in the process – has no doubt led to the diminishing trust in government. Confidence in institutions is associated with how those institutions handle and share important information with the public. People’s confidence in key institutions is associated with their views about the transparency of institutions. Those who hold those skeptical views are more likely than others to have greater concerns about the state of trust. About two-thirds (69%) of Americans say the federal government intentionally withholds important information from the public that it could safely release, and 61% say the news media intentionally ignores stories that are important to the public. In addition, many say it is becoming more difficult to tell fact from fiction: In this era of rampant mainstream media “fake news” and the government’s long history of orchestrating false flags, it is no surprise many Americans do not trust either institution. Attempts to censor alternative media outlets are not exactly helping to build trust, either. Mainstream news outlets are often quick to report on events, often sensationalizing them, facts be damned. Remember when the MSM twisted the Covington Catholic story, essentially putting a target on the back of a teenaged boy? The MSM also has a tendency to sugar-coat important events, including glossing over details surrounding extremist attacks. There are countless examples of the media’s manipulation of details in order to fit a certain narrative. Often, it seems that the media is deliberately trying to incite civil war (that would be great for their ratings, right?). The report explains that while social trust “is seen as a virtue and a societal bonding agent, too much trust can be a serious liability. Indiscriminate trusters can be victimized in any number of ways, so wariness and doubt have their place in a well-functioning community.” As preppers know, the risk of widespread civil unrest becoming reality in the near future is increasing. “Uncivil behavior isn’t just widely accepted – it’s praised and cheered on. Hatred of one another is becoming the norm and this is how civil wars begin,” Daisy Luther warned us last year. While it is wise to be careful about who you allow in your circle, distrust can be taken to the extreme. Finding a small group of like-minded people to collaborate with isn’t a bad idea. But because it can be difficult to know whom you can really trust these days, becoming as self-reliant as possible is crucial. On a grand scale of national issues, trust-related issues are not near the top of the list of Americans’ concerns. However, people do link declining trust as a factor that impacts other issues they do consider important: For example, in their open-ended written answers to questions, numbers of Americans say they think there are direct connections between rising distrust and other trends they perceived as major problems, such as partisan paralysis in government, the outsize influence of lobbyists and moneyed interests, confusion arising from made-up news and information, declining ethics in government, the intractability of immigration and climate debates, rising health care costs and a widening gap between the rich and the poor. Many of the answers in the open-ended written responses reflect judgments similar to this one from a 38-year-old man: “Trust is the glue that binds humans together. Without it, we cooperate with one another less, and variables in our overall quality of life are affected (e.g., health and life satisfaction).” (source) The majority of Americans think that trust can be restored and that it is possible to improve the level of confidence people have in the government and each other: | Activist Post | https://www.activistpost.com/2019/07/americans-dont-trust-the-govt-the-media-or-each-other-fading-trust-is-sign-of-cultural-sickness-and-national-decline.html | 2019-07-23 16:14:59+00:00 | 1,563,912,899 | 1,567,536,015 | science and technology | social sciences |
16,500 | aljazeera--2019-10-11--Poles at the polls: Five things to know | 2019-10-11T00:00:00 | aljazeera | Poles at the polls: Five things to know | Warsaw, Poland - Sunday's vote here is widely considered a landmark poll; one of the most significant in the country since its first semi-free elections were held 30 years ago. 1. Why is this election so important? "This is the most important election since 1989," said political scientist Anna Materska-Sosnowska, during a debate in Warsaw, echoing the voices of other analysts. Since coming to power in 2015, the Law and Justice (PiS) party has ridden roughshod over a number of democratic checks and balances in Poland. It has recast the role of the state as a champion of conservative social values and a guarantor of economic welfare. Sunday's vote is seen as the first referendum on the sweeping changes of the past four years. "In this election, we will decide the role of the state, the role of citizens, the role of the church, the media and non-governmental organisations," said Materska-Sosnowska. The election matters to voters and turnout may reach 60 percent. The highest turnout on record in Poland was 62.7 percent, in 1989, as the first non-Communists since the early postwar years came to power. Beata Roguska, who is head of socio-political polling at the Centre for Public Opinion Research, told Al Jazeera that the level of political alienation was at its lowest since 1996, when measurements began. "That means that people, more so than in the past two decades, feel like they are subjects in politics, that they have influence over affairs," said Roguska. After eight years in opposition, PiS re-took power in 2015. A combination of nationalist rhetoric and generous welfare promises proved intoxicating to voters. It won the first absolute majority since Poland's return to democracy. Aided by a booming economy and a clampdown on VAT fraud, the party boosted social spending. Its flagship programme of monthly financial handouts for families with children, known as 500+, has a 95 percent take-up in some cities. Many of its policies have gone against economic orthodoxy, but have been warmly received by supporters. The party also lowered the retirement age from 67 years to 60 for women and 65 for men, despite Poland's ageing population. If re-elected, it has pledged to almost double the minimum wage. "Poles are quite egalitarian. Many look back fondly on the good old days of the state providing social protection, even if cack-handedly," Mikolaj Czesnik, director of the Institute of Social Sciences at SWPS University in Warsaw, told Al Jazeera. "They want a return to a welfare state, and PiS gives them that illusion." PiS has also introduced an annual bonus retirement pension payment and a law which will exempt most workers under the age of 26 from paying income tax. While many voters were initially sceptical of PiS keeping its welfare pledges, they have come to accept higher levels of spending as the norm. Moreover, PiS has challenged Poland's convergence to Western liberal values, appealing to those who felt that the country's identity and traditions had been endangered by European integration. While many Poles watched aghast as PiS spearheaded what many saw as an unconstitutional overhaul of the judiciary, it has not turned away the party's core voters. "A share of citizens may think that more power concentrated in a single pair of hands will make politics more efficient," Czesnik noted. To cement support, PiS has refashioned publicly funded television and radio channels into a government mouthpiece. Airtime is used to boast about the government's achievements and to discredit opposition efforts. 3. What happened to the liberal opposition? The ineptness of Poland's main liberal opposition, the Civic Platform (PO), has paved the way for PiS' re-election. After PO leader Donald Tusk left to become president of the European Council, the party went on to lose the 2015 election - and has since struggled to reinvent itself. While PO frames itself as the ruling party's main rival, most voters have trouble defining exactly what it stands for, especially as a member of the KO electoral alliance, and much of its support comes merely as resistance to PiS. The opposition calls out the nationalism of PiS, but has offered little in the way of an alternative liberal narrative. "Lack of leadership and a lack of ideas," Czesnik told Al Jazeera. "PiS sets the agenda, and the opposition merely reacts to it." Compared with the well-oiled campaign machine of PiS, PO's efforts appear uninspiring, unprofessional and prone to gaffes. The party suffers from a lack of credibility, and its leader, Grzegorz Schetyna, remains the most distrusted of Polish politicians. 4. What are the big unknowns ahead of the vote? The ruling Law and Justice party is set to win a sweeping majority. An average of polls over the past month give it 46 percent of votes, far outdoing its 2015 victory of 37.6 percent. The main liberal opposition is expected to receive around 27 percent of votes. The left's electoral alliance, currently absent from the parliamentary fray, is expected to return as the third-largest group with a projected 13 percent of the vote. "Big cities have been mobilised like never before, which works in favour of PO and the left," said Roguska of the Centre for Public Opinion Research. In the current set-up, PiS is estimated to win 249 seats, comfortably more than the 231 it needs to rule with an absolute majority. However, the final tally will depend on how well it mobilises supporters and whether smaller parties make it over the five percent electoral threshold. The agrarian PSL is currently expected to rake in seven percent, and the right-wing Confederation has been wavering around five percent. If they fail to clear the bar, Poland's vote-counting system will distribute their votes; a major bonus for large parties such as PiS. However, if PiS fails to gain an outright majority, the three main opposition groups have hinted at a coalition government to overtake what they see as creeping authoritarianism. 5. Will Poland's relations with the EU improve after the vote? Since joining the EU in 2004, Poland was held up by other bloc members as the Eastern European example of head-spinning economic growth and social progress. Yet, over the past four years, relations have soured, mainly over judicial reforms which the European Commission has called a threat to the rule of law in Poland. On October 10, the commission launched another proceeding into a proposed disciplinary system for judges, saying it puts them under political control. Tensions are unlikely to subside, as Jarosław Kaczynski, the ruling party's leader, has this week pledged deeper changes to the judicial system. But some commentators suggest that the prospect of another four years of dealing with PiS may push European leaders towards a practical arrangement. "There is growing awareness that PiS is not an oddity of Polish politics, but rather an important aspect of it. It may even represent something typically Polish," said Czesnik. Yet Poles remain as pro-European as ever, with a record-high 91 percent of Poles in support of the country's EU membership. Among PiS voters the figure is 90 percent. "The new government will have to take note of that to not lose supporters," concluded Roguska. | null | https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/poles-polls-191011170147342.html | Fri, 11 Oct 2019 17:59:03 GMT | 1,570,831,143 | 1,570,833,835 | science and technology | social sciences |
16,532 | aljazeera--2019-10-12--Is 'love and desire in Iran' a threat to US national security? | 2019-10-12T00:00:00 | aljazeera | Is 'love and desire in Iran' a threat to US national security? | The United States Department of Education has recently been incensed by a Middle East studies programme run by two major American universities. Why? Let us explore. "The Education Department", according to the New York Times, "has ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to remake the Middle East studies program run jointly by the two schools after concluding that it was offering students a biased curriculum that, among other complaints, did not present enough 'positive' imagery of Judaism and Christianity in the region." You will have to read a bit further down the report to discover that what the US Department of Education, led by Betsy DeVos, is really concerned about is the programme's supposed "anti-Israeli bias". President Donald Trump's civil rights chief in the Department of Education, Kenneth L Marcus, it seems, is now leading a campaign to make all US universities Israel-friendly. Marcus is a Zionist crusader who, as the New York Times puts it, "has made a career of pro-Israel advocacy and has waged a years long campaign to delegitimize and defund Middle East studies programs that he has criticized as rife with anti-Israel bias". We learn from the report that two courses offered as part of the programme, titled "Love and Desire in Modern Iran" and "Middle East film criticism", particularly angered the Evangelical Zionists led by Marcus and DeVos who are currently in charge at the Department of Education. Imagine the chutzpah, the nerve, to convene a conference, or offer courses, that include discussions of "Love and Desire in Modern Iran", or even worse "Middle East film criticism" - with taxpayers' money that could be put to far better use building bombs and fighter jets to gift to Israel and sell to the Saudis so that they might slaughter Palestinians and Yemenis. Love and desire in Iran? The cinema of Abbas Kiarostami or Elia Suleiman, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, or Moufida Tlatli? You must be out of your "Eye-Rain-an" mind! "We do not see how these activities support the development of foreign language and international expertise for the benefit of US national security and economic stability," US Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education Robert King has declared. Wise up and do as we say and start training spies and other intelligence officers for the benefits of the US and Israel or else we will shut you down - to put it in the plain English these fanatical prudes understand and want to parrot in Arabic and Persian and Turkish too. The delusional functionaries who believe they can control the critical thinking of an entire nation are of course the usual suspects. According to another report published by the Daily Mail, DeVos ordered an investigation into the programme back in June, after North Carolina Rep George Holding, a Republican, complained that "it hosted a taxpayer-funded conference with 'severe anti-Israeli bias and anti-Semitic rhetoric'". The conference, the report adds, was titled "Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities". Of course. These are all Pavlovian signals. You just utter the word "Palestine" or "Gaza" or "settler colonialism", and all the dog-whistles are out jamming the airways. What the platoon of Zionists nestled and tucked away in various branches of the US government dislike is what they call "taxpayer dollars" being spent on academic gatherings investigating any aspect of their favourite settler colony. What they want to do with those "taxpayer dollars" is to enable the garrison state to kill more Palestinians or anyone else who dares to say "no" to the armed robbery of their homeland. Those are the kind of taxpayer dollars they enjoy spending. But "love and desire" in Iran - or film, fiction, poetry, truth, reality, rebellion in words and deeds against the colonial thieves? You must be kidding. That is a threat to US and Israeli national security. The bogus charge is loud and clear: "The Trump administration has threatened to withdraw federal funding for a Middle East studies course jointly taught by Duke University and the University of North Carolina because it believes the course is too positive in its depiction of Islam in comparison with its portrayal of Judaism and Christianity." It is imperative for the world to know, as they indeed do, by "Judaism and Christianity" they mean Zionism and particularly the irredeemably anti-Semitic Evangelical Zionism to which the ruling oligarchy gathered at the Trump administration, beginning with US Vice President Mike Pence, belong. The fields of Jewish or Christian studies are thriving or suffering alongside Islamic studies all at the mercy of the meagre budgets allocated to social sciences and humanities across US campuses. Anyone who has studied or taught or chaired any relevant department in any major or even minor US campus knows this charge is a Zionist subterfuge for prevalent Islamophobia that begins with their commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, and extends all the way to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. For close to 40 years now, my colleagues and I have been fighting to secure funding for Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and other religious studies disciplines within the shrinking budgetary allocations in social sciences and the humanities in American universities. That fact is entirely blindsided by these fanatical stormtroopers tucked away in the US Department of Education. Legal observers who know the machinations of the Israeli Fifth Column in US governmental agencies inform us: "While the department's micromanagement of the Duke-UNC program in response to the demands of Israel advocates is unprecedented, this attack is a continuation of nearly two decades of right-wing targeting of area studies programs, and Middle East studies programs in particular." At stake is the academic and intellectual freedom that the Zionist paratroopers and Hasbara-apparatchik see as the culprit in cultivating the critical judgement of the responsible citizenry in the US that will in and of itself dismantle the decades of propaganda with which they have fooled Americans. As the ACLU put it: "In a move that would make even Senator McCarthy blush, the Trump administration is threatening to pull federal funding from a Middle East Studies program for failing to toe the government's line on Islam and Muslims." This, however, is a lost cause. As a group of concerned UNC-Duke graduate students put it: "This is the first time in a decade that the state has intervened to make an academic department more amenable to its politics. Title VI extortions in the mid-2000s attempted to force Middle East Studies programs to churn out tools for the state through programs that focused on linguistic skills, security frameworks, and hostility to the Middle East and Muslims during the War on Iraq." The battle these bureaucratic functionaries are waging against the critical thinking of an entire nation is, of course, entirely futile. The cat of their thievery of Palestine is out of the bag and their bete noire, the mighty and magnificent Edward Said, even or particularly after his death has enabled and let loose an entire generation of bold and brilliant critical thinkers around the globe who have flooded university presses and commercial publishers with an avalanche of books exposing their corrupt and crooked colonialism in Palestine. We on the other side of their fence are the real defenders of US national security. They are in fact defaming, maligning, and endangering the very idea of being American. They had their heyday and they did the best they could to keep this nation stupid and ignorant. But they lost the game. We won. We sneeze on our campuses here in the US and the whole world says gesundheit. We are redefining the very terms of "American national security" away from bombs and fighter jets and tanks and bullets and spies and gaudy propaganda precisely towards love and desire and life and hope and beauty and truth and justice in Iran, in Palestine, in the Arab world, in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And there is nothing they can do to stop us. We love and desire. They hate and disgust. The world is on our side. History is on our side. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance. | null | https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/love-desire-iran-threat-national-security-191011090501980.html | Sat, 12 Oct 2019 13:55:39 GMT | 1,570,902,939 | 1,570,919,969 | science and technology | social sciences |
20,331 | bbc--2019-01-05--Chinas population to peak in 2029 at 144 billion | 2019-01-05T00:00:00 | bbc | China's population 'to peak' in 2029 at 1.44 billion | China's population will peak in 2029 at 1.44 billion before beginning a period of "unstoppable" decline, a government report says. The China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) study says the country must implement policies to handle a smaller workforce and an older population. Both changes combined could cause "very unfavourable social and economic consequences", the report says. Latest UN estimates say China has a population of 1.41 billion. In 2015 the world's most populous country ended its one-child policy in a bid to tackle the problems. The study appears in CASS's Green Book of Population and Labour. Working population numbers were now stagnating, it said, with a low fertility rate set to cause further issues. By the middle of the century, China's population is expected to drop to 1.36 billion - a fall in the labour force of close to 200 million. If fertility rates stay low, the population could drop as low as 1.17 billion by 2065. The study also predicted a rise in the dependency rate, meaning the proportion of non-working people like the elderly and children. While relaxing the one-child policy will help long-term, in the short term it will create more dependents, according to the report. Previous forecasts reportedly suggest China's elderly population could hit 400 million by 2035, up from 240 million in 2017. | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-46772503 | 2019-01-05 23:35:41+00:00 | 1,546,749,341 | 1,567,553,814 | science and technology | social sciences |
23,173 | bbc--2019-02-19--Gilets jaunes How much anti-Semitism is beneath the yellow vests | 2019-02-19T00:00:00 | bbc | Gilets jaunes: How much anti-Semitism is beneath the yellow vests? | The French far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, has said she won't join other political parties in a march against anti-Semitism on Tuesday, accusing France's leaders of doing nothing to tackle Islamist networks in France and saying she will mark the occasion separately. It comes days after a prominent French philosopher, Alain Finkielkraut, was verbally attacked for being Jewish as he walked past the weekly "gilets jaunes" (yellow-vest) protests in Paris. A small group of protesters shouted a barrage of abuse at him as he passed by the demonstration on his way home from lunch on Saturday, calling him a "dirty Zionist" and telling him to "go back to Tel Aviv". "I felt an absolute hatred," Mr Finkielkraut told one French newspaper later that night. "If the police hadn't been there, I would have been frightened." A few days before that, official data suggested there had been a 74% rise in anti-Semitic attacks in France last year. Now, many here are questioning whether the gilets jaunes movement is providing a new kind of forum for these extremist views, and how central those attitudes are to the movement. "It's very serious," says Vincent Duclert, a specialist in anti-Semitism in France at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences - one of France's most prestigious colleges. "The gilets jaunes are not an anti-Semitic movement, but alongside the demonstration each Saturday there's a lot of anti-Semitic expression by groups of the extreme right or extreme left." "You can be on the streets demonstrating every Saturday, shouting your slogans against the Jews," says Jean-Yves Camus, an expert in French political extremism. "And as there's no leadership in the movement and no stewarding of the demonstrations, you can be free to do it. I'm afraid there will be more attacks, because the self-proclaimed leaders simply do not seem to care that much." Jason Herbert, a spokesman for the movement, says the incident on Saturday is a scandal, but not representative of the gilets jaunes as a whole. "It's the inherent weakness of a movement that lets the people speak," he explained. "Everyone can come and give his opinion - and some opinions are despicable and illegal. To think someone is inferior because of his or her origins is just not acceptable, and it's completely unrelated to our demands. Amongst our demands, I've never heard 'we want fewer Jews'." The gilets jaunes began life as a protest against fuel tax rises, but have broadened into a loose confederation of different interest groups with no official hierarchy or leadership. Over the past three months, as the movement has appeared more radical, its wider support has dipped. Vincent Duclert believes that the movement does bear some responsibility for the extremist abuse in its midst, because the violence of the protests - towards the police, state institutions and public property - encourages anti-Semitism by encouraging "transgression". And, he says, it's possible that the gilets jaunes are also offering "a new space for different kinds of anti-Semitism to come together: from the extreme right and extreme left, but also from radical Islamist or anti-Zionist groups, and some types of social conservatives". There are signs over the past year, he says, that levels of anti-Semitism have risen within these different groups, because of changes at home, across Europe and in the Middle East, and that French public opinion has been too tolerant. Politicians here have been quick to condemn Saturday's attack on Alain Finkielkraut. President Macron tweeted that it was "the absolute negation of what we are and what makes us a great nation". Others tried to blame it on their political rivals. A member of France's centre-right opposition, Geoffrey Didier, told reporters that anti-Semitism was growing "because radical Islamism is growing in France", while Marine Le Pen said it illustrated "how the anti-Semite far-left is trying to infiltrate the gilets jaunes movement". Both Ms Le Pen's party and that of her far-left rival, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, have been trying to win the support of the gilets jaunes ahead of European elections in May. Jean-Yves Camus believes last week's attack will help turn public opinion against the movement, saying it has become "a hotbed of radical activity from both sides of the political spectrum and the French do not want that". | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47286576 | 2019-02-19 00:09:05+00:00 | 1,550,552,945 | 1,567,548,016 | science and technology | social sciences |
32,547 | bbc--2019-11-11--Why being kind could help you live longer | 2019-11-11T00:00:00 | bbc | Why being kind could help you live longer | What can kindness do for you? Give you a warm glow perhaps, or a feeling of well-being? While that may be true, scientists and academics at a new research centre say it can do much more - it can extend your life. The staff at UCLA's Bedari Kindness institute are ready for the jokes. "We look at the scientific point of view. We aren't sitting around in circles, holding hands. We're talking about the psychology, the biology, of positive social interactions," says Daniel Fessler, the institute's inaugural director. The notion of kindness has made headlines recently. It was a key part of former president Barack Obama's eulogy of veteran US Democrat Elijah Cummings, following his death last month. "Being a strong man includes being kind. There's nothing weak about kindness and compassion," he said. "There's nothing weak about looking out for others. You're not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect." And then there was Ellen DeGeneres calling for kindness when speaking about her surprising to some friendship with George W Bush: "When I say, 'Be kind to one another,' I don't mean only the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone. It doesn't matter.'" Ahead of World Kindness Day this week, what does it actually mean to be kind - and why is it important? This is what the experts want to examine. And they are deadly serious about it. After all, it could be a matter of life and death, they say. Mr Fessler's work has looked at how people can be motivated to be kind simply by witnessing acts of kindness - and working out who is affected by this "contagious kindness". "I think it's fair to say we live in an unkind age right now," he says. "Both domestically in the United States and around the world, what we are seeing is increasing conflict between individuals who hold different political views or belong to different religions." Kindness, he says, is "the thoughts, feelings and beliefs associated with actions intending to benefit others, where benefiting others is an end in itself, not a means to an end". And unkindness, on the other hand, is "intolerant beliefs, the lack of valuation of others' welfare". It's something familiar to anyone who's experienced trolling on social media. While the practice is "nothing new", Mr Fessler says "people are more likely to be aggressive, less likely to value others' concerns and welfare, the more anonymous they are". The institute was founded thanks to a $20m (£16m) grant from the Bedari Foundation, set up by philanthropists Jennifer and Matthew Harris. Based in UCLA's social sciences department, it aims to help both members of the public and also to inspire leaders. Mr Harris says research was needed "to understand why kindness can be so scarce in this modern world" and to "bridge the divide between science and spirituality". Some of the projects at the institute include: • Sociologists analysing how those who behave unkindly could be persuaded to be kind • Psychologists researching how kindness can improve mood and reduce depression symptoms It is also providing students with mindfulness training, and those in underserved Los Angeles communities. Mr Fessler says that it's known that bad stress - the kind where you can't do anything about a challenging situation, as opposed to the "good" stress from challenging but satisfying activities, like rock climbing - is bad for you. "Living with people who treat you, at best, with disregard or a lack of concern, and at worst with open hostility, is bad for you. It shortens your life, quite literally," he says. "Conversely, both receiving kindness from others, and providing kindness, both of those things are the antithesis of this toxic stress situation. And they're good for you." Even seemingly trivial interactions, like a barista at a coffee shop smiling and asking how you are, can improve people's wellbeing. "Engaging in kindness, contemplating how you can be kind to others, lowers blood pressure. It has therapeutic benefits," he says. "There are benefits for treating depression and anxiety." Columbia University doctor Kelli Harding has been examining the phenomenon in her recent book, The Rabbit Effect. She says: "It helps the immune system, blood pressure, it helps people to live longer and better. It's pretty amazing because there's an ample supply and you can't overdose on it. There's a free supply. It's right there." Explaining the title of her book, she says: "I heard about this study of rabbits, back in the 1970s. One set had better outcomes and they wanted to find out what was going on. It turned out the rabbits doing better were under the care of one really kind researcher. "As a doctor, I was absolutely shocked. It felt like there was an urgent message." Kindness, she says, can "turn a lot around and help people navigate things in their world". It's often easier to be kind to others than to ourselves, she says. "There are so many ways to foster kindness to ourselves and to others. In the workplace, at school and at home, being compassionate leads to better outcomes," she says. "In medicine, the technology may be getting better but you can never replicate the kindness of a supportive caregiver. The connection between mental health and physical health is so critical." • Truly start listening to others (instead of already formulating the answer in your head) • Answer rudeness with kindness (think of someone being extremely snippy to you, then say in a friendly tone "did you have a hard day?". You will have already diffused the moment) • Include someone who is on the sidelines. By doing this, you have valued them - it's dehumanising to go through life unnoticed, unwanted and unloved • Action/reaction. Understand when there is unkindness, it is not about you. When you are triggered, take a deep breath and step back Darnell Hunt, dean of the UCLA social sciences division, said he wanted the institute to be an antidote "in the midst of current world politics, violence and strife", that is "rooted in serious academic work". "I think we're living in a time where there's a direct need to step back and explore the things that make us human and that have the potential to lead to more humane societies," he says. "We are living in a moment of political polarisation in the United States and elsewhere, with increased urbanisation leading to less direct interactions between people." When people see kind acts, they are inspired to replicate those acts, he says - but we are still trying to understand the mechanisms of kindness. "It's not a case of us being here in an ivory tower. We want to translate this research into how people in the real world can use this to create policy and make a difference." This "historical moment is the right time to do this", he says. "We are in one of the most diverse states in a diverse country. A lot of problems in LA echo problems elsewhere in the world. If you can solve them here, we can see what can be done around the world." | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50266957 | Mon, 11 Nov 2019 22:24:24 GMT | 1,573,529,064 | 1,573,517,286 | science and technology | social sciences |
36,303 | bbcuk--2019-02-03--Rent control Does it work | 2019-02-03T00:00:00 | bbcuk | Rent control: Does it work? | The claim: The arguments for rent control are overwhelming. Reality Check verdict: It has been helpful for existing tenants in areas with particularly fast-rising rent, but it can be at the expense of new renters. In some places, it has also led to a shortage of supply. While the arguments for rent control are not overwhelming, it is possible that a well-designed policy combined with significant new homebuilding could be effective. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called for a range of measures to help renters in the capital, including rent control. He conceded that as mayor he does not have powers to regulate the rental sector, but said that he would lobby the government to implement rent control. Rent control refers to a variety of ways in which the amount that landlords are allowed to charge may be limited. Deputy Mayor James Murray told Reality Check that he and Westminster North MP Karen Buck would be taking time to look at a package of measures and said, that in addition to rent control, London needs to build a lot of affordable housing. He added that there are already plans to build 11,000 council homes at social rent over the next four years. Standard economic theory is that rent control does not work, because if you force rents down, landlords may decide not to rent out their properties, which reduces the amount of rental property available. So, what has happened in cities that have introduced it? Research conducted at Stanford University looked at the impact of the expansion of rent controls in San Francisco in 1994. The city had originally introduced controls in 1979, which covered buildings with five or more apartments but excluded new-build properties. In 1994, this was expanded to cover any building with more than one household, but still excluded new-builds. The researchers, led by Prof Rebecca Diamond, found that between 1994 and 2010, people who were living in rent-controlled properties had benefited from lower rents by about $2.9bn (£2.2bn) between them. But they found that, coincidentally, renters who came to the city later paid an extra $2.9bn in higher rent over the same period, largely because of a shortage of available housing. So the expansion of rent control had, in effect, been a transfer of money from newer (generally younger) renters to ones who had been living in the city for longer (and were generally older). Researchers also found that the controls helped accelerate gentrification, because some landlords demolished their older properties in favour of new-builds, which were exempt from the limits. Prof Diamond concluded that what is needed is a form of rent control that means the landlords do not have to pay for all of it, such as government subsidies or tax credits, to help renters absorb price increases. Another example of rent control often cited is Germany, which has one of the lowest home ownership rates in Europe at 51%. In Berlin there are about 1.9 million homes, of which about 1.6 million or 85% are rented. Under the rules introduced in 2015, landlords in 313 of the 11,000 towns and cities in Germany (home to about one-quarter of the population including Berlin and Munich) cannot set rent for new tenants any higher than 10% above the local average from the previous four years. Existing tenants benefit from similar limits. But, again, there are exemptions for newly-refurbished properties and those being rented out for the first time. Research from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) found that the measure had worked in areas of Germany, such as parts of Berlin, that had experienced the biggest increases in rental prices, with rises of at least 4% in each of the previous four years. But, in other areas subject to rent controls, it had not had the same effect. Susanne Marquardt, from the Berlin Social Science Centre, told the BBC that rent control and stronger rights for tenants had balanced the needs of landlords and tenants for decades and helped encourage long-term thinking by both landlords and renters. But she warned that "things have changed now as international investors come to the country and see real estate investment opportunities". This problem involved the loopholes in the system. For example, a landlord may decide to do renovation work on a property and require the existing tenant to pay increased rent of up to 11% of the total cost of the work each year. This can be done without the consent of the renter and has been used to get rid of tenants who could not afford it. The researchers from DIW suggested that the solution would be only to impose rent controls in the areas with the fastest-growing rents. So what does this tell us about London? Rent is high in London, although it has not been rising as fast as house prices and average private rent has barely changed in the last two years. The chart above shows how much rent and house prices in London have risen from a starting point in 2005. Gemma Burgess from Cambridge University's Centre for Housing & Planning Research, points out that the example of cities such as Berlin, where landlords tend to be institutions that own lots of properties, may not be applicable to London. "The overwhelming majority of landlords in England own one property," she says. Her department conducted research for the London Assembly in 2015, which found that minor rent control measures such as a three-year freeze on existing private rents, would not make much difference to affordability. However, it said that more radical measures, such as a cap on private rents set at two-thirds of their current market value, could lead many landlords to sell their properties. She concludes that it will be difficult to find a policy that works. "I'm very dubious that rent control could help tenants and not reduce the stock of rental properties," she says. "You need to significantly increase supply before you look at rent control." What do you want BBC Reality Check to investigate? Get in touch | null | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47028342 | 2019-02-03 01:02:22+00:00 | 1,549,173,742 | 1,567,549,787 | science and technology | social sciences |
67,562 | birminghammail--2019-11-05--Top 20 smartest kid's names for boys and girls revealed - is yours on the list? | 2019-11-05T00:00:00 | birminghammail | Top 20 smartest kid's names for boys and girls revealed - is yours on the list? | Choosing a name for your new baby is one of the hardest decisions a parent will have to make but maybe this will help a little. The top smartest children's names for boys and girls have been revealed and it's great news if your child is called George or Emma. Online tutoring platform Tutor House used its data to compile a list of its most academically gifted students to find the names commonly associated with achieving high grades in school, college and university. George, Tom and Mohammed complete the top three for the boys, and for girls Emma, Fatima and Eva were the highest performers, reports the Mirror. In a bid to help parents choose a name that will give their bundle of joy a chance at academic success, here are the top 20 smartest names. Tutor House, which offers private home tuition, analysed ten thousand names from the last five years and cross-referenced them with exam grades to find the brainy bunch. Alex Dyer, founder of Tutor House, said: "Parents often spend a great deal of time deliberating on what name to give their child, and rightly so. "It forms part of your child’s identity, with social science studies finding that a name can influence careers, personality traits and even physicality. "With that in mind, and considering the wealth of data we have, we thought it would be interesting to see what names are most commonly associated with being academically gifted. "While obviously your name has no reflection on your potential, the results are still interesting and might prove useful for parents who are struggling to settle on a name." | [email protected] (Luke Matthews, Katie Brooks) | https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/top-20-smartest-kids-names-17203569 | Tue, 5 Nov 2019 13:26:16 +0000 | 1,572,960,902 | 1,572,960,902 | science and technology | social sciences |
75,932 | breitbart--2019-11-18--Professor: Academia Increasing Efforts to 'Eliminate Conservatives' | 2019-11-18T00:00:00 | breitbart | Professor: Academia Increasing Efforts to 'Eliminate Conservatives' | Professor Richard Vatz of Towson University in Towson, Maryland, says that despite academic world priding itself on “supporting the marketplace of ideas and academic freedom,” there has been “an increasing and unremitting effort to eliminate conservatives” in areas of higher education. The professor added that when he brought up his concerns with the National Communication Association, “they couldn’t care less.” “There has been an increasing and unremitting effort to eliminate conservatives and conservative thought in the humanities and social sciences in the American academy,” wrote professor Vatz in his recent Baltimore Sun op-ed, entitled, “Towson professor: Higher ed discriminates against conservatives.” “Higher education prides itself on two overarching values: supporting the marketplace of ideas and academic freedom,” said Vatz. “Channeling the late civil rights advocate President John F. Kennedy, who said ‘Are we to say to the world — and much more importantly, to each other — that this is the land of the free, except for the Negro?'” “Today, he would have said of colleges and universities, ‘Are we to say to the world — and much more importantly, to each other — higher education today is for diversity and equity except for conservatives?'” he added. Professor Vatz, who has taught at Towson University for the past 45 years, said that he is also familiar with universities around the country, as he has been invited to speak at many of them, and has been on the Legislative Assembly at the National Communication Association (NCA), as well as involved with the Eastern Communication Association. “The anti-conservatism is increasing at most national education venues,” said Vatz. “To be fair,” he added, “there is an undercurrent of guilt or self-awareness among some, if not many, relating to the hypocrisy of ostensible support for supporting the free flow of differing ideas while perpetrating overt discrimination in hiring, promotion, tenure, college campus and convention participation and publishing of those on the right.” The professor noted that “despite the continuing and increasing bigotry” in the NCA against conservatives, he has “long been a conspicuous advocate of fairness” to those who are not on the left. “I have had lengthy exchanges with the current president, the immediately former president and the executive director of the NCA concerning their need to rectify the current situation which led to more than a score of their limited number of open conservatives leaving the organization,” said Vatz. You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram. | Alana Mastrangelo | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/l-xgSd7zz64/ | Mon, 18 Nov 2019 17:13:55 +0000 | 1,574,115,235 | 1,574,122,103 | science and technology | social sciences |
78,454 | businessinsider--2019-03-05--A book about the bizarre QAnon theory which claims Democrats eat babies is now an Amazon best-se | 2019-03-05T00:00:00 | businessinsider | A book about the bizarre QAnon theory — which claims Democrats eat babies — is now an Amazon best-seller and being boosted by the site's algorithms | A new book promoting a bizarre pro-Trump conspiracy theory alleging that Democrats murder children and the government engineers diseases has soared up the Amazon's sales charts, NBC News reported Monday. "QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" is listed as the number one bestseller on the site under the Censorship and Politics category, beating back classics including Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," William Golding's "Lord of the Flies," and Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," which lie in second, third, and fourth place respectively. As of early Tuesday, the book is also listed at number 44 in Amazon's overall bestseller chart, and at number 20 in the Politics and Social Sciences list. Sales of the book have also propelled it to number 12 in the list of hot new releases, which is generated algorithmically and pushed to shoppers browsing the site. Read more: The mysterious pro-Trump conspiracy theory known as 'QAnon' is moving from the fringes of the internet to Trump rallies A man holding a Q sign waits to enter President Donald Trump's campaign rally with then-Senate candidate Lou Barletta in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in August 2018. ASSOCIATED PRESS Matt Rourke The book's author or authors go under the name WWG1WGA, apparently a reference to the QAnon adherent's slogan: "Where We Go One We Go All." They claim in the description of the title that the book "reveals an extraordinary movement underway, a battle of epic proportions." "Whether you know it or not, you're involved because the result of this battle will determine the fate of your children and future generations both in America and around the world," they add. According to NBC, the book contains a series of outlandish and unsubstantiated claims, including that Democrats murder and eat children, and that the US government engineered the AIDS virus and a series of natural disasters. A screenshot from Amazon showing "QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening" for sale, and recommending other QAnon-related products. screen shot Amazon also suggests a range of QAnon-related products for those who click to view the book title, including stickers, cellphone covers, and baseball caps. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The site refused to answer questions from NBC about its placement of the title on its algorithmic recommendations charts. The QAnon conspiracy theory emerged on the anonymous 4Chan postings board in late 2017, when a poster going under the name "Q" and claiming to be a top government official started to leave a trail of cryptic messages that quickly drew a large and obsessive following. Followers claimed that the clues exposed an elaborate conspiracy involving top Democrats and Hollywood stars running human trafficking networks. According to the adherents, President Donald Trump and allies in the military are poised to take down the network. Men wear the Trump campaign's "Make America Great Again" hats and "Q" shirts at a rally where Trump was speaking. Scott Olson/Getty Images In summer 2018 adherents of the theory began attending the president's rallies, wearing clothing and carrying banners emblazoned with QAnon slogans. The theory has allegedly inspired some to commit crimes — with a man arrested near Arizona's Hoover dam in June in a self-made armoured car carrying several firearms and claiming to be guided by "Q," according to police. Another man arrested in May for refusing to leave an abandoned Tucson cement plant, who was convinced he was being used as a trafficking hub, was also allegedly inspired by the movement, prosecutors said. Trump speaks during CPAC 2019 in National Harbor, Maryland, on March 2, 2019. QAnon adherents believe that Trump and military allies can save America from an elaborate conspiracy involving top Democrats and Hollywood stars. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Social media companies have faced questions from lawmakers in recent months about the spread of conspiracy theories on their platforms, with Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff warning in a letter to Facebook and Google in February of the danger of allowing anti-vaccination conspiracies to be propogated on the site. Google-owned YouTube announced last month that it would ban advertising on channels that ran anti-vaccination videos so posters could not monetize the content. Jason Kint, CEO of the trade association Digital Content Next, told NBC News that those pushing fringe political material on Amazon were able to game the site's algorithms, with devotees flooding to buy products soon after their release and flooding comment boxes with adulatory reviews. "To be clear, they absolutely shouldn't be censoring the availability of books like this," Kint said. "But the fact we're left only with the publisher's own description of the book and a clearly gamed set of 5-star reviews — how is the average shopper supposed to know this is toxic garbage?" | Tom Porter | https://www.businessinsider.com/qanon-book-pro-trump-conspiracy-amazon-charts-2019-3 | 2019-03-05 12:17:27+00:00 | 1,551,806,247 | 1,567,546,859 | science and technology | social sciences |
108,792 | cnsnews--2019-01-02--Walter Williams The Worst Enemy of Black People | 2019-01-02T00:00:00 | cnsnews | Walter Williams: The Worst Enemy of Black People | Malcolm X was a Muslim minister and human rights activist. Born in 1925, he met his death at the hands of an assassin in 1965. Malcolm X was a courageous advocate for black civil rights, but unlike Martin Luther King, he was not that forgiving of whites for their crimes against black Americans. He did not eschew violence as a tool to achieve civil and human rights. His black and white detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. Despite the controversy, he has been called one of the greatest and most influential black Americans. Many black Americans have great respect for Malcolm X. Many schools bear his name, and many streets have been renamed in honor of him, both at home and abroad. But while black Americans honor Malcolm X, one of his basic teachings goes largely ignored. I think it's an important lesson, so I will quote a large part of it. Malcolm X said: "The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn't taken, tricked or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man." There's a historical tidbit that those much younger than I (almost 83 years old) are ignorant of. In black history, we have been called — and called ourselves — several different names. Among the more respectable have been "colored," "Negro," "black," "Afro-American" and "African-American." I recall when Mrs. Viola Meekins, when I was a student at Stoddart-Fleisher Junior High School in the late 1940s, had our class go page by page through a textbook and correct each instance in which Negro was printed with a lowercase "n." In Malcolm X's day, and mine, Negro was a proud name and not used derisively by blacks as it is today. Malcolm X was absolutely right about our finding solutions to our own problems. The most devastating problems that black people face today have absolutely nothing to do with our history of slavery and discrimination. Chief among them is the breakdown of the black family, wherein 75 percent of blacks are born to single, often young, mothers. In some cities and neighborhoods, the percentage of out-of-wedlock births is over 80. Actually, "breakdown" is the wrong term; the black family doesn't form in the first place. This is entirely new among blacks. According to the 1938 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, that year only 11 percent of black children were born to unwed mothers. As late as 1950, female-headed households constituted only 18 percent of the black population. Today it's close to 70 percent. In much earlier times, during the late 1800s, there were only slight differences between the black family structure and those of other ethnic groups. In New York City in 1925, 85 percent of kin-related black households were two-parent households. Welfare has encouraged young women to have children out of wedlock. The social stigma once associated with unwed pregnancy is all but gone. Plus, "shotgun" weddings are a thing of the past. That was when male members of a girl's family made the boy who got her pregnant live up to his responsibilities. The high crime rates in so many black communities impose huge personal costs and have turned once-thriving communities into economic wastelands. The Ku Klux Klan couldn't sabotage chances for black academic excellence more effectively than the public school system in most cities. Politics and white liberals will not solve these and other problems. As Malcolm X said, "our problems will never be solved by the white man." Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. | Michael Morris | https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/walter-e-williams/walter-williams-worst-enemy-black-people | 2019-01-02 14:46:51+00:00 | 1,546,458,411 | 1,567,554,210 | science and technology | social sciences |
108,998 | cnsnews--2019-01-10--Ben Shapiro The Scientific Experts Who Hate Science | 2019-01-10T00:00:00 | cnsnews | Ben Shapiro: The Scientific Experts Who Hate Science | This week, the American Psychological Association proved once again that it is a political body rather than a scientific one. This isn't the first time a major mental health organization has favored politics over science — in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association famously reclassified "gender identity disorder" in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, calling it "gender dysphoria" and then explaining that living with the delusion that you are a member of the opposite sex is not actually a mental disorder at all. That ruling was based on zero scientific evidence — much like the original DSM-5 classification of pedophilia as a "sexual orientation" before it was renamed "pedophilic disorder" under public pressure. The latest example of the American Psychological Association's political hackery concerns the topic of "traditional masculinity." In the APA journal, it announced that it had released new guidelines to "help psychologists work with men and boys." Those guidelines suggest that "40 years of research" show that "traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly." The APA explains that "traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful. Men socialized in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors." Never mind that traditional masculinity — a masculinity geared toward channeling masculine instincts of building and protecting, rather than tearing down — built Western civilization and protected it from the brutalities of other civilizational forces. Never mind that traditional masculinity protected femininity and elevated women to equal status in public policy. Traditional masculinity is actually just men sitting around and eating burgers while grunting at one another about football, all the while crying on the inside because they have been prohibited by society from showing their feelings. And it's worse than that. According to the APA, traditional masculinity bumps up "against issues of race, class and sexuality," maximizing both interior and exterior conflict. Dr. Ryon McDermott, a psychologist from the University of South Alabama who helped draft the new APA guidelines, suggested that gender is "no longer just this male-female binary." Rather, gender is a mere social construct that can be destroyed without consequence. Here's the APA making the extraordinarily dishonest statement that gender differences aren't biological at all , in contravention of all known social science research: "Indeed, when researchers strip away stereotypes and expectations, there isn't much difference in the basic behaviors of men and women." Destroy masculinity in order to destroy discrimination and depression. Feminize men, and indoctrinate boys. In order to reach this conclusion, the APA has to define traditional masculinity in the narrowest, most negative terms possible — and then other those who disagree as part of the patriarchy. But as a political body, the APA has little problem doing this. All of this is not only nonsense; it's wildly counterproductive nonsense. Buried beneath the reams of nonsense in the APA report is this rather telling gem: "It's also important to encourage pro-social aspects of masculinity. ... In certain circumstances, traits like stoicism and self-sacrifice can be absolutely crucial." But we must never suggest that such traits ought to be included as part of a "traditional masculinity," because that would make some people feel excluded. Here's the truth: Men are looking for meaning in a world that tells them they are perpetuators of discrimination and rape culture; that they are beneficiaries of an overarching, nasty patriarchy; that they are, at best, disposable partners to women, rather than protectors of them. Giving men purpose requires us to give them purpose as men , not merely as genderless beings. There's a lot to be said for the idea that our culture has ignored the necessity for men to become gentlemen. But that's a result of a left-wing culture that denigrates men, not a traditional masculinity built on the idea that men were born to defend, protect and build. One thing is certainly true, though: The APA has destroyed itself on the shoals of politics. And there's no reason for honest-thinking people to take its anti-scientific pronouncements seriously simply because it masquerades as scientists while ignoring facts in favor of political correctness. Ben Shapiro, 34, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of "The Ben Shapiro Show" and editor-in-chief of DailyWire.com. He is The New York Times best-selling author of "Bullies." He lives with his wife and two children in Los Angeles. | Michael Morris | https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/ben-shapiro/ben-shapiro-scientific-experts-who-hate-science | 2019-01-10 13:56:45+00:00 | 1,547,146,605 | 1,567,553,058 | science and technology | social sciences |
111,120 | cnsnews--2019-03-19--Democrats 100 Trillion Agenda Could Easily Tilt Nation | 2019-03-19T00:00:00 | cnsnews | Democrats' $100 Trillion Agenda Could Easily Tilt Nation | Remember when Democrats complained that $5.7 billion for a border wall was too expensive? Well, that's chump change compared to what many of the congressional Democrats and nearly all of those 15 declared Democrats in the presidential race are now rallying behind. The price tag isn't in the billions but in the tens of trillions. President Trump was attacked earlier this month by Democrats for a budget blueprint that would run fiscal deficits of 5 percent of GDP. That's too high, for sure, but count up the spending plans of Democrats and deficits could easily hit 20 to 30 percent of GDP and tilt the nation toward Greek and Puerto Rican-style bankruptcy. Let's start to add it all up. Start with "Medicare for All," the new health care anthem of the left. It is touted as a way to make medical services "free" for everyone. The cost to taxpayers? By some estimates, $32 trillion over the next decade, according to a study by the Mercatus Center. Medicare, just for the seniors it was designed to cover, is already projected to run deficits in the tens of trillions of dollars over the next four decades, according to the program's own Trustees. Then there is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal," which is supposed to turn America into an eco-friendly paradise and avert the apocalypse that Ocasio-Cortez claims will occur in just over a decade. At least four presidential candidates have endorsed some or all of that agenda. Of course, the politicians pushing these plans remain suspiciously quiet whenever they're asked to explain exactly how much their pet projects will cost U.S. taxpayers and whether they're worth the investment. But thanks to public-policy watchdog groups, we have some preliminary estimates. According to one recent study by the American Action Forum, the "Low-carbon Electricity Grid" proposed in the Green New Deal will cost taxpayers $5.4 trillion over 10 years or $39,000 per household. Similarly, a "Net Zero Emissions Transportation System," another part of the environmental proposal, could require as much as to $2.7 trillion or $20,000 per household, while "Guaranteed Green Housing" could cost an additional $4.2 trillion. The Democrat-backed welfare programs in the Green New Deal are even more daunting. According to the study, "guaranteed jobs" and "universal health care" would together cost each American family as much as $582,000 or $80.6 trillion in total. Then there is the loss of as many as 10 million jobs in the oil, gas and coal industries, which would add to welfare and unemployment benefit costs, let alone the severe financial hardship this would impose on millions of middle-class families whom Democrats once said they cared about. Added together, these preliminary Democratic proposals are projected to cost about $92 trillion over 10 years. But wait, there's more. Another hot proposal on the left gaining momentum is called "universal basic income." Everybody gets a free check from the government. A key sponsor of this is U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. This would give families making less than $100,000 a check of up to $6,000 from the government every year. "Americans are working harder than ever but stagnant wages mean they can't keep up with cost of living increases," Harris says. Then there is the cost of "free" college tuition, another federal freebie supported by Democrats. That would add trillions more to the taxpayer tab over the next decade while further inflating the outrageous tuitions that universities already charge. The $15-an-hour minimum wage would also impose new costs on government at every level. Now the latest craze on the left is for "reparations" payments for slavery. Julian Castro and other presidential wannabes have endorsed this radical income redistribution scheme. A 2015 study by a professor at the University of Connecticut estimates that the cost of reparations would be between $5.9 and $14.2 trillion. These results were published in the Social Sciences Quarterly journal. Add it all up and the estimated 10-year cost of creating the Democratic-socialist utopia envisioned by the likes of Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders and other leaders of the Democratic Party reaches well north of $100 trillion. Who will be left to pay for the Democrats' America when everything is "free"? To the extent that any of the Democrats currently running for president has offered an answer to this question, they've invariably claimed that they would finance their schemes by levying punitive taxes on "the wealthy." But even if you took every penny of income from every millionaire and billionaire in America, it wouldn't even pay half the cost. Some say we will just put it on the federal credit card. President Obama took our national debt from $10 trillion to nearly $20 trillion, but that might be loose change compared to the new spending spree. Ultimately, the burden of paying for this radical transformation of America would fall predominantly on the middle class, as usual. Just one example: Many Europeans pay gas taxes that are double what we pay in the United States. That's part of the tab for their green energy policies that Democrats are eager to bring here. Anyone want to pay $5 a gallon to fill up? The Democrats balked at spending $5.7 billion to protect American communities by securing the border, but they're perfectly happy to mortgage our future by spending nearly 20,000 times that amount on their own utopian fantasies. We will all have everything we want, and our country will be bankrupt. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He is the co-author of "Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive the American Economy." | Stephen Moore | https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/stephen-moore/democrats-100-trillion-agenda-could-easily-tilt-nation | 2019-03-19 12:39:13+00:00 | 1,553,013,553 | 1,567,545,615 | science and technology | social sciences |
112,158 | cnsnews--2019-04-24--Latina Mama Warns Pete Buttigieg Dont Force Your Sexual Ideology on Me and My Children | 2019-04-24T00:00:00 | cnsnews | 'Latina Mama' Warns Pete Buttigieg: 'Don't Force Your Sexual Ideology on Me and My Children' | Ana Samuel, Ph.D., a research scholar at the Witherspoon Institute and founder of the marriage movement CanaVox, warned 2020 Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg that his homosexual ideology is dangerous to the nation and that she and millions of other Latina mothers with traditional family values will "be polite" towards gay activists but will also resist "policies that assault our values, harm our families, and hurt our children." Ana Samuel is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and her husband is an Argentine immigrant; they have six children. She is a graduate of Princeton University and her Ph.D. in politics is from the University of Notre Dame. Pete Buttigieg, 37, is the mayor South Bend, Ind., and running for the Democratic presidential nomination. He is openly gay and "married" to a man, Chastan Glezman. Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard University and Pembroke College, Oxford. In a commentary for Public Discourse, The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute, Samuel wrote "A Message to Mayor Pete From a Latina Mama: Don't Force Your Sexual Ideology on Me and My Children.'" Samuel noted that Buttigieg has tweeted that some people are often "polite to you in person" but then support policies that are contrary to the LGBT agenda -- that "harm you and your family." This tweet's "sub-text," according to Samuel, "is that anyone who refuses to cheer for same-sex marriage or support the Left’s sexual ideology is a bigot—someone who is out to harm Mayor Pete and his family." But this "cuts both ways," wrote Samuel, specifically naming "policies that undermine our parental rights and duties by seeking to indoctrinate our children in progressive sexual ideology without our consent and sometimes in spite of our explicit protest." These policies, she said, include reading assignments in the public schools that are explicitly designed "to normalize LGBT lifestyles"; sex education classes that promote abortion, masturbation, condom use, sex toys, and rectal intercourse; "[p]ediatricians who ask to see our teenagers alone and then push to prescribe them contraceptives or ask them about sexual behaviors that we find offensive"; "public library programming where unicorns, rainbows, gingerbread persons, drag-queen story hours, and other symbols of progressive sexual ideology make an appearance, so that we must regularly steer our toddlers clear of the propaganda"; and promotion of transgender propaganda in the schools. "Mr. Mayor, it is hypocritical for you to cry foul about policies that 'harm you and your family' while your side pushes for government intrusions into the parent-child relationship at the most fundamental levels," said Samuel. She then said that many Americans are "prepared to co-exist peacefully" with the LGBT community but do not want to be re-instructed on "what sexual values to cherish and uphold." As for the gay lifestyle itself, Samuel said, "It is not a good idea to tell society that you don’t need a member of the opposite sex to have a baby or that kids don’t need a mom and a dad because they will do fine in any kind of arrangement. That’s not true, and there’s plenty of empirical data to prove it." "[I]t takes a lot of money to circumvent nature," said Samuel. "It takes upscale health insurance to pay for those doctor’s visits to the urologist, OBGYN, and additional medical care linked to sex outside of marriage, rectal intercourse, or cross-sex hormones. It takes a lot of money to pay for that surrogate rent-a-womb so that two men can have a baby. Even if she’s from a third world country—and easily exploitable—it’s still expensive (and the ethics don’t look good). It also takes a lot of money to go through IVF, usually requiring dual-income households." She continued, "The fact is, permanent, monogamous, exclusive marriage between husband and wife is the cheapest and highest quality deal on the market. It’s the most financially accessible way to have a child and the safest way to experience sexual pleasure." "Ask yourself: is the lifestyle you are setting up as a pattern for others to follow replicable and sustainable?" said Samuel. "Or does it further destabilize the family form that has provided the greatest financial and social stability to women, children, and the poor? The evidence consistently points to the latter." "The weight of the past 50 years of social science evidence is virtually unanimous in its conclusion: children—and societies—do best when kids are raised by their married, stable, biological parents," said Samuel. "Separate a child from his or her biological mother or father, and you’ve made that child much more likely to experience internal conflict, significant pain and suffering, relational struggles, and a host of other issues." "So yes, be polite to us, and we will be polite to you," said Samuel. "But we know that we are in an intense battle for the hearts and minds of our children" and as "long as we still enjoy the freedom of association in this country, we will continue to meet and organize, to speak and teach." In conclusion, Samuel said, "Speak up! Do not let the gender ideology of the Left destroy our family values! Do not stop exercising your rights as mothers! Mamas of the world, unite!" | Michael W. Chapman | https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/latina-mama-warns-pete-buttigieg-dont-force-your-sexual-ideology-me-and-my | 2019-04-24 17:13:45+00:00 | 1,556,140,425 | 1,567,541,882 | science and technology | social sciences |
114,975 | cnsnews--2019-09-05--Polyamory Normalizing Relationship Limitlessness Will in the End Be Limiting | 2019-09-05T00:00:00 | cnsnews | Polyamory: Normalizing Relationship Limitlessness Will in the End Be Limiting | The Gottman Institute is one of the premiere organizations promoting evidence-based approaches to couple/marital relationships. The institute notes that it has“developed an approach that not only supports and repairs troubled marriages and committed relationships but strengthens happy ones.” The approach has been used with both opposite sex and same-sex couples, but the focus has always been on couples. The institute has published a series of guest blog posts titled Real Relationships. The goal is to “understand and paint a more realistic, inclusive picture of relationships in the world today.” A recent post, titled, “I’m the Polyamorist Next Door,” presents the experiences of a woman, Ms. Winston, who longs for society to see polyamory in a new light: as “people caring for other people, people creating the family that they need, people being human, people being normal.” There is the appropriate caveat that the guest blog posts do not necessarily reflect the views of the Gottman Institute. Still, the suggestion that polyamory be considered normal portends a seismic cultural shift. There is little debate in the social sciences about the existing data on married households. On average, marriage achieves better outcomes than alternative family arrangements. There are exceptions; not all marriages function well. Many people in less than ideal situations are doing heroic work, particularly single parents who have found themselves in difficult situations, sometimes with no fault of their own. And yet, married households as the ideal is now being called into question. The latest debate is about whether it should be that marriage produces better outcomes. The argument is that with the right government policies, any conceivable family structure could be at least as good as marriage. Some social scientists go so far as to argue that traditional marriage is immoral. Sociologist Judith Stacey has written that is impossible for women to have a role equal to men in marriage given the “present conditions of political, economic, social, and sexual inequality.” Government policy should support cultural change that eliminates oppressive marriage. In that light, some would argue, polyamorous relationships empower women. Women are free to have several romantic relationships simultaneously, to terminate romantic relationships, and begin new ones as they see fit. But is polyamory likely to be empowering for women over the long haul? Would it be best for households with children? Ms. Winston was initially insecure with polyamory: “More than once my insecurities ran the show … I spent several years clawing at different romantic partners, insisting that they tell me I was their number one, the primary, the queen bee.” After practicing polyamory for more than 10 years, she feels more secure and writes about feeling loved by the people in her complex social network: “It’s a web of other partners, family members, old flames, new crushes, exes, and close-knit friends. It’s never about just the person alone, but the interconnected network of other people that help to shape them. And that network interacts with my own, making a hodge-podge chosen family.” Is the insecurity banished for good, or might it return? Studies show that men prefer women who are youthful and attractive. While women value men’s physical appearance, research shows that they are attracted to men who have money and prestige. Thus, to new potential romantic interests, women become less attractive to men as they age. Men compensate for the effects of aging with higher salaries and wealth. As they grow older then, polyamorous men will have more options than their female ex-partners. Polyamory’s promise of simultaneous desirable romantic partners is likely to be a lie for aging women. How will the complex web-like family handle children? I suppose DNA tests to determine paternity will be routine. Will the non-fathers want to be tied down by another man’s children, or will they move on to other women with no children? Hint: research shows that men typically resist being constrained by, or providing for, other men’s children. Alternatively, can you imagine the confusing situations if multiple men are granted father status over the same child? Mom would be playing referee over all the details of a child’s life with two or more men. It is hard to imagine polyamorous women being better off than their married peers. What happens to polyamorous men’s assets when they die? Perhaps the modern woman should not need the assets of a deceased partner, but married women know they inherit the assets with no tax consequences. Commitment has been described as the choice to give up other choices. On average, married people are happier, healthier, and wealthier than their non-married peers (obviously, there are exceptions to the average). The foundation of these benefits is an exclusive relationship that is intended to last decades. Knowing that a spouse has promised to remain faithful frees people to face an uncertain future with confidence. Could government possibly regulate such that those who eschew relationship limits have equivalent outcomes with those who freely limit themselves to one spouse? Polyamorous relationships are too complex to regulate into marital equivalence. The simple inclusiveness solution will be to reduce the status and advantages of marriage. Normalizing relationship limitlessness will in the end be limiting. Dr. Joseph J. Horton is professor of psychology at Grove City College and the Working Group Coordinator for Marriage and Family with the Institute for Faith and Freedom. He is also a researcher on Positive Youth Development. : This piece was originally published by The Institute for Faith & Freedom at Grove City College. | Joseph J. Horton | https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/joseph-j-horton/polyamory-normalizing-relationship-limitlessness-will-end-be-limiting | 2019-09-05 17:40:31+00:00 | 1,567,719,631 | 1,569,331,199 | science and technology | social sciences |
119,472 | conservativehome--2019-11-09--The poor bloody infantry: why people join political parties | 2019-11-09T00:00:00 | conservativehome | The poor bloody infantry: why people join political parties | Footsoldiers: Political Party Membership in the 21st Century by Tim Bale, Paul Webb and Monica Poletti “The trouble with writing about politics is that things can change so fast.” So say these authors in a rueful tone at the end of their study of political party membership. When they started work over five years ago, they thought they would be examining a story of decline. They instead find “the SNP and Labour have enjoyed truly unprecedented growth and the Liberal Democrats haven’t done too badly either”. They add that “the Conservatives seem to be treading water, finding it difficult to recruit younger people, women and ethnic minorities in particular”. Whether that is correct, it is perhaps too early to say with certainty. But the growth in the other parties illustrates an aspect of our political tradition which is easily overlooked, or at least undervalued, namely its ability to correct itself. Abuses cry out for redress. Often the problem is so intractable that decades pass before one can say it has been dealt with at all satisfactorily. But at length it is tackled, and replaced by some other difficulty. The problem of over-mighty trade unions, addressed with humiliating lack of success by the governments of Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and Jim Callaghan, was at last settled under Margaret Thatcher, with Tony Blair prevailing on Labour to accept the settlement. The hollowing out of the membership of political parties, apparent for a long time, is only now being addressed. On the Left, it sprang in part from the humbling of the trade unions, which provided, at least on paper, a membership of millions, and also a practical route by which members of the working class could gain political experience, enter Parliament and reach high office. Momentum is in part a nostalgic attempt to recreate that working-class involvement, but without the political education, the hard practical experience of negotiation and bringing your members with you, provided by work as a trade union organiser. On the Right, there is much less fear of socialism than prevailed from 1917 until the 1980s. Bolshevism was a great recruiting sergeant for the Conservatives, to which should be added a certain gift, apparent since the founding of the Primrose League in 1883 and carried on by the Young Conservatives after the Second World War, for making politics enjoyable. The volume under review adopts a narrower focus. The authors want to know why, in the present day, people join political parties, what if anything they do for those parties, what they think of those parties, why quite often they leave those parties and how the requirements of the membership are balanced against those of the parliamentary leadership. These questions are all worth asking. To help answer them, the authors surveyed members of Labour, the Conservatives, the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party of England and Wales, and UKIP, in 2015 and again in 2017. Forty-eight tables of figures are provided in this book, starting with “Occupational class profiles of party members and voters”, and proceeding to “Intensity of election campaign activities and purposive, material and solidary incentives”. These terms are part of the General Incentives Model, which is explained in the text: What does all this effort show? In their conclusion, the authors write: “First and foremost, people join a political party because they are attracted by its principles and very often by its leader and because they are keen to see its policy platform implemented and to stop rival parties bringing in or continuing with policies they dislike and think are damaging. They also join because they believe it’s important that people get involved in democratic politics. True, these expressive, collective policy and altruistic incentives are not the only ones that are important: social norms (friends and family) and selective process incentives (engaging in activities with like-minded people) also matter, but they matter less. Joining for the sake of advancing one’s career (either in or outside of politics) – a selective outcome incentive – is not unknown, of course, but appears to be nowhere near as common as people who aren’t members think it is. This misapprehension, it turns out, is one of several which, along with (equally misplaced) concerns about how much time membership might take up, may prevent people who strongly support parties from actually joining them. That said, it remains the case that some types of people are more likely to join parties than others: their members are not only more convinced than their supporters that they can make a difference, but they are noticeably more male, middle class and better educated, suggesting ‘resources’ are still a factor when it comes to the reasons why people join.” None of this seems surprising enough to justify the effort needed to read it. Anyone with some slight involvement in politics would already know most of it, and some of the sentiments can be heard expressed in plainer language in the local pub: “They’re all in it for the money” and so forth. The remarks by practising politicians which are quoted here are more vivid than the surrounding text. A “Liberal Democrat staffer” says: Here one feels one is getting close to politics as it is actually practised – something from which the great apparatus of scrupulous, jargon-ridden social science cuts us off in the rest of the book, with its well-meaning attempts to quantify sentiments which are unquantifiable. Barbara Pym wrote with wonderful insight and wit about the Church of England because she was a member of it, yet capable of seeing how absurd it often looked. The story of why people join political parties probably has to be written from the inside too. The outsider can say that socialism, or indeed any form of political engagement, would take too many evenings, but is unlikely to understand why someone might actually want to join the socialists, the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, the Greens, the Scots Nats or the Brexit Party. The impulse often comes from a feeling of deep disgust with the way some other party is run: an indignant sense that it does not value or listen to its members, or is going to inflict terrible damage on the nation, or on Europe, or on the planet. Every party is in a sense a protest party against the other parties. So for the parties to gain members, things have to become more dangerous. Brexit too has become a recruiting sergeant. This book contains scattered insights into the memberships of political parties, but no very remarkable conclusions spring from its statistical tables and it cannot be described as either readable or penetrating. | Andrew Gimson | https://www.conservativehome.com/highlights/2019/11/the-poor-bloody-infantry-why-do-people-join-political-parties.html | Sat, 09 Nov 2019 06:30:20 +0000 | 1,573,299,020 | 1,573,304,104 | science and technology | social sciences |
131,366 | dailykos--2019-05-14--Do I Have Something to Sell | 2019-05-14T00:00:00 | dailykos | Do I Have Something to Sell? | Do I have something to sell? Can I get off the “slush-pile” of unread manuswcripts at publishing houses in New York? Can my 40 yearrs of work on this project be useful for people, or have I gone up an un-productive dead end? I have an interesting biography (available at my site), essentially I was the very good student who never stopped looking for “the truth” about human beings, why do we do the things we do? It was back in 1978, I was working as a free-lance researcher/writer a few years out of college, that I started seriously wondering, “What if we had a science of History that was concerned about every person, every single one?’ Of course that’s a very deep well, and of course the obvious answer is that we simply don’t have any data on 99.9999 % of all the people who have ever lived, even in times for which we have some semblance of historical records, and only archeological/fossil anthropological data on all the people who existed for tens or hundreds of thousands of years before that. Yet nevertheless I kept after it, and I think I have been able to pry some useful threads out of this well of missing and confusing data. The main contribution I’ve come up with is a “learning aid” for understanding the social sciences, and how they work within human personalities and human societies. It is meant to be a system for helping anyone in the world to apply the data they have on people in their environment, to understand those people better and thus be able to deal with those people more productively. I really hope that it’s something that can be useful for students, for young people, for anyone who doesn’t feel they are getting the life-guidance they need from the current academic perspectives on the social sciences. My “learning aid” is just complex enough that I don’t like to summarize it in less than a few hundred words --so I won’t summarize it in this short article that’s meant to get you to spend some time at my site. | [email protected] (leftcoast ron ) | https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/5/14/1857639/-Do-I-Have-Something-to-Sell | 2019-05-14 20:14:53+00:00 | 1,557,879,293 | 1,567,540,693 | science and technology | social sciences |
131,550 | dailykos--2019-08-08--The Climate Emergency Does Anything Else Really Matter | 2019-08-08T00:00:00 | dailykos | The Climate Emergency: Does Anything Else Really Matter? | It’s really happening. We’re cooking the world to maintain our convenient and comfortable lifestyles. Every gallon of gasoline we burn is eight more pounds of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The first big crop failure from climate change is happening right now with corn and soybeans in the American Midwest. The permafrost in the Arctic is melting, accelerating the release of heat-trapping gasses. Accelerating: that means all the bad changes we’re already seeing will happen faster and larger than the changes we haven’t really adjusted to, so far, in this frustrating fantastic journey that our “modern economy” is taking us on. We all love being in rich, relatively free societies removed from the drudgery and pain of pre-industrial agricultural economies – yet my work as an amateur historian leaves me convinced that every major industry has “developed” by using the ability to dump their wastes cost-free into the global environments that support us, and every living thing. The dumping of fossil fuel waste into our atmosphere unfortunately has the consequence of heating the planet so we can’t live comfortably on it any more. Extreme weather events, heat spells covering continents for months, floods we can hardly imagine, beyond-Category-5 hurricanes coverings 800 miles, the collapse of the Pacific fisheries, or simultaneous failures of global wheat, rice and cassava crops. Can you imagine the spectacle if Miami gets an 8-foot hurricane surge that doesn’t want to leave? I’m pushing 70, I’m thinking of the crap I’m leaving my children, If you’re 50 MAYBE the world lasts long enough for you to retire for a few years with a semblance of today. If you’re 40 or under it is YOUR LIFE that is at stake. The scale of the potential catastrophe – essentially, our suicide as a “civilization” leaving only a few hunter-gatherers if any of us at all – is so great that we, as individuals, as members of families and communities and citizens of nations have to fully confront the question: Does Anything Else Really Matter? In the face of the existential/extinction crisis facing us as individuals and as a species, I can safely say that your games and TV shows certainly won’t matter, your social media triumphs and tragedies, the stuff you’ve saved on your phone, none of those things will matter. Your jobs, your savings and properties, your money will matter a lot in the run-up to the final crises – but they won’t matter if there’s no food or water to be bought. Your personality preferences and your politics – to the extent that they’re not focused on reversing the emergency – won’t, in the end when it all collapses, matter. Your loves, your sex drives, your feelings for your children and your grandchildren (or your possible children and grandchildren), none of that will matter – because hardly any of them, any of us will survive the disasters -- if we can’t get it together to stop and reverse the climate emergency. The systems we have created that enable our wonderful lifestyles are not going to matter in the end, because to the extent they depend on fossil fuels or other pollution outputs, they are actively creating the agents of their own, of our own, destruction. I’m trapped in it too, I can’t stop driving myself around to fulfill the three jobs that keep my family going economically. Two of those jobs are with the businesses run by my handicapped wife, I can’t get out of the many chores I have each day to help her keep going. At age 68 and nowhere-near-retired, I’m trying to convince myself that it’s a good idea to invest a big chunk of my retirement savings in an electric car and a lot of solar panels for the house. I love my comforts and conveniences as much the next privileged person, yet it’s getting clearer and clearer that many things will have to change greatly if any global societies, either privileged or underprivileged, are to survive at any economic level resembling today’s. Yet it’s also becoming clearer that significant change is exactly what our government and economic leaders are not willing to allow. The business and technology tycoons of the richer, freer countries, and the governments they support, and the even more selfish and more ruthless government dictators and privileged elites that control the two-thirds of the world that is less rich and less free, have apparently decided that maintaining their selfish comforts as long as possible is far more important than the survival of large populations enjoying stable food, water and housing supplies. On the hopeful assumption we haven’t already goosed it, how many years can we keep dumping trillions of tons of heating gases into the atmosphere before we fatally condemn our future? 3? 5, maybe 7? I admit I’ve just guessing, but 11 years to 2030 sounds way too long to me, and to think that setting goals for 2050 can be significant is a ridiculous fantasyland. So the challenges are severe, nearly impossible. We have to remove (or bring very major changes in the behavior of) the most selfish, most powerful people in the world, the plutocrats, the dictators, and all their servants including the Republican Senators in America. The intelligent and altruistic persons in our world will have to overcome the selfish and short-sighted persons, something which is all too rare in human history. There are no pat answers, and I don’t want you to fall shivering and helpless in hopeless pessimism. We all do need our entertainments and diversions, we all certainly need to spend time maintaining and improving our love and family connections. This is a capitalist world and all us non-plutocrats have to struggle to put food on the heated, well-lit table every night. But in World War II our parents and grandparents and great-grands had rationed food and gasoline. Are any of us ready to face that in an emergency? And gasoline and all fossil fuels need to get out of here posthaste anyway. Yet my work as an amateur historian has led me to one big idea, a sort of “learning aid” for making sense out of all the crazy and conflicting data about human beings, helping connect our everyday actions to the basic social sciences so every person can try to be “your own best social scientist” in figuring out what people you know and see in your environment are doing and why they’re doing it. (It’s a 20-page book longform presentation, in my website (without stupid click-bait ads) that is a small book with my current articles and historical/autobiographical information, hope you can check it in a relaxed state of mind.) And the conclusion I’d like to share here is that we are not helpless in the face of this emergency. We can (and we often do anyway) change our psychologies, our personalities and our personality structures, we can make the sacrifices and do the work that we’re going to have to do to save a world for ourselves and our children. We can (and we often do) change our “explanations,” our sciences, our religions, our philosophies, and we can make sure our explanations of why things are the way they are, fit the reality we are finding so that we can find realistic solutions for immediate problems. The realm of politics, our natural tendency to judge and rank others in our communities and to create status and rank, which has “crystalized” in our world into some 190 very specific nation-states, all with specific government structures to carry out their mandate of power over public behavior, yet all these government structures in their ways can be seen as very specific cliques with clear rules of behavior for joining and advancing in government structures, and the vast majority of them are too often ready to disregard their “citizens” at a moment’s notice (and even the best ones can end up disregarding their citizens on various issues). Yet we can (and we do) change our judgements of who we honor in our daily lives and in our communities, and we can (and we do) change our ways of working with (or avoiding, or working against) with our specific national and local governments, according to how they are aggravating or working to reduce the climate emergency (and how and when one may safely oppose their jealous government). And in the realm of economics, our systems of value and our creation of goods and services to fulfill those values, we can and do change the most easily of all. Getting out of gasoline in X years will be very tough, it will require a lot of personal sacrifices by a lot of people. How do we make them happy about saving their children’s lives by giving up that comfy SUV? Yet we have been adapting to economic changes every season since our times as hunter-gatherer tribes, our consumer cultures can spin things very quickly, can we use psychology in economics to make it “cool” to use as little energy as possible? Because in the face of the tremendous opposition we face, two of our best resources are our creativity, and our communities. We plan against doomsdays by cultivating community resources of persons and goods and services and mutual support, we use our creativity to overcome all the persons and institutions that are stuck in the past. It’s heck of a load of work we face, and it’s going to have to be done together with a whole lot of other political and economic struggles, but if you plan on living much past 2025 or 2035, it looks like The Climate Emergency is going to be, in far too many times and places, the only thing that Really Matters. | [email protected] (leftcoast ron ) | https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/8/8/1877591/-The-Climate-Emergency-Does-Anything-Else-Really-Matter | 2019-08-08 09:02:08+00:00 | 1,565,269,328 | 1,567,534,576 | science and technology | social sciences |
133,825 | dailymail--2019-08-06--Mental illness is not to blame for mass shootings its access to deadly weapons | 2019-08-06T00:00:00 | dailymail | Mental illness is not to blame for mass shootings: it's access to deadly weapons | Mental illness and video games are fringe concerns that are not the primary drivers behind deadly shootings in the US, experts say. President Donald Trump, in his first comments on the weekend shootings in El Paso and Dayton on Monday, described the shooter as 'twisted', blamed video games, and psychiatry, saying: 'Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.' However, data show access to guns is the bigger problem, as Dr Arthur Evans, CEO of the American Psychological Association, pointed out in his reaction to the president's address. As for video games, Chris Ferguson, a psychology professor at Stetson University, told the New York Times: 'The data on bananas causing suicide is about as conclusive. Literally. The numbers work out about the same.' There is a link between video gaming and violence, but gaming is not unique to the US, and no other country with a strong gaming culture suffers anywhere near as many mass shootings. South Korea is home to the most video gamers in the world, and Japan is home to one of the fastest-growing video game markets in the world, according to gaming analytics company Newzoo. But they are also homes to some of the lowest rates of violence in the world, with barely any mass shootings, as these graphs show. Americans spend a bit more than Brits on gaming, and a bit less than the Chinese. And yet, the rate of violent gun deaths is about 110 times higher than both. Video games have long been a popular topic of conversation in the wake of shooting in the US. After Columbine, and it emerged the shooters played the game Doom, there was a push to ban video games in California. It was rejected by the Supreme Court, and Antonin Scalia said in his majority opinion: 'These studies have been rejected by every court to consider them, and with good reason: They do not prove that violent video games cause minors to act aggressively.' In the years since, research has backed up that verdict. The American Psychological Association found in 2015 that video games may make players more aggressive, but no clear link to violence. Last year, research by Jay Hull, associate dean of faculty for the social sciences at Dartmouth College, found kids who played video games were eight times more likely to be sent to the principal's office for risky behavior, but were not more likely to be violent. As for mental illness diagnoses, separate from video games, the link is also tenuous. It is incredibly common for mental illness to be brought up in the wake of a shooting - particularly if the shooter is white: white shooters are 19 times more likely to be described as 'mentally ill' than black shooters. Latino shooters are 12 times more likely to be described as mentally ill. Indeed, after the Dayton, Ohio shooting, a former girlfriend of the shooter Connor Betts, 24, told NBC that he struggled with mental illness, showing her a video of a mass shooting and singing sexually violent songs. The El Paso shooter, Patrick Crusius, 21, the son of a mental health counselor, has been described as a 'loner', and posted a racist 2,356-word manifesto on 8chan. But solitude and racism are not mental health disorders. Around 5 percent of shootings are committed by people with a diagnosable mental illness, according to research published in 2016 in the most comprehensive, non-partisan, evidence-based review of gun violence and mental illness to date. 'Blaming mental illness for the gun violence in our country is simplistic and inaccurate and goes against the scientific evidence currently available,' Dr Evans said late on Monday. 'The United States is a global outlier when it comes to horrific headlines like the ones that consumed us all weekend. 'Although the United States makes up less than 5 percent of the world's population, we are home to 31 percent of all mass shooters globally. This difference is not explained by the rate of mental illness in the US. 'The one stark difference? Access to guns.' There are around 650 million civilian-owned guns in the world. More than 300 million of them are owned by US citizens. Dr Evans said there are some 'red flags' that should be monitored for in background checks, and should warrant removing guns from people at risk of violence - namely a history of violence, which is 'the single best predictor of who will commit future violence', and people with access to deadlier guns. 'Access to this final, fatal tool means more deaths that occur more quickly, whether in a mass shooting or in someone's own home,' Dr Evans said. 'As we psychological scientists have said repeatedly, the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness are not violent. And there is no single personality profile that can reliably predict who will resort to gun violence.' The president said: 'We need to do a better job of identifying and acting on early warning signs.' Dr Evans called on the president to provide dedicated federal funding for psychology research in this area 'to ensure we are making decision based on data, not prejudices and fear.' Above all, he said: 'The president clearly said that it is time to stop the hateful rhetoric that is infecting the public discourse. We ask that he use his powerful position to model that behavior. And we ask that the federal government support the research needed to better understand the causes of bigotry and hate, and their association to violence, so that we may devise evidence-based solutions.' | null | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7327059/Mental-illness-not-blame-mass-shootings-access-deadly-guns.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 | 2019-08-06 17:24:26+00:00 | 1,565,126,666 | 1,567,534,714 | science and technology | social sciences |
134,240 | dailymail--2019-09-01--Religion and political ideals replaced with dogma that has turned beliefs into hate crimes | 2019-09-01T00:00:00 | dailymail | Religion and political ideals replaced with dogma that has turned beliefs into hate crimes | We are going through a great mass derangement. In public and in private, people are behaving in ways that are increasingly irrational, feverish, herd-like and unpleasant. The news is filled with the consequences. Yet while we see the symptoms everywhere, we don’t see the causes. Various explanations have been given, usually involving Donald Trump, Brexit, or both. But these explanations don’t get to the root cause of what is happening. For beneath all the day-to-day madnesses – over race, sex, sexuality, gender and the rest – are much greater movements and much bigger events. Even the origin of this mass derangement is rarely acknowledged. This is the simple fact that we have been living through a period of more than a quarter of a century in which all our grand narratives about our existence have collapsed. Religion went first, falling away from the 19th Century onwards. Then, over the past century, the secular hopes held out by all political ideologies followed. In the latter part of the 20th Century, we entered the post-modern era, defined by its suspicion towards grand narratives. However, nature abhors a vacuum. People in today’s wealthy Western democracies could not simply remain the first people in recorded history to have no explanation for what we are doing here and no story to give life purpose. The question of what exactly we are meant to do now – other than get rich and have fun – was going to have to be answered by something. The answer that has presented itself in recent years has been to live in a permanent state of outrage. To find meaning by waging constant war against anybody who seems to be on the wrong side of a question to which the answer has only just been altered. The bewildering speed of this process has been principally caused by the Silicon Valley giants (notably Google, Twitter and Facebook). They have the power not just to direct what most people in the world know, think and say, but have a business model which has accurately been described as relying on finding ‘customers ready to pay to modify someone else’s behaviour’. But today’s wars of ideas are not random – they are consistently being fought in a new and particular direction. And that direction has a purpose that is vast. The purpose – unwitting in some people, deliberate in others – is nothing less than to embed a new religion into our societies. though the foundations had been laid over several decades, it is only since the financial crash of 2008 that there has been a march into the mainstream of ideas that were previously known solely on the obscurest fringes of academia. The interpretation of the world through the lens of ‘social justice’ and ‘identity group politics’ is probably the most audacious and comprehensive effort since the end of the Cold War at creating a new ideology. To date, ‘social justice’ has run the furthest because it sounds – and in some versions is – attractive. Even the term is set up to be impossible to argue with. ‘You’re opposed to social justice? What do you want, social injustice?’ The attractions are obvious. After all, why should a generation which can’t accumulate capital have any great love of capitalism? And it isn’t hard to work out why a generation who believe they may never own a home could be attracted to an ideological world view which promises to sort out every inequality. The place where social justice finds its warriors is identity politics. This atomises society into different interest groups according to sex (or gender), race, sexual preference and more. It presumes that such characteristics are the main, or only, relevant attributes of their holders and that they bring an added bonus. As the American writer Coleman Hughes has put it, it assumes there is ‘a heightened moral knowledge’ that comes with being black or female or gay. It’s why people start statements with ‘Speaking as a ...’. And this new religion is something that people both living and dead must be on the right side of. That’s why there are calls to pull down statues of historical figures viewed as being on the wrong side and it is why the past needs to be rewritten to suit any interest group you wish to champion. Identity politics is where minority groups are encouraged to simultaneously atomise, organise and go on the attack. Tied into this is something social justice warriors call ‘intersectionality’ – the notion that there is a hierarchy of oppressed minorities and society should organise itself around correcting this. Today, intersectionality has broken out from the social science departments of the universities from which it originated into the mainstream. It’s now taken seriously by millennials and has become embedded via employment law (through a ‘commitment to diversity’) in all major corporations and governments. The speed at which the ‘social justice’ causes have taken over everyday life is staggering. Once-obscure phrases such as ‘LGBTQ’, ‘white privilege’, ‘the patriarchy’ and ‘transphobia’ are suddenly heard everywhere – even though in the words of mathematician Eric Weinstein, they were ‘all made up about 20 minutes ago’. The policing of these issues is an even more recent phenomenon. Researchers found that phrases like ‘triggered’ and ‘feeling unsafe’ only spiked in usage from 2013 onwards. It is as though, having worked out what it wanted, the new religion took a further half-decade to work out how to impose its credo on non-believers. But it has done so with frightening success. The maddening results can be seen on a daily basis. It’s why a British academic study which found muscular, wealthy men are more attractive could be headlined by Newsweek magazine as: ‘Men with muscles and money are more attractive to straight women and gay men – showing gender roles aren’t progressing.’ It’s why a previously completely unknown programmer at Google could be sacked for writing a memo suggesting some tech jobs appeal more to men than women. It is why The New York Times ran a piece by a black author with the title: ‘Can my children be friends with white people?’ And it’s why a piece about cycling deaths in London written by a woman was framed through the headline: ‘Roads designed by men are killing women.’ Such rhetoric exacerbates existing divisions and creates new ones. For what purpose? Rather than showing how we can all get along better, the lessons of the last decade appear to be exacerbating a sense that in fact we aren’t very good at living with each other. For most people, awareness of this new religion has become clear not so much by trial as by public error. Because one thing that everybody has begun to sense in recent years is that a set of tripwires have been laid across the culture. Among the first tripwires was anything to do with homosexuality. In the latter half of the 20th Century, there was a fight for gay equality which rightly succeeded in reversing a terrible historic injustice. Then, the war having been won, it didn’t stop. Indeed it began morphing. GLB (Gay, Lesbian, Bi) became LGB so as not to diminish lesbians. Then a T for ‘trans’ and a Q for ‘queer’ or ‘questioning’ got added. Then the movement behaved – in victory – as its opponents once did, as oppressors. When the boot was on the other foot, something ugly happened. A decade ago, almost nobody was supportive of gay marriage. Even gay rights group Stonewall wasn’t in favour. Now it’s a central tenet of modern liberalism. To fail the gay marriage test – only years after almost everybody failed it – is to put yourself beyond the pale. People may agree with or disagree with gay marriage. But to shift mores so fast needs to be done with sensitivity and deep thought. Yet we engage in neither. Other issues followed a similar pattern. Women’s rights had also been steadily accumulated throughout the 20th Century. They too appeared to be arriving at some sort of settlement. Then, just as the train appeared to be reaching its desired destination, it filled with steam again and went roaring off into the distance. What had been barely disputed until yesterday became a cause to destroy someone’s life today. Whole careers were scattered and strewn as the train careered along its path. Careers like that of the 72-year-old Nobel Prize-winning UCL Professor Tim Hunt were destroyed after one lame joke, at a conference in South Korea, about men and women falling in love in the lab. What was the virtue of making relations between the sexes so fraught? Why, when women had broken through more glass ceilings than at any other time, did talk of ‘the patriarchy’ seep out of feminist fringes and into popular culture? In a similar fashion, the civil rights movement in America, which started to right the most appalling of all historic wrongs, looked like it was moving towards some hoped-for resolution. Again, near the point of victory everything soured. Just as things appeared better than ever before, the rhetoric started suggesting things had never been worse. The most recent tripwire addition, and most toxic of all of them, is the trans issue. It affects the fewest number of people, but is nevertheless fought over with an almost unequalled ferocity and rage. Women who have got on the wrong side of the issue, including notable feminists like Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore, have been hounded by people who used to be men. Meanwhile, mothers and fathers who voice concerns that ten years ago would have been considered common sense have their fitness to be parents questioned. People who will not concede that men can be women (and vice versa) can amazingly now expect a knock on the door from police. Last September, a billboard that comprised the dictionary definition ‘woman: noun, adult human female’ was taken down after someone complained it was a ‘symbol that makes transgender people feel unsafe’. Everyone knows what they will be called if their foot nicks against society’s new tripwires. Bigot, homophobe, sexist, misogynist, racist and transphobe are for starters. To avoid these accusations, citizens must prove their commitment to fashionable causes. How might somebody demonstrate virtue in this new world? By being ‘anti-racist’, clearly. By being an ‘ally’ to LGBT people, obviously. By stressing how ardent your desire is to bring down the patriarchy. And this creates a situation where public avowals of loyalty to the system must be made regardless of whether it’s needed. It’s an extension of a problem in liberalism identified by the late political philosopher Kenneth Minogue as ‘St George in retirement’ syndrome. After slaying the dragon, the warrior finds himself stalking the land looking for more glorious fights. Eventually, after tiring himself out in pursuit of ever-smaller dragons, he may eventually be found swinging his sword at thin air, imagining dragons. Today our public life is dense with people desperate to slay imagined dragons. On all the big issues, an increasing number of people, with the law on their side, now pretend that all questions have been resolved, all answers agreed upon – and that no good person can have any doubts. The case is very much otherwise. Each of these issues is infinitely more complex and unstable than our societies admit. Yet while the endless contradictions, fabrications and fantasies within each are visible, identifying them is not just discouraged but policed. And so we are asked to agree to things which we cannot believe, and told not to object to things to which most people object, such as giving children drugs to stop them going through puberty or allowing men who self-identify as female to use female toilets. The pain that comes from being expected to remain silent on important matters and perform impossible leaps on others is tremendous, not least because the problems are so evident. As anyone who has lived under totalitarianism can attest, there is something demeaning and eventually soul-destroying about being expected to go along with claims you do not believe to be true. If the belief is that all people should be regarded as having equal value and be accorded equal dignity, then that may be all well and good. But if you’re asked to believe there are no differences between men and women, racism and anti-racism, homosexuality and heterosexuality, then this will drive you to distraction. That distraction is something we’re in the middle of and something we must try to find our way out from. If we fail, the direction of travel is clear. We face not just a future of ever-greater atomisation, rage and violence, but a future in which the possibility of a backlash against all rights advances – including the good ones – grows more likely. A future in which racism is responded to with racism, denigration based on gender is responded to with denigration based on gender. At some stage of humiliation there is simply no reason for majority groups not to retaliate with the exact same weapons that have worked so well on themselves. | null | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7415169/Religion-political-ideals-replaced-dogma-turned-beliefs-hate-crimes.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490 | 2019-09-01 02:57:34+00:00 | 1,567,321,054 | 1,569,331,677 | science and technology | social sciences |
136,398 | dailysignal--2019-04-08--Jordan Peterson Explains What Draws People to Socialism | 2019-04-08T00:00:00 | dailysignal | Jordan Peterson Explains What Draws People to Socialism | _Jordan Peterson spoke at a Heritage Foundation event in New York City. We discussed the rise of socialism in America, the importance of personal responsibility, and why his message is resonating with so many people. Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, a clinical psychologist, and author of the book “_[ _12 Rules for Life_](https://amzn.to/2UmRfFl) _.” A lightly edited transcript is below, or you can listen to the interview on The Daily Signal Podcast._ **Genevieve Wood: People are interested in what you have to say.** **Jordan Peterson:** It seems that way, somewhat of a shock. **Wood: Or maybe it’s because you aren’t a politician, you are a psychologist and you understand more about what’s going on in the world than many of our lawmakers actually do.** **I know we’ve got so many ways that we could go with this interview tonight. We have questions, thank you to all of you in the audience who sent in your questions. I’ve got some of them right here, and we’re going to get into those. But … let’s just start with the socialism piece. Do you think Americans truly understand the history of socialism, and actually what it is?** **… You speak to, not just college campuses, you’ve been to events around the world. I think 250,000 people you’ve spoken in front of.** **Peterson:** People are unbelievably ignorant about history. I would include myself in that. I know what I know about history, say, proceeding the 20th century is very sketchy. It’s embarrassingly sketchy. What young people know about 20th century history is nonexistent, especially about the history of the radical left. I mean, how would they know? They’re never taught anything about it, so why would they be concerned about it? And then, for many of the people in the audience, you’re old enough so that the fall of the Berlin Wall was part of your life. That was really the end of the Second World War … and it was very meaningful. But that’s a long time ago. There’s been a lot of people born since then, and it’s ancient history. We don’t have that many good bad examples left. There’s North Korea, there’s Venezuela, but we’re not locked tooth and nail in … in a proxy war and a cold war with the Soviet Union. It’s easy to understand why people are emotionally drawn to the ideals of socialism, let’s say the left, because it draws its fundamental motivational source from a primary compassion. That is always there in human beings, and so that proclivity for sensitivity to that political message will never go away. It’s important to understand that. You have to give the devil his due, unfortunately. **Wood: You’ve also said that people aren’t as resentful at the success of others as we might think. And I think as you watched a lot of people being interviewed today and you watched some of the students being interviewed, … you hear people talking a lot about inequality, but you say they really aren’t as resentful as we might think as long as they don’t think the game is fixed.** **Peterson:** Yes, that’s certainly the case. First of all, if you look at the psychological literature to the degree that it’s accurate, which is difficult to ascertain often, people report far more prejudice against their group than against themselves. That’s quite an interesting phenomenon, as far as I’m concerned. There’s a tendency for people to exaggerate the degree to which the group they belong to is currently suffering from generalized oppression. They’ve been relatively free of it themselves. I also think that fairness is an absolutely essential, and perceived fairness is an absolutely essential component of peace. Because people can tolerate inequality, so to speak, or even revel in it, if they believe that the unequal outcome is deserved. Look at how people respond to sports heroes. … No one goes to a sports event and boos the star, even though he or she is paid much better and attracts the lion’s share of the attention, hopefully not in a narcissistic manner. People can celebrate success, but they do have to believe that the game is fair. And the game needs to be fair because otherwise the hierarchy becomes tyrannical. The problem with the radical left is that it assumes that all hierarchies are tyrannical, and it makes no distinction between them. And that’s an absolute catastrophe because there’s plenty of sins on the conscience of the West as a civilization. But we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, and there are far worse places. … People also don’t understand that, and they also don’t understand this is something that’s of particular importance. They also don’t understand … the knowledge of how rapidly we’re making economic improvements around the world, in the developing world, for example, how fast that’s happening. That is not well distributed knowledge, that between the year 2000 and the year 2012, the rate of absolute poverty in the world fell by 50%. Now, it’s a U.N. figure. One dollar and 90 cents a day, that was their cutoff for absolute poverty. So, the cynics have said, “Well, that’s a pretty low barrier. It’s not such an achievement to obtain that.” I can tell you it’s an achievement to obtain that if you were living on less than $1.90 day to begin with. But if you look at, if you double the amount to $3.80, or you double it again to $7.60, you find the same pattern. The poor in the world are getting rich at a rate that is absolutely unparalleled in all of human history. I think a large part of that is happening in Africa. By the way, here’s another lovely piece of news, the child mortality rate in Africa is now the same as it was in Europe in 1952. That’s an absolute miracle. It’s insane that that’s not front-page news, right? That within a lifetime. And the fastest-growing economies in the world are also there. **Wood: But, as you’re saying, why isn’t it front-page news? And when you’re considering social media, and how fast news, and photos, and all that can travel, and that young people are aficionados of all this technology, why don’t they know these things? Or why aren’t they computing what they see as being progress?** **Peterson:** I think part of it is that things are changing so fast that none of us can keep up. It’s hard to keep the story updated. I had no idea, for example, that most of the world’s economic news and even a substantial proportion of its ecological news was positive until I started to work on a U.N. committee about five years ago on sustainable economic development. I read very widely, economically, and also ecologically and realized that things were way better than I had any sense of. That these improvements had come at a tremendous rate. But you see partly, it is just that it’s so new that we don’t know and we don’t have a story about it. And who would be driving the communication of such things? Especially given two other things. One is that human beings are tilted toward negative emotion in terms of its potency. For example, people … are much less happy to lose $5 than they are happy to gain $5. We’re loss averse. We’re more sensitive to negative emotion than we are to positive emotion, and there’s a reason for that. The reason is, you can only be so happy but you can be dead and right. And I mean dead, that’s not good. And there can be a lot of misery on the way to that end, so we’re tilted to protect ourselves and that makes us more interested, in some sense, and more easily captivated by the negative than by the positive. That’s a hard bias to fight. And then when you also take into account … and I think this is something that worth seriously considering because the other thing we don’t understand is the technological revolution that’s occurring in every form of media. No one understands it. But one of the consequences is that the mainstream media, so to speak, is increasingly desperate for attention. They exist in a shrinking market with shrinking margins, all of the leading newspapers and magazines are feeling the pinch. Television is dead because YouTube has everything the television has, and then an incredible array of additional features. And radio is being replaced by podcasts, so it’s a very unstable time for the mainstream media and what would you expect them to do except to do whatever they can to attract attention in whatever manner they can manage? … One very good example of this is you may or may not know that the rates of violent crime in the United States and actually in most places have plummeted in the last 50 years. It’s really quite remarkable. The United States is now safer in terms of violent crime than it has been since the early ’60s. And that was probably the safest time there ever was. But the degree to which violent crime has been reported has increased. It’s funny, the curves are almost completely opposite to one another. This is the decline in violent crime, this is the increase in the reporting of violent crime. And the reason for that is people read stories about violent crime, and then of course, they’re much more likely to believe that it’s on the increase. The people who are most likely to believe that it’s on the increase are also those who are least likely to be affected by it because to be a victim of a violent crime, it helps to drink too much, but it also helps a lot to be young and male. And those aren’t the people who are particularly afraid of violent crime even though they’re the ones most likely to be implicated in it. So there’s technological reasons for our concentration on the negative and they’re complex. It’s not easy to figure out how to combat the spiral of outrage and attention-seeking that I think is accompanying the depth of our previous means of communication. No one knows how to handle that, and that’s a big problem. **Wood: … I know so many in this audience—and not just here in New York, but we hear from our members all over the country—they’re so concerned about what their children and what their grandchildren are both being taught. But also what they’re coming back home from college and talking about and saying, “Where are they learning this?” And they know where they’re learning them, but how does this get seeped into them?** **You obviously have spoken not just at the University of Toronto, but colleges all over the world. What is it you see today on the campus, or among young people today that’s new? Or is it new? I’ve heard you say that we’re no more polarized today than we were maybe even under Richard Nixon, and the campuses were more on fire then than even they are today. So what are the similarities and differences that you’re seeing?** **Peterson:** I don’t see any real evidence that your society is more polarized, generally speaking, than it has been many times in the past. And I think the next scenario is a good example. If you think about it, merely statistically, you’ve been split 50/50, Republican/Democrat, for what? Five elections now. And it’s almost perfect 50/50 split, that really hasn’t changed. Trump, of course, is somewhat of a wild card and so that complicates things. But I don’t think it changes the underlying dynamic. What I do think has arisen again—because it’s made itself manifest many times in the last 100 years—is the rise of this group identity-associated, quasi-marxist viewpoint with this additional toxic mixture and paradoxical mixture of postmodernism. The postmodernists are famous for being skeptical of meta narratives that might be a defining—that was Lyotard, I believe, who coined that, although I might be wrong. It was one of the French postmodernists. And that means that they’re skeptical about the idea that large uniting narratives are valid. And it’s a huge problem, that claim, because the first question is, “How big does the narrative have to be before it’s a meta narrative?” Is the narrative that holds your family together falsehood? Is the narrative that holds your community together a falsehood? How big does it have to be before it becomes a falsehood? So it’s a very vague claim, and it’s a very dangerous claim, in my estimation … and I believe the psychological research is clear on this. What we have, our cognitive abilities are nested inside stories. We’re fundamentally narrative creatures, that’s how our brains are organized. And to deny the validity of large-scale narratives is to deny the validity of the manner in which we organize our psyches, and that’s unbelievably destabilizing for people. First of all, the simplest story in some sense is that I’m at point A, and I’m going to point B. That’s not as simple a story as it might sound because it implies that you are somewhere and that you know it, you have a representation of it geographically, let’s say, socially, psychologically, you have some sense of who you are. But more importantly, you have some sense of who you are transforming yourself into. So that gives you a direction. The direction gives you meaning. … I don’t mean that in a cliched sense. What I mean is that the way that our brains are constituted is that almost all the positive emotion that people feel—and it’s also true of animals—it emerges as a consequence of observing that you’re making your way to a valued endpoint. So you think what makes you happy is the attainment of something, and there is a form of reward that is associated with that that’s called consummatory reward. It’s the satisfaction that you feel say after you have a delightful Thanksgiving meal, but that isn’t the hope and the meaning that people thrive on. The hope and the meaning that people thrive on is the observation that they’re moving toward something worthwhile and that might be individually, although it really can’t be because we live in collectives. But it should be collective and that isn’t optional. If you don’t have a goal, a transcendent goal, say something that’s beyond you, then you don’t have any positive emotion and that’s not good because you have plenty of negative emotion. That’s the problem with fundamental claims of meaninglessness, too, in life. That it’s the philosophical error that’s made by nihilists who say life is meaningless. It’s like, well, if you’re a nihilist genuinely, you’ve lost all hope your life isn’t meaningless, it’s just unbearably miserable and that’s a form of meaning. Suffering is a form of meaning and you can try to argue yourself out of that with your nihilistic rationalizations, but that is not going to work. You need a transcendent goal in order to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the destruction of the narratives that guide us individually, physiologically, and that also unite us socially, familiarly and socially. It’s an absolute catastrophe. The question then is, why is it being undertaken? That’s a complex question and I don’t know if we can even discuss that. That has something to do with this unholy marriage of the postmodern nihilism with this Marxist utopian notion, which makes no sense at all because the postmodernists are skeptical of metanarratives, yet Marxism is a grant metanarrative. … **Wood:** **It doesn’t have to make sense.** **Peterson:** In fact, the idea that things make sense is part of the oppressive patriarchy. … People teach that in a dead serious manner that the requirement for logical consistency is an arbitrary and positional and cognitive structure. It’s not something necessary for rational cognition, even if there is such a thing. You don’t know how deep this war goes in some sense. I can give you an example. There’s a debate about free speech on campus. But what you don’t understand is it isn’t a debate about who can speak, it’s a debate about whether there is such a thing as free speech and the answer from the radicals is that there isn’t because for there to be free speech, there has to be sovereign individuals, right? Those sovereign individuals have to be defined by that sovereign individuality. They have to have their own locus of truth. In some sense, that’s a consequence of that sovereignty. And then they have to be able to engage in rational discursive negotiation with people who aren’t like them, which means they have to stretch their hands across racial or ethnic divides. They have to be able to communicate and they have to be able to formulate, and negotiated, and practical agreement, and none of that is parcel of the postmodern doctrine. All of that’s up for grabs. There’s no sovereign individuals. Your group identity is paramount. You have no unique voice. You’re a mouthpiece of your identity group. You can’t speak across group lines because you don’t understand the lived experience of the other. So it’s not who gets to speak, it’s whether the entire notion is a very classic Western notion and a very deep one of free and intelligible speech is even valid. This intellectual war that’s going on in the universities is way deeper than a political war. It’s way more serious than a political war. It manifest itself politically but, no, politics is way up the scale from where this is actually taking place. **Wood: So when you’re talking with students both one on one or taking their questions … these are not all conservative students that are coming up to you and they’re downloading your videos and listening to your podcast. Though it is a lot of young men, it’s not all men.** **Peterson:** Right. **Wood: What do you think drives people to the message and to the things that you talk about?** **Peterson:** I think I’m believable. That’s why. … I’ve done about 150 public lectures or so in the last year, all over the world and to large audiences, the audiences in Australia were starting to approach. We had audiences of 5,500 people in Australia, which is quite remarkable that 5,500 people would come to listen to a serious discussion about philosophical, theological, and psychological issues and participate in that. I don’t pull any punches, I’m not speaking down, I would never speak down to an audience. I think that’s a dreadful error of arrogance. But the reason I think people believe what I say is that I’m very pessimistic. Most times when you listen to someone who’s a motivational speaker, … it fills you with a temporary optimism, but you go home and the wiser part of you knows that mostly it’s the painting over of rotten wood with a fresh coat of paint. I tell my audiences very clearly that their life is going to be difficult and sometimes difficult beyond both imagining and tolerance. That is definitely in your future, if it isn’t in your present, and for many people it’s in their present. That can be unbearable enough to turn you against life itself. To corrupt you, to drive you to nihilism, to drive you to suicide, and worse, to drive you to thoughts of vengefulness of infinite scope. To not only be turned against yourself and your fellow men but to be turned against being itself because of its intrinsically brutal, in some sense, nature. That it’s worse than that actually because it’s not only that we suffer and that that will necessarily occur, but that we all make our suffering worse because of our ignorance and our malevolence and everyone knows that to be true. So the discussions start on an unshakable foundation, but then I can tell people … that despite that we’re remarkable creatures. We’re capable of taking up the burden of that suffering and facing the reality of that malevolence voluntarily. We can actually do that and all of the psychological evidence suggests—and this is independence of your school of psychology, if you’re a practical psychologist. A clinical psychologist of any sort, the evidence is crystal clear that if people voluntarily confront the problems that face them and the malevolence that surrounds them, they can make headway against it. And not only psychologically. So it’s not only meaningful to do that psychologically, which it is to confront the problems that torment you voluntarily. That’s meaningful psychologically, but it’s also practically useful in that you can actually solve some of the problems that beset you. God only knows how good we can get at that. I don’t know what percentage of human effort is spent in counterproductive activity. I’m not an absolute cynic about that. But when I talk to undergraduates, I ask them, “How much time do you waste every day by your own reckoning?” It’s somewhere between five and eight hours. It’s a lot of time. I usually walk … the students through an economic analysis of that. I said, “Well, why don’t you value your time at $50 an hour and calculate for yourself just exactly what you’re doing to your future by your inability to discipline yourself?” It’s worth thinking through. In any case, people do waste a lot of time and they also act counter productively a lot of the time. Regardless, we do make progress and we can thrive under the difficult conditions that make up our lives and we can resist the malevolence that entices us. That’s within our power. We don’t know the limits to that and we also know that it’s better to … live courageously than cowardly. Everyone knows that. That’s what you teach people that you love. We know that it’s better to live truthfully than in deceit and you can tell that, too, because that’s also what you tell people that you love and we know that you should pick up your damn responsibility and move forward. Everyone knows that. It’s part of our intrinsic moral nature and that nature is there. It’s not difficult to communicate to people about this. Everyone knows that you wake up at three in the morning when you’ve let your life go off the rails and that you berate yourself for your uselessness and your cruelty and your failure to take the opportunities that are in front of you. If you are the master in your own house, in some sense, the captain of your own destiny, if there was no intrinsic nature, that would never happen. You’d just let yourself off the hook. There’d be no voice of conscious tormenting you. But no one escapes from that and what that indicates to me is that at least psychologically we live in a universe that’s characterized by a moral dimension and we understand that well. Moral failings have consequences and they’re not trivial, they destroy you. They destroy your family, they destroy your community. You can tell people that and they listen because they know. They don’t know they know. That’s the thing and maybe that’s the thing about being an intellectual. You have the opportunity to articulate ideas that other people know, they embody, but they can’t articulate and that’s what people tell me. They say, “Well, you help me give words to things that I always knew to be true but couldn’t say.” Or they say, “I would be trying to put some of your precepts into practice, responsibility being a main one, vision another, honesty.” … It’s the remarkable part of doing all this. I have people tell me constantly wherever I go—it’s so delightful that they were in a pretty dark place and they tell me why, and there are plenty of dark places in the world, and they decided, well, maybe they were going to develop a bit of a vision and take a bit more responsibility and start telling the truth and putting some effort into something and they come up and they say, “Wow you can’t believe how much better things are.” It’s like I got three promotions. I had one guy tell me—this was a lovely story. Fifteen seconds. He came up after a talk, he said, “Two years ago, I got out of jail, I was homeless.” He said, “I own my own house. I have a six- figure income, I got married, and I have a daughter, thank you.” And that was the whole conversation. It’s like he decided he was going to put his life together. So you can look at that pessimism that constitutes … I think, the core religious message, really is the tragic nature of the world, the reality of suffering. It’s part of the core religious message. But what emerges out of that properly conceptualized is a remarkable appreciation for what human beings are capable of. We are unbelievably resilient and able creatures. We do not have any conception of our upper limits. **Wood: … Is that hope that you’re talking about, that you’re giving people hope, young people hope, is that one of the secrets to reaching them?** **Peterson:** It’s a funny kind of hope and it’s such a perverse sort of hope because I would say for the last 45 years we’ve told—psychologists have been certainly to blame for this, at least in part—”You’re OK the way you are,” that’s what we tell young people. “Oh, you’re OK the way you are.” … There’s nothing worse … you can tell someone who’s young than that, especially if they’re miserable. Lots of them, if they’re miserable and aimless, it’s like, “Oh, I’m miserable and aimless and sometimes I’m suicidal and I’m nihilistic and I don’t have any direction … in my life.” It’s like, “Well, you’re OK the way you are.” It’s like they don’t want to hear that. They want to hear, … “You’re useless. You know nothing, you haven’t got started. You’ve got 60 years to put yourself together and God only knows what you could become.” That message is so … funny because it’s such an attack but it’s so positive because there’s faith there in the potential that makes up the person rather than the miserable actuality that happens to be manifesting itself at the moment. Young people respond extraordinarily well to that. … If you’re a parent and you love your child, your son, your daughter, what you’re trying to foster is the best in them. You want that to manifest itself across the course of their life. You want them to become continually more than they are to see what they could be. And I think that’s part of the great message of the West is that that’s the ethical requirement of individual being, in the proper sense, is to constantly know that you’re not what you could be, to take responsibility for that, and to commit yourself, body and soul, to the attainment of that ideal. **Wood: We’re going to get a question here from our members, right here in the front row. Bob Grantham had a couple good questions right here. He asked, “Much of your effort today is trying to help people improve their lives.” You’ve just been talking about that. “Why does the establishment attack you, rather than try to support your efforts?”** **Peterson:** We should be nuanced about that. A group of newspapers in Canada called Postmedia—that’s 200 newspapers strong—they supported me. I’ve had a lot of support from journalists, and I would say I’ve had more support from the higher quality journalists, which I’m quite happy about. So, it’s polarized. I have a dedicated coterie of people who regard me as an enemy. There’s no doubt about that. And I think it’s because I am absolutely no fan whatsoever of the radical left. I think the fact that you can actively present yourself on campus as a communist … the fact that that’s allowable is as mysterious as it would be if it was allowable to present yourself as a Nazi. I am not a fan of the radical left. And I understand the motivations on the radical left, both on the postmodernist end and on the more Marxist end. Because of that, I’m a relatively effective critic, and that makes me very unpopular. And that’s fine because … because what people are being taught, that’s emerged from that brand of absurd and surreal philosophy, is of no utility as a guiding light to anyone. It’s a catastrophe to take young people in their formative years, when they’re trying to catalyze their adult identity, and to tear the substructure out from underneath them and leave them bereaved. I do believe that that’s what the universities—on the humanities end, and to some degree on the social science end—fundamentally manage to achieve. I don’t admire that. I think there’s something deeply sadistic about that. There’s something deeply anti-human about that, and it presents itself in the guise of moral virtue, which makes it even worse. Well, that’s why people don’t like me. **Wood: All right. … So, this was [Adam from Vassar College’s] question. He said, “Given the liberal political order bends toward automatization of individuals, e.g. automation and urbanization, how can meaningful community be assured?”** **Peterson:** You build that for yourself, in part. I mean, Adam, get a girlfriend. People aren’t doing that. That’s falling by the wayside, right? And it’s because it’s trouble … Life is trouble. And it’s trouble to establish a permanent relationship. We’ve told young people for far too long that they should be happy in their relationships. And it’s like, that’s weak. … God, most of you are married. To be married for 40 years, that’s not a triumph of happiness. It’s a triumph of character. It’s a triumph of negotiation, right? It’s a triumph of will to do that. And that should be celebrated. But to children today, it should also be pointed out, that no matter who you find, they’re no better than you. And that’s not so good. So, there’s going to be problems. But that shouldn’t stop you. Find someone. If you’re lucky, you’re going to have the opportunity to sort of sift through about five people in your life. That’s about it. And then you’re going to have to stake yourself on one of those people. It’s a hell of a risk, but with any luck, it’ll make you a better person, that wrestling. … I did a series of biblical lectures in 2017, which have turned out to be crazily popular of all the insane things to be. **Wood: And I was supposed to ask you, why do you think that is?** **Peterson:** … Well, one of the things I learned in those lectures—and should’ve known before—was that the word Israel, so the chosen people of God, the people of Israel, are those who wrestle with God. And that’s such an interesting idea. It’s a fascinating idea because it indicates at least—even in our deepest religious texts—that there’s something about existential conflict and engaging in that that’s actually part of the moral substructure of life. That simple belief, let’s say, whatever that might mean in a deity, isn’t sufficient. There’s an active engagement with the infinite. And it’s a battle in some sense. And I think that’s the proper way to conceptualize. And I think it’s the proper way to conceptualize a relationship. It’s a battle. It’s a battle toward a positive end. It’s a battle toward the transformation of both of you into more than you could’ve otherwise been. So, you need that. And you need your friends. And you need to develop a network of friendship. And you need to put your family together and to act responsibly toward them. And then you need to move out from that into the broader community. And that’s on you. That’s how you foster it. You make it a part of the ideal that you’re pursuing, and then you realize that that’s up to you to do. And maybe then you realize that you can do it as well, if you’re willing to make the right sacrifices—which usually means burning off a fair bit of dead wood. And that’s not something that people are particularly excited about doing. And no wonder. **Wood: … Thinking of our theme of standing up against socialism, what have I not asked you about? What have other interviewers not asked you about that would be beneficial for us all to know?** **Peterson:** Well, you asked a little bit about these biblical lectures, and what was interesting was I rented a theater in Toronto. I rented it 15 times. It was theater of about 500 and sold out every time. And I lectured about Genesis. It was mostly young men who came. They weren’t all young, but they were mostly men, which was very surprising because that’s just not what happens. The reason that the lectures worked was because I put together something that I don’t think liberals or conservatives have done a good job of putting together. The liberals are more on the happiness and freedom end of things, and the conservatives are more on the duty end of things. And those both have their place. But I’ve been attempting to develop an argument that’s centered on meaning. And I believe that our most central religious symbols—like the symbol of the cross itself, for example, the bearing of the cross, is an embodiment or a symbolic representation of this idea that you have to have a meaning in life that sustains you. Life is a serious business. You’re all in. It’s a fatal business, right? Everyone’s in it up to their neck, and it’s dreadful in some sense, in the classic sense. And you need a meaning that can sustain you through that, and that’s to be found in responsibility. And that’s something that we have not communicated, I don’t think, well to ourselves. But we certainly haven’t communicated it to young people. It’s like, “Well, you’re lost? There’s reasons that you could be lost, and they’re real.” God only knows what terrible things happened to you in your life. It’s like, “How are you going to get out of that?” Well, not by pursuing impulsive happiness. That is not going to work. Not by thinking in the short term. Not by thinking in a narrowly selfish manner, either. But by taking on the heaviest load of responsibility that you can conceptualize and bear. That will do it. It’ll do it for you. It’ll give you a reason to wake up in the morning. It’ll give you a balm for your conscience when you wake up at night and ask yourself what you’re doing with your life. It’ll make you a credit to yourself and to your family, and it’ll make you a boon to your community. And more than that. There’s more than that. It’s said in Genesis that every person is made in the image of God. And there’s an idea in Genesis that God is that which confronts the chaos of potential with truth and courage. That’s the logos. If we’re made in the image of God, that’s us. That’s what we do, we confront the potential of chaos, the future, the unformed future. We confront that consciously, and we decide with every ethical choice we make what kind of world we’re going to bring into being. We transform that potential into actuality. And we do that as a consequence of our ethical decisions. So, it’s not only a matter of putting yourself together and putting your family together, putting your community together. It’s a matter of bringing the world in its proper shape into being. I truly believe that that’s the case. I believe that we all believe that. We hold ourselves responsible. You know, that if you’ve made a mistake with your family because you were selfish or narrow-minded or blind in some manner that you regard yourself as culpable. You could have done otherwise. And now you’ve brought something into the world that should not be there. And it’s on you. We hold ourselves responsible in that manner. So, what that indicates to me is that in a deep sense, we believe that we are the agents that transform the potential of being into reality. … If anything, [that] links us with divinity. It’s our capability to transform what is not yet into what is. The other thing that happens … is that as God conducts himself through this enterprise of the transformation of potential into actuality, he stops repeatedly and says, “And it was good.” And that’s a mystery. Why is it good? The answer is something like, “Well, if you conduct yourself with the courage that enables you to accept your vulnerability—which is no trivial matter—and if you’re truthful, then what you bring out of potential is what’s good.” And that sets the world right. And that’s up to us. To me, that’s the great story of the West. That’s why we regard ourselves as sovereign individuals of value, is that’s what we are. And we need to know that to take ourselves seriously and to act properly in the world. That’s what I said in the biblical lectures in many hours. And that’s what’s made them popular because people, at the level of the soul, people know these things to be true. **Wood: Ladies and gentleman, please help me thank Jordan Peterson.** | Genevieve Wood | https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/04/08/jordan-peterson-explains-what-draws-people-to-socialism/ | 2019-04-08 07:01:44+00:00 | 1,554,721,304 | 1,567,543,637 | science and technology | social sciences |
136,475 | dailysignal--2019-07-02--How to Restore America | 2019-07-02T00:00:00 | dailysignal | How to Restore America | Are America’s best days behind it? Or is there a way to return to the values that our Founding Fathers and so many subsequent generations held? Tim Goeglein, co-author of the new book “[American Restoration: How Faith, Family, and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q2437ZR/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)” is an optimist about the future—believing Americans can rebuild their culture from the ground up, starting in their own neighborhoods. Read the full interview, posted below, or listen on the podcast: We also cover these stories: * Iran announces it has more uranium than was allowed under the Iran agreement. * President Donald Trump is mad at New York state, which he says is targeting him unfairly. * Sen. Ted Cruz calls for the Justice Department to investigate after a journalist is attacked by Antifa. The Daily Signal podcast is available on [Ricochet,](https://ricochet.com/podcast/daily-signal/) [iTunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-signal- podcast/id1313611947?mt=2), [SoundCloud](https://soundcloud.com/dailysignal), [Google Play](https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/Ioljswxouzznf6gseznz3sptndu), or [Stitcher](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-daily-signal-podcast). All of our podcasts can be found at [DailySignal.com/podcasts](https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts). If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [[email protected]](/cdn-cgi/l/email- protection#86eae3f2f2e3f4f5c6e2e7efeafff5efe1e8e7eaa8e5e9eb). Enjoy the show! **Daniel Davis: We are joined in the studio now by Timothy Goeglein.** **He is the vice president for external and government relations at Focus on the Family here in Washington, D.C. And he’s also co-author of the new book “[American Restoration: How Faith, Family and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q2437ZR/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1).” ** **Tim, thanks for your time.** **Tim Goeglein:** It’s a real pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. **Davis: So Tim, in this new book, you talk a lot about the need to return to America’s spiritual foundations.** **There’s so much to unpack there, but I want to ask you, first off, what do you mean when you say returning to American spiritual foundations?** **Goeglein:** It’s impossible to understand the United States of America without understanding the spiritual foundation, even before our founding. You know, Americans were a great presence in North America 150 years before we were formally a country. And literally from the beginning we were a nation, which was a eventually a religious republic. A country that faith and public life could not be divorced. They went together. And from the very beginning, this idea of self-government was rooted in a spiritual dimension that you cannot impose virtue, the other side of freedom, upon the people. That you need to have moral excellence in the people and in the leaders. Our Founding Fathers and mothers rightfully asked, “Well, in the American experience, where does that come from?” And in the American experience, it comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition. In “American Restoration,” we do not open up our book pining for the 18th century or the 19th century or the 20th century. What we say is that the way forward is not despair and discouragement, but it is being hopeful about the next chapter of America. I’m an irredeemable optimist and “American Restoration” is built on the foundation. What we say in this book is that if we really want to restore our country and we’re very serious about restoration, regeneration, renewal, it’s not going to be rooted in Washington, D.C., and in government. It’s going to be rooted in faith, the family, and personal sacrifice in our communities, in our neighborhoods. That’s where the solutions, as it were for “American Restoration,” are really based. **Kate Trinko: You just mentioned that you’re hopeful and I would say that I am a pessimist, so I’m going to push back a little bit here.** **Why is there a realistic chance for hope when right now, a lot of Americans came, had grandparents from this foundation of faith and virtues, and have chosen to reject it?** **What about the modern world gives you any realistic hope that people are suddenly going to change their lives and take up sacrifice and virtue?** **Goeglein:** First, I’m a hopefulist … and may tell you it’s not rooted in a confetti-to-the-wind optimism. I am an optimist, but that’s not my basis for hope. First and foremost, I’m a Christian, and I love living in a country, in a culture and a civilization where the foundation of that hope is the Judeo-Christian tradition, which is definably, the best foundation that a country can be built on. I’ll tell you, I never negate and we should never negate as Americans that we’ve been in incredibly tough positions before. This is a country that lived through a Civil War. We lived through two world wars. We lived through the social and the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. During all of those periods of time, it was very tempting … for Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives to sort of say, “That’s the end of America.” There was a time not very long ago in the ’60s and ’70s where quite literally parts of America were burning down. Where there were shootings in the streets. Where there were shootings on campuses. Where we had the resignation of a U.S. president for the first time ever. We lost nearly 60,000 Americans in Vietnam. We lost 750,000 Americans in the Civil War. And I’ll tell you, during those chapters of American history, people said, “Count me out. The country’s done.” It isn’t. Because for America there’s always tomorrow and there’s always the hope for restoration. What we do in this book is that we set out a blueprint for how to restore the country. To restore the Constitution. To restore the family. To restore civic renewal and civic responsibility. It’s really a wonderful read because it’s a read that says better days are ahead. Not easy days. Restoring a country like ours is not easy. This is a large, complex continental nation of 329 [million] souls. … So when you’re talking about restoration, it is necessarily not going to be easy, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not a way forward. **Davis: Your book mentions multiple things. Fifteen actually. Fifteen chapters, 15 things, areas where America can be restored.** **Walk us through just a couple of those that you think are the most important and how specifically how that would happen.** **Goeglein:** I believe that the most important way to restore America begins in the home. It begins with family. We in America have a large percentage of families which are broken. Marriages, families, parenting, absolutely broken. And it is totally and completely central to our whole idea of restoration. Government cannot cause the family to fall in love again. Government cannot tuck a child into bed at night. But government can get out of the way. And government can also find ways to incentivize ways to make it easier for parents and families to thrive. So we with clarity and with, if I may say, pinpoint accuracy define focusing on the family as something that is absolutely central to the restoration of our country. We also concurrently say that it’s very important to restore the idea of the centrality of the Constitution. This is a country of law and not men. And the Constitution has a fixed meaning and a fixed purpose. And we have lived for too long in an ever-growing gargantuan federal government, which believes that it can better than families, communities, churches, synagogues, neighborhoods, localities, believes that it can better and more uniformly address the problems that ail us. In “American Restoration” we say just the opposite, that it begins at the local level. It begins with what the great statesman Edmund Burke called the “little platoons.” And what he meant [is] the little platoons are family, church, synagogue, neighborhood, community. All those associations and groups, which Tocqueville celebrated when he looked at America in the 1830s and [said], “That’s what makes America exceptional. It’s what makes us different.” **Davis: One of the things I want to ask about that, you talk about the importance of little platoons, but it seems to me that so often when we think about cultural erosion and corruption, a lot of it does come from the elites in our culture who are controlling.** **Think of the tech companies who control with algorithms what we see on social media. Or think about when you open up Netflix, the first thing you see is something overtly sexual that you didn’t want your kids to see.** **Those are the kinds of structural problems that are driving social change in the wrong direction. And those are set by elites, rather than people in local communities.** **Do you think that a big part of the problem at least is the culture of the elites and what they’re pushing through Hollywood, through Netflix, through other media that are affecting our communities?** **Goeglein:** I could not agree more. And not only can I not agree [more], this is part of the central narrative of “American Restoration,” that we believe that irresponsible elites across a series of professions have been a central part of the problem. I mentioned one of them a moment ago. The problem of a central government that is literally out of control. That believes it can micromanage better than people in the home or in the church or in the neighborhood or in the community. That it can control and make these decisions for us better than we can make them ourselves. So the answer is absolutely yes. A very good friend of mine is David Azerrad, and by the way, several people at The Heritage Foundation play an important role in “American Restoration.” We’ve gone into some of the best research that the matchless Heritage foundation has done. And we have used that in our book. One of the things that David Azerrad has written about is a front-row America and a back-row America. A front-row America being elites, who are out of touch. Who are like the boy and the girl in the bubble. You know, they don’t have to mix with other people but, in fact, back-row America is hurting very badly. And there have been many important studies and books that have—like “Hillbilly Elegy,” “Alienated Americans” by my friend Tim Carney—done an excellent job of distilling what the problem is. What “American Restoration” does is it’s a bookend to those kind of excellent analysis. It says, “Yes, we’ve got real problems in our nation. Here are the reasons why, and here are some of the ways that we can address head-on these real challenges and problems and can make them better.” We quote in this book a little-known scholar who deserves to be much better known, Gertrude Himmelfarb, in which she talks about how Victorian England—by the way, Victorian England was in absolute meltdown mode—reapplying the great spiritual truths of Anglo-American civilization was able to help restore a really great country. And there are lots of other examples. So restoration and renewal and regeneration are possible. It can happen and I’m confident. **Trinko: Yeah. And of course, if you’re interested in the back-row, front-row America, we interviewed Chris Arnade, the former Wall Street trader-turned- photo journalist, I guess you would say … I think might’ve coined that term.** **We had him on the podcast a few weeks ago and I’d encourage you to check that out if you’re into this topic.** **So, one poll that came out recently that really surprised me from The Wall Street Journal and the NBC News found that back in 2000, which is not that long ago, two decades ago, 41% of Americans said they went to religious services weekly. That number is now down to 29%.** **You and your book discuss a lot about how important regular church attendance is. What do you think drove the decline in the past two decades and how do we reverse this?** **Goeglein:** I believe that the biggest driver of the decline, as you describe it, has been the fractioning of the American family. And I want to give a very concrete example. One of the things, by the way, that powers “American Restoration” is not a bunch of opinions and anecdotes. It’s actually empirical data. It’s very important in data sets that we know what we are actually dealing [with], and I want to give just one example. … In 1965, a mere 56 years ago, 54 years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a very important study on the African American family in the United States of America. Now, this is only 1965. He found that 25% of all African Americans were born out of wedlock. Now we’re in 2019, that number is at 70% or above. Also, that’s 53% of all Hispanic Americans and more than 30% of native-born white people. In composite, about 40% of all Americans are now born out of wedlock. And for the majority of babies born to women who are 30 years of age and under, the majority of babies are now born out of wedlock. So if you have this kind of demography and you are facing this kind of challenge, it is not the federal government. Frankly, it’s not any government that is going to be able to address that kind of decline. And the question emerges in social science: Well, wait a minute, what drove that? And the answer goes back to where we started. It ultimately starts from a spiritual decline that is measurable in some pockets of America. The great conservative statesman and philosopher Russell Kirk said that political and public policy differences are actually spiritual differences first. And I think that there’s a lot of truth in that. **Trinko: That is a great segue into my next question, which is, just looking through your book, I share so much of the analysis of the culture that you give. It’s a pretty bleak picture right now.** **And you know … we’re recording this in June, which is Pride Month. And as a Christian I have certain feelings about that.** **You paint a picture of a culture that is losing, its sort of adrift in moral relativism, and your book is about recovering that.** **The solution you’re calling for, though, doesn’t it really just come down to people converting to Christianity and being faithful?** **Goeglein:** That’s correct. I’m glad you raised that. And in light of the last question, I believe very strongly that you can be a great American and be a man or woman of faith. I believe very strongly that you can be a great American and not be a person of faith. Or be a great American and a person who’s searching and looking, right? I don’t think that that is the the demarcation. I really don’t. I also believe, and we say this in “American Restoration,” that for all of the many cultural challenges we have, and there are many, we also have a lot of bright spots. May I say, just when you think that you’re at a moment of cultural decline, that even in that decline you can see spots of recovery and of renewal. It’s kind of like when you have one of these terrible California wildfires and you look out and you say that is a very bleak landscape. Until you come back about two weeks later. And from all the charred cinders, coming through the charred cinders are small green shoots. And I do believe that organically cultures are the same. I believe that you can focus like a laser beam on all of the problems. And we certainly seek to do that in “American Restoration.” But we also seek to hold up real examples of real people, real institutions, real groups, who are really addressing some of our most important social, moral, and religious issues. So we don’t say or assert in the book that in order to restore America that we must have a mass conversion to Christianity. As Christians, you know, we certainly pray that people would come to know Jesus Christ, but that is not our demarcation for a healthy or flourishing country. We know that from our founding. Some of the greatest people in our founding were serious Christians. Benjamin Rush and George Washington. Others were not serious Christians, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. It doesn’t make them any less great as human beings. But it also does not deter from the fact that foundationally and from the beginning, America was a nation that flourished because of strong Christianity and strong Judaism. And you know, that is a fact. **Trinko: You talk in the book about the importance of religious liberty and, obviously, if you’re going to practice your faith, you need to be allowed to by the states.** **However, we’re seeing more and more clashes on this front and you describe some of them in the book.** **Specifically, I would say pro-abortion advocates and LGBT activists are often pushing for things that Christians feel in good conscience they cannot accommodate.** **And there’s often a push from the extreme left to say, “No, we’re not going to find a third way. It can’t be that there’s another baker who bakes the cake. It has to be this baker.”** **How do you recommend people engage with the far left and with maybe family and friends who are sympathetic to the far left?** **Goeglein:** May I say, I am really thrilled by that question because I believe, a tenet to where we began this interview, that the frontal assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience in the public square is overwhelmingly one of the greatest challenges that we face. And the question is why? Because it’s unconstitutional. There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that in any way usurps the centrality of religious liberty and conscience rights, that were inherent in the Constitution from the beginning. We have seen endless cases at the Supreme Court. Endless cases in the circuit and in the the the district courts, which have been a net result of this assault on religious liberty and conscience cases. I feel very strongly, in fact, we say this in “American Restoration” and we have a whole chapter on the restoration of religious liberty in the book for this reason, that incrementally, and it does take time, that we will eventually move our way back toward the constitutional position and defense of religious liberty and conscience rights. It’s not to say that we are not having and will not continue to have a major debate in this area, but I believe that incrementally we are going in the right direction, even as we have enormous challenges. We also have a chapter in “American Restoration” on the restoration of the right to life and human life. That is incredibly important to us. Look, we have had more than 60 million abortions in America since 1973. That is a real black mark on our country. But … as a person who has been involved in the pro-life movement since I was 12 years old, I believe very strongly that this is a very good time for the pro-life movement. I think we are winning. I think we’re moving in the right direction. I am overwhelmed, having been [to] every right to life march in January with the exception of two for the last 30 years, that the right to life people who come to Washington get younger and they get larger. And those numbers are overwhelming. It’s simply bad manners in a lot of quadrants in America now, where it wasn’t even 15 years ago. It’s bad manners not to be pro-life with 3D and 4D images of babies. We know that it is a baby. **Trinko: I appreciate it, in your book, how you talked about the importance of caring for foster kids and also your co-author mentioned that at his church there is, I believe, a night for parents of Down syndrome kids.** **I just thought it was nice how you guys paid so much attention to being pro- life after birth, as well.** **I think that’s very true of the pro-life community, but we’re always slammed as not. And it was nice to see you address that.** **Goeglein:** I was in a debate just last week in which my interlocutor said, “Yeah, you’re pro-life, which means that you only care about the baby until the day it’s born.” And I said, “That is absolutely false.” And he said, “Prove it.” And I said, “Read ‘American Restoration.'” We have a whole chapter in this book, to your point, we care about mother and baby before the baby is born. We care about the baby in all three trimesters, right? And we care about mother and baby long after the baby is born and the mother is dealing, as is baby, with a lot of issues. But also to capitalize on that, we care a lot about orphan care, foster care, and adoption. And we wanted to make sure that “American Restoration” had a a sizable bit of attention to this issue. One of the tragedies in America is not only abortion, but also the vitiation of young Down syndrome babies. That has got to change and we’ve got to do that better. I trust and believe that by raising it in books like this, talking about it on a podcast like this, that we will move more and more toward a pro-life America. I believe that we will see a day when Roe v. Wade is overturned. I do believe that, and I think that it will be on par of the day that Dred Scott finally came to it’s last gasp. **Davis: Your book also responds to folks like Rod Dreher, who have offered what they call the Benedict Option, in which Christians are engaging in a strategic withdrawal from certain sectors of culture in order to protect the good that we have.** **What’s your main response to that argument?** **Goeglein:** Rod Dreher is a great friend and I’ve known him and benefited from his writing, his research, and his friendship for many years. I have read his book now three times, cover to cover, and I have compared the text of the book with debates that have happened and with analysis since. I want to be very direct in this point. To the degree that there is a difference or a distinction it is at least in some of those debates and analysis that he has been calling for disengagement. And there’s a nuance about this, and we make this very clear in the book. This is not in any way a backdoor attack or a critique of Rod. But we disagree in this regard. This is not a time for Christians or conservatives to disengage, to be discouraged, to drop out. This is a time … we say in “American Restoration,” to engage more than ever. For us to be present more than ever in the public square. To be involved in schools, public schools, and private schools. To be involved in government. To be in the media. To be in the culture, shaping professions. To be in the law and legal societies. To be in the permanent bureaucracy. To be a presence in the state capitals and in Washington, D.C. There’s never been a time where we have needed men and women of faith to step up and to be more involved than now. **Davis: That is a great place for us to leave it. The book is called “[American Restoration. How Faith, Family, and Personal Sacrifice Can Heal Our Nation](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q2437ZR/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1).” Available on Amazon. Tim Goeglein, thanks so much for your time.** **Goeglein:** Such a pleasure. Thank you so much, and God bless The Daily Signal. | Daniel Davis | https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/07/02/how-to-restore-america/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-restore-america | 2019-07-02 07:01:11+00:00 | 1,562,065,271 | 1,567,537,281 | science and technology | social sciences |
136,935 | dailystormer--2019-01-11--Illegal Immigrants Commit Fewer Crimes Than Natural Born Americans Is Anti-Black Hatespeech | 2019-01-11T00:00:00 | dailystormer | “Illegal Immigrants Commit Fewer Crimes Than Natural Born Americans” Is Anti-Black Hatespeech | It is time for the media to stop touching black bodies with their hateful statistical facts. After President Trump’s speech in the Oval Office telling America about the need for a wall, the media returned with an old anti-black canard to defend Mexicans: the theory that natural Americans commit more crimes than illegal immigrants. It was all over the gosh-darned place. But Trump’s suggestion that undocumented immigrants are more prone to commit acts of violence is false. A 2018 Cato Institute study that looked at crime in Texas found that “As a percentage of their respective populations, there were 56 percent fewer criminal convictions of illegal immigrants than of native-born Americans in Texas in 2015.” “The criminal conviction rate for legal immigrants was about 85 percent below the native-born rate,” it adds. In an overview of the relevant social science research published last year, the Washington Post concluded, “Undocumented immigrants are considerably less likely to commit crime than native-born citizens, with immigrants legally in the United States even less likely to do so.” Of course, what they are all dog-whistling is “blacks are more violent than precious Mexicans.” It is an old canard based on long-debunked annual statistics that are released by the FBI every year. The theory, promoted by the FBI using racist information, is that blacks commit so many crimes that no other race could possibly make a statistical difference of any kind. True or not, there can only be one reason for bringing up this information: pure hatred for the color of the skin. One type of racism can’t be used to justify another – saying “oh but niggers are killing everyone anyway” is racist, even if true, and should not be used by the media in a conversation about immigration. Doing so is hatespeech, and I am shocked that the media is willing to sink this low simply to take a cheap shot at Donald Trump. The fact that Mexicans commit 50-100% more violent crime than white people is no reason not to flood America with criminal latinos. In fact, it is all the more reason to do so, as it will teach white people a lesson. But we do not need to insult the blacks in order to accomplish this goal. | Andrew Anglin | https://dailystormer.name/illegal-immigrants-commit-fewer-crimes-than-natural-born-americans-is-anti-black-hatespeech/ | 2019-01-11 12:34:19+00:00 | 1,547,228,059 | 1,567,552,979 | science and technology | social sciences |
138,923 | delawareliberal--2019-06-16--There is hard data that shows that a centrist Democrat would be a losing candidate | 2019-06-16T00:00:00 | delawareliberal | “There is hard data that shows that a centrist Democrat would be a losing candidate: | “There is hard data that shows that a centrist Democrat would be a losing candidate: Economist Thomas Piketty wrote a paper about this in 2018, though the Democrats paid no attention. The Republican Party has earned a reputation as the anti-science, anti-fact party — understandably, perhaps, given the GOP’s policy of ignoring the evidence for global climate change and insisting on the efficacy of supply-side economics, despite all the research to the contrary. Yet ironically, it is now the Democratic Party that is wantonly ignoring mounds of social science data that suggests that promoting centrist candidates is a bad, losing strategy when it comes to winning elections. As the Democratic establishment and its pundit class starts to line up behind the centrist nominees for president — mainly, Joe Biden, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris — the party’s head-in-the-sand attitude is especially troubling. […] Piketty’s paper is an inconvenient truth for the Democratic Party. The party’s leaders see themselves as the left wing of capital — supporting social policies that liberal rich people can get behind, never daring to enact economic reforms that might step on rich donors’ toes. Hence, the establishment seems intent on anointing the centrist Democrats of capital, who push liberal social policies and neoliberal economic policies.“. – Via Salon | jason330 | https://delawareliberal.net/2019/06/16/there-is-hard-data-that-shows-that-a-centrist-democrat-would-be-a-losing-candidate/ | 2019-06-16 17:51:13+00:00 | 1,560,721,873 | 1,567,539,077 | science and technology | social sciences |
139,719 | democracynow--2019-10-08--This Is Not a Drill: 700+ Arrested as Extinction Rebellion Fights Climate Crisis with Direct Action | 2019-10-08T00:00:00 | democracynow | This Is Not a Drill: 700+ Arrested as Extinction Rebellion Fights Climate Crisis with Direct Action | This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: “This is not a drill.” That’s the message of thousands of activists who took to the streets of major cities across the globe Monday to raise the alarm about the climate crisis, gluing themselves to buildings, blocking roads, occupying public landmarks and being arrested by the hundreds in the first day of a two-week protest led by Extinction Rebellion. The group reports more than 700 activists, from Brisbane to New York City, have been arrested in just the first day and a half of protests. Nearly 300 were arrested in London after shutting down major streets and taking over 11 sites in Westminster. One group superglued themselves to a parked hearse in Trafalgar Square as hundreds occupied the area. Other demonstrators shut down Westminster Bridge long enough for a couple to get married before the crowd. This is protester Jake Lynch speaking from the streets of London. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Extinction Rebellion launched in London last year and has since grown into a global movement. Prime Minister Boris Johnson attacked the group’s protesters Monday night, calling them “uncooperative crusties.” Climate activist George Monbiot responded, tweeting, quote, “I’m proud to be an #UncooperativeCrusty. #ExtinctionRebellion continues. Come and see why Boris Johnson hates it so much, and how it challenges the life-destroying system he defends.” AMY GOODMAN: In New York City, nearly 90 activists were arrested after staging a die-in on Wall Street, pouring fake blood on the iconic bull statue outside the New York Stock Exchange. Dozens were also arrested in Amsterdam, Vienna and Madrid. In Brisbane, Australia, an activist hung from Story Bridge in a hammock for six hours. Activists also took to the streets in Chile, Colombia and Mexico. Brazilian protesters held a die-in on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. Protesters shut down the street in central Paris near the Notre-Dame, and hundreds flooded the streets of Berlin to demand action to combat global warming. This is German climate activist and migrant rescue ship captain Carola Rackete speaking from Berlin. AMY GOODMAN: Protests continue today in cities around the world. In London, Extinction Rebellion plans to plant at least 800 trees outside of Parliament. For more, we go to London to speak with Extinction Rebellion co-founder Gail Bradbrook. Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the scope of the protests? And once again, remind us how Extinction Rebellion was founded and got its name. GAIL BRADBROOK: Yeah. Good afternoon, Amy. And I just wanted to say what an honor it is to be on Democracy Now! You asked how this started. I think the first thing to say is this movement stands on the shoulders of our elders across the world who have been protesting about the environment for many years. In many countries, that means death. I mean, 200 environmental activists die each year across the world. And I would include Democracy Now! as one of our elders. You have many fans in the U.K., so thank you for your broadcasts over these years. You’ve kept us going, actually, with your truth and ability to forward the voice of ordinary people and of activists across the world. We got going because we did quite a lot of research, actually, into social movements. We looked at social science. We also looked into our hearts about how we were feeling. And we said that a movement would need to be driven both by some techniques called momentum-driven organizing, and we had some training by a fantastic organizer based in the States called Carlos Saavedra from the Ayni Institute. And we also did a lot of research into people like Gene Sharp, the father of civil resistance. And we welcomed people to feel how these times are for them. And I think the fuel of grief is important to our movement, and the fuel of fear, in all honesty, because what that means is that people are willing to open their hearts up and feel the love for life on Earth and say, “Actually, I am not willing to put up with this anymore.” I guess the thing to add to that, in a way, is, especially for Westerners like myself that sit in a degree of — quite a degree of privilege, is that there’s something about consumer capitalism that both traumatizes us and then offers us a lot of comforts to stay quiet and silent and to just keep our heads down and keep sort of slightly stressing about keeping our jobs going and so on. And somehow, I think this movement has helped break through that mold by welcoming grief and feeling, and then encouraging people to get on the streets and take risks with the possibility of getting arrested. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Gail Bradbrook, what are the immediate demands of the Extinction Rebellion movement? GAIL BRADBROOK: So, we have three demands. The first one is for government and other institutions to tell the truth. And also, in that way, it is not just a lip service by declaring emergencies and then carrying on with business as usual. That also means reversing policies inconsistent with that truth, so stopping immediate harms that are happening. In the U.K., what that means, for example, is that we have fracking happening in this country. We’re opening up new coal mines. We have the planned expansion of the railway system, but through what’s basically an aviation shuttle service called HS2, that’s going to deforest Britain bigger than has happened since World War I. So, tell the truth and reverse inconsistent policies. The second demand is for net zero carbon emissions by 2025 and halt in biodiversity loss. And the reason we have such a tight target there is that this is definitely and absolutely an emergency. And what we need is for governments to act like it’s an emergency. If Britain — again, I know the U.K. situation more — carries on as it’s doing with very, very minor reductions in its emissions, it will have run out of its so-called carbon budget — I don’t believe there are any carbon budgets myself, actually — within a few years’ time. And they keep missing targets. So this idea we can have a 2050 target is nonsense. The third thing is, then, how do you go about seeing these changes. What policies should we have? Should we have carbon budgeting or carbon taxes? Should we put pressure on people to stop flying or go vegan or whatever? Should we look at the farming community and how they could farm differently? Well, within all of that are loads of great ideas and loads of debate, and Extinction Rebellion is very clear it’s not up to us to have a position on any of that. Within the movement, there have been lots of opinions and so on and lots of debates. We want a citizens’ assembly. It’s a form of democracy that comes from the older times, from Greece, from Athens, and it was actually how democracy used to be. It wasn’t all about voting, by a long way. Most things were done by citizens’ juries. So, you select, through a lottery system, like a jury, a demographically representative sample of your citizens, and they’re given critical thinking skills. And they are given lots of information by experts and well facilitated. And they tend to come up with really good policy solutions. And it’s a really good way to handle these kinds of issues, that, frankly, our current democracies are just not able to deal with. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: One of the things you mentioned earlier, consumer capitalism and its ability to basically disarm the population in dealing with the climate crisis. You’ve talked about the relationship between the mushrooming debt in the world and the climate crisis. Could you expand on that? GAIL BRADBROOK: So, yeah. What I would say is that in its first iteration, Extinction Rebellion is really about democracy, by calling in for these new democratic forms for people to have their power. And frankly, in many countries of the world, democracy is in just absolute shambles. It certainly is in the U.K. As people understand that there’s an emergency, there’s — this democracy is not working. There’s going to be two directions of travel. One is in the direction of more democracy, and so that means people’s assemblies and really understanding how we can work together. And the other is in the direction of less democracy, which is the very great risk of ecofascism. So that’s the focus on democracy. What some of us are looking at, and it’s an early focus, and as a movement we will write papers and share ideas for feedback, but we’re talking about how we’re going to take on the finance system. So, we have an economic system that essentially is killing life on Earth. Let’s put it that way. It’s very simple. As one economist once said — Kenneth Boulding, he said that to expect that you can have exponential growth on a finite planet, you either have to be a madman or an economist. And I think, increasingly — and I’ve spoken to members of the elite really recently, to investment bankers and so on — people are frightened. And actually, their children are putting a lot of pressure on them. And they know some kind of change has to come. And in Extinction Rebellion, we are generally not — well, I’m not speaking for everybody personally, but as a movement, we’re not ideological. We’re not taking a position against one kind of economic system or for another. We’re saying, basically, this is not working. We need to have a grown-up conversation about what kind of system do we need, both politically and legally and culturally and economically, that will stop this ridiculous, outrageous harming that we’re doing to ourselves and the planet. And obviously, there’s some people absolutely on the frontline of the crisis. And it’s an intergenerational injustice. And how do we then move into a situation where we can repair the harm that we’ve done? So, what I think we’re going to need to move into is a mass debt refusal, where we say we’re not going to pay the debts that we have, and some of us with some privilege might take on some debts and actually give the money to people at the frontline of the crisis. That’s the kind of direction I’d like to see us move into. AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Bradbrook, we played the clip of the German climate activist, the migrant rescue ship captain, Carola Rackete, who makes that link between immigration and climate. Since this is such a key issue all over the world, the issue of migrants and the industrial, polluting countries blocking migrants from coming in, can you talk about that link, climate refugees? GAIL BRADBROOK: Yeah, and I think this is this issue of ecofascism. Up to one in 10 people will be on the move, without wanting to be, due to mass drought, due to places becoming too hot, due to flooding. And the idea that we can sit in our racism and close our borders is simply not going to work for us. Obviously, it’s a moral issue. Also, there will be mass migration within countries. So, in the U.K., 10% of the population will be on the move by 2050. That’s the predictions. Actually, the recent IPCC report, which was about the cryosphere and the ocean sea level rising, yet again said that things were worse than thought and that flooding events that were once every hundred years are going to move into being every single year in many locations. So there’s going to be mass migration, and that’s already happening. We’ve already seen some of that. And what we need to do is have a very compassionate approach to how we tackle that issue and how we look after a planet that is destroying places so that they become uninhabitable. And obviously, the people on that frontline, as well, who are doing the migration, tend to be the people that did the least to create this damage. And so we have a moral responsibility to take care of people. I’m very in favor of, and I’d like to see it actually placed in some international demands — again, the movement needs a conversation about that — with the law of ecocide, which is a law that the lawyer Polly Higgins was working on, and she has a team taking it forward — she died, unfortunately, earlier this year — which would put a fifth crime against peace in at the Rome Statutes level, at the U.N. level. And what that would do would be to criminalize mass damage and destruction of the environment, so many of these damaging actions that are happening in indigenous lands and elsewhere, created by corporations, would literally be criminal. And then, secondly, what that law also does is it bakes in the insistence that there’s a repair of the harm that happens, which includes compensating people, finding homes for people. And actually, in order to do this repairing of the harm, that needs to happen, you’ve got Sir David King, the former chief scientist of the U.K., who’s setting up a climate repair center and saying that, actually, we can’t even go to one-and-a-half degrees C. You know, the ice is already melting. We’re already over 410 parts per million. What really needs to happen is we have to go into drawdown. We have to be bringing carbon out of the atmosphere, and we can’t wait for these magical technologies that are somehow going to suck the carbon out of the atmosphere in the future and mean we can do business as usual. And so, what we have to do, what we’re going to need to do, is really work with nature to repair the climate. And that’s also going to tackle this evil twin or evil triplet, you know, of biodiversity loss. We’ve got the evil twin of ocean acidification and how we’re wrecking our oceans. All of this has got to be cleaned up. And what that means is we need, like, a lot of human labor. So, humanity has to rise up in a really beautiful way and tend to the damage that we’ve done. And that needs all of us, and it needs all of us together in the places of the Earth that’s going to sustain life, working together to rewild areas, to restore ecosystems, to clean up the rivers, to plant trees, you know, to basically sort the plastic out in the ocean and so on. And I actually think that there’s so many beautiful innovations out there, and humanity could do that together. And it needs all of us. And, for me, this is part of reweaving a human family back together again. It’s part of dealing with systemic racism, white supremacy and the wounds of patriarchy that want to separate us, make us feel powerless and, you know, destroy our togetherness and make us think that the whole planet is kind of scarce, when actually nature is abundant and it replenishes itself. JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to ask you about those who — your response to those critics who agree with the goals of Extinction Rebellion but oppose your tactics. For instance, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she supports the right to protest, but, quote, “Blocking people from being able to go and do their day-to-day job doesn’t necessarily take us any closer to the climate action they are calling for.” London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan has said something similar. Your response? GAIL BRADBROOK: Well, when you look at the results of the protests, if you look at the graphs of how much people are talking about the ecological crisis, it absolutely spikes when the protests happen. So, there’s like two data points here. One is how many people are active in our social movement. And we know from the research of Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan that you need between 1 and 3.4% of the population to come together and to be willing to support people to get on the streets and be on the streets themselves. And that, by the way, means that people can be part of Extinction Rebellion without being willing to get arrested, because it’s not right for everybody, for many people. They might have caring duties. We can’t guarantee that black people will be treated in the same way as white people and so on. So, this is a movement for everybody. There is a space for everybody. Now, that doesn’t mean that everybody likes our tactics. And people don’t have to like us in order to start talking about the crisis. What happens if you stand passively by the side of the road with a placard saying, you know, “Stop climate change” is you just get ignored. When you get on the street and block it, people start to have a conversation about this existential situation that we’re in. When we say “existential threat,” what we mean is we’re in an apocalyptic situation. You have to use biblical language to talk about what it means to be in a sixth mass extinction event. And that’s the only way to get that information over to people — that I understand, anyway — is to be disruptive. And when people say, “Well, we agree with your message, but we don’t like how you’re doing it,” my my general answer is, like, “If you’ve got a better plan, tell us.” Because, literally, we’ve tried all the other stuff — writing to our MPs and our politicians and doing petitions and going on marches. I don’t see what else there is, other than getting on the streets. And frankly, as this crisis worsens and we face things like food shortages — you know, the academic term actually is “multi-breadbasket failure,” when across the planet either droughts or floods mean that the farms can no longer produce enough food. When we’re facing that, and, literally, people are fighting over tins of beans in the supermarket, people are going to wonder why more of us weren’t on these streets in these times, when there was still the possibility of two things. One is making the harm less. The other is, you know, starting to repair the harm. And the other thing that we have to do is professor Jem Bendell’s agenda, which is to start to adapt to the conditions that are going to meet us and are going to meet our children in the future. We have to start planning for, for example, the flooding of nuclear power stations and what that means, planning for localizing food systems and food crises and that kind of thing. AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Bradbrook, we just have 10 seconds. Your response to your prime minister, Boris Johnson, calling you “uncooperative crusties”? GAIL BRADBROOK: I’m sending him a lot of love. He actually met some Extinction Rebellion people recently, who sang to him a Taizé song about listen to your heart, let love lead the way. And he actually started to cry and to shake. So, I don’t think anyone is beyond redemption. His father is interested in ecological crises, as well. So, we have to reach out to everybody and say, “Join us, because you know this is real. Stop messing about, Boris, and get on the streets with us.” Thank you. AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Gail Bradbrook, we want to thank you for being with us, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, speaking to us from London, England. When we come back, workers at General Motors have entered their fourth week on strike, the longest national strike at GM by the United Auto Workers in almost a half a century. Stay with us. AMY GOODMAN: “Your Capricious Soul,” a new song by Michael Stipe, his first solo recording since the breakup of REM eight years ago. Michael Stipe is donating proceeds from the song to Extinction Rebellion. | [email protected] (Democracy Now!) | http://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/8/extinction_rebellion_global_actions_climate_crisis | Tue, 08 Oct 2019 08:14:08 -0400 | 1,570,536,848 | 1,570,759,071 | science and technology | social sciences |
145,418 | drudgereport--2019-03-23--Alarms sound after 6 suicides by Chicago cops over 8 months | 2019-03-23T00:00:00 | drudgereport | Alarms sound after 6 suicides by Chicago cops over 8 months... | A dozen or so police officers gather once every month in the basement of an office building and talk — about handling holidays with families, about nightmares so bad they are reluctant to share a bed at night. Most of the officers were involved in a shooting while on duty, and here they share stories of what that has meant. Sometimes they cry. “This is what trauma looks like,” says Carrie Steiner, a former Chicago cop turned therapist who runs the counseling center. “This is what PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) looks like.” Responding to that trauma is now a top challenge for the Chicago Police Department, where alarms are sounding after six officers killed themselves over the last eight months. Last week, after the most recent suicide, Superintendent Eddie Johnson convened a small meeting of command staff and told them officer wellness was now his priority. To keep neighborhoods safe, his officers need to be healthy, he told the group. Johnson formed a task force to examine the department’s mental health services, according to his spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, who was at the meeting. And in a sign of changing attitudes, Johnson also sent his officers a note about the latest death, saying, “we must do everything we can to ensure that our fellow officers have the support needed to get through the challenges of this very difficult job.” Such acknowledgment of suicide among the ranks — even in private messages to his officers — is something Johnson has started doing only recently, Guglielmi said. All this comes two years after the U.S. Justice Department warned the department that its care of officers was severely lacking. Now, with the loss of six officers by suicide since last summer, national experts are calling for immediate action to understand what is going on and what needs to be done. “It’s definitely worrying and suggestive of a problem I think really demands attention,” said Florida State University professor Thomas Joiner, a leading researcher on suicide who will be in Chicago this week for a forum on suicide in law enforcement. Since 2011, the number of Chicago police officers who have died by suicide each year has fluctuated between two and four. But the pace quickened last summer, and the department has experienced nearly a suicide a month since July. Two detectives, three officers, a sergeant. They were assigned to the mass transit unit and technical services, they were assigned to districts and worked as investigators. Five were men, and the average age was 43. All but one died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. One died by carbon monoxide poisoning inside a car. Three either were in their squad car or parked outside their district station. While suicide in general is on the rise in the United States, research suggests there is an elevated risk for suicide among law enforcement. One 2013 analysis found the risk for officers was as much as 69 percent higher, though experts caution more research is needed. Nowhere is that risk more apparent than in Chicago. “Chicago is kind of like ground zero with the number of suicides that are happening on a monthly basis now at this point,” said Daniel Hollar, who chairs the department of behavior and social science studies at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. “These are people who are answering calls of duty to protect lives. We (need to) do our job to make their jobs safer.” Hollar is organizing the forum in Chicago. Among the issues up for discussion is what role Chicago’s relentless violence problem plays in officer suicide. Hollar said they will also talk about other factors, including whether familiarity with death makes suicidal officers more likely to follow through with their plans. The urgency to understand what is happening — nationally, not just in Chicago — is supported by national figures showing more officers die by suicide than in the line of duty. In 2016, 171 officers across the country were killed in the line of duty, while 140 committed suicide. In 2018, 163 died by suicide and 150 in the line of duty, according to Blue HELP, an organization launched four years ago to raise awareness about officers’ mental health. “I think it’s a call to action, a wake-up call, telling our administrators (and) command staff: ‘Isn’t it time you do something?’ ” said Nicholas Greco, who serves on the organization’s board and trains departments and officers on wellness. The most recent suicide to hit the department occurred March 10 when an off-duty Chicago police detective was found dead from a gunshot wound at his Near West Side home. But this time was different. In the days that followed, Superintendent Johnson met with a small group that included Robert Sobo, head of the department’s employee assistance program, and Chief Barbara West, in charge of the Bureau of Organizational Development. He told those gathered that the most important thing now facing him as superintendent is officer wellness and suicide, Guglielmi said. “If they are not well,” Johnson said, “I can’t expect them to safeguard our neighborhoods.” Johnson, who had been briefed by detectives about the suicides, shared a few details from the investigations. The last several cases had “domestic and family triggers,” which will be a focus as the department hires more clinicians, Guglielmi said. At the same time, Alexa James, executive director of National Alliance on Mental Illness in Chicago, made an impassioned public plea to officers. “This is to the brave souls who keep us safe,” she said in a commentary published in the Tribune on March 11. “Stay. We need you. If you are feeling alone and unsure, if you can’t feel the ground beneath your feet or see any light in the darkness, know that you are loved and important in the world.” This wasn’t the first time the department has been put on notice about the well-being of its officers. In January 2017, the U.S. Justice Department concluded the Chicago police force did not have have an “overarching officer wellness plan that includes robust counseling programs, comprehensive training, functioning equipment and other tools to ensure officers are successful and healthy.” | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/OtkxJnbdhcs/ct-met-chicago-police-suicides-20190315-story.html | 2019-03-23 00:28:38+00:00 | 1,553,315,318 | 1,567,545,148 | science and technology | social sciences |
149,573 | drudgereport--2019-06-30--PENTAGON Moscow outgunning USA in race for global influence | 2019-06-30T00:00:00 | drudgereport | PENTAGON: Moscow outgunning USA in race for global influence... | The U.S. is ill-equipped to counter the increasingly brazen political warfare Russia is waging to undermine democracies, the Pentagon and independent strategists warn in a detailed assessment that happens to echo much bipartisan criticism of President Donald Trump's approach to Moscow. The more than 150-page white paper, prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and shared with POLITICO, says the U.S. is still underestimating the scope of Russia's aggression, which includes the use of propaganda and disinformation to sway public opinion across Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. The study also points to the dangers of a growing alignment between Russia and China, which share a fear of the United States' international alliances and an affinity for "authoritarian stability." Its authors contend that disarray at home is hampering U.S. efforts to respond — saying America lacks the kind of compelling “story” it used to win the Cold War. The study doesn't offer any criticisms of Trump, but it comes amid continued chaffing by security hawks in both parties who have objected to the president's repeated slights at U.S. alliances in Europe and Asia, public affection for authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, and his habit of scoffing at the evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. A grinning Trump added to that pattern Friday in Osaka, Japan, where he got a chuckle out of Putin by admonishing him, "Don't meddle in the election, president." In interviews with POLITICO, other Russia watchers supported the report's warnings that the U.S. needs to up its game. "Russia is attacking Western institutions in ways more shrewd and strategically discreet than many realize,” said Natalia Arno, president of the Free Russia Foundation, an anti-Putin Washington think tank that recently completed its own study of Russian efforts to undermine the West. “The attacks may seem more subtle and craftier, but they are every bit as destructive as governments are influenced, laws are changed, legal decisions are undermined, law enforcement is thwarted and military intervention is disguised." The unclassified “Strategic Multilayer Assessment” marks a clear warning from the military establishment to civilian leaders about a national security threat that strategists fear, if left unchecked, could ultimately lead to armed conflict. "In this environment, economic competition, influence campaigns, paramilitary actions, cyber intrusions, and political warfare will likely become more prevalent," writes Navy Rear Adm. Jeffrey Czerewko, the Joint Chiefs' deputy director for global operations, in the preface to the report. "Such confrontations increase the risk of misperception and miscalculation, between powers with significant military strength, which may then increase the risk of armed conflict." The Pentagon paper, which has not been widely disseminated, assesses Russia's intentions in an attempt to understand what drives its strategy, outlines a range of malign activities attributed to Russia in regions as diverse as Africa and the Arctic and lays out ways the United States could strengthen its response. Among other steps, it recommends that the State Department spearhead more aggressive "influence operations," including sowing divisions between Russia and China. The study addresses what it refers to as Moscow's "gray zone" activities — the emboldened attempts by Putin's regime to undermine democratic nations, particularly on Russia's periphery, using means short of direct military conflict. "These activities include threatening other states militarily, or compromising their societies, economies, and governments by employing a range of means and methods to include propaganda, disinformation, and cultural, religious, and energy coercion," writes Jason Werchan, who works in the strategy division of the U.S. European Command, the military headquarters responsible for deterring the Russian military, in one chapter. Yet the report laments the lack of a unified message within the United States, in turn due to a lack of coordination or agreement among executive branch agencies and Congress. Belinda Bragg, a research scientist for NSI, a government consulting firm that specializes in social science research, adds in the study that "we need to better articulate U.S. interests and strategy to both ourselves and others." But that requires coming to an agreement about what the U.S. message should be, said Anna Borshchevskaya, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who wrote a chapter about Russian efforts to win over both governments and opposition forces in Africa. “We still have a story to tell but because we are so polarized and are doubting ourselves we have a narrative problem,” Borshchevskaya said in an interview. “Russia does not.” Another crucial step, Bragg recommends, is to develop a better understanding of how much target populations trust the United States "and have in place strategies to bolster that trust when it is low." The paper also raises alarm about what the authors view as a burgeoning anti-American alliance by Russia and communist China, who have traditionally been fierce competitors despite being on the same side of the Cold War's ideological divide. Steps to counter that could include sowing Russian distrust of China's expanding power on Russia's eastern periphery, as well as Beijing's economic and infrastructure projects on multiple continents. “The world system, and America’s influence in it, would be completed upended if Moscow and Beijing aligned more closely,” warns Werchan. On the other hand, the assessment sees an urgent need for cooperation with Russia in key areas — especially in the realm of nuclear weapons. "It is clear that a fresh round of arms racing threatens," writes another of the study's Pentagon contributors, John Arquilla, a director at the Naval Postgraduate School. "The United States can either embrace this, hoping to outpace the Russians, or try to head off such a costly competition with a rededicated arms control/reduction policy." Such an approach should also seek to "corral" other nuclear weapons states such as North Korea, China, Iran, India and Pakistan, Arquilla wrote. "Revisiting Ronald Reagan's offer to Russia, made back in the '80s, to share research on ballistic missile defense, would be an adroit move as well." Arquilla acknowledged that former President Barack Obama failed in his attempted "reset" with Russia failed, and that "Trump wanted to do this but he was derailed by the electioneering apparently orchestrated by Moscow." "Still it is not too late for such a move," he wrote. "After all the United States works closely with Russia on space operations. Is it a bridge too far to hope for more cooperation at the terrestrial level?" The greatest check on Putin's ambitions could be the Russian people, said the study, which pointed to evidence of deep public wariness about Moscow's foreign policy, including the 2014 invasion of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, military support for Russian separatists and "the Kremlin's assertions that the US is a looming external danger." Survey data compiled for the study by Thomas Sherlock, a professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, suggests "relatively weak approval among the [Russian] public for a forceful external posture, including intervention in the 'near abroad' to check American power or protect Russian-speakers from perceived discrimination." Even Russian elites seem skeptical of Putin's strategy, the paper contends. "While both elites and members of the mass public are supportive of restoring Russia's great power status, they often define a great power and its priorities more in terms of socio-economic development than in the production and demonstration of hard power," it says. "These perspectives increasingly come into conflict with those of the Kremlin." | null | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/SrjnfD-zaUI/pentagon-russia-influence-putin-trump-1535243 | 2019-06-30 22:37:37+00:00 | 1,561,948,657 | 1,567,537,523 | science and technology | social sciences |
160,758 | eveningstandard--2019-01-22--Learning from the past can help us plan a better future | 2019-01-22T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Learning from the past can help us plan a better future | We've not lacked historical references amid the Brexit debate. People have compared what’s happening now to the Suez Crisis, the Second World War and even the Norman Conquest. But history must be more than a passing reference — we need to understand it and make use of it in public life. I argued recently that the Government should think more systematically about how history can help inform the present and the future. As chief executive of the British Academy — which promotes the humanities and the social sciences — I believe history can help our politicians make better policies and avoid the potential pitfalls of the past. As a former civil servant I have seen first-hand how knowledge of what has gone before can prepare us for the challenges of the future. In the early 2000s, clear and robust measures were put in place to prepare London in case of a terror attack, learning from New York’s bitter experience of 9/11. But governments do not always learn from history. In 2001 the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease devastated our economy and large parts of the social fabric of rural Britain. The nation seemed totally unprepared about how to respond — despite the fact that more than a quarter of a century earlier, in 1967, there had been an equally bad outbreak followed by a clear “lessons learned” report. It was just that nobody thought to reopen that report in 2001. Financial crises, international disputes, terrorism, human and animal epidemics: we have seen them all before. That is why the British Academy looks to work with government to improve the way in which policies are shaped, using the lessons of history to produce new ideas. As the Government seeks to address the challenges of industrial strategy for the 2020s and beyond, we have much to learn from past industrial strategies dating back some half a century, for example. And as we prepare to leave the EU — a measure some argue is harking back to a mythical past — we must, of course, acknowledge that looking at history is not a tidy guarantee that policymakers will avoid previous mistakes. Studying the Reformation, the Suez Crisis or the turbulent politics of the Seventies will not shield us from the challenges of the future. But it can help us to be better prepared. At its best history can show us what works well and what has failed. It can show us how people behave under pressure and how leadership can triumph — or fail. In doing so, governments should be better able to shape policies that are more fit for purpose in the volatile and unpredictable world we face. For while you can never predict the future, history can always help you understand better the lessons from the past — and, hopefully, help our politicians avoid making the same mistakes again. | Alun Evans | https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/learning-from-the-past-can-help-us-plan-a-better-future-a4045621.html | 2019-01-22 12:57:16+00:00 | 1,548,179,836 | 1,567,551,334 | science and technology | social sciences |
177,572 | eveningstandard--2019-06-21--Lets hear it for the humanities knowledge for our future | 2019-06-21T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Lets hear it for the humanities — knowledge for our future | Perhaps this would ring true for everyone who has ever lived, but the world today feels chaotic, contradictory and confusing. Brexit, cryptocurrencies, artificially intelligent political bots, self-driving cars: modern life is replete with complex geopolitical events, curious trends and mind-boggling inventions — to the point where watching the news can be utterly bewildering. But, as China’s Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “in the midst of chaos there is also opportunity”, and that is as true now as it was 2,500 years ago. For the next decade and beyond will overflow with opportunities and, with London and several of the globe’s best universities leading the way, the UK is brilliantly placed to make the most of them. Britain is, and always has been, a world leader in the humanities and social sciences, and we must exploit their vast potential. Subjects such as English literature, history, languages, law, psychology, anthropology and economics, are essential if we are to make sense of the world. They are about big ideas, evidence-based research, relentless inquiry and rigorous debate. From free speech and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations to Keynesian economics, the welfare state and the internet, groundbreaking ideas have transformed the UK and the world. With the 21st-century stock-in-trade being ideas — not gadgets and gizmos —we’ll gain enormously if we play to our strengths. Look no further than yesterday’s announcement that Oxford University’s humanities faculties will receive a record-breaking £150 million to tackle the ethical questions surrounding artificial intelligence. The gift, from one of America’s richest philanthropists, is a show of faith in the value of the humanities and social sciences. The good news is the UK already loves these subjects. According to a British Academy poll, almost a third of us would choose a humanities or social science course if given the chance at university, making these the most popular subjects. Not only are they enjoyable and rewarding in their own right, analysis shows graduates with these degrees are as employable and redundancy-proof as their counterparts in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and have more varied careers. To gratify the nation’s hunger to know more about humanity, about where we are from and where we are headed, The British Academy is throwing open its doors for its Summer Showcase this weekend. With 15 fascinating exhibits exploring the research we fund, pop-up talks and live music, visitors can meet some of the finest minds in the humanities and social sciences. As universities minister Chris Skidmore has said, these subjects enrich our lives, boost employment opportunities and make us competitive on the international stage. Whether it is Brexit or Bitcoin, the future of democracy or fake news, the insights these subjects provide are essential. | David Cannadine | https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/lets-hear-it-for-the-humanities-knowledge-for-our-future-a4172921.html | 2019-06-21 10:22:12+00:00 | 1,561,126,932 | 1,567,538,425 | science and technology | social sciences |
186,413 | eveningstandard--2019-10-10--Shaking hands for more than three seconds can trigger anxiety and affect relationships, study finds | 2019-10-10T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | Shaking hands for more than three seconds can trigger anxiety and affect relationships, study finds | Handshakes that last more than three seconds can trigger anxiety, negatively impact business meetings and affect the state of our relationships, a study has found. Participants in the research were interviewed by masters students at the University of Dundee's school of social sciences about their work and career prospects. They were then introduced to a second researcher, who would either shake their hand as "normal" (less than three seconds), "prolonged" (longer than three seconds), or not at all. The participants were unaware of the significance of the handshake throughout the study period, with their subsequent reactions analysed. Researchers found that shaking hands for longer than “may appear to be a warm gesture” was met with negative behaviour. The study comes after Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, on their first meeting in 2017, made headlines around to world for their longer-than-normal handshake. US President Trump gripped Mr Macron’s right hand so firmly that their knuckles turned white. Dr Emese Nagy, a reader in psychology who led the study, said the findings highlight the importance of introducing ourselves appropriately. She added: "Handshakes are a particularly important greeting and can have long-lasting consequences for the relationships that we form. "There has been evidence to suggest that many behaviours, such as hugs, fall within a window of approximately three seconds and this study has confirmed that handshakes that occur in this time frame feel more natural to those who participate in the greeting. "While shaking hands for longer may appear to be a warm gesture on the surface, we found that they negatively affected the behaviour of the recipient, even after the handshake was finished. "Politicians are particularly keen on prolonged handshakes, which are often used an expression of warmth but also as a means of demonstrating authority. "However, our findings suggest that while doing so might look impressive for the cameras, this behaviour could potentially jeopardise the quality of their working and personal relationships from the beginning, which could have repercussions for millions of people." The team found participants showed less interactional enjoyment after the longer handshake, laughing less and showing increased anxiety. Handshakes lasting less than three seconds resulted in less subsequent smiling, but did feel more natural to those who participated. No behavioural changes were associated with the no-handshake control experiment. The results can be found in the Perceptual And Motor Skills journal, Effects Of Handshake Duration On Other Nonverbal Behaviour. Previously in 2011 Dr Nagy analysed hugs and what they say about shared experiences. New: Daily podcast from the Evening Standard Listen and subscribe to The Leader on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or your chosen podcast provider. New episodes every weekday from 4pm. | Sean Morrison | https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/prolonged-handshakes-can-trigger-anxiety-and-affect-relationships-study-finds-a4258936.html | Thu, 10 Oct 2019 22:29:00 GMT | 1,570,760,940 | 1,570,752,668 | science and technology | social sciences |
194,855 | fivethirtyeight--2019-03-25--Conspiracy Theories Cant Be Stopped | 2019-03-25T00:00:00 | fivethirtyeight | Conspiracy Theories Can’t Be Stopped | Shortly before killing 50 people at two New Zealand mosques, the man arrested for the Christchurch massacre posted an online manifesto that alluded to the “Great Replacement” — a racist demographic theory that stokes fears of white people becoming, effectively, extinct. Within hours of the shootings, this act of terrorism inspired by a conspiracy theory had already gone on to birth conspiracy theories about itself. Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh speculated that the shooter was a secret leftist hoping to use the attack to smear the reputation of the political right. That a single tragedy could be so tangled in conspiracy mongering should be no surprise at this point. We’ve all watched conspiracies grow from myriad soils: the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, the political passions of George Soros, vaccines, climate change, even the football secrets of the New England Patriots. Conspiracy theories appear to have become a major part of how we, as a society, process the news. It might be harder to think of an emotionally tinged event that didn’t provoke a conspiracy theory than it is to rattle off a list of the ones that did. The ubiquity — and risks — of all these conspiracies has caught the attention of scientists. For years, the potentially dangerous consequences of conspiracy led many researchers to approach belief in conspiracies as a pathology in need of a cure. But that train of thought tended to awkwardly clash against some of the facts. The more we learn about conspiracy beliefs, the more normal they look — and the more some scientists worry that trying to prevent them could present its own dangers. The experts I spoke with all said that the internet had changed the way conspiracies spread, but conspiracies, both dangerous and petty, have always been with us. Nobody knows, really, how popular conspiracy beliefs used to be, because it wasn’t a thing surveys regularly tracked until recently, said Jan-Willem van Prooijen, a psychologist at VU Amsterdam. But he and Michael Wood, professor of psychology at the UK’s University of Winchester, both pointed to a study that suggests conspiracies have consistently peered out of the pages of American newspapers for at least a century. Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami, cataloged and coded more than 100,000 letters to the editor published in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and found the number of letters alleging and discussing conspiracy theories to have been pretty consistent over the last 120 years. This study isn’t perfect — the newspapers are still gatekeepers to what conspiracies were deemed fit to publish — but because it encompasses two different papers over a wide swath of time and many editorial leadership changes, Uscinski told me that it’s reasonable to assume we’re looking at something that reflects what interests readers, more so than what interests editors. That research is significant to understanding conspiracy belief as a societal norm. “There was some crazy stuff that they were more than happy to publish,” Uscinski said. “The CIA is creating lesbianism. We found alien planets. … Jimmy Carter is a communist agent. Secret baby farms where they’re growing organs for people. It all wound up in there.” And, it turns out, most of us believe in some strange goings-on behind the curtains. More than half of Americans think there was more than one person involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, for example. A 2014 study found that more than half of Americans believe in at least one medical conspiracy — a list that includes things like doctors giving children vaccines they know to be dangerous or the idea that the Food and Drug Administration intentionally suppresses natural cancer cures because of pressure from the pharmaceutical industry. The more specific conspiracies you ask about in polls, the higher the percentage of Americans that believe in at least one, Uscinski said. He thinks it’s likely everyone has a pet conspiracy to call their own. What’s more, conspiracy beliefs aren’t necessarily all that special, said Carrie Leonard, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Lethbridge in Canada. Leonard studies broader categories of what are known as “erroneous beliefs” — paranormal experiences, gambling fallacies, that sort of thing. The more we learn about conspiracy beliefs, the more they seem to have in common with these other kinds of wrong ideas, she said. Feeling a lack of control over various aspects of life, a tendency toward paranoid thinking, failure to understand and use statistics and probabilistic reasoning — all those things correlate with belief in ghosts and slot-machine prowess as much as with belief in the Illuminati. In fact, Leonard said, if you believe in the paranormal, you’re more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, and vice versa. (A finding that is probably completely unsurprising to the editors of The Fortean Times.) At the same time, though, conspiracy theories have a sociopolitical aspect that makes them stand out. Leonard, and other researchers, think of belief in conspiracy as an interaction between individual tendencies and social circumstances. So, for instance, if you’re part of a group that is marginalized by society or lacks power in important ways you’re more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. That means being a member of a racial minority is a predictor of conspiracy belief — and so is unemployment, low economic status, or even just being a member of a cultural group that’s looked down on by people in positions of power. Likewise, consider who is accusing whom of engaging in conspiracy. Uscinski’s study of newspaper letters to the editor tracked the social status of the letter writers. Consistently, he found conspiracies were punching up. Not only did average people write more than 70 percent of the conspiracy letters — as opposed to elite members of society — the conspiracies alleged were usually aimed at people in positions of power. There’s also no evidence to suggest that conspiracy belief is a phenomenon of the far right or the far left, Uscinski said. Americans broadly believe in a “them” pulling the strings and manipulating the country. And this is where conspiracy beliefs start to get tangled up with truth. Because history does contain real examples of conspiracy. Pizzagate was a dangerous lie that led an armed man to walk into a family restaurant, convinced he was there to rescue children from pedophilic members of the Democratic Party. But that incident also exists in the same universe as the Tuskegee experiments, redlining and the Iran-Contra Affair. “I have this conspiracy that Western governments are involved in an international spying ring,” Wood said. “Before about 2014 that would have made you a conspiracy theorist. Now we know it’s true.” Summoning — and demonizing — the belief in conspiracies can also have political consequences. “During the Bush Administration, the left was going fucking bonkers … about 9/11 and Halliburton and Cheney and Blackwater and all this stuff,” Uscinski said. “As soon as Obama won they didn’t give a shit about any of that stuff anymore. They did not care. It was politically and socially inert.” In turn, conspiracy theories about Obama flourished on the right. Uscinski said he is frustrated by this tendency for partisans to build up massive conspiracy infrastructures when they are out of power, only to develop a sudden amnesia and deep concern about the conspiracy mongering behavior of the other side once power is restored. It’s a cycle, he said that threatened to make social science a tool of partisan slapfights more than a standard of truth. And in a 2017 paper, he argued that conspiracy beliefs could even be useful parts of the democratic process, calling them “tools for dissent used by the weak to balance against power.” These issues add up to more scientists beginning to have questions about what the goals of conspiracy belief research should actually be. Do we want an entire field of study aimed at preventing conspiracy theories from forming and dispelling the ones that do? “I don’t think so,” Wood said. “I’m sure some people would disagree with me on that. But the objective shouldn’t be nobody speculates about people in power abusing power. That’s a terrible outcome for the world.” He’s right — some scientists do disagree. Leonard, for instance, acknowledged that the world is complex, but viewed conspiracy theories as largely negative — erroneous beliefs, like gambling fallacies, but with the power to disrupt whole societies rather than just one person’s bank account. Of course, all this debate assumes eliminating conspiracy theories is even possible. Van Prooijen told me that he’s currently working on a line of research to see whether a false conspiracy belief can be corrected by giving the people who believe in it something they’ve lacked — power and control over their own lives. In laboratory experiments, this seems to work, he said. Empower people, give them a sense of control, operate with transparency, and conspiracy theories seem to become less appealing. Trouble is, in the real world, who has the ability to offer that kind of empowerment? “If a group of people strongly distrusts a government or group of leaders, anything they do will raise suspicion,” van Prooijen said. Whether they want to get rid of conspiracies or not, scientists (and global leaders) are kind of stuck. Conspiracy beliefs are the norm, and difficult to shake because the people with the most interest in shaking them are, usually, the very people the conspiracy is meant to fight. As van Prooijen put it: “It’s not an easy task.” | Maggie Koerth-Baker ([email protected]) | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/conspiracy-theories-cant-be-stopped/ | 2019-03-25 13:59:11+00:00 | 1,553,536,751 | 1,567,544,904 | science and technology | social sciences |
194,900 | fivethirtyeight--2019-04-10--How Will Democratic Voters Respond To The 2020 Fields Historic Diversity | 2019-04-10T00:00:00 | fivethirtyeight | How Will Democratic Voters Respond To The 2020 Field’s Historic Diversity? | Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited. sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): In 2008, Democrats nominated the only black candidate in the primary field, and in 2016, they nominated the only woman. The 2020 Democratic primary has the potential for a number of firsts, including the first black woman nominee, the first openly gay nominee or the first Jewish nominee, among others. But a field that is more diverse than any we’ve seen before is also a challenge for candidates seeking to distinguish themselves, especially when many of their opponents can also lay claim to a historic nomination. So what will it mean to run in a field both as large and diverse as the 2020 Democratic primary, both for those whose candidacies would and would not be historic? Joining us are two first-time FiveThirtyEight contributors: Julian Wamble, a political science professor at Stony Brook University, and Carole Bell, a political communication scholar. Welcome!!! julian.wamble: Thanks! Glad to be here. And as to your question, part of me wonders how much novelty making history has anymore for Democrats, considering that they made it in 2008 but then didn’t make it in 2016. I guess I wonder if that’s something voters still consider appealing? meredithconroy (Meredith Conroy, political science professor at California State University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): That’s a good point. Hillary Clinton’s candidacies in 2008 and 2016 and Obama’s in 2008 were frequently described as “historic.” I haven’t seen that word thrown around as much this cycle, but it’s still early. sarahf: Democrats also seem to be especially concerned with defeating President Trump, so perhaps that will overshadow other considerations. carole.bell: Yes. Anxiety and energy are both high. Part of that is about making history as well as beating Trump, and it might be why so many candidates have jumped in. But a field of this size presents challenges for all involved: candidates, party officials, donors, the press and voters. It also means that the novelty of a candidate really seems to cut both ways. Democrats are excited about turning the page after 2016, and the social identity of the candidate is part of that. But they’re also running scared after losing to Trump, which is perhaps reflected in the fact that three of the four top candidates in the horse race, according to the polls, are straight white men. julian.wamble: I think it may be people who don’t stand to make history if they win the nomination who actually carry a greater weight of trying to set themselves apart. perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): Right. Take someone like Beto O’Rourke. I think he is super aware that he is a straight white male candidate, so he is trying to emphasize in his campaign that he will represent the rest of the party. He basically promised to name a woman as his VP during his first week as a candidate. Arguably, that is also part of what Joe Biden was trying to do by floating Stacey Abrams as his VP pick. julian.wamble: But I wonder whether suggesting women and women of color as VP picks comes across as genuine. carole.bell: I think the “diverse VP” play has been too calculated and smacks of tokenism. julian.wamble: It definitely raises the question of what these white male candidates can do to prove that they are not your “traditional” white male candidate — i.e., they understand issues of racial inequality or gender discrimination — while still being perceived as genuine. perry: That genuine question is hard, and I’m not totally sure how a candidate tackles that. There’s definitely been a token-ish element in how Beto O’Rourke and Joe Biden have talked about their VP picks, but I also think they’re both trying to show that they respect different parts of the Democratic Party’s coalition and will respect them as president. And that is a good instinct. sarahf: What type of coalition candidates will have to build to win the primary is one question we’re interested in at FiveThirtyEight. At this stage, what do you see as some of the challenges for candidates trying to build a solid bloc of support? julian.wamble: Cory Booker and Kamala Harris are often depicted as the two front-runners among black voters, but I think they actually have a higher hill to climb than the white candidates who are also courting black supporters. And that’s because Booker and Harris not only have to win over black voters, but they also have to win over white voters. And social science research has shown us that can pose some challenges for non-white candidates, as white voters often perceive them as representing the interests of voters of color over white voters’ interests. perry: One question I have when we talk about different constituencies in the Democratic Party is how we should factor in women voters. In that piece on all the different coalitions of the party, FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver didn’t include women as their own group. That’s because they make up nearly 60 percent of the Democratic primary electorate and would naturally make up an important part of any grouping within the party. But what do you think? Is appealing to women as a voting bloc something worth doing? julian.wamble: I don’t know. I think appealing to women as one voting bloc assumes that gender is a prominent political identity for all women, and I’m not sure that is a safe assumption to make. carole.bell: Right. Studies have shown that different aspects of identity often take priority over gender, especially for women of color or conservative women who identify as pro-life, for example. julian.wamble: We’ve seen numerous elections in which women, particularly white women, have not voted collectively in ways that that many Democrats expected of them, which raises the question: Are women actually a cohesive identity-voting bloc? meredithconroy: Julian makes an important point — the majority of white women voted for Trump in 2016. But I think Nate was right to not designate a “women constituency” within the Democratic primary electorate. After all, research has found that women and men who identify as Democrats are really similar to each other on most issues; gun control is one big exception. carole.bell: Exactly. There’s also evidence that women aren’t a voting bloc when it comes to prioritizing race, which we’re already seeing discussed in 2020. For the vast majority of black women, in addition to things like health care, criminal justice/policing and racial justice were “very important” issues in the 2018 midterm elections. But one of the main critiques that black women have long had of mainstream (predominantly white) feminists and liberals is that they fail to recognize or prioritize the role that racial oppression plays in black women’s lives, whereas black women have always had to be conscious of it. However, that may be changing. More white liberals are acknowledging racial inequality, and many Democrats now seem to be trying to bridge the gap. Acknowledging Black Lives Matter and the Mothers of the Movement at the 2016 Democratic National Convention was one way to show that, and now 2020 presidential candidates like Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren are trying to step up by introducing policies aimed at racial justice. Both Warren and Harris have even said they support reparations for black Americans affected by slavery. perry: Right now, I find the number of candidates running to be kind of overwhelming — and the voters I talk to do as well. But one thing I keep seeing is the sign of an age gap — that is, I think, if he runs, Biden will do better with older voters than younger ones. And we even have some polling that supports the idea that Biden is doing well with older Democrats (ages 50 and up) and not as well with younger voters. “Over the age of 50” isn’t what we usually think of as an identity, but I wonder if age is a good proxy for liberalism, with older people being less “woke” (or not as focused on Biden’s role in the 1994 crime bill, the Anita Hill hearing or his touching women in ways that make some of them uncomfortable , etc.). meredithconroy: A number of early primary polls have more clearly shown an age gap when it comes to candidate preferences than a gender gap. For instance, the Quinnipiac University poll that Perry linked to above shows a 4-point gap between men and women in their support for Biden (32 percent of men said they would vote for Biden vs. 28 percent of women), as well as a 5-point point gap in their support for Sanders (22 percent of men vs. 17 percent of women). But compare that with a 15-point gap between 18-to-49-year-olds and those 50 and over who support Biden (22 percent vs. 37 percent) and a 14-point gap in support for Sanders between these two age groups (26 percent vs. 12 percent). carole.bell: Age could be a huge factor in terms of both the culture and priorities of Democratic voters. Older voters don’t seem to care as much about Biden’s history, and polling shows that they are more likely to say the #MeToo movement has gone too far. I think they may be frustrated and worried that the party is focusing too much on related issues like sexual harrasment or sexual assault. This also extends to issues of race or anything that could fall under the heading of “identity politics,” which some blamed for the loss to Trump. julian.wamble: It’s a question of who voters want the party to be and who the party should represent, and the age gap speaks to the different mentalities that currently exist in the party. For some Democrats, the big question is: Who can beat Trump? So maybe there’s less of a concern about whether the person who can do that is “woke” or without repute. carole.bell: I think many Democrats and commentators have also been working on the assumption that the Democratic Party today is “no party for old white men.” But that seems false or at least way too early to claim. The reality is that two older white men in their 70s are the most popular candidates, at least at this stage. sarahf: To Carole’s point, Biden and Sanders have led the polls for months now (even though Biden hasn’t yet said he’s running). But Harris and O’Rourke are in third and fourth place, respectively. And, of course, there’s been a lot of buzz around Pete Buttigieg. So what do we make of the current horse race, and what will you be keeping an eye on as candidates try to distinguish themselves? perry: Buttigieg is, to me, the most interesting person in the race right now. He is casting himself as Mr. Midwest and seems able to reach swing voters, but he’s also an openly gay candidate (plus, he’d be the youngest president ever if elected). carole.bell: Perry, I’m a little obsessed with the Buttigieg factor. He bridges both buckets of candidates we’re discussing here. He’s running as an openly gay man, which is historic. And while his race and gender do not trump his sexual identity, there are advantages of being a white man from the Midwest. julian.wamble: The fact that Buttigieg is a gay married man is important. But I would argue that because he’s a white man, Buttigieg has less to prove than candidates who have to combat stereotypes about their inability to represent “the average American” by virtue of their racial and ethnic backgrounds, like, say, Julian Castro, Booker or Harris. carole.bell: Yes, Buttigieg gets to be both the electable white male candidate and the historic candidate who represents progress and inclusion. There’s a lot in his candidacy that both moderate Democrats and liberals alike can embrace. That said, some of his rhetoric about Clinton, coastal Democrats and “social justice warriors” has given some Democrats second thoughts. meredithconroy: It’s definitely possible that people who are uncomfortable with a gay person running for president might look at Buttigieg’s status as a white man and a veteran and be more comfortable with his candidacy. But as you can see in the table below, running as an openly gay candidate is still a considerable hurdle. The last time Gallup asked Americans whether they would be willing to vote for a “generally well-qualified” gay or lesbian candidate for president was in 2015, but at the time, 14 percent of Democrats and 24 percent of Americans overall said they would not be willing to vote for a such a candidate. perry: What do we make of Booker’s and Castro’s candidacies and how they fit into the field? It feels like Harris has broken out — she’s doing really well both with fundraising and in the polls. But Booker and Castro are not. Why? sarahf: Booker’s underperformance in the polls I find harder to explain than Castro’s. Castro arguably disappeared from the national spotlight after his tenure as Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development ended. Booker, meanwhile, has the most endorsements out of any candidate in the field!! And he’s doing well with early state activists. But maybe the party really doesn’t decide anymore. perry: It’s a real challenge for Booker that the media can’t discover him and find him fresh like Mayor Pete. Booker has been on the scene for a long time. He was a cool, interesting young mayor in … 2006. meredithconroy: Perry, I thought either Booker’s CNN town hall or his “Pod Save America” appearance would help him be rediscovered. But you’re right that it’s not happening, and that hurts him. carole.bell: Booker’s evolution is interesting. More than other candidates, he seems stalled. And what’s most concerning is that he has good name recognition, but he is still polling at only around 4 percent, on average. I’m not really sure that he commands any particular constituency. He has been a leader on criminal justice reform, but he’s not that popular on the left, for instance. meredithconroy: Which constituencies could he command? perry: Part of his theory of the case is he’d appeal to both party loyalists and black voters. julian.wamble: But not being “rediscovered” hasn’t hurt some of the other candidates, so I’m perplexed and not really sure what Booker can do to bring himself back into the fray. Or what he can do to set himself apart from the other contenders in the race. sarahf: But, OK, say there is a path for Democratic contenders to build a winning coalition of primary voters by running on a platform that tackles identity politics head-on. How does that factor into this current field of candidates, and what will building that coalition take? And do some of the candidates that could be historic-firsts have an advantage here? perry: Broadly, I think you could split the field up like this — candidates like Harris or Warren running on fairly liberal stances when it comes to issues of race, equality and other identity-based issues. And then someone like Amy Klobuchar aiming clearly at Obama-Trump voters. But in the end, I think most candidates, regardless of what side they fall on, will talk about health care and racial equality to win both the Obama-Trump voters and the black voters who didn’t turn out in 2016. Also, and I need to get better at saying this, expanding health care and racial equality go hand in hand. It’s not like there is some clean divide when it comes to economic or racial issues. julian.wamble: Building a campaign message around the idea of equality to show an understanding of how different groups of voters struggle is, in my opinion, an effective way to use identity politics in a way that doesn’t isolate other groups of voters. carole.bell: I agree. And I actually think Warren, in particular, does a great job speaking to issues Democrats really care about including health care, racial equality, gender equality and more general economic issues. But with Warren, there’s a gap between her strength on policy and her political skill, on the one hand, and her standing in the race, on the other. It’s still early, but I think Warren is like Booker in that regard. Both in Warren’s CNN town hall and on the campaign trail, voters respond positively, but that doesn’t seem to translate to her polling numbers, or at least not yet. meredithconroy: For Booker, Harris, Castro, Warren, Klobuchar and Gillibrand, they build a coalition by making the primary about the issues where their identity gives them an edge — health care, criminal justice, child care, immigration. I think they can (and are) directing the agenda in a way where their expertise and credibility won’t be denied. carole.bell: I definitely agree with that point, Meredith. We already know that “running as a woman” can work in a candidate’s favor when issues and attributes associated with women are valued by the public. And I think that could apply to other identity-based issues in 2020. Right now, health care is a top issue, as it was in 2018. I think racial equality could be a big focus in 2020, and candidates who are able to speak to that directly and authentically have the potential to stand out. | Perry Bacon Jr. ([email protected]) | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-will-democratic-voters-respond-to-the-2020-fields-historic-diversity/ | 2019-04-10 10:01:07+00:00 | 1,554,904,867 | 1,567,543,282 | science and technology | social sciences |
194,933 | fivethirtyeight--2019-04-23--How The Citizenship Question Could Break The Census | 2019-04-23T00:00:00 | fivethirtyeight | How The Citizenship Question Could Break The Census | This is the Trump Docket, where we track some of the most important legal cases of the Trump presidency and how their results could shape presidential power. Questions, comments or thoughts about cases to cover? Email us here. Every 10 years, the Constitution requires the government to count all the millions of people living in the United States. The decennial census is a massive, painstaking undertaking that results in a national portrait in numbers. It tells us how many people live here, where people have moved and how our country’s racial and ethnic makeup has changed. And today the Supreme Court will weigh whether asking respondents whether they are U.S. citizens would undermine the census’s mandate to count every person. A lot is determined by the data from each census, which is why adding or subtracting survey questions can be contentious. In addition to determining how many seats in the U.S. House each state has, census data touches almost every corner of American life, including business, education and polling, to name a few. “These numbers are the gold standard body of statistics that make the country run,” said Thomas Wolf, counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Critics of the proposal to add a citizenship question to the census are concerned that if a large number of immigrants don’t respond or respond incorrectly, the results will be inaccurate, and as a result, certain areas of the country will lose funding or political representation. Both parties could be affected, since an undercount of immigrants would likely hurt red states like Texas and blue states like California. Questions related to a person’s citizenship did once appear on the census, but historians say the phrasing and intent of those earlier questions were different — and, in any case, they were removed from the main head count after 1950 in a bid to improve the census’s accuracy. Meanwhile, social science methods have evolved to the point that high-quality citizenship data can be — and already is — collected via other Census Bureau surveys and administrative records. So the Trump administration is facing an important question: Why add a question to the census that could harm the quality and credibility of the data — and also may not be necessary? The case before the Supreme Court is about the legality of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census; it has been challenged by an array of states and civil rights organizations. Ross says the question was added in response to a request from the Justice Department for more detailed citizenship data to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, but three lower court judges have all concluded that the evidence shows he had already decided to add the question and used the Justice Department as a pretext. The judges concluded, too, that the administration violated standards of transparency and accountability required of executive agencies by failing to test the question and ignoring expert advice against adding it. Two also ruled that the question would violate the Constitution because it seems likely to result in an undercount. But the Trump administration maintains that the question isn’t even all that revolutionary. In the government’s telling, the citizenship question is being “reinstated” — a claim that was echoed by Justice Neil Gorsuch in a dissent last fall on the Supreme Court order that allowed a trial in one of the citizenship question cases. “Most censuses in our history have asked about citizenship,” Gorsuch wrote. This argument certainly makes Ross’s decision look more reasonable, both from a procedural perspective and a constitutional perspective. But historians say it overstates the extent to which citizenship-related questions have been a fixture on past censuses. Margo Anderson, who is a retired professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and studies the demographic history of the U.S., signed onto an amicus brief outlining the history of the census in support of the administration’s challengers. She told me that even though questions about immigration status have previously appeared on the census, a question directly asking every household whether every resident is a citizen has not. When questions about citizenship status were included in the past, Anderson said, they were sporadic and asked only of certain groups and were sometimes accompanied by additional questions about whether people were trying to become citizens. The 1890 census, for instance, specified that only “males of foreign birth” who are 21 years or older be asked whether they were naturalized and whether they had “taken out papers” to become naturalized. In 1950, the census asked whether people who were “foreign born” were “naturalized.” Often the purpose was to determine how immigrants were being assimilated and whether they had started the naturalization process. The difference now, Anderson said, is that “the question that’s being proposed by the Trump administration has an exclusionary function — are you a citizen, yes or no.” Wolf, who co-authored a recent paper about the history of citizenship questions on the census, said that in the mid-20th century, large numbers of demographic questions, including one related to citizenship, were removed from the full survey received by everyone and added to a longer supplement that only went to a subset of households, because new statistical methods showed researchers that a single, more cumbersome survey was causing an undercount. Anderson echoed Wolf’s findings and said that although it’s hard to say for sure because the question hasn’t been tested, there’s evidence that the addition could cause respondents to skip the citizenship question, decline to fill out the form or leave relatives off the form, or inaccurately claim citizenship. Statisticians and social science researchers have expressed concerns that immigrants and their families, in particular, may be less likely to respond to the census or may respond inaccurately out of fear that the data could be used for immigration enforcement. One of the main criticisms of the Trump administration by the states and organizations challenging the question is that it hasn’t made the case for why citizenship data needs to be gathered on the census and doesn’t seem sufficiently concerned about how the addition of the question will affect the accuracy of the count. Kenneth Prewitt, a professor at Columbia University and a former Census Bureau director, told me that high-quality citizenship data is available from other census surveys and administrative records. Indeed, there already is a citizenship question on a separate, longer Census Bureau survey that is sent to a small share of households on a monthly basis. “Adding this question to the decennial census is not necessary,” Prewitt said. And Justin Levitt, who is a law professor at Loyola Law School Los Angeles and worked in the Justice Department’s civil rights division in the Obama administration, said there are few situations where the census’s highly granular data is necessary to determine whether a minority group is protected under the Voting Rights Act. Instead, Levitt said, the reverse could be true: Inflated or otherwise inaccurate citizenship numbers in a particular area could result in a minority group not getting protections. Regardless of how the case turns out, some damage to the census’s credibility as a nonpartisan, scientific tally may already have been done. “It’s like an election — we have to agree that the results are fair,” Anderson said. And by drawing the census into the broader debate about immigration, the Trump administration may have already helped stoke mistrust in the final result — even if the citizenship question never ends up on a census form. Trump and his businesses filed a lawsuit against House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, in response to a congressional subpoena for Trump’s personal financial information. The lawsuit argues that the subpoena is invalid and unenforceable because it has no “legitimate legislative purpose.” | Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-citizenship-question-could-break-the-census/ | 2019-04-23 13:38:10+00:00 | 1,556,041,090 | 1,567,541,998 | science and technology | social sciences |
195,268 | fivethirtyeight--2019-09-18--The Christian Right Is Helping Drive Liberals Away From Religion | 2019-09-18T00:00:00 | fivethirtyeight | The Christian Right Is Helping Drive Liberals Away From Religion | A few weeks ago, the Democratic National Committee formally acknowledged what has been evident for quite some time: Nonreligious voters are a critical part of the party’s base. In a one-page resolution passed at its annual summer meeting, the DNC called on Democratic politicians to recognize and celebrate the contributions of nonreligious Americans, who make up one-third of Democrats. In response, Robert Jeffress, a Dallas pastor with close ties to Trump, appeared on Fox News, saying the Democrats were finally admitting they are a “godless party.” This was hardly a new argument. Conservative Christian leaders have been repeating some version of this claim for years, and have often called on religious conservatives and Republican politicians to defend the country against a growing wave of liberal secularism. And it’s true that liberals have been leaving organized religion in high numbers over the past few decades. But blaming the Democrats, as Jeffress and others are wont to do, doesn’t capture the profound role that conservative Christian activists have played in transforming the country’s religious landscape, and the role they appear to have played in liberals’ rejection of organized religion. Researchers haven’t found a comprehensive explanation for why the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans has increased over the past few years — the shift is too large and too complex. But a recent swell of social science research suggests that even if politics wasn’t the sole culprit, it was an important contributor. “Politics can drive whether you identify with a faith, how strongly you identify with that faith, and how religious you are,” said Michele Margolis, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity.” “And some people on the left are falling away from religion because they see it as so wrapped up with Republican politics.” Over the course of a single generation, the country has gotten a lot less religious. As recently as the early 1990s, less than 10 percent of Americans lacked a formal religious affiliation, and liberals weren’t all that much likelier to be nonreligious than the public overall. Today, however, nearly one in four Americans are religiously unaffiliated. That includes almost 40 percent of liberals — up from 12 percent in 1990, according to the 2018 General Social Survey. The share of conservatives and moderates who have no religion, meanwhile, has risen less dramatically. The result is that today, most people’s political ideology is more tightly tethered to their religious identity. The overlap is far from complete — there are still some secular conservatives and even more religious liberals. In fact, the majority of Democratic voters are religiously affiliated. But the more liberal you are, the less likely you are to belong to a faith; whereas if you’re conservative, you’re more likely to say you’re religious. To be sure, religious belief and practice can still exist without a label. Many people who are religiously unaffiliated still believe in God, or slip back into the pews a few times a year. But liberals are also cutting ties with religious institutions — since 1990, the share of liberals who never attend religious services has tripled. And they’re less likely to believe in God: The percentage of liberals who say they know God exists fell from 53 percent in 1991 to 36 percent in 2018. At first, it wasn’t clear why so many Americans were losing their faith — and of the available explanations, politics wasn’t high on the list. After all, there are lots of reasons why any individual person would stop attending church that have nothing to do with politics. A church scandal might spark a crisis of faith. You might begin to view a religion’s hierarchies or rules as antiquated, restrictive or irrelevant to your life. You might not have been that religious to begin with. Social scientists were initially reluctant to entertain the idea that a political backlash was somehow responsible, because it challenged long-standing assumptions about how flexible our religious identities really are. Even now, the idea that partisanship could shape something as personal and profound as our relationship with God might seem radical, or maybe even a little offensive. But when two sociologists, Michael Hout and Claude Fischer, began to look at possible explanations for why so many Americans were suddenly becoming secular, those conventional reasons couldn’t explain why religious affiliation started to fall in the mid-1990s. Demographic and generational shifts also couldn’t fully account for why liberals and moderates were leaving in larger numbers than conservatives. In a paper published in 2002, they offered a new theory: Distaste for the Christian right’s involvement with politics was prompting some left-leaning Americans to walk away from religion. It was a simple but compelling explanation. For one thing, the timing made sense. In the 1990s, white evangelical Protestants were becoming more politically powerful and visible within conservative politics. As white evangelical Protestants became an increasingly important constituency for the GOP, the Christian conservative political agenda — focused primarily on issues of sexual morality, including opposition to gay marriage and abortion — became an integral part of the the party’s pitch to voters, but it was still framed as part of an existential struggle to protect the country’s religious foundation from incursions by the secular left. Hout and Fischer argued that the Christian right hadn’t just roused religious voters from their political slumber — left-leaning people with weaker religious ties also started opting out of religion because they disliked Christian conservatives’ social agenda. At the time, Hout and Fischer’s argument was mostly just a theory. But within the past few years, Margolis and several other prominent political scientists have concluded that politics is a driving factor behind the rise of the religiously unaffiliated. For one thing, several studies that followed respondents over time showed that it wasn’t that people were generally becoming more secular, and then gravitating toward liberal politics because it fit with their new religious identity. People’s political identities remained constant as their religious affiliation shifted. Other research showed that the blend of religious activism and Republican politics likely played a significant role in increasing the number of religiously unaffiliated people. One study, for instance, found that something as simple as reading a news story about a Republican who spoke in a church could actually prompt some Democrats to say they were nonreligious. “It’s like an allergic reaction to the mixture of Republican politics and religion,” said David Campbell, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame and one of the study’s co-authors. Granted, the people who were leaving weren’t necessarily at the center of their religious community — they didn’t attend religious services often, perhaps dropping in once or twice a year. But the numbers began to add up, opening a rift between conservatives and liberals. According to Margolis’s research, while young people across the political spectrum tend to drift away from religion, liberals are increasingly unlikely to return. As a result, views about religion and its role in American society have become increasingly polarized. According to surveys by the Pew Research Center, the percentage of liberals who believe that churches and religious organizations positively contribute to society dropped from nearly half (49 percent) in 2010 to only one-third (33 percent) today. And according to 2016 data from the Voter Study Group, only 11 percent of people who are very liberal say that being Christian is at least fairly important to what it means to be American — compared to 69 percent of people who identify as very conservative. And although the people who have left religion could return, it seems more and more unlikely. For one thing, conservative Christians are still a key part of the Republican coalition, where their agenda on issues like abortion and religious exemptions remains a high political priority within the party. This means liberals’ views of the association between conservative politics and religion could be hard to shake. These patterns are self-reinforcing in other ways, too. Recent surveys show that secular liberals are more likely than moderates or conservatives to have spouses who aren’t religious. That’s critical because these couples are then often less likely to pray or send their children to Sunday school, and research shows that formative religious experiences as a child play a crucial role in structuring an adult’s religious beliefs and identity. It’s no coincidence then that the youngest liberals — who never lived in a political world before the Christian right — are also the most secular. “It’s very, very unlikely that a kid raised in a nonreligious liberal household would suddenly consider going to church,” Margolis said. The political implications of this shift are already evident. As more liberals become nonreligious, the Democratic Party’s base is growing more secular, complicating the party’s efforts at reaching more religious voters. But what it means for religion is less clear. Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison College, said that the impact might be blunted by the fact that the people who are becoming nonreligious mostly weren’t that involved in religion to begin with. But Campbell warned that this shift is already reducing churches’ ability to bring a diverse array of people together and break down partisan barriers. That, in his view, threatens to further undermine trust in religious groups and make our politics more and more divisive. “We have very few institutions left in the country where people who have different political views come together,” he said. “Worship was one of those — and without it, the list is smaller and smaller.” | Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-christian-right-is-helping-drive-liberals-away-from-religion/ | 2019-09-18 11:00:28+00:00 | 1,568,818,828 | 1,569,329,923 | science and technology | social sciences |
195,481 | fivethirtyeight--2019-12-05--Does Knowing Whom Others Might Vote For Change Whom You’ll Vote For? | 2019-12-05T00:00:00 | fivethirtyeight | Does Knowing Whom Others Might Vote For Change Whom You’ll Vote For? | When a presidential race that was supposed to be won by a mainstream moderate instead ends being captured by a far-right gadfly, you better believe pollsters are gonna get some scrutiny. But when this situation took place in the first round of French elections in 2002, bumping the incumbent prime minister from the final round, it wasn’t just the failure of prediction that led to a polling protest. Instead, people were concerned that opinion polling, itself, had caused the outcome. Twenty-four years earlier, France had muzzled opinion polling, banning the publication of poll results for a week before any election out of fear that voters were following the polls, rather than the other way around. That changed in 2001, and the 2002 election was the first time since the 1970s that French voters had been able to make their choice knowing what their neighbors were likely planning to do. As hard as it may be for some of us to imagine (especially readers of this website), laws limiting when opinion polls can be published before an election are pretty common. Of the 216 countries whose election rules are tracked by the United Nations-backed Electoral Knowledge Network, 92 have some kind of regulated blackout period where polls cannot be published. Even after its 2002 rule change, France still has a 24-hour blackout period before the vote. Experts say most of these laws are based around the same premise: Polls can influence votes. If you know that most of your fellow citizens are planning to pick a specific candidate, you might decide to be part of the winning team. If you know the person you’d pick is so far ahead that there’s no chance of them losing, maybe you’ll chill out and stay home on election day. But despite the power this fear has to shape law and fuel media narratives, the evidence supporting it is complex. Polls probably do influence how people vote in some situations, experts say. But it’s not anything like a universal, definitive effect. What’s more, some of them told me they aren’t sure that would be a bad thing. The question isn’t just whether polls determine outcomes, it’s also a debate over how people should decide their vote. Looking through the published research on how polling might influence elections, the first thing you find is that the risk has a name — “the bandwagon effect.” The second thing you find is that paper after paper seeks to figure out if the bandwagon effect is real. How could a thing have a name but still need proof of its existence? “It’s very difficult to get at and isolate this effect,” said Tom van der Meer, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Like many social science questions where the outcome is often determined by interactions between more than one factor, this is not an easy effect to study. Laboratory settings tend to show a bandwagon effect in action, van der Meer said. But these are spaces where research subjects look at pretend poll results and place hypothetical votes, which may not reflect the real world. Observational studies — looking at the outcomes of real elections — are thickets of potential causal factors, nearly impossible to hack your way through. How do you determine whether it was the polls themselves that shifted the vote, or the polls that shaped media coverage that, in turn, shifted the vote? You can see the problem. But, on the whole, experts say the bandwagon is real. How real, though, depends on the context. “Are we talking about turnout, voting for a particular candidate, support for an issue …?” said Todd Hartman, a professor of quantitative social science at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. “Depending on what area you’re talking about, the effects are stronger or weaker.” For example, in 2013, researchers used a change in French law to get an idea of the potential impact of polls on voter turnout. Prior to 2005, citizens of France who lived in territories west of the country didn’t get to vote until after the mainland election had ended. Thus, they had the chance to see exit polls before they even went to cast their ballots. That changed after 2005, so researchers could compare several years worth of elections and see how knowledge of the presumed winner changed voter behavior. The result: After 2005, there was a nearly 12 percentage point increase in voter turnout. Far more people in those overseas territories voted when they didn’t already know who the winner was — a finding that has big implications for countries like the United States, where time zone differences mean voters in one part of the country can see the completed exit polls from earlier in the day. But the effects aren’t always that distinct. A different paper, published in 2016, involved a series of experiments that sorted more than 20,000 Dutch voters into groups that were then exposed to different kinds of polling data. Surveys showed that the people given just poll numbers didn’t change their vote intention at all — they looked no different than the group that received no polling information. But a third group, which was presented with a narrative-style interpretation of the polls showing one party gaining ground over time, did change their intended vote, becoming 2 percentage points more likely than the control group to vote for the party that was surging. That’s a small effect, but it could matter in a tight race. Another study showed that American voters with strong partisan preferences alter their votes to conform to opinion poll results that show what their preferred party likes or doesn’t like — but won’t do the same to match overall American opinion. Likewise, while polls won’t affect every voter, they can, in aggregate, become self-fulfilling prophecies that heighten how people feel about a given issue. But while the experts I spoke to generally agreed that bandwagon effects exist under certain conditions, they weren’t as certain about the implications of those effects and what, if anything, we should do about it. They even disagreed with themselves at times. “It’s a hard question,” said Neil Malhotra, professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. On the one hand, he told me, you don’t want people making choices in elections based on the kind of herding behavior that leads to a mediocre restaurant having a line down the block for no reason other than that there’s always a line there. Sometimes, popularity isn’t actually a proxy for quality. On the other hand, polls can provide voters with valuable information that allows them to vote strategically, especially in primaries where you’re less likely to know a lot about the candidates. Say you’re a Democratic primary voter who likes both Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg. A poll can help you decide which of those two candidates is most likely to benefit from your vote. Hartman was also conflicted. “People will use whatever information is available to them,” he said. “In an ideal democracy, we’d like to see people making decisions based on the issue platforms. But we also know that many voters are low-information voters, and they’re going to use whatever cues they can to sort out which candidate to vote for.” Those might be endorsements. It might be party affiliation. They might be poll results. In that sense, bandwagons aren’t exactly good or bad. They just exist. Which means the media has a large role to play in how voters hear about which bandwagons to jump on. Van der Meer’s research on those Dutch voters suggests that raw information doesn’t seem to shift votes, but narratives about the information do. In that case, he said, the media needs to be extra careful how it presents polling data. Which, of course, brings FiveThirtyEight into the mix. As a publication that presents a lot of polling data to the public, we’re as much a part of this story as we are reporters of it. Nate Silver, our editor in chief, certainly thinks about bandwagons. But he doesn’t consider them to be that big of a deal, he told me. That’s because Silver doesn’t really see the choice as being between poll-informed voting and policy-informed voting. “Without polling, there’s a vacuum filled by punditry and media assumptions,” he said. Banning polls doesn’t necessarily mean people vote smarter. In fact, from Silver’s perspective, it means they’re likely to vote even dumber — basing a choice on speculation instead of data. In the end, the question of whether polls influence voters might be less important than the question of whether voters have a right to access information they want. Consider, again, the 2002 French election. Analysis after the fact suggests that polling results did make a difference in that upset — leading voters to assume a mainstream runoff was so certain that it was safe to cast a ballot for a more extremist candidate, just to send a message to the winners. If enough people do that, their assumptions about who the winners will be won’t be accurate. But that outcome didn’t make the French switch back to a longer poll blackout. They couldn’t. That’s because the whole reason the blackout was shortened was that the country’s highest court found it to be an infringement of an article of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prevents public authorities from interfering with people sharing their opinions. Polls may well have changed the outcome of an election in France. But that was a choice the voters had the right to make. | Maggie Koerth ([email protected]) | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/does-knowing-whom-others-might-vote-for-change-whom-youll-vote-for/ | Thu, 05 Dec 2019 11:00:19 +0000 | 1,575,561,619 | 1,575,548,380 | science and technology | social sciences |
195,500 | fivethirtyeight--2019-12-12--Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back | 2019-12-12T00:00:00 | fivethirtyeight | Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back | Millennials have earned a reputation for reshaping industries and institutions — shaking up the workplace, transforming dating culture, and rethinking parenthood. They’ve also had a dramatic impact on American religious life. Four in ten millennials now say they are religiously unaffiliated, according to the Pew Research Center. In fact, millennials (those between the ages of 23 and 38) are now almost as likely to say they have no religion as they are to identify as Christian. . For a long time, though, it wasn’t clear whether this youthful defection from religion would be temporary or permanent. It seemed possible that as millennials grew older, at least some would return to a more traditional religious life. But there’s mounting evidence that today’s younger generations may be leaving religion for good. Social science research has long suggested that Americans’ relationship with religion has a tidal quality — people who were raised religious find themselves drifting away as young adults, only to be drawn back in when they find spouses and begin to raise their own families. Some argued that young adults just hadn’t yet been pulled back into the fold of organized religion, especially since they were hitting major milestones like marriage and parenthood later on. But now many millennials have spouses, children and mortgages — and there’s little evidence of a corresponding surge in religious interest. A new national survey from the American Enterprise Institute of more than 2,500 Americans found a few reasons why millennials may not return to the religious fold. (One of the authors of this article helped conduct the survey.) • For one thing, many millennials never had strong ties to religion to begin with, which means they were less likely to develop habits or associations that make it easier to return to a religious community. • Young adults are also increasingly likely to have a spouse who is nonreligious, which may help reinforce their secular worldview. • Changing views about the relationship between morality and religion also appear to have convinced many young parents that religious institutions are simply irrelevant or unnecessary for their children. Millennials may be the symbols of a broader societal shift away from religion, but they didn’t start it on their own. Their parents are at least partly responsible for a widening generational gap in religious identity and beliefs; they were more likely than previous generations to raise their children without any connection to organized religion. According to the AEI survey, 17 percent of millennials said that they were not raised in any particular religion compared with only five percent of Baby Boomers. And fewer than one in three (32 percent) millennials say they attended weekly religious services with their family when they were young, compared with about half (49 percent) of Baby Boomers. A parent’s religious identity (or lack thereof) can do a lot to shape a child’s religious habits and beliefs later in life. A 2016 Pew Research Center study found that regardless of the religion, those raised in households in which both parents shared the same religion still identified with that faith in adulthood. For instance, 84 percent of people raised by Protestant parents are still Protestant as adults. Similarly, people raised without religion are less apt to look for it as they grow older — that same Pew study found that 63 percent of people who grew up with two religiously unaffiliated parents were still nonreligious as adults. But one finding in the survey signals that even millennials who grew up religious may be increasingly unlikely to return to religion. In the 1970s, most nonreligious Americans had a religious spouse and often, that partner would draw them back into regular religious practice. But now, a growing number of unaffiliated Americans are settling down with someone who isn’t religious — a process that may have been accelerated by the sheer number of secular romantic partners available, and the rise of online dating. Today, 74 percent of unaffiliated millennials have a nonreligious partner or spouse, while only 26 percent have a partner who is religious. Luke Olliff, a 30-year-old man living in Atlanta, says that he and his wife gradually shed their religious affiliations together. “My family thinks she convinced me to stop going to church and her family thinks I was the one who convinced her,” he said. “But really it was mutual. We moved to a city and talked a lot about how we came to see all of this negativity from people who were highly religious and increasingly didn’t want a part in it.” This view is common among young people. A majority (57 percent) of millennials agree that religious people are generally less tolerant of others, compared to only 37 percent of Baby Boomers. Young adults like Olliff are also less likely to be drawn back to religion by another important life event — having children. For much of the country’s history, religion was seen as an obvious resource for children’s moral and ethical development. But many young adults no longer see religion as a necessary or even desirable component of parenting. Less than half (46 percent) of millennials believe it is necessary to believe in God to be moral. They’re also much less likely than Baby Boomers to say that it’s important for children to be brought up in a religion so they can learn good values (57 percent vs. 75 percent). These attitudes are reflected in decisions about how young adults are raising their children. 45 percent of millennial parents say they take them to religious services and 39 percent say they send them to Sunday school or a religious education program. Baby Boomers, by contrast, were significantly more likely to send their children to Sunday school (61 percent) and to take them to church regularly (58 percent). Mandie, a 32-year-old woman living in southern California and who asked that her last name not be used, grew up going to church regularly but is no longer religious. She told us she’s not convinced a religious upbringing is what she’ll choose for her one-year-old child. “My own upbringing was religious, but I’ve come to believe you can get important moral teachings outside religion,” she said. “And in some ways I think many religious organizations are not good models for those teachings.” Why does it matter if millennials’ rupture with religion turns out to be permanent? For one thing, religious involvement is associated with a wide variety of positive social outcomes like increased interpersonal trust and civic engagement that are hard to reproduce in other ways. And this trend has obvious political implications. As we wrote a few months ago, whether people are religious is increasingly tied to — and even driven by — their political identities. For years, the Christian conservative movement has warned about a tide of rising secularism, but research has suggested that the strong association between religion and the Republican Party may actually be fueling this divide. And if even more Democrats lose their faith, that will only exacerbate the acrimonious rift between secular liberals and religious conservatives. “At that critical moment when people are getting married and having kids and their religious identity is becoming more stable, Republicans mostly do still return to religion — it’s Democrats that aren’t coming back,” said Michele Margolis, author of “From the Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity.” in an interview for our September story. Of course, millennials’ religious trajectory isn’t set in stone — they may yet become more religious as they age. But it’s easier to return to something familiar later in life than to try something completely new. And if millennials don’t return to religion and instead begin raising a new generation with no religious background, the gulf between religious and secular America may grow even deeper. | Daniel Cox | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/ | Thu, 12 Dec 2019 11:00:38 +0000 | 1,576,166,438 | 1,576,153,225 | science and technology | social sciences |
198,774 | fortruss--2019-05-14--Promote Michael Parenti not Slavoj Zizek | 2019-05-14T00:00:00 | fortruss | Promote Michael Parenti, not Slavoj Zizek | In a blistering evisceration of phoney Marxists, ZOLTAN ZIGEDY excoriates those academics and their dupes who peddle trendy nonsense that was never a threat to capitalism – Morning Star GOOGLE knows that I have an abiding interest in Marxism. Consequently, I receive frequent links to articles that Google’s algorithms select as popular or influential. Consistently at the top of the list are articles by or about the irrepressible Slavoj Zizek. Zizek has mastered the tricks of a public intellectual — entertaining, pompous, outrageous, calculatedly obscure and mannered. The dishevelled pose and the beard add to a near caricature of the European professor gifting the world with big ideas embedded deeply in layers of obscurantism — a sure-fire way to appear profound. And a sure-fire way to advance one’s commercial entertainment value. Close followers of the “master” even post videos of Zizek devouring hot dogs — one in each hand! He is currently cashing in on a public debate with a right-wing gas-bag counterpart which reportedly brings in obscene prices for tickets. Marxism as entrepreneurship. Zizek is one of the latest iterations of a long line of largely European academics who build modest public celebrity from an identification with Marxism or the Marxist tradition. From Sartre and existentialism through structuralism, post-modernism, post-essentialism, post-Fordism, and identitarian politics, academics have appropriated pieces of the Marxist tradition and claimed to rethink that tradition, while keeping a measured, safe distance from any Marxist movement. They are Marxists when it brings an audience, but seldom answer the call to action. The curious thing about this intellectual Marxism, this parlour dilettante Marxism, is that it is never all-in — it is Marxism with grave reservations. Marxism is fine if it’s the “early” Marx, the “humanist” Marx, the “Hegelian” Marx, the Marx of the Grundrisse, the Marx without Engels, the Marx without the working class, the Marx before Bolshevism, or before communism. Understandably, if you want to be the next big Marx-whisperer, you must separate yourself from the pack, you must rethink Marxism, rediscover the “real” Marx, locate where Marx got it wrong. Previous generations of well-meaning, but class-befuddled university students have been seduced by “radical” thinkers who offer a taste of rebellion in a sexy academic package. Student book packs carried unread but fashionable books by authors like Marcuse, Althusser, Lacan, Deleuze, Laclau, Mouffe, Foucault, Derrida, Negri and Hardt — authors who shared common features of exotic, provocative book titles and impenetrable prose. Books that promised much, but delivered murk. With a new generation of radically minded youth looking for alternatives to capitalism and curious about socialism, it is inevitable that many are looking toward Marx. And where do they turn? A Yale professor unabashedly offers a handy primer, featured in the hip Jacobin Magazine, entitled “How to be a Marxist.” Professor Samuel Moyn is currently the Henry R Luce professor of jurisprudence. Apparently, Moyn feels no unease with holding a chair endowed by one of the country’s most notorious anti-communist, anti-Marxist publishers, while offering a guidebook to Marxism. Moyn’s How to… presumption to guide the unknowing to Marxism is neither justified nor explained. Nonetheless, he feels confident to recommend two recently deceased academics, Moishe Postone and Erik Olin Wright (along with the still living Perry Anderson), as representing the last of “…the generation of great intellectuals whose 1960s experiences led them to adopt a lifework of recovering and reimagining Marxism.” I confess that his choice of Moishe Postone had me baffled. Should I be embarrassed to say that I had never known Professor Postone’s work or known him to be a Marxist? When I found a YouTube interview with the esteemed Professor Postone, I quickly discovered that he emphatically and without reservation denies being a Marxist. Further, Postone contends that most of what we call Marxism was written by Frederick Engels. Postone concedes that Engels was “really a good guy,” but Engels never properly understood Marx. Postone, on the other hand, does. And his Marx does not “glorify” the industrial working class. I am, however, familiar with the other alleged exemplar of a “great intellectual” devotion to Marxism, Erik Olin Wright. Wright was a long-standing, prominent member of the so-called “Analytic Marxism” school. Wright, like the other members of this intellectual movement, attempted to place Marxism on a “legitimate” foundation, where legitimacy was earned by subjecting Marxism to the rigours of conventional Anglo-American social science. The conceit that Anglo-American social science is without flaws or that it has nothing to learn from Marx’s method is never questioned with this clique. But to Wright’s credit, he struggled mightily to grasp the concept of social class. In order “to save the left from going down various cul-de-sacs again,” Professor Moyn offers the latest book of his “brilliant colleague,” Martin Hagglund. Moyn assures us that “This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom is an excellent place to start for those who want to energise the theory of socialism, or even build their own theory of a Marxist variant of it.” It takes only a brief moment to see that Martin Hagglund and his admiring colleague are taking us down other cul-de-sacs, just ones trodden by many earlier generations. Hagglund’s journey would revisit existentialism, Hegel and Christian traditions in search of the elusive “meaning of life.” Though many of us thought that Marx offered a profoundly informed analysis of social change and social justice, Moyn/Hagglund, following Postone, bring forward “the ultimate questions anyone must ask: what work should I do? How should I spend my finite time?” Accumulating capital contrasts, they submit, with “maximising … each individual’s free time to spend as she pleases…” Thus, the struggle for emancipation, in this rethinking of Marxism, is not the emancipation of the working class, but the wresting of freely disposable time from the grip of work. The professors concede that this struggle is far easier for academics than for “the wretched of the Earth.” “And finally,” Moyn concludes, “there is Hagglund’s proposal that Marxists can ditch communism — which in any event Marx described vaguely — in favour of democracy. It is not totally clear what Hagglund means by democracy, something which neither Marx himself nor many Marxists have chosen to pursue theoretically.” So Hagglund distills “Marxism” into a rejection of communism and an embrace of a vague “democracy.” I would have to agree with Moyn: “Indeed, it is remarkable how little of what most people have thought Marxist theory was about make it into Hagglund’s … attempt to restart it for our time.” Apparently, the now revealed secret of becoming a Marxist is to discard Marx. Like many self-proclaimed “Marxists” who came before Postone, Hagglund, and Moyn, their intent seems to be to defang Marxism more than promote it. The naked truth is that Marxism — from the time of Marx’s censorship and multiple expulsions from different countries — is a dangerous idea. Marx’s inability to secure academic appointments and his constant surveillance and harassment by authorities proved to be a harbinger of the fate of nearly all authentic Marxist intellectuals. Capitalism does not endow those who advocate the undoing of capitalism with academic honour or celebrity. And those “Marxists” who do rise to academic acclaim, who get lucrative book deals, who enjoy media exposure, seldom present much of a threat to the system. It is a telling fact that, though history has produced many “organic” Marxists, Marxists with roots in the working class and in movements challenging capitalism, their contributions seldom populate the bibliographies of university professors, unless to deride. University employment is rarely available to purveyors of dangerous ideas or the advocacy of a version of Marx that calls for revolutionary change. A Marxist historian like the late Herbert Aptheker, who did more than any other intellectual to challenge the twisted Birth of a Nation/Gone With The Wind depiction of the benign South and its heroic defence of a noble way of life, could not find work in US universities. Indeed, it took a free speech movement to get him to be permitted to speak at all on US campuses. His books have disappeared from circulation and few students of African-American history are exposed to his contributions. No-one has created a history of the US labour movement to rival the late Marxist Philip Foner’s 10-volume History of the Labour Movement in the US. Foner’s five-volume The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass re-established Douglass as a pre-eminent figure in the abolition of slavery in the US. A historically black university, Lincoln University, courageously hired Foner after years of blacklisting. Sadly, today, his works are largely ignored in fields he pioneered. The serious contributions of many other US Marxist intellectuals can be found in back issues of publications like Science and Society, Political Affairs, Masses, Masses and Mainstream, and Freedomways resting on out-of-the-way library shelves gathering dust, diminished by McCarthyism, blacklists, scholarly cowardice and blatant anti-communism. The doors and public discourse of the academy and the mass media have equally been shut to working-class Marxists (unless they renounce their views). Despite his leading of working-class movements and his writing prolifically, Marxist William Z Foster’s works on organising, labour strategy and tactics, and political economy are largely forgotten, unless they reappear as someone else’s thinking. Other key Marxist figures responsible for and interpreting some of labour’s finest moments such as Len De Caux and Wyndham Mortimer are denied membership in the club. Similarly, Marxist pioneers in the black and women’s equality movements like Benjamin Davis, William Patterson and Claudia Jones are neither hailed as such nor offered as examples of “How to be a Marxist.” Marxist political economist Victor Perlo’s work in identifying the highest reaches of finance capital and the economics of racism are curiously missing from any relevant academic conversation. What these Marxists all share is an activist political life in the US Communist Party, a proud badge, but one denigrated by most US intellectuals. The best writing of the venerable Monthly Review magazine suffers the same marginalisation. Its founders were threatening enough to be victimised by the red scare. And co-founder Paul Sweezy, a serious Marxist political economist, never was enthusiastically welcomed into academic circles. Today, Michael Parenti is the most dangerous Marxist intellectual in the US. I know this because despite countless books, videos, and speaking engagements, despite an uncompromising commitment to a Marxist interpretation of history and current events, despite a profound, but reasoned hatred of capitalism, and despite an admirably approachable style and manner with big ideas, he is otherwise unemployed by universities and denied access to all but the most left or marginal media. Another impressive US Marxist scholar, Gerald Horne, though enjoying academic tenure, deserves to be studied by every “leftist” in the US for the integrity, accessibility and quality of his work. Authentic Marxism, as opposed to fashionable, trendy, or faddish Marxism, is relentless, aggressive, and inspiring of action. It diligently dissects the inner workings of the capitalist system. It is ruthless and unsparing in its rejection of capitalism. It challenges conventional thinking, making few friends in the capitalist press and rocking the gentility and collegiality of the staid liberalism of the academy. Marxism is not a career move, but a thankless commitment. Real Marxists are necessarily outliers. Until the conditions for revolutionary changes ripen, they are often subjected to scepticism, disinterest, even derision and hostility. Marxist poseurs are allergic to political organisations, activism and intellectual risk, while committed Marxists are compelled to seek and join movements for change; they are driven to serve Marx’s oft-quoted, seldom heeded eleventh thesis on Feurbach: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” | Guest Author | https://www.fort-russ.com/2019/05/promote-michael-parenti-not-slavoj-zizek/ | 2019-05-14 19:14:01+00:00 | 1,557,875,641 | 1,567,540,752 | science and technology | social sciences |
208,635 | foxnews--2019-01-18--Socialism rising Universities and radical profs helping steer leftward shift in politics critics | 2019-01-18T00:00:00 | foxnews | Socialism rising: Universities and ‘radical’ profs helping steer leftward shift in politics, critics say | Socialism is on the rise, as Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez carry the torch in Congress and polls show young people and Democrats warming to the ideology. Underlying that trend, some critics say, is a higher education system that has pushed these ideas for decades while stifling internal dissent. A 2018 report from the National Association of Scholars found that among top-tier liberal arts colleges, 39 percent had zero registered Republican professors in the entire college. “The academy is, in some sub-sectors, not very healthy right now,” Stephen Hicks, a philosophy professor at Rockford University, told Fox News. Research in the humanities and social science fields, he said, has the biggest problems. “For the last 20 years it's mostly been driven by ideological bias,” Hicks said. A study from last year in The American Sociologist surveyed 479 sociology professors and found that 21 percent consider themselves "radical" while a mere 2 percent consider themselves "conservative." The findings are in line with past surveys. A 2004 poll found that among sociology professors, 25 percent self-identified as "Marxist,” 49 percent identified as Democrats, and 5 percent as Republicans. It’s not just sociology – in social sciences broadly, more professors identified as Marxist than as conservative. The lopsidedness of the social sciences impacts students on campuses. On RateMyProfessors.com, where students evaluate professors, hundreds of reviews say things such as “you basically have to pretend to be a Marxist in order to get an A” and “as long as you show Marxist ideology in your papers you will pass.” MOST DEMOCRATS IDENTIFY AS LIBERALS FOR FIRST TIME, UNDERSCORING LEFTWARD TILT OF PARTY The tilt may be having real-world effects – students tend to move left in college, and are also more likely to move left when they major in fields with the most politically lopsided faculty. A 2012 survey in the Journal of Higher Education followed thousands of college students from freshman to senior year, and found that the proportion of liberal arts students identifying as “liberal” or “far left” rose from 45 percent to 52.5 percent as they went through college. Majoring in the humanities or social sciences was one of the biggest factors – doing so increased the odds of a student shifting left by about 50 percent. On the flip side, majoring in science or business reduced the odds of shifting to the left. So did being involved in a fraternity or sorority. For those who do shift left, they’re generally being taught not just traditional socialism, but also a newer “postmodern” variant. The newer ideas focus on the relative “privilege” of different race/gender/sexual identity groups. It was professors with that new focus who popularized concepts like "check your privilege," "microaggressions" and "intersectionality." Promotors of such ideas say they are fighting against oppressive groups and trying to achieve “social justice.” A typical college guide explaining the importance of such concepts reads: “Recognizing and understanding privilege is an important step to understanding individual and societal advantages and disadvantages.” Such ideas only recently entered mainstream discussions, but have often rapidly found their way into laws, corporate policies and politicians’ statements all across the western world. A handful of embattled academics warn that such ideas are tearing society apart by separating people based on group identities. “We've been publicly funding extremely radical postmodern leftist thinkers who are hell-bent on demolishing the fundamental structure of Western civilization,” University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson said in an interview with the Epoch Times. Peterson argues that identity politics evolved from the general ethos of Marxism, saying that when Marxist economics became unpopular in the 20th Century after failing in the Soviet Union, many leftist professors “played a sleight of hand” and shifted their focus away from a perceived battle between capitalists and workers – and toward a battle between “oppressor” and “oppressed” identity groups instead. Professor Stephen Hicks, who wrote a book called “Explaining Postmodernism” on the connection between old-line Marxism and the newer “postmodern” leftism, says there are two major links in thought. One is that both Marxism and the newer leftist ideas treat people as groups rather than as individuals. “The other thing they have in common is the adversarial use of terms,” Hicks said. “The ideas of ‘microaggressions’ and group identity are being used as clubs, as weapons against people. They say, you have a certain group identity, and ... we want you to feel guilty and ashamed if you're not in the right group.” Hicks noted that the newer ideas are not directly Marxist, but “coming out of, broadly, leftism. And since Marxism has been the most significant form of leftism for the last two centuries, it has a lot of Marxist roots in it.” Fox News asked 10 professors who have supported Marxism or postmodern theories to weigh in on these issues, but none did. Despite the many shared approaches, experts note that old-school Marxist and “postmodern” leftists often fight each other. Hellen Pluckrose, editor of the academic Aero magazine, told Fox News that old-line Marxists often see identity-focused leftists as “economically-privileged elite academics abandoning the working class.” The new leftist approaches have even given headaches to old-school socialists in national politics. Black Lives Matter protesters stormed the stage of a Bernie Sanders event in 2015, forcing him to cancel his speech. In 2017, Sanders also canceled a speech at a “Women’s Convention” after activists blasted allowing a white man to speak there. Similar battles rage on the left within university fields where conservatives are almost non-existent – but both groups agree on the importance of socialist ideas. The professors who remain open to conservative ideas in such fields say the need for pushback against the new leftists is critical. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “People are afraid to speak up and oppose the radicals, but you've got a choice -- you can wait around until things get worse,” Peterson has said. “Or you can stand up now and speak.” Maxim Lott is Executive Producer of Stossel TV and creator of ElectionBettingOdds.com. He can be reached on Twitter at @MaximLott. | Maxim Lott | http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/H6rGAJszUaQ/socialism-rising-universities-and-radical-profs-helping-steer-leftward-shift-in-politics | 2019-01-18 19:57:50+00:00 | 1,547,859,470 | 1,567,551,928 | science and technology | social sciences |
218,905 | freedombunker--2019-01-08--Steven Pinker Richard Dawkins Jordan Peterson Others Urge Portland State Not to Punish Peter Bogh | 2019-01-08T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, Jordan Peterson, Others Urge Portland State Not to Punish Peter Boghossian for ‘Grievance Studies’ Hoax | Several well-known academics wrote letters in support of Portland State University (PSU) philosophy professor Peter Boghossian, a co-author of the hoax "grievance studies" paper now facing academic misconduct charges. As I reported on Monday, PSU administrators have claimed Boghossian's efforts to trick academic journals into publishing fake studies violated institutional review board (IRB) protocols because he did not seek approval to carry out experiments on human subjects. Boghossian and his supporters—co-authors Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay among them—have protested that they didn't need any such permission, and asking for it would have risked giving away the game. To recap: Boghossian, Pluckrose, and Lindsay submitted hoax papers with social justice themes—animal sexuality, fat studies, etc.—to leftist academic journals in order to demonstrate that fake, jargon-filled treatises on oppression and intersectionality could easily pass for the real thing. By some measures, they were successful: Seven of the papers were approved for publication. But this little experiment has landed Boghossian—the only one of the three with an actual academic position—in hot water with PSU's IRB, which determined that he conducted unethical research. Boghossian has asked his defenders to write letters of support to PSU's administration, and several prominent names have done so. Harvard University psychology professor Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now and The Better Angels of Our Nature, urged PSU not to seek revenge on Boghossian for raising legitimate questions. "This strikes me (and every colleague I've spoken with) as an attempt to weaponize an important [principle] of academic ethics in order to punish a scholar for expressing an unpopular opinion," wrote Pinker. "If scholars feel they have been subject to unfair criticism, they should explain why they think the critic is wrong. It should be beneath them to try to punish and silence him." The author Richard Dawkins used even stronger language, accusing PSU of seeking to punish satire. "To pretend that this is a matter of publishing false data is so obviously ridiculous that one cannot help suspecting an ulterior motive," wrote Dawkins. And Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist and leading thinker of the so-named Intellectual Dark Web, wrote that "any 'academic misconduct' that is occurring is being perpetrated by those who are raising and pursuing the allegations, and most certainly not on the part of Dr. Boghossian." In the last 24 hours, I've interacted with many scholars, academics, and higher education experts with a variety of opinions about PSU's actions. Not all agree that the administration is in the wrong. Joel Christensen, an associate professor of classical studies at Brandeis University, told Inside Higher Ed that Boghossian "did commit academic fraud, by design, and that some professional sanctions might be warranted," but he believed that such sanctions should not include termination. (That was in line with what Jeffrey Sachs, a lecturer at Acadia University, expressed to me when I asked him for comment on Monday.) Others have furiously debated whether the IRB would have been likely to authorize the project. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's Robert Shibley worries that Boghossian's situation is evidence that IRBs in general have moved well beyond their original mandate, which was to protect test subjects from real abuse. The federal law requiring scientists to consult IRBs before gathering research dates to 1974, and was originally intended to prevent misconduct along the lines of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which researchers failed to give proper medical care to hundreds of black patients who had contracted the disease. According to Shibley: Over time, the use of IRBs has become increasingly commonplace, and seemingly required, even for social science research or experiments that have a far less direct effect on the humans who might be involved. As Columbia law professor Philip Hamburger, a prominent critic of the current role of IRBs, has pointed out, even oral history projects and opinion poll research, which simply consist of asking people for their own stories or opinions, can be subject to change or simply forbidden by IRBs. (Oral history, at least, was relieved of this burden by federal regulatory changes that took effect just last year.) Particularly when removed from the medical context, it becomes all too easy for some fundamental IRB rules—such as the requirement that studies be done only with the informed consent of all human participants—to fail to work well. As Lindsay and Pluckrose point out, the Grievance Studies Affair is one of these situations, as "it is impossible to conduct a valid quality assurance investigation, which this audit was, after informing those being audited that they're under examination." Assuming it's correct to characterize the journal editors as subjects of an experiment who needed to be protected from its potential physical or psychological harm, the IRB process would at the very least have required that the authors inform all of the potential "subjects" that faked research papers were coming their way. Truly "informed" consent might have required rather more specificity than that. It doesn't take a scientist (or a whole group of them on an IRB) to understand that such a restriction would make this particular research effort pointless, but PSU nevertheless determined that the research violated its rules and was worthy of discipline. Shibley concluded his post with this observation: "When it comes to this type of research…it's hard to avoid the conclusion that if the rules forbid it, it's the rules, not the researchers, that have gone wrong." | Ed Krayewski | http://freedombunker.com/2019/01/08/steven-pinker-richard-dawkins-jordan-peterson-others-urge-portland-state-not-to-punish-peter-boghossian-for-grievance-studies-hoax/ | 2019-01-08 21:45:00+00:00 | 1,547,001,900 | 1,567,553,382 | science and technology | social sciences |
219,020 | freedombunker--2019-01-12--What the APAs Report on Men and Masculinity Really Tells Us A Psychologists Perspective | 2019-01-12T00:00:00 | freedombunker | What the APA’s Report on Men and Masculinity Really Tells Us: A Psychologist’s Perspective | Because we didn’t have enough to be angry about, this week brought us another subject for outrage: the American Psychological Association (APA) hates men. The APA’s Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men, published in August 2018, has come to prominence in the media, supposedly demonstrating psychology to be the latest social science to join the ranks of the war on men. Upon deeper examination, however, this report should have served as a wonderful opportunity for dialogue regarding masculinity. The report reflects concerns raised by both sides of the political spectrum, and there is far more common ground than might be expected. However, rather than finding any opportunity for civilized discussion, the news media would rather engage in the typical strategies of oversimplification, exaggeration, and polarization that so define modern politics. The APA report highlights a number of facts that many, such as Dr. Christina Hoff Summers, have raised previously. For example, men are more likely to commit and be the victims of homicide and are three times more likely to commit suicide. The report further outlines 10 guidelines for psychologists to consider in addressing these and similar issues. The norms of “a real man” depend on factors like age, ethnicity, and culture, each of which may provide its own specific challenges. Many of these guidelines should be uncontroversial regardless of your political orientation. Indeed, many of them have been talking points of the political right for several years, such as recognizing the importance of caring fathers in the family unit. Similarly, the report recognizes—and indeed emphasizes—that there is no single conceptualization of masculinity. The norms of “a real man” depend on factors like age, ethnicity, and culture, each of which may provide its own specific challenges. The report focuses on psychologists learning to recognize and address these challenges in the treatment of men, as well as dealing with the antisocial phenomena that may result, such as unfettered aggression, misogyny, or emotionally restrictive norms like “boys don’t cry.” Rather than calmly reporting the facts (heaven forbid!) or recognizing the common ground this report represents, both sides of the aisle seem hell-bent on making this into yet another divisive political issue. On the left, the response has been triumphant crowing about toxic masculinity and the dangers men pose to a civilized society. On the right, the response has been a reactive moral panic about how the left hates traditional manhood. Both of these responses are polarizing, oversimplified, and worst of all, useless. One particularly worrying response from the right is the assertion that the masculine traits “maligned” in this report, such as aggression, dominance, and the desire to be breadwinners, are positive and even desirable traits in “real” men. This response is called reactance, and it seems to define modern political discourse. It seems that many would rather blindly assert these traits to be positive, never stopping to consider the potential negative consequences raised by the APA’s report. The fact is, almost no trait, masculine or otherwise, is inherently good or bad. Yes, some of the traits warned about in the APA’s report can have positive manifestations, which the APA report already admits. Aggression can be positive when used to defend the self, the home, or the family unit. Dominance, in the proper dosage, can be an important part of leadership. The desire to provide can be an important part of maintaining a healthy family unit. However, each of these traits also has a dark side. I sincerely hope it is uncontroversial to say that aggression is maladaptive, harmful, and immoral when it takes the form of spousal or child abuse. Dominance is likewise undesirable when it causes a predilection to start bar fights over minor insults. Even the desire to be the “breadwinner” can also be maladaptive if a man is uncomfortable when his wife makes more than him and it harms their relationship. Again, I hope none of these facts would be considered controversial. However, it seems that in their reactance-fueled ire, many on the right would rather blindly assert these traits to be positive, never stopping to consider the potential negative consequences raised by the APA’s report. With demonstrated potential risks like abuse, homicide, and suicide in play, such a reactive response seems foolish and dangerous. Much of my own research focuses on a specific set of cultural norms known as honor ideology, which highlights the dangers of unchecked, badly focused masculinity. In an honor culture, a man’s worth is entirely measured by his willingness to engage in violent retaliation to insults or threats. Honor ideology has been consistently linked to many of the same phenomena raised by the APA’s report, including needless risk-taking, stigmatizing mental health treatment, violence against women, and increased risk of suicide. In each of these cases, the norms and requirements of being a “real man” have real, concretely deleterious effects for men who subscribe to them or live in a culture where they are enforced. The phenomenon still serves as a concrete example of how masculinity and its associated norms can have severe risks for its adherents. Honor ideology is a widespread phenomenon in America, despite what some on the right claim about the harmful effects of masculinity being “outliers.” Millions of men subscribe to these norms and suffer the negative effects of doing so, including the “gender role strain” mentioned in the APA’s report. Failing to subscribe to honor norms makes one less of a man, which can lead to everything from mental health crises such as suicide to taking dangerous risks in order to regain “lost” masculine honor. While not all masculinity is tied up in honor ideology, the phenomenon still serves as a concrete example of how masculinity and its associated norms can have severe risks for its adherents. These risks are not simply for “outliers.” Obviously, not everything in the APA’s report will be agreed upon by everyone of every political orientation. However, the report still contains a number of opportunities for finding common ground. The problems raised by the report are real, and they are not partisan. They afflict men across cultures, ethnicities, ages, and political persuasions. They are widespread problems, and they need a solution. The goal of the report was to draw attention to the ways that masculinity can go wrong rather than to condemn masculinity outright. The APA’s Division 51 has even issued a clarification, highlighting the positive elements of masculinity and stressing the fact that the goal of the report was to draw attention to the ways that masculinity can go wrong rather than to condemn masculinity outright. However, it seems both sides of the political spectrum would rather ignore these common issues in favor of continuing the anger and polarization that define modern politics. If you have not read the APA’s original report, I encourage you to do so with fresh eyes. You may be surprised to find that your ideas, on either side of the political spectrum, will be challenged. Regardless, the problems raised by the APA report are not going away, and without finding common ground, it is likely that they will not be solved. | Sean McBride | http://freedombunker.com/2019/01/12/what-the-apas-report-on-men-and-masculinity-really-tells-us-a-psychologists-perspective/ | 2019-01-12 16:00:22+00:00 | 1,547,326,822 | 1,567,552,746 | science and technology | social sciences |
220,308 | freedombunker--2019-03-21--Marveling at Captain Marvels Grit | 2019-03-21T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Marveling at Captain Marvel’s Grit | The latest Marvel film has done well at the box office, and for good reason. It is a solid entry in the MCU, and an introduction to a new character that promises to be central to the ongoing narrative arc following Avengers: Infinity War (some spoilers follow). There are quite a few notable themes in Captain Marvel, and I’ll highlight a couple here. First, we learn a fair amount more about the Kree, the civilization introduced in Guardians of the Galaxy. As Yon-Rogg leads his team into battle, he gives them a pep talk that essentially amounts to the mantra: Be ready to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. While in itself this is indeed a praiseworthy credo, the Kree seem to have taken this emphasis on the common good to an extreme form of collectivism. The Kree collectivist ideology is also combined, at least in some cases, with a sense of racial or civilizational purity. Our society often emphasizes safety to the detriment of courageous, even risky, action. By the time we get to Guardians, for example, Ronan the Accuser’s aims to cleanse the galaxy of undesirables is explicit (and the Kree conflict with the Skrulls also coheres with this). So there’s a lot of fodder for exploring themes of individualism, collectivism, and the common good in Captain Marvel. And related to ideas of individualism and self-realization, a more striking theme throughout the film is Carol Danvers’ journey of self-discovery and actualization. We see in Danvers a woman who has fought her entire life to get to where she wanted to be. Every time she failed, she tried again. Every time she fell or was knocked down, she got back up again. Perhaps more than any hero introduced in the MCU thus far, Carol Danvers embodies the virtue of grit, or perseverance in the face of opposition. The significance of grit is increasingly being recognized in social science research, and it makes sense. We see its importance in sports, where the truism that hard work often beats mere talent is often expressed. It is equally important in entrepreneurship, where a kind of survivorship fallacy can be manifest. When we see someone successful, in business or sports or whatever, we don’t see all the failures that preceded that success. And there are many, many failures and falls, both big and small, that come before any achievement of significance. When something like 90 percent of startups fail, we want a culture that encourages and empowers people to get back up, learn from mistakes, and continue to take risks. In a society that often emphasizes safety to the detriment of courageous, even risky, action, Captain Marvel’s grit may be the most salient feature of the film for our times. This article is republished from the Acton Institute. | Sean McBride | http://freedombunker.com/2019/03/21/marveling-at-captain-marvels-grit/ | 2019-03-21 17:00:23+00:00 | 1,553,202,023 | 1,567,545,309 | science and technology | social sciences |
220,355 | freedombunker--2019-03-22--Where Is the Language of Liberty | 2019-03-22T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Where Is the Language of Liberty? | We must not abandon ourselves to a poisonous language that strangles our doubts and numbs our judgment. Instead, we need to cultivate a language that inspires fundamental doubt and unterrified inquiry. In George Orwell's 1984, the state of Oceania is devising a new language out of the old, pre-revolutionary English: Newspeak. “When Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten,” Orwell wrote, “a heretical thought . . . should be literally unthinkable.” Modern cognitive science provides fascinating evidence for the influence of our language on our thinking. Unlike Oceania's Newspeak, our English is not the result of malicious (re)design. But does it serve us well in thinking clearly and critically about matters of politics and economics? The compilers of the Newspeak dictionary in Oceania's “Ministry of Truth” first and foremost purge words for undesirable ideas from the new language. Indeed, it is difficult to think about ideas for which we lack words. Even today, there are Amazonian tribes that do not have words for numbers. People of an anumeric language fail even most simple arithmetical tasks. However, it seems that what they lack is not innate mathematical ability but a mathematical language—and culture—that we just take for granted. It is difficult to think critically with words that carry hidden assumptions into our reasoning. Economic thinking needs cultivation no less than mathematical thinking. This means not only developing an adequate terminology but also avoiding a misleading one. Not only is it difficult to think without suitable words, but it is also difficult to think clearly and coolly with ambiguous and emotionally loaded words. Most of all, it is difficult to think critically with words that carry hidden assumptions into our reasoning. Calling a substance “medicine” means taking for granted that its effects are beneficial without explicitly stating and specifying this crucial premise. Thus, we may fail to even ask the question and start a genuine inquiry. This is exactly the case with the term “regulation.” Traffic signs “regulate” the traffic, right? That's what they're supposed to do. But what if they don't? By now, there is ample evidence about the effects of removing all traffic signs from crossroads: fewer casualties and more fluidity. The real effects of such traffic signs are more casualties and less fluidity. Calling them “regulations” is like calling a poisonous substance “medicine.” It is a bad habit bred of ignorance before we have found out about its real effects. It turns into negligence or even fraud after we have. Only the absence of such “regulation” allows safe and fluid traffic to emerge as a spontaneous order. A red light hinders people when it would be perfectly safe to go, and a green light entitles them where consideration would be more appropriate. Without the lights, traffic is regulated by criminal and tort law, but most of all by people's desire to avoid accidents and a thousandfold individual on-spot knowledge of how to do so best. More information is put to use than could be collected and processed in any centrally planned system of traffic signs. Only the absence of such “regulation” allows safe and fluid traffic to emerge as an unanticipated and unintended order of coordination—a spontaneous order. The same is possible for all kinds of state decrees. Calling them “regulations” presupposes the answer to the very question the economist—and any critical mind—has to ask: What are their effects on the wealth of society? That is to say: the actual effects, not just the intended or declared ones, and all effects, not just the obvious ones, but also those that remain unseen. The mere word “regulation” carries the creationist fallacy into our thinking, that there cannot be order without design. In particular, what kind of spontaneous orders do the state decrees prevent from emerging? That which remains unseen is all the harder to imagine if it goes against our gut feeling. But if the task of science is to gain and convey insights that run counter to our gut feelings, its language must not confirm them at the outset of inquiry and instruction. The mere word “regulation” carries the creationist fallacy into our thinking: the notion that there cannot be order without design. Life, language, customary law, money, and many more natural and social phenomena are all clear evidence to the contrary. The economist who criticizes “too much regulation” uses an anti-scientific language and makes himself sound self-contradictory. Who could be against “more regulation”—against a more regular, orderly, and desirable state of affairs? With the mere word “regulation,” the creationist fallacy is not only conceded but at once embraced and veiled from critical scrutiny. Price decrees are a classic example of state interference that defies its real or declared intention. When selling a good above a certain price becomes punishable, the main effect is to impede and discourage its production. The absence of state legislation by no means implies an absence of rules. Greater scarcity, longer waiting lines, and even higher prices on the “black market” are the results, from the Pharaohs' Egypt over Nixon's America to Chavez's Venezuela. But calling such state-decreed punishments “price controls,” “ceilings,” “floors,” or “regulations” not only blinds us of these economic consequences but also blinds us of important ethical and legal implications. The absence of state legislation by no means implies an absence of rules. In the absence of threats of punishment by state decree, prices are regulated by the rules of self-ownership and freedom of contract. These rules provide an extensive and strict legal regime. In particular, they criminalize all sorts of force and fraud. Nobody has the privilege to make offers that cannot be refused. Historical evidence and economic reason suggest that by this principle, a society gets the best offers humanly possible. On these utilitarian grounds, many libertarians advocate “free markets.” But this choice of wording is unfortunate, too. There are markets for stolen goods, slaves, contract killings, and for the decisions of politicians and bureaucrats. What libertarians really advocate are the rules of self-ownership and individual property. The dynamic process of trial and error, discovery, and cooperation that emerges from the observance of these rules contains much more than what is conveyed by the image of a traditional marketplace. Nor is it helpful to speak of “the market” as an acting being, paralleling the equally delusional image of “society” as some sort of higher collectivist creature. There are many more instances of loaded and misleading language that is nonetheless accepted across the political map, including the libertarian corner. Consider the term “minimum wage law.” Not only does it obscure the use of force and punishment and falsely suggest that its effects will equal its declared intentions, but the noble and authoritative word of “law” has also experienced an outright perversion of its original meaning when generally applied to state legislation, and not just in the extreme cases of the racist “Jim Crow laws” or the anti-Semitic “Nuremberg laws.” We are warned by the philologist Victor Klemperer, the crown witness of the corruption of the German language under National Socialism: By liberty, libertarians understand a domain of individual sovereignty defined by the rules of self-ownership and individual property. They hold that if people act, cooperate, and trade on these ethical and legal premises, the results will by far surpass all forms of coercive central planning, whether under paternalist-authoritarian or democratic-egalitarian justifications and by standards of wealth for which most people would vote for with their feet. We need to consciously cultivate a language that, in its precision and clarity, inspires fundamental doubt and unterrified inquiry. To investigate the evidence both for and against the libertarian case, we need a language of precision and clarity in matters of politics and economics; a language that does not already in its vocabulary confuse intentions and results, embrace the fallacies of creationism, and obscure the use of force and punishment. We must not unquestioningly and unconsciously abandon ourselves to a poisonous language that strangles our doubts and numbs our judgment as if it were devised by Oceania's Ministry of Truth. Instead, we need to consciously cultivate a language that, in its precision and clarity, inspires fundamental doubt and unterrified inquiry. If the case for liberty is sound, then its language is in an economic and social science worthy of the name. For the sake of truth and liberty, let us start speaking that language. | Sean McBride | http://freedombunker.com/2019/03/22/where-is-the-language-of-liberty/ | 2019-03-22 20:00:12+00:00 | 1,553,299,212 | 1,567,545,169 | science and technology | social sciences |
220,405 | freedombunker--2019-03-29--The Problem with Universities Demanding Diversity Statements | 2019-03-29T00:00:00 | freedombunker | The Problem with Universities Demanding "Diversity Statements" | The quotation of the day on university corruption and the lack of diversity when it comes to ideology is from Walter E. William’s column this week "More University Corruption": For most of the 20th century, universities were dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. There was open exchange and competition in the marketplace of ideas. Different opinions were argued and respected. Most notably in the social sciences, social work, the humanities, education, and law, this is no longer the case. The most important thing to today’s university communities is diversity of race, ethnicity, sex and economic class, on which they have spent billions of dollars. Conspicuously absent is diversity of ideology. Students are taught that all cultural values are morally equivalent. That’s ludicrous. Here are a few questions for those who make such a claim. Is forcible female genital mutilation, as practiced in nearly 30 sub-Saharan African and Middle Eastern countries, a morally equivalent cultural value? Slavery is currently practiced in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan; is it morally equivalent? In most of the Middle East, there are numerous limitations placed on women, such as prohibitions on driving, employment and education. Under Islamic law in some countries, female adulterers face death by stoning. Thieves face the punishment of having their hands severed. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death in some countries. Are these cultural values morally equivalent, superior or inferior to Western values? The latest diversity trend in higher education is the increasingly frequent requirement of including a “diversity statement” when applying for an academic position, and in some cases when applying for tenure and/or promotion. Here’s what Dr. Jeffrey Flier, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Higginson Professor of Physiology and Medicine, and former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard University said on Twitter last November: Along with Dr. Flier, here are some reasons I find those diversity uniformity statements objectionable. What is called a “diversity statement” is essentially a pledge of allegiance to higher education’s orthodox and uniform agenda in its ongoing battle against a color-blind, gender-blind, merit-driven academia. Successful diversity statements will be expected to support an unspoken ideology that emphasizes group identity, an assumption of group victimization, and a claim for group-based entitlements. Diversity statements compromise both academic freedom and academic standards as “purity tests” of an applicant’s worthiness in adherence to a uniform, leftist-liberal-progressive view of “diversity.” In reality, “diversity statements” will be in practice “uniformity statements” of adherence to a uniform view of diversity. Diversity statements will serve to weed out politically incorrect opinions and politically incorrect candidates because only leftist-oriented statements will be acceptable, reinforcing an ideologically uniform and monolithic professoriate. In reality, “diversity statements” will be in practice “uniformity statements” of adherence to a uniform view of diversity. Overall, only diversity statements that adhere to a uniform statement of allegiance to a uniform leftist/liberal/Marxist/progressive view of group identity, group victimization, and a claim for group-based entitlements in higher education will enhance and advance a candidate’s application. Failure to profess allegiance and conform to a uniform, orthodox diversity agenda, an agenda that ignores the most important diversity in higher education—intellectual and viewpoint diversity—will doom an applicant’s job prospects. Diversity statements will actually be anti-diversity statements of uniform, leftist-liberal-progressive thought that completely ignore the diversity of viewpoints, ideology and thought, and are therefore dangerous and misguided efforts that are threats to academic freedom and will weaken true intellectual diversity. This article is republished with permission from the American Enterprise Institute. | Sean McBride | http://freedombunker.com/2019/03/29/the-problem-with-universities-demanding-diversity-statements/ | 2019-03-29 14:00:24+00:00 | 1,553,882,424 | 1,567,544,728 | science and technology | social sciences |
220,993 | freedombunker--2019-04-30--On the American Ideology | 2019-04-30T00:00:00 | freedombunker | On the American Ideology | “We paint the world to ourselves as we like – until everything breaks down and no longer holds.” We live in the age of the American Empire. It can be that this empire will someday crumble. In the foreseeable future, however, it is here to stay, not on account of its military strength but first and foremost because of its ideological power. For the American empire has achieved something truly remarkable: the internalization of its core belief system as an intellectual taboo into the minds of most people. Granted, all states rest upon aggressive violence, and the USA is no exception. The United States as well do not hesitate to annihilate everyone who opposes their legislative despotism. Though the USA had thus far employed little actual violence to have its orders submissively followed because the overwhelming majority of the population and especially of the opinion-forming intellectuals have accepted the system of values and convictions which makes up the American empire. According to the official, USA approved belief system, we are all equally intelligent and reasonable people, who are confronted with the same “harsh reality” and are bound to the same facts and truths. Of course, it is true, that even in the age of the American empire, in the USA, people do not live in the best of all worlds. There are many more problems to be solved. Though with the American system of a democratic state, humanity has found the perfect institutional framework which makes the next step in the direction of a perfect world possible; and if only would the American system of democracy takeover worldwide, would the way to perfection be clear, smooth and free. The single legitimate form of government is democracy. All other forms of government are worse, and any government is better than none. Democratic states like the USA are of the people, by the people and for the people. In democracies no one rules over the other; instead, the people rule over themselves and are thus free. Taxes in democratic states are therefore contributions and payments for governmentally provided services; accordingly, tax avoiders are thieves, who take without paying. To provide shelter for fleeing thieves is thus an act of aggression against the people, from whom they are trying to escape. Though there are still other forms of governments around the world. There are monarchies, dictatorships, theocracies, and there are feudal landowners, tribes, and warlords. And for this reason, democratic states often must necessarily deal with non-democratic states. Eventually, all states must be converted to the American ideal, because only democracy allows for a peaceful and continual change for the better. Democratic states like the USA and its European allies are inherently peaceful and do not wage war against each other. If they must fight any wars all at, then these are preventive wars of defense and liberation against aggressive and undemocratic states, that is, just wars. All countries and territories that are presently in war with or occupied by American troops or its European allies – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libyan, Syrian, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen – were therefore guilty of aggression and their war waging and occupation on behalf of the democratic West were an act of self-defense and liberation. However, there is still much to be done. Especially Russia and China still pose a huge threat and must be liberated, in order to make the world finally safe. Private property, markets, and profits are useful institutions, but a democratic state must ensure that with the appropriate legislation, private property and profits are acquired and used in a socially responsible manner and that markets function efficiently. Moreover, markets and profit-seeking entrepreneurs cannot produce public goods and are thus incapable of satisfying any social needs. And they cannot take care of the truly needy. Only the state can take care of social needs and the less fortunate. The state alone can, through the finance of public goods and aid to the poor, increase the public welfare, and diminish poverty and the number of the needy, if completely not eliminate. Especially the state has to put the private vice of greed of the pursuit of profit under control. Greed and the pursuit of profit were the leading causes of the most recent large financial crisis. Reckless financiers generated an irrational exuberance among the public, which ultimately had to crash into reality. The market was wrecked, and only the state stood ready to save the day. Only the state, through appropriate regulation and supervision of the banking industry and financial markets, can prevent such a thing from happening again. Banks and companies went bankrupt, yet the state and its central banks held ground and protected the money and jobs of the workers. Advised by the leading and best-paid economists in the world, states and especially the USA have discovered the causes of economic crises and realized that in order to get out of an economic mess, the people must simultaneously consume more as well as invest more. Every cent under the mattress is a cent withheld from consumption and investment, which in turn impairs future consumption and investment expenditure. In a recession, spending must first of all and under all circumstances be increased; and when the people do not spend enough of their own money, the state has to do it instead. Prudently, states have this option, for their central banks can produce any necessary liquidity. If billions of Dollars or Euros are not enough, then trillions will do; and if trillions do not meet the goal, then surely quadrillions will. Only massive state expenditure can prevent an otherwise unavoidable economic meltdown. In particular, unemployment is the result of low consumption: people who do not have enough money to buy consumer goods; this problem must be remedied by providing them with higher wages or higher unemployment benefits. When the last financial crisis is finally overcome, the democratic state can and must devote itself once more to the really urgent remaining problems of humanity: the battle against inequality, the elimination of all unjust discrimination, and the control of the global environment and the global climate in particular. In principle, all people are equal. Differences are only apparent, shallow and meaningless: some people are white, some brown, some black, some are big, others are small; some are fat and others thin; some are male, and some are female; some speak English and others Polish or Chinese as mother tongue. These are accidental human traits. It is a coincidence that some people possess these and some do not. But accidental traits like these have no influence whatsoever on and do not correlate with mental properties like motivation, time preference or intellectual abilities, and they do not contribute to the explanation of economic and social success, especially of income and wealth. Mental and psychic properties have no physical, biological or ethical basis and are limitlessly malleable. In this regard is everyone, except for a few pathological individual cases, equal to the other, and every nation has made in the course of history a contribution to civilization of equal value or would have done so, if only it would have gotten the same chance. Seemingly obvious differences are solely the result of different external circumstances and education. All differences in income and achievements between Whites, Asians, and Blacks, women and men, Latins, Anglos-Saxons and Thais as well as Christians, Hindus, Protestants, and Moslems would disappear, if only equality of opportunity would be established. If instead it will be discovered, that all these different accidental groups are unequally represented in and distributed across different levels of income, wealth, or professional status, some are richer and more successful than others, then this demonstrates unjust discrimination; and such discrimination must be counterbalanced through appropriate, targeted affirmative action on behalf of the state, in which the discriminators have to compensate the unjustly discriminated. And the studies of the leading and best paid social scientists have clearly shown, who, above all, are the discriminators. The people in question are first and foremost white heterosexual males and the institution of the traditional, patriarchal organized family. It is, therefore, most notably this group of people and this institution which must compensate all other groups and apologize to all other forms of social organization. But this would not do. The reparations to all disadvantaged, to all victims of inequality and discrimination, require likewise strong governmental support of multiculturalism. The highly developed and white male dominated countries of the Western world have obtained their wealth at the expense of the inhabitants of all other regions of the world and are caught in a disastrous and prejudiced particularism and nationalism. This situation lends itself to be overcome through the promotion and systematic incentivization of immigration of people from different, foreign countries and cultural environments, in order to ensure that the foreign immigrants could finally unleash their full human potential and simultaneously replace the Western parochialism with an authentic cultural diversity. And with the victory over the disastrous particularism and nationalism through a systematic policy of multiculturalism is one finally able to turn to the crucial stride toward a solution to the undoubtedly biggest global, borderless and world-encompassing problem of climate change. Divergent particularistic and nationalistic interests have thus far lead to the fact that the production and the consumption of non-renewable energy sources were left mostly unregulated and worldwide uncoordinated. And that is why, as the leading and best-paid climate researchers have undoubtedly proven, is the whole globe threatened by unimaginable catastrophes: floods, strong and sudden rising sea levels and the emergence of fatal ecological disequilibria and instabilities. Only through a worldwide, concentrated action by all states, and ultimately the establishment of a supranational world government under the leadership of the USA and an enforced systematic regulation of any production and consumption activities, can this life-threatening danger be avoided. “The common good comes before the individual good” – this is above all, what the problem of climate change shows, and it is on the states and especially on the USA to permanently implement this principle. Now, I tell you no secret when I admit that I hold this for a massive pile of rubbish, for complete nonsense and a highly dangerous one at that – but I also do not belong to the leading and best-paid economics and social scientists, and of climate research, I understand nothing at all! Except that I know, for example, that a global climate warming is no global problem, but one that affects people in different places of the globe entirely differently, a curse for one is a boon for the other, and insofar downright forbids a global solution. Question: who are we to thank for this nonsense, whom does it benefit, and how is it that we are fed daily with it by the official media? Here I want to hint at the answer only very briefly. It has two parts. One has to do with the institution of a state, and especially of a democratic state, with its occupants and representatives. And the other has to do with the intellectuals. The state is a monopoly of legislation and law enforcement. In all conflicts, including those which it or its representatives are involved in, the state or people appointed by the state decide who is right or wrong. The predictable result is: the state is always right, in everything that does. Whether robbed, plundered, killed, lied to and threatened in the name of the state – or summarized in single sentence: when force is exerted on other people and violence is used against other persons – everything can and everything will be painted by it and its agents as just and assigned with another, deceptive and attractive name. This makes the institution of the state naturally attractive for all people who would like to rob, plunder, kill, lie, defraud other people, that is, use violence against others. Above all, it is these kinds of people who therefore try to infiltrate and take over the institution of the state. And if, as under democratic conditions, the entrance in and the occupation of the state stands free and open for everyone, that is, when it becomes a downright competition for votes between power thirsty crooks, then it is to expect, that the persons who will get to the top of the state are those who possess the greatest talent of rhetorically covering up their own predatory, treacherous and murderous intentions and selling these as good deeds to the voting masses. In short: The best demagogues, the best pied pipers, and corrupters get to the top. Though when one looks at these democratically elected politicians and members of parliament, whom day by day impose their obvious megalomaniac will though law or decree on millions of people– can one only marvel. Because these people are as a rule not some kind of formidable, impressive alpha males or females, but an epitome of mediocracy or merely a collection of losers, idiots and failures, who have never in their entire life produced a product or rendered a service which someone would have voluntarily bought with his own money. And faced with these tragic figures, who grandiosely claim to be “our” highest representatives, the question then arises, whether such light-calibrated people are even in the position of conceiving by themselves the entire nonsense which they tell us every day, and furthermore, whether they have what it takes to come up with the diverse justifications and rationalizations for this nonsense which they everywhere feed us. There one surely has a considerable doubt! And that leads me directly to the second part of my answer to the question of the originators and beneficiaries of the above described “politically correct” view of the world and the nature of things: the intellectuals, or put more precisely, those intellectuals who occupy themselves with social, economic and philosophical question and problems, and their connection to the state and its leaders. As in the case of the politicians, so is there in the case of the intellectuals hardly a person who through her intellectual work, her writings and speeches, for these are what she produces, that could secure a comfortable livelihood and income. The market demand for such products is low and is furthermore subject to large deviations. Only a small number of intellectuals would succeed in making a profession out of their writings and speeches. The vast majority of actual or alleged intellectuals would be advised to conduct their scientific interests as a mere inner vocation and to earn their livelihood elsewhere, by the practice of a normal civilian profession. But this naturally contradicts the feeling of self-esteem of an intellectual, and all those who view themselves as such. The intellectuals are convinced of the importance and value of their work like no other group and are accordingly resentful when the alleged appropriate high social recognition fails to materialize. What is then left for them instead? They are usually not suitable for politics, for they are typically too honest and wonkish, too shy, awkward, introverted and particularly antisocial. And for this reason, they mostly lack the desire for power, which is precisely what makes a politician. But the intellectuals are naturally smart enough to know that even if they are not made to be politicians, they nevertheless need the politicians to get the money required for a comfortable living. And they obviously also know what they must offer as a service in return so to get the biggest possible cut of their pillage: namely well-sounding justifications for continually expanding the powers of the state, and “bold” visions and programs with noble, well-intentioned goals, for example, that of “equality of all people” which cannot ever be achieved, no one can ever achieve, but precisely because of this one never has to give up on, but can repetitively revive and ceaselessly renew. And so it comes to an unholy alliance: that of the early, monarchical times between church and crown, and that of today, in the American age, between democratic politicians and intellectuals. The result? Never before were there so many politicians and above all so many alleged intellectuals as well who live and indulge in luxuries at the expanse of an ever-decreasing number of productive persons. And never before, in order to stay among the intellectuals, have the numerous and large universities, as the publicly funded and supported citadels of intellectual power and influence and the breeding ground of future politicians and intellectuals, produced so much horrific intellectual nonsense and contributed to the misleading of the public as in our times. In light of this fact, what can one do? I am afraid that not much – except to repetitively and openly call out the whole hoax. This means that for one thing, to recognize and describe the politicians for what they really are: a band of liars, crooks, robbers, murderers, and associates to murder; and treat them accordingly with contempt, scorn, and ridicule. But also their intellectual masterminds and assistants, without whom the politicians could never carry out their evil work, must be targeted, and as the first step toward a return to normalcy and sound human understanding, to common sense, it is imperative to push for the financial draining of the universities. Not only should all centers for Blacks, Latins, women, gender, and Queer-studies, and everything else that there is of this then unheard of exotica, be closed, but also the social science departments altogether, starting with political science and history, through sociology and up to economics and social and economic statistics (whose statistics also serve the goals of uncovering ever new “inequalities” and to call for redistribution or reeducation!) And likewise should the profession of the academic literary studies and criticism and, as much as it hurt me to say, the profession of the academic philosophers as well be thinned out. And the people who believe, that they know how one controls the climate, one should issue them a certificate of illness and send them for treatment in a psychiatric clinic. This does not mean that one should have anything in principle against the work of political scientists, sociologists, economists, statisticians, literary critics, philosophers or climate scientists, or wish that they should cease to exist. Without a doubt, there will be people who genuinely occupy themselves with questions and problems of all disciplines. And that is good and necessary. But surely would the number of such scientists be much smaller. But quantity is not the same as quality, and the reduction in the number of tax-funded social scientists of all kinds is by no means tantamount to an intellectual descent. Completely the opposite. Freed from the intellectual pollution which is currently produced by the universities, appear once more the possibility of a rise of a class of new and better intellectuals, characterized by firm stance and authentic understanding of reality. Yet all of this lies, if it is even possible to arrive at, in the far future. But thank god one need not wait for it any longer. For in the niches of the present madhouse, totally apart from today’s universities and schools and the ongoing charade, there is, in any case in Vienna, around Vienna, and all around Vienna in the German-speaking region, still – or even better: once more – a place in which though one cannot earn any professional credentials or governmental certificates, but in which man can acquire real education and learn and practice critical thought and argumentation: Rahim’s Scholarium. [1] Ohad Osterreicher is studying undergraduate economics at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. The post On the American Ideology appeared first on LewRockwell. | Hans-Hermann Hoppe | http://freedombunker.com/2019/04/29/on-the-american-ideology/ | 2019-04-30 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,556,611,260 | 1,567,541,586 | science and technology | social sciences |
221,235 | freedombunker--2019-05-20--Why Im Lukewarm on the ALIs Principles of the Law Policing | 2019-05-20T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Why I’m Lukewarm on the ALI’s “Principles of the Law: Policing” | For the last four years, I have been serving as an Adviser to an ongoing American Law Institute project, Principles of the Law: Policing. This week, the ALI membership is considering key parts of the Principles at its Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. I can't make it to the Annual Meeting, so I figured I would explain here some of my concerns with the Principles. My concerns leave me lukewarm on the project, including some of the key parts to be considered this week. Let me start with the big picture. The ALI is perhaps best known for its Restatements of the law and the Model Penal Code. The Principles is more like the Model Penal Code than Restatements. It is an effort to develop normative principles of how police agencies should do their jobs. That's a tricky goal because the law of policing in the United States is primarily federal constitutional law—and in particular Supreme Court interpretations of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Federal constitutional law sets the floor, and legislatures, state courts, and policing departments are then free to add additional restrictions as they feel appropriate. The basic goal of the Principles is to set out ways in which the ALI thinks that the police should restrict themselves beyond what existing law requires. And I think it's fair to say that the Principles reflects the views of its Reporters, and selected Advisers, that the Supreme Court's interpretations of the Constitution don't go nearly far enough in restricting police practices. The Principles therefore set out to recommend a set of best practices that they feel the police should follow that go beyond the restrictions that the Supreme Court has required under the Constitution. That basic idea of recommending non-constitutional limits on policing practices is certainly commendable. Indeed, the role of non-constitutional limits on policing is a theme of my own academic work. But my main difficulty with the Principles is that it tries to impose a one-size-fits-all answer on some really hard problems. It reflects a particular view of what limits would be appropriate for all policing, and it recommends that all police departments adopt those limits. My own view of policing is more cautious. I'm not sure that one-size-fits-all works beyond the constitutional floor. There is an incredibly broad range of police agencies in the United States. There are federal agencies, state agencies, and local agencies. Some agencies are enormously large, and others are very very small. Some have broad mandates, and others have very narrow ones. In some areas, like eyewitness identification, we have social science that leads to useful rules to recommend. But in most areas, we don't. And I'm skeptical that it works to recommend a single set of rules for every agency outside that context. My concerns often leave me unsure of whether a significant number of the rules proposed by the Principles are wise. Some of the rules strike me as sound. Others are probably useful in some settings. A few of the rules may be good guidance in some settings but I think go too far in other settings. All of this leaves me playing Justice Harlan to the Reporters' criminal procedure revolution, unable to be on board some of the key recommendations that the Principles make. This is all rather abstract, so let me turn to examples. The draft under consideration this week is 162 pages long, and the ALI may threaten legal action if I post it, so unfortunately I can't show the full draft. But I want to run through the provisions that most implicate the concerns I have. I'll start with some of the sections on search and seizure. I'll then turn to the Miranda interrogation rules. Let's start with Section 4.03, which discusses when the police should stop and arrest individuals and how they should interact with people when they do. This section reflects the concerns of procedural justice theory, which focuses on perceptions of police legitimacy and trust in policed communities. In light of those concerns, this section contends that police citizen encounters should generally be limited. "[A]gencies should limit the overall use of initial encounters, stops, and arrests, to circumstances in which they directly promote public safety and minimize harm to the public." And when officers take such actions, they should explain to individuals what they are doing and why to ensure that the police action is likely to be deemed fair: This is usually good advice. But should it always be required? Procedural justice is important, but I'm not sure it needs to apply to every police citizen interaction to achieve its benefits. Similarly, Section 4.04 limits police questioning during a Terry stop to inquiries "necessary to investigate the crimes or violations for which the officer has reasonable suspicion, or as necessary to ensure officer safety." The officer shouldn't stop a person for one reason and then ask questions that aren't necessary to investigate the matter that provided the constitutional justification for the stop. This is done to prevent pretextual stops, the comments explain. Without such limits on questioning, "those secondary intrusions may themselves become the goal of the stop, leading to unnecessary and perhaps unnecessarily intrusive encounters between officers and the public." (The Reporter's Notes suggest that section is merely a summary of existing Fourth Amendment law, but that's not correct: The Supreme Court expressly rejected this rule in Muelher v. Mena. This limit on questioning would be a major shift in practice.) I understand the concerns with pretextual stops. But I would think there are at least some circumstances when we would want them, and when we would want questioning outside the justification for the stop. For example, say there has been a string of recent robberies in the neighborhood, and the officer pulls over a car for speeding. The driver seems to match the rough description of the participants in the robbery, but there isn't enough evidence that creates proper reasonable suspicion to detain the driver for those crimes. Is it clear that we don't want the officer to ask any non-speeding questions in that situation? Next, the black letter rule of Section 4.06 suggests that police agencies should consider adopting a rule that officers cannot ask for consent unless they first have reasonable suspicion. The comments to the rule replace this suggestion with a more categorical rule: "Officers should not seek consent to conduct a search unless they have reasonable suspicion to believe that the search will turn up evidence of a crime and unless they can explain to the individual why they would like to conduct a search." Again, this is often a good approach. But won't there be many circumstances when an officer has suspicions that don't amount to "reasonable suspicion"? And should we want officers to be categorically barred from asking for consent in those circumstances? Similarly, Section 4.07, on search incident to arrest, would prohibit full searches of a person incident to arrest unless "there is reasonable suspicion to believe that the arrestee is concealing a weapon or evidence that would not be uncovered through a pat-down search." Again, the goal seems to be to avoid pretext searches: Agencies should enact policies on searches incident to arrest so that such searches "are not used as pretext to look for evidence of a crime or violation that is unrelated to the offense for which the individual was arrested." I agree that, in some cases, such pretexts will be harmful. But are they always harmful? I wouldn't think so. The materials on interrogations take some steps that I find troublesome. Let me focus on two. Section 11.03 discusses when Miranda warnings should be given. The rule states: "Officers should inform suspects of their right to refrain from answering and their right to counsel, and ensure that any waivers of those rights are meaningfully made." At first that seems unobjectionable, as it's basically Miranda law but with a higher pre-Berghuis waiver standard. But if I'm reading the materials correctly, there appears to be something very different going on. As I understand Chapter 11, officers are supposed to inform people of these rights whether or not they are in custody, and indeed whether or not they are suspects at all. That's a rejection of the basic idea of Miranda, which was that warnings were required only when a suspect is in custody. Here's what the comments say, in Section 11.01, about why, as the Reporter's notes put it, the Principles aim to "move beyond the unwieldy concept of custody" in interrogation law: A detailed body of constitutional law applies to police questioning of suspects. One important area of constitutional law—the Miranda doctrine—draws a line by asking whether a person is deemed to be in "custody." See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444 (1966). . . . The focus in constitutional law on the issue of "custody" can be quite formalistic, and remote from the concerns that motivate these Principles. For example, an innocent person who is not formally in custody still may face great pressure to confess falsely. A vulnerable person, such as a juvenile or mentally ill person, may receive unfair treatment that implicates concerns of legitimacy, even if not considered a suspect and not formally deemed to be in custody during the questioning. That said, the concerns with accuracy, coercion, and legitimacy may well be greater in the settings in which more formal custodial questioning occurs. No matter in what form or setting questioning occurs, police professionals ought to have an abiding interest in getting it right. Thus, these Principles do not take as their starting place the line between custodial and noncustodial interviews. Rather, the focus is on obtaining accurate statements with minimal coercion. So if I'm reading the Principles correctly, everyone gets Miranda warnings. It seems that suspects and non-suspects, those in custody and those out of it, all receive the same warnings. And people questioned are required to be informed that they have a right to counsel to be present for questioning even when they have no such rights—as they don't unless they're being interrogated in custody, when Miranda provides it. Do we really want the police to always give Miranda warnings any time they ask questions to people? That seems a quite remarkable legal rule. One last example. Section 11.04 explains how interrogations should be conducted. It states: The comments to the rule explains that the point is to minimize the coercive nature of police questioning, both to avoid false confessions and to respect the dignity of those questioned. And some of these are certainly good rules. But others seem overly restrictive, at least assuming the requirement to "avoid" those facts is meant as a serious limit and not just a small thumb on the scale. For example, is it necessarily problematic for the police to ask leading questions? ("You killed him, didn't you?") Isn't it often useful and unproblematic to provide details that are not publicly known? ("Your husband was shot today in his driveway by someone at point blank range. I regret to tell you that he died. Do you know anything about it?") Are deceptive techniques that might "pressure" suspects necessarily problematic? ("Your friend just confessed and says you pulled the trigger, what do you have to say about that?") Of course, interrogators should be aware of the risks that these techniques may pressure suspects in ways that lead to problematic interrogations. But those same techniques may be very effective, and I'm skeptical that the right line between permitted and banned is a general rule that those techniques should be avoided. I don't know if my concerns will resonate with the broader ALI membership. But I thought I would raise them for members and others who may be interested. | Orin Kerr | http://freedombunker.com/2019/05/20/why-im-lukewarm-on-the-alis-principles-of-the-law-policing/ | 2019-05-20 10:22:00+00:00 | 1,558,362,120 | 1,567,540,381 | science and technology | social sciences |
221,272 | freedombunker--2019-05-27--Parenting Without Fear | 2019-05-27T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Parenting Without Fear | You may have heard the story about the Minnesota mother who faced jail time after accidentally failing to properly strap in her child's car seat. Or the cops who arrived to question a mom who told her neighbors that her 9-year-old could help them do chores. Or the police officers who went door to door hunting for a man after he drove off from the mall with a toddler—who turned out to be his daughter. They'd been shopping. An onlooker had assumed he was a kidnapper and called the police. We live in an age of fear, especially where children are concerned. Even as the world has become safer and richer, parenting has become a paranoid exercise in removing all possible risk from a child's life. This is exhausting for parents and even worse for children. Too many have been taught that they are fragile, weak, and in constant danger. Instead of getting experience problem-solving and bouncing back, they have grown up unable to rise to the challenges that life presents. No journalist has more effectively chronicled the strange and dismal culture of contemporary child rearing than Reason contributor Lenore Skenazy, 59, who is not ashamed of being "America's Worst Mom." She got that nickname after she let her son, then age 9, ride the New York subway home by himself in 2008. "Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse," she wrote in a much-read piece for The New York Sun. "As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids." Skenazy went on to found the Free-Range Kids movement, dedicating her career to investigating and explaining how today's parents became so afraid and what effects that fear is having on their children. In 2017, she co-founded the nonprofit Let Grow with a mission of encouraging schools and families to allow kids to "have some adventures" and therefore "grow resilient." In January, Skenazy spoke with Frank Furedi, 71, a Budapest-born sociologist now based at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. When Furedi was 9, he had an adventure even more exciting than riding a subway by himself: His family got caught up in Hungary's anti-Stalinist revolution of 1956. "The thing that I remember about that moment," he told Spiked years later, "was the sheer optimism, the sense of power expressed by people who were normally extremely passive and fatalistic." After the Soviets crushed the revolt, the family fled to Canada, where Furedi was drawn into the student left. Anti-Soviet and anti-statist—but not delighted with the West's status quo either—he became a self-styled libertarian Marxist. He "saw the state not as a medium of liberation but as a medium of oppression, as something that limited the possibility for more radical change," he explained to Spiked. Over the years Furedi has frequently taken stands on censorship, technology, environmentalism, identity politics, and other issues that set him apart from the rest of the left. He is also the author of many books about fear, parenting, and campus culture, including 2002's Paranoid Parenting, 2005's Politics of Fear, and 2016's What's Happened to the University. His latest, How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Continuum), looks at how fear has become the driving factor behind much of contemporary Western culture and the ways that has changed society for the worse. In a wide-ranging phone conversation, Skenazy and Furedi discussed the origins of today's fearful parenting, how schools and universities became incubators of scared kids, and why a refusal to tolerate risk has, paradoxically, led to a generation of children who are more fragile than ever before. Skenazy: Tell me the basic idea of your book. How does fear work? Furedi: What I'm trying to establish in the book is: What do we fear in the 21st century? There is a lot of material that is available on how people feared in the past, and it's very clear that there have been a number of very important changes in the way we talk about fear. For a start, in the contemporary era we talk much more about it. Fear is an overused word. We talk about it in relation to a lot more experiences than we did before—things that in the past would have been fairly uncontroversial, seen as being normal, not seen as a threat. I try to understand, Why is that? For example, something as ordinary and banal as children making a transition from primary school to secondary school is seen as a big deal. You need to bring in all kinds of experts to make sure that children are not threatened by going to the big school. My thesis is that the main reason we fear the way we do is because we have become increasingly prone toward medicalizing the threats we face. We tend to use the language of psychology rather than the language of morality or of politics or of social science to analyze the human condition. We tend to interpret the problems we face in terms of illness categories. I see this all the time too. Even some grandparents who let their children walk to school and play outside now think that letting the grandkids stand on the sidewalk in front of the house to wait for the bus is too dangerous. But I don't usually think of that as psychological or medicalized. I think of it as just fear inflation. What you describe as fear inflation is absolutely right. But the reason fear is being inflated so much is because we have a different idea of what a child or human being is like. We now seem to think that children are defined by their powerlessness, their vulnerability. We believe that children haven't got the psychological and the moral and the physical resources to deal with the challenges of everyday life. One of the most interesting developments is that in the past, adults used to understand that fearing is not a bad experience for children. If children fear the traffic, that's a good thing. In the last 50, 60 years, more and more, we're arguing that the very act of fearing is itself a psychologically dangerous kind of knowledge. It can damage a child. And parents are told almost to insulate children from any possible experience that might induce a sense of fear in their kids. There was a poll done in your country, England, of the worst fairy tales to tell children. I think the top result was "Little Red Riding Hood," because it's too scary. There's a wolf. The grandma is gone. The child gets eaten. Parents were saying that they were changing the ending because it was too traumatic for kids to hear about Little Red Riding Hood encountering the big eyes, big claws, and big teeth of the Big Bad Wolf. I think that's happening everywhere at the moment. Old wonderful fairy tales are being Disneyfied to the point at which anything that is remotely scary is immediately censored, and there's this really silly assumption that children are unable to deal with these kinds of stories. Whereas I'm sure that when you were a kid, you remember, these were precious moments. We remembered those scary stories quite well. We might have been a little bit frightened, but they did teach us a thing or two. At the moment, what we tend to do is seek refuge in the mundane: banal story lines where everybody's got big smiles on their faces. That seems to be the way we think that children should be socialized and brought up—all the while forgetting that it's totally impossible to shield young kids from the experience of fear. Whether you like it or not, things are going to frighten them. That's part and parcel of growing up. I think it's a good part. Fairy tales exist to teach you what not to do, but also to inculcate a certain sense of, "Ooh, that was scary….Tell it again!" You get used to it. You get a little comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable. Fairy tales communicated some very important moral messages about what is right and what is wrong, about good and evil. They really helped socialize young kids into a moral vision of the world. We've become very estranged from using the language of right and wrong with kids. In fact, in America, teachers often tell children there is no right and wrong answer. Everything is possible. Instead of teaching young people what's good and bad and giving them very clear rules, we tend to rely on what I call the therapeutic technique of validating them—making them feel good. We seem to believe that the way to bring kids up is continually raising their self-esteem by smiling at them, by not criticizing them, by not using a red pen to correct their essays. Children need to understand that failure is no big deal. They need to learn how to fail. They need to learn the difference between success and failure as early as possible, because that's what will give them strength later on. How did we get to this point? You seem to suggest that something happened after the '70s. What was it? At a certain point in Anglo-American culture, parents began to believe that they needed to be much more nurturing and caring [and] far less disciplinarian. Some of those beliefs were quite fine. But around the '60s and the '70s, these ideals mutated into ones that basically suggested it was really important that children were under adult protection as much as possible, because unless you were supervising them, they were likely to have very negative experiences. It takes about two or three generations of parents before these ideals pervade the entire parenting culture. By the time the new parents that are bringing children up in the 1980s begin to become fathers and mothers, these kind of ideals have been totally internalized. On both sides of the Atlantic, if you look at the elder generations of parents, people at my age or even older, they are far more permissive and far more chilled out than the youngest groups of parents. In fact, the younger generation of parents, the 26- and 27-year-olds, are more likely to be worried about virtually every dimension of a child's experience. I still don't understand what happened in the '70s that made us start thinking we had to watch over them more closely. Was it a crime wave? Was it a certain movie that scared everyone? The most important overall development that occurred in the 1970s was a shift in culture away from a confident, future-oriented belief in the capacity of society to do big things. You had President [Lyndon] Johnson talking about the Great Society in the 1960s. If you compare that to President [Jimmy] Carter's [1979] speech where he talks about the crisis of confidence in America, you can see a very big shift has occurred. As you have this loss of confidence, and this happens all over the world, it's paralleled by an emotionalism becoming institutionalized, where psychology becomes the dominant medium through which we interpret everyday human experience, and where problems that used to be seen as normal are increasingly recast in medical terms, as medical issues that we need to have a diagnosis for. It's in this context that you have a complete redefinition of what a child is, what they are capable of, what kind of risk and pressure they can handle. The whole therapeutic imagination that develops in North American societies fundamentally alters the way we view the child and the relationship of the child to the adults. Yeah, the idea that fear damages them is really what we're talking about. I read articles that are so disheartening, because they teach parents who might not feel worried that their job is to be worried and their job is to be supervising their children every single second. I feel bad for them. I never put down helicopter parents, because they're being taught that only this kind of helicoptering is good parenting, is safe enough. The key point for me is the underlying assumption that the real threat is not so much the physical injury that a child might have but the emotional one. Let's talk about the word vulnerability. You did a study where you looked at how much it's being used today—and not with kids that are chained to the crib in an orphanage. How did we start seeing regular children as all vulnerable to depression and every other kind of trauma? Mainstream psychology used to argue that children were much better at dealing with mental health issues than adults were, that when it came to trauma of all sorts, children could recover much faster than adults. That was the conventional wisdom. Then what happened was a number of studies were carried out in the late '70s and early '80s which began to suggest, bit by bit, that in fact we were wrong. Almost every dimension of childhood was reinterpreted as a potential threat to their mental health. If you look at the way children then became educated, we became so focused on preventing them from having major mental health issues that, actually, we create problems that did not exist before. If you go to university in America or in England, you'll find that mental health issues are like the No. 1 priority that all the administrators are focused on. Right. I've seen that at my own kids' universities. There are a lot of signs around: "Worried? Depressed? Don't hold it in. Come to the mental health center." On the one hand, it's nice. If a kid is having a tough time, I'm glad there's no stigma. But it does seem to assume that these problems are everywhere and that the university's job is to be proactive about noticing and having kids notice any time their emotional temperature is even a little out of whack. It normalizes the conviction that sooner or later, if not in your first year then in your second or third year, you're going to have a mental health problem. When I go to my university and I'm going into the toilet, I look up and there's an ad for if you're thinking of suicide. If you're lonely and you haven't got friends, there's a clinic where they have therapy dogs so you can feel more relaxed. If you look around, there's about six or seven of these mental health adverts. That to me seems to be a very, very real problem. These days, almost the entire university is meant to be a safe space. The argument is, whenever you feel that you're under pressure, you're traumatized. In your book you say, "powerlessness, fragility, and vulnerability are considered normal characteristics today." Do young people overcome these finally when they leave the university? Well, not really. I think that unfortunately we now see the human condition—in other words, what it means to be a human—very much in these terms. So the idea of being vulnerable and being powerless is something we carry on with us, or we're meant to carry on with us, for the rest of our life. Even when we become adults, biologically mature individuals, we still are meant to have what they call "issues." We expect people to have a variety of problems dealing with uncertainty. As a result of that, there's a whole industry of professionals, from life coaches—I don't know if you've ever met a life coach? I actually have a friend who was very much helped by her work coach. She was doing poorly, and somebody was advising her, like, "Don't say this to your boss" and "Don't do things that way." I don't think she knew how to succeed in the work world, so the coach really helped her. I'm sure that a lot of coaches can help. But I think there is a problem. If we're now relying on people to tell us how to speak at work, what to say or not to say to our friends, how to bring up our children, how to make love to our partners, how to decorate our houses—so virtually every aspect of our life is subject to some kind of professional expertise—then it does have that effect of undermining our autonomy as individuals where we are, in a sense, making choices on the basis of our experience. [It diminishes] our own capacity for independent behavior and our ability to take responsibility for our action and to live with the consequences of the action that we've taken. What interests me is that the fear is not just, like, "Oh, I might screw up and then I'll have to deal with the consequences." The fear is that if something bad happens, it's the end of the world and you will never recover. We go to the darkest possible place. When my mom let me walk to school, I don't think her heart was in her throat every day, thinking, "I will feel so bad for the rest of my life if she's kidnapped, raped, and murdered." She didn't think that way. She might have thought that I would fall down and I would have to get up, but I don't even think she was worrying about that. So how come today we all go straight to "kidnapped, raped, and murdered" every time we let our kids out of our sight? Worst-case thinking has become the norm in all institutions of society. That's been very much the dominant way that risk aversion—the fear of taking risks, the fear of experimenting, the fear of trying stuff out—takes. I think that "responsible parenting" these days is defined as a kind of child care that assumes the worst thing [that could possibly happen] and takes precautions to make sure that doesn't happen. Very often when you have discussions with intelligent people, they in their heart of hearts actually know that worst-case thinking is not very helpful. My mom quit her job to stay at home with her kids. So obviously her first priority was us and our well-being. And yet she could let us go outside, ride our bikes, walk to school, go to the beach, even—the big bad beach. How did we get to "I could never forgive myself if…" being this line that all parents say and feel now? Safety has acquired this enormous significance in our lives. It almost has a quasi-religious quality to it, where people regard everything that is safe as being, by definition, really, really good. And of course, the more we talk about safety and the more we focus on that, the more we become drawn to seeing a growing dimension of life and the world as unsafe. Experiences that in the past we would have called a good risk are today seen in a very different way. Even that expression—"a good risk"—sounds irresponsible. Risk is by definition bad. It's not an opportunity to make things happen. Risk is entirely a negative phenomenon. So we have this very one-sided way of dealing with risk, where we want to shield ourselves from it. Safety has become an obsession in a way that is quite unprecedented. I don't think there's ever been a time in human history where so many things were deemed problematic or unsafe. How do we turn the ship around? That's not an easy question to answer. It's something I struggle with. I think the way one does it is by personal example. You often get parents who demonstrate through their actions that having a robust orientation to their children's lives is going to make their kids stronger and more independent. I think that helps. The kind of work you guys [at Let Grow] are doing is really important in that respect, because it demystifies the reality that most parents live under. In their heart of hearts, most parents know they need to give more space to their children, that they need more independence and more freedom to explore the world. I am quite optimistic that it's possible to make headway. Not overnight, but certainly possible. The other thing that we need is to have more discussions on why taking risks can be an exhilarating and positive experience, not a road to disaster. I just think we need to challenge a lot of this stuff. In many ways, I regard our safety culture as not unlike the story about the emperor having no clothes. When the little boy says the emperor is naked. I think that if we basically ask some questions—some pointed questions, and point out the ridiculousness of all the stuff that's happening, maybe use a bit of humor alongside of it—I think we can make a positive impact. This conversation has been condensed and edited for style and clarity. | Ed Krayewski | http://freedombunker.com/2019/05/27/parenting-without-fear/ | 2019-05-27 10:00:13+00:00 | 1,558,965,613 | 1,567,540,081 | science and technology | social sciences |
221,487 | freedombunker--2019-06-17--Intersectionality 101 | 2019-06-17T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Intersectionality 101 | The Women's March came to Washington, D.C., on January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump's inauguration. Its purpose was to call attention to the incoming president's history of appalling behavior toward women—behavior to which Trump had all but admitted in the infamous hot-mic moment during an Access Hollywood taping. "When you're a star, they let you do it," Trump had said. "You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy." This was a statement that rightly offended millions of Americans of all political stripes—Trump's electoral fortunes were never lower than immediately after the tape's release—and thus the march held the promise of uniting the country around a universal, positive message: It's not OK to abuse women. More than half a million people descended on D.C. for the march, making it the largest protest in the United States since the Vietnam War era. It was a fairly awe-inspiring spectacle. Walking just a few blocks from my apartment, I was greeted by a sea of pink hats. Many of the protesters had chosen to reclaim Trump's own vulgar language, and I saw dozens of signs bearing some variant of the slogan "This pussy grabs back." Others were less confrontational: A young woman with pink streaks in her brown hair held a sign that said, "To love, we must survive; to survive, we must fight; to fight, we must love." Her friend stood next to her, waving a sign that featured a hand-drawn Donald Trump with the universally recognized emoji for excrement atop his head and the words Dump Trump. All in all, the Women's March was a success for the nascent anti-Trump movement informally known as the #Resistance. More people showed up to protest than to attend the inauguration—something that seemed to infuriate the president, forcing several Trump staffers to make false statements about the relative sizes of the crowds. (This was the genesis of presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway's now infamous line about "alternative facts.") Yet many of the young leftists I interviewed told me they thought the protest was a disgrace. According to them, it became too inclusive. "That's actually fucking right," said Laila, a 26-year-old Muslim woman and political activist, when I asked if that was why she did not attend the march. Although she lives in Washington, D.C., Laila skipped town that weekend. "I'm tired of being a poster child for someone else's attempt at inclusivity," she explained. In her view, by including so many different perspectives, organizers had watered down the message and ended up marginalizing the people who should have been the focus. They took "an approach that co-opted the narratives of many who have already been fighting in this space, specifically, black women." Laila was hardly the only young activist who felt that way about the Women's March. Juniper, a 19-year-old trans woman, castigated the event as "super white" and "super cisgender-centric." (Cisgender, the opposite of transgender, describes people who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth.) She was skeptical of it at best, she said. And others were even harsher. "I hated it," said Ma'at, a student of color at American University. "It was super cis-centric. It was exclusive of trans identities. It was whitewashed. It just in general was very co-opting and ineffective." "I just felt like it wasn't very sincere," said Yanet, a student of color at the University of Maryland. "It just felt like a moment for people who aren't as involved or didn't care before to feel like, 'Oh, I did something.'" "Insincere" and "ineffective" will strike many readers as surprising ways for leftist activists to describe the most well-attended mass march in four decades. But it makes perfect sense when one considers the priorities of the new activist culture, which prefers quality—intellectual purity—over quantity. A protest is successful only if it highlights the correct issues, includes the right people—people who check all the appropriate boxes—and is organized by a ruling coalition of the most oppressed. This is what intersectionality dictates. Though the words intersectionality and inclusion sound like synonyms, they are actually in conflict with each other—a conflict perfectly encapsulated by the Women's March and activists' dissatisfaction with it. In case there was any confusion, Roxane Gay, a celebrated feminist author and voice of the left, tweeted this in response to the idea of people who oppose abortion participating in the event: "Intersectional feminism does not include a pro-life agenda. That's not how it works!" Intersectionality is the operating system for the modern left. Understanding what it means and where it comes from is essential for comprehending the current state of activism on college campuses, at protests in major cities, and elsewhere. Put simply, the idea is that various kinds of oppression—racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, economic inequality, and others—are simultaneously distinct from each other and inherently linked. They are distinct in the sense that they stack: A black woman suffers from two kinds of oppression (racism and sexism), whereas a white woman suffers from just one (sexism). But they are also interrelated, in that they are all forms of oppression that should be opposed with equal fervor. For instance, a feminist who isn't sufficiently worked up about the rights of the gay community is at odds with the tenets of intersectionality. She is a feminist, but she is not an intersectional feminist. Holly, a 23-year-old Berkeley student whom I met at the April 2017 People's Climate March in Washington, D.C., told me that for her, intersectionality means all issues are "connected and tie in with each other, like indigenous rights, Black Lives Matter, and climate change." Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia University, coined the term intersectionality in her 1989 paper "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex." She needed a word to describe the lives of black women who were discriminated against because of both their race and their sex. Their experiences were fundamentally different from those of black men, who were privileged to the extent that they were men, and from those of white women, who were privileged to the extent that they were white. "Discrimination, like traffic through an intersection, may flow in one direction, and it may flow in another," wrote Crenshaw. "If an accident happens in an intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any number of directions and, sometimes, from all of them. Similarly, if a Black woman is harmed because she is in the intersection, her injury could result from sex discrimination or race discrimination." Crenshaw got the idea from a 1976 federal district court case, DeGraffenreid v. General Motors, in which five black women had sued the auto giant. They argued that G.M.'s policy of laying off the most recently hired employees violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits both racial and gender-based discrimination. Since it had been only a little more than a decade since the law had begun requiring G.M. to hire black and female employees, the most recent hires tended to be black women, the plaintiffs argued. But the court determined that black women enjoyed no special protection under the law—the employees were protected from racial discrimination and gender-based discrimination, but not from the combined effects of these two categories. "The plaintiffs are clearly entitled to a remedy if they have been discriminated against," wrote the court. "However, they should not be allowed to combine statutory remedies to create a new 'super-remedy' which would give them relief beyond what the drafters of the relevant statutes intended." DeGraffenreid v. General Motors was Crenshaw's lightbulb moment. Black women lived in the midst of two kinds of discrimination—racism and sexism—and thus languished under an oppressive force greater than the sum of its parts. "What Kimberlé is saying with intersectionality is that, in order to understand how power operates, you have to understand how people live their lives," says Alicia Garza, an activist and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. "Intersectionality is the very basic notion that we live multiple experiences at once. It's not just, 'Oh, I'm black and I'm a woman and I'm a black woman.' It's to say that I'm uniquely discriminated against. I uniquely experience oppression based on standing at the intersection of race and gender." Though Crenshaw came up with the term, the concept itself predates her. As far back as 1892, the black feminist Anna Julia Cooper had criticized leading anti-racists for failing to advance the cause of black women. "Only the black woman can say when and where I enter, in the quiet undisputed dignity of my womanhood.…Then and there the whole race enters with me," she wrote in A Voice From the South. For the Boston-based black feminist lesbian organization known as the Combahee River Collective, which existed in the 1970s and early '80s, "simultaneity" was the word used to describe the cumulative impact of the various oppressions they experienced. Their manifesto called not just for the abolition of racism and sexism but for "the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well." Avowed enmity toward all the various -isms: This is the strategy required by the intellectual framework that became known as intersectionality. Patricia Hill Collins, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, expanded upon Crenshaw's work, publishing Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment in 1990. Taking a cue from Crenshaw, she used the term intersectionality to refer to the interlocking matrices of oppression that serve to marginalize people. Initially focused on race and gender, Collins gave additional consideration to class as a matrix in her 1992 book Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology. Later, she would add sexual orientation to the mix. "Intersectional paradigms view race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and age, among others, as mutually constructing systems of power," she wrote in 2004's Black Sexual Politics. "Because these systems permeate all social relations, untangling their effects in any given situation or for any given population remains difficult." That's quite the understatement, since every new addition to the list of interrelated oppressions makes the task even more cumbersome. There are more of these categories than most people might imagine, and every year, intellectual peers of Crenshaw and Collins propose new ones. Meanwhile, intersectionality has become a ubiquitous force on college campuses, where young people are taught to perceive all social issues through the lens of interrelated oppression and to find more grievances to add to the pile. Those who grasp the truth of intersectionality are said to be "woke," slang that describes someone who has awakened to the reality of their own privilege and adopted a progressive worldview. The spread of intersectionality poses some problems for the left, since the theory divides people as often as it unites them. In recent years, Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, a prestige drama based on feminist author Margaret Atwood's beloved novel, became mandatory #Resistance viewing for its depiction of an oppressive society where women have been enslaved by theocratic authoritarians—a future toward which Trump's America is hurtling, according to many on the left. But the second season, which debuted in 2018, drew criticism: The show was accused of a "failure of intersectionality" because it never grappled with racism, only sexism. "This is a show all about gender—it is built entirely around that concept—but until The Handmaid's Tale learns to make its feminism intersectional, it's going to keep letting its audience down," commented BuzzFeed TV writer Louis Peitzman. In the years since Crenshaw introduced the term, intersectionality has broadened in both scope (that is, more kinds of oppression have been identified) and reach (more people are aware of the concept and what it implies). The academy loves intersectionality, and the theory's popularity has soared in sociology, psychology, English, philosophy, history, and other social science and humanities departments. Indeed, more and more universities have created entire academic wings dedicated to studying specific kinds of oppression and explaining how they relate to others. Thus the rise of women's studies, African American studies, Hispanic studies, Asian studies, queer studies, and more. What began at the intersection of race and sex now includes economic class, gender identity (the gender category to which a person feels attachment, which may be different from the person's biological sex), gender expression (the way a person looks and behaves), sexual orientation, immigration status, disability status, age, religious belief (though certain believers—such as Muslims—are perceived as more oppressed than others), and size (whether you are overweight or not). In practice, intersectionality frequently forces the left to engage in self-cannibalism. Not all victims of oppression get along, since they're quite often in tension with each other. The intersectional progressive says, in effect: "We must fight racism, and sexism, and homophobia, and transphobia, and the Trump administration's immigration policies, and the wealthy, and global warming, and anti-Muslim bigotry, and ableism, etc." There are millions of people, though, who want to fight some of these things but not others—and if intersectionality requires them to commit to every single cause at once, they simply won't. Some people might decry racism and sexism without fully understanding or agreeing with the demands of the trans community; indeed, there's a community of feminists who specifically reject the notion that trans women should be considered women. Other people might want economic equality for the poor but hold socially conservative views on gay rights, or oppose Trump's harsh treatment of immigrants but feel ambivalent about climate change. Still others might be strident progressives in nearly all respects but dissent from the notion that Muslims deserve space in the club when Jews do not. That's not a theoretical example. In modern progressive parlance, Muslims are oppressed and Israel is the oppressor. Thus, anti-Islamic bias is viewed as a source of oppression, while anti-Semitism is frequently ignored—even though Jews tend to be much more politically progressive than Muslims. There are three main problems with intersectionality: the education problem, the perfection problem, and the coalition problem. First, the problem of education. One important implication of intersectionality is that the sole authority on an individual's oppression is the individual in question. White men who are heterosexual and cisgender shouldn't try to "mansplain" the struggles of black women or people of color: They aren't oppressed, so they can never understand what it's like, even if they happen to be extremely progressive or well-educated about left-wing causes. At the same time, "it's not my job to educate you" is one of the most frequently recited catchphrases in activist circles. "It is not my responsibility as a marginalized individual to educate you about my experience," wrote Elan Morgan in a popular Medium post, which provided 21 arguments for why that statement was correct. The feminist news website Everyday Feminism has highlighted the work of YouTuber and transgender activist Kat Blaque, who opined in a video that it is "demeaning and dehumanizing to explain to people of privilege why people like them have historically and currently oppressed people like me." And in an article for HuffPost, the feminist writer Melanie Hamlett wrote: "Dear Men, It Is Not My Responsibility to Explain Feminism to You." Doing so, she said, required too much "emotional labor." But here we have an obvious issue: Asking people about their oppression—even earnestly, out of a sincere desire to become better educated—is discouraged, and there's no other way to gain this knowledge, since the oppressed themselves are the only acceptable experts. This makes it frustratingly difficult to have supportive conversations about oppression, let alone tense ones. The second problem, which follows logically from the first, is the perfection problem. Very few people can grasp with 100 percent accuracy the various requirements of intersectional progressivism, given that they aren't allowed to interrogate the oppressed, who are the only source of knowledge about their oppression. I once saw this issue explained perfectly in a blog post, written by a woman complaining about all that was required of her. "As an ally, my job is to not impose my own beliefs of what's 'right,' but instead amplify the voices of the oppressed people that I'm trying to be an ally for," she wrote. "Except that I shouldn't bug them about educating me, because that's not what they're there for. And it's my duty to talk about the issue of oppression in question, because it's the job of all of us, rather than the oppressed people, to fix it. Except that when I talk, I shouldn't be using my privilege to drown out the voices of the oppressed people. Also, I should get everything right, 100% of the time. Including the terminology that the oppressed people in question themselves disagree on." Even the most well-intentioned person is bound to slip up. My Facebook feed recently served up a note from someone asking for help finding shelter for a wheelchair-bound neighbor. The immediate reply was this: "The only resource I have for you at the moment is in regards to the words wheelchair bound," accompanied by a link to a HuffPost article titled "Stop Saying 'Wheelchair-Bound' and Other Offensive Terms." You probably didn't know wheelchair-bound was offensive terminology—I certainly didn't—and in any case, you shouldn't ask someone in a wheelchair what the correct terminology is, because it's not that person's job to educate you. In The Daily Beast, Kristen Lopez described the 2018 Marvel superhero film Ant-Man and the Wasp as "ableist"—that is, disparaging of people with disabilities—for including a character who suffers from chronic pain and is attempting to cure her condition. "Instead of helping Ava find a way to cope [with] (and not necessarily eradicate) her disability, the film seeks to provide a cure." That's a bad thing, Lopez wrote, because not all disabled people want to overcome their disability. Who knew you could run afoul of disability activism by making a movie in which a character who suffers from chronic pain tries to overcome it? The writer, academic, and activist Fredrik deBoer once described an event he witnessed: "A 33-year-old Hispanic man, an Iraq war veteran who had served three tours and had become an outspoken critic of our presence there, [was] lectured about patriarchy by an affluent 22-year-old white liberal arts college student." The veteran had committed a crime of the "wheelchair-bound" variety: He had called on other veterans to "man up" and denounce the war. What he could not have known, since he had spent much of his adult life on a battlefield rather than in feminist studies lectures, is that man up is a gendered term and thus unacceptable. According to deBoer, these incidents frequently result in would-be allies growing disheartened with the cause. Nobody's perfect—and that's an issue for intersectionality, since it demands total adherence to all facets of its approach. The third problem, which grows out of the first two, is the coalition problem: The demands of intersectionality make it extremely difficult to form strategic relationships for the purpose of advancing a single issue. Take legalizing marijuana, for example. There are a lot of Americans who subscribe to a diverse range of ideologies with some interest in the issue. There are liberals and leftists who think using marijuana is no big deal, there are libertarians who think the government has no right to tell consenting adults what they can put in their own bodies, and there are even some conservatives who think enforcing federal marijuana prohibition is a waste of law enforcement resources and a blow to states' rights. People from all three of these groups could and should work together to advance the cause, despite their myriad differences on other issues. But intersectionality gets in the way, since the intersectional progressive only wants to work with people who oppose all the various strains of oppression—not just the ones relevant to the narrow issue of marijuana policy. It's difficult to imagine that the campaign for gay marriage would have gone as relatively smoothly as it did had intersectionality been as ubiquitous a decade ago as it is today. This was in some sense the last nonintersectional leftist cause: Activists who supported it were extremely disciplined and specifically avoided tying it to other, more fringe issues. Believers in same-sex marriage, in fact, worked tirelessly to bring people on the political right into the movement, stressing that gay couples only wanted legal equality and sought to form the same kinds of family arrangements that social conservatives believe are desirable for society. The marriage equality movement even turned to Ted Olson, a Republican and former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, to represent it in the lawsuit against California's Proposition 8, which had banned gay marriage in the state. One of the strongest voices on this issue was Andrew Sullivan, a gay right-of-center writer who made the case for same-sex marriage in a 1989 New Republic article: "Marriage provides an anchor, if an arbitrary and weak one, in the chaos of sex and relationships to which we are all prone," he wrote. "It provides a mechanism for emotional stability, economic security, and the healthy rearing of the next generation. We rig the law in its favor not because we disparage all forms of relationship other than the nuclear family, but because we recognize that not to promote marriage would be to ask too much of human virtue. In the context of the weakened family's effect upon the poor, it might also invite social disintegration." That's a fundamentally conservative argument, crafted specifically to appeal to people on the right. And it worked. Support for gay marriage increased from 27 percent in 1996 to 67 percent two decades later. It is now legal everywhere in the United States. This happy development is in large part due to the work of a coalition that would be impossible to put together in the age of intersectionality. Sullivan and Olson would almost certainly have been chased away by activists refusing to engage with them due to their conservative views on other policy matters. Contrast the triumph of gay marriage with some examples of the setbacks and infighting that occur within an intersectional framework. During the June 2017 Chicago Pride Parade, organizers asked Laurel Grauer, a Jewish lesbian, to leave. Grauer had dared to carry a flag bearing a rainbow (the symbol of the LGBT community) and the Star of David. She was told her display made people feel unsafe. One might expect everybody who supports equal rights and dignity for LGBT people to be welcome at pride events, but from the standpoint of the organizers, the march was intended to be intersectional—meaning it was both pro-LGBT and "anti-Zionist," or opposed to the state of Israel's existence. For the modern left, Jews are outranked by minority groups whose oppression is considered more serious than, and to some degree at odds with, their own. The incident at the Chicago Pride Parade is not a one-off. Linda Sarsour, an activist and Women's March leader, has made the dubious claim that anti-Semitism is "different than anti-black racism or Islamophobia because it's not systemic." Sarsour and fellow Women's March leaders Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez have drawn criticism for their ties to controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who is widely considered to be anti-Semitic. Farrakhan has compared Jewish people to termites and asserted that "powerful Jews are my enemy." He made the latter remark at a February 2018 rally attended by Mallory, who distanced herself from his rhetoric but would not condemn the man himself—and who was steadfast in her commitment to working with his group. Or consider an illuminating episode involving the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a left-wing group that got a huge boost from Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. In January 2018, the DSA tweeted that it would be unveiling its Medicare for All campaign, an effort to extend the national health insurance program to everyone in the country. This was an unsurprising development—empowering the government to provide more comprehensive health care coverage is a fairly standard goal of liberal activists, not just the far left. More surprising was the furious blowback the DSA received from many of its own members who identified as disabled. The DSA's Medicare for All committee had apparently failed to consult the Disability Working Group about the campaign's rollout, which led the latter to protest that they were being excluded from relevant decision making. Since disabled people are especially affected by health care policy, the Medicare for All group had essentially failed to let disabled people be the experts on their own oppression—an intersectionality no-no. Amber A'Lee Frost, a Medicare for All proponent and prominent DSA member known for co-hosting the left-wing Chapo Trap House podcast, hit back, accusing her critics of trying to sabotage the movement with their "pathological anti-social behavior." This made matters much worse: The comment was perceived as an attack on the autistic community. Frost had committed ableism. Several dozen DSA members signed a petition demanding that she "immediately remove herself from any involvement, official or unofficial, with DSA's Medicare for All campaign, and should she not, that she be removed." This was necessary, because intersectionality means casting suspicion on organizing efforts if these efforts do not make the marginalized the center of attention. College campuses, where the grievances are significant but the stakes are low, play host to some of the most farcical examples of intersectionality-induced bickering. A particularly revelatory crisis emerged at Evergreen State College in Washington during the spring 2017 semester. Every year, activists there organized a Day of Action during which students of color would deliberately leave campus as a means of protest against racism. But in 2017, the activists decided to try something new: They would ask students of color to remain and white people to leave. This tactic didn't sit well with Bret Weinstein, a biology professor at Evergreen. Weinstein was a progressive—he had supported Sanders over Hillary Clinton the year before—and sympathized with the activists' goals, but he felt that the new plan for the Day of Action was unsound. "There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles, and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away," Weinstein told an administrator. The latter, he contended, "is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself." In response, activists surrounded Weinstein outside his classroom and accused him of being a racist. "This is not a discussion!" they told him. A student named Hadley later told Vice correspondent Michael Moynihan that her message to Weinstein was: "You don't get to spread this problematic rhetoric." A subsequent dialogue between the activist students and college President George Bridges similarly spiraled out of control. During the meeting, activist students repeatedly belittled Bridges, a meek, bow-tie-wearing white man, even instructing him to keep his hands at his sides and stop pointing at people. "Fuck you, George!" one student said. "We don't want to hear a goddamn thing you have to say." When Bridges asked the students to let him leave the room so he could use the lavatory, they told him to hold it. Hadley would tell Moynihan that Weinstein should go be a "racist and a piece of shit" somewhere else. The campus police said they could no longer guarantee the professor's safety on campus, and he eventually resigned. Each of these examples shows how activists who worship at the altar of intersectionality felt compelled to turn on people for committing venial sins. It's not enough to share the intersectional progressives' goals relating to a specific issue: One must also support their tactics, know their language intuitively, defer to the wisdom of the oppressed without either speaking on their behalf or expecting them to speak for themselves, and commit to every other interrelated cause. The intersectional approach often seems petty and performative. The symbol of the gay rights movement, the rainbow flag, was designed by activist Gilbert Baker in 1978. Its colors were pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo, and violet, which he said represented sex, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic, serenity, and spirit. In 2017, Philadelphia debuted a new rainbow flag to celebrate Pride Month—this one including brown and black stripes, in recognition of people of color. Many members of the LGBT community—particularly younger ones, according to BuzzFeed—liked the new intersectional flag, which takes a stand against homophobia and racism. But many older LGBT activists were confused, since none of the original colors reflected ethnicity at all. Will the flag eventually have to add stripes for Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans? What about the disabled community and those who languish under the oppression of sizeism? The thinkers who first defined intersectionality probably hoped that by linking all kinds of oppression together, they could force people to fight against a wider swath of bad things. The University of Maryland's Collins hinted at this when she wrote that "many African Americans deny the existence of sexism, or see it as a secondary concern that is best addressed when the more pressing problem of racism has been solved. But if racism and sexism are deeply intertwined, racism can never be solved without seeing and challenging sexism." Collins wanted to tie the problems together so that everybody fighting one would have to fight the other, too. But the more -isms added to the pile, the more tenuous this approach becomes. It's all well and good to say that sexism is as pervasive a problem as racism, but the intersectional activist of 2019 is reaching much further and making many more demands. From the standpoint of this movement, a woman marching against the Republican Party, against police brutality, against war, against sexual violence, and for Israel's existence is not an ally or potential ally: She is an enemy. She is part of the problem. She has failed the test of intersectionality. She is not, as the poet Elisa Chavez put it, "intersectional as fuck." She might as well have voted for Trump. A hopelessly divided opposition movement that cannot resist cannibalizing itself over intersectionality-induced disagreements is not going to be very effective. In fact, it's probably a good recipe for the continued political dominance of the Trump coalition. Adapted from Robby Soave's new book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, by permission of All Points Books/St. Martin's Press. | Ed Krayewski | http://freedombunker.com/2019/06/17/intersectionality-101/ | 2019-06-17 11:00:02+00:00 | 1,560,783,602 | 1,567,538,979 | science and technology | social sciences |
221,747 | freedombunker--2019-06-28--Enumerated Powers and the Census Case | 2019-06-28T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Enumerated Powers and the Census Case | Yesterday, in Department of Commerce v. New York, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration's rationale for adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 census was pretextual and therefore invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act. I think this decision was correct, for the reasons Chief Justice John Roberts explains in his majority opinion. But the Court would have done better to simply rule that the inclusion of the question on the census was outside the scope of federal power under the Enumeration Clause of Article I of the Constitution. The majority's reasons for rejecting that argument strike me as weak. Article I Section 2 of the Constitution requires Congress to make "an actual enumeration" of the population every "ten years," for purposes of apportioning representation in the House of Representatives. The enumeration is to be done "in such Manner as [Congress] shall by Law direct." This latter phrase undoubted gives Congress broad power to determine exactly how the census shall be done. But broad power is not unlimited power. Congress clearly has the authority to include almost any questions on the census that would increase the accuracy of the resulting count. It also has the power to ask a wide range of questions that would not have a significant effect on accuracy either way (especially if those questions involve information-gathering of a type authorized by Congress' other enumerated powers, which would provide additional authorization for them). But matters are different if the addition of a given question is likely to reduce the accuracy of the count. Some of the powers the Constitution grants to the federal government are powers to regulate a particular type of activity, largely without regard to the purposes for which the regulation is undertaken. For example, Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce can be used for a wide range of different goals, some of which may even conflict with each other. By contrast, the Enumeration Clause is a power to achieve a particular type of objective: in this case an accurate head count of the population of the United States. Indeed the Enumeration Clause is a rare constitutional provision that not only grants authority to pursue a particular objective, but actually mandates it. The Clause requires the government to conduct a new enumeration every ten years. The power in question therefore cannot be used to authorize policies that actually impede its mandated purpose. And that is exactly what the addition of the citizenship question would do. Survey research experts, including the federal government's own experts at the Census Bureau, agree that including the citizenship question would substantially reduce the accuracy of the count. The reason is that a significant number of immigrant and other households that include non-citizens would likely choose not to participate, for fear that they or their relatives might end up getting targeted for deportation as a result. Even if people in question ultimately forestall deportation by prevailing in court, a legal battle of this type can be painful, costly, and disruptive. Many would prefer to avoid even a small chance of inviting it. While the Enumeration Clause gives Congress the power to choose the "manner" of conducting an enumeration, that is not the same thing as using that power to undermine the very goal it is supposed to achieve. The power to do X is not also a power to impede X. If Congress and the president had unlimited authority to conduct the census in any way they want, unconstrained by the requirement that the methods must further enumeration rather than impede it, they could, for example, adopt a law under which anyone counted by the census would have to pay a tax in order to be included. This would clearly be a regulation of the "manner" of enumeration. But, just as clearly, it would be unconstitutional, because it would lead to widespread undercounting by creating an incentive to avoid being counted. The Trump administration's proposed citizenship question is just a less extreme example of the same problem. Indeed, the administration likely added the question precisely because it would reduce the accuracy of the count in states with large immigrant populations, thereby reducing the number of congressional seats allocated to those states. But even if the administration's motives were pure, the addition of this question still undermines enumeration rather than furthers it, and thereby falls outside the scope of the federal government's Enumeration Clause powers. A ruling against the question based on the Enumeration Clause would have ended the case immediately (as opposed to the current remand for further consideration of possible alternative rationales for including the citizenship question). It also would have obviated the need for consideration of the administration's motives and the procedure by which it decided to include the question. Chief Justice Roberts' best argument for ruling that the citizenship question falls within Congress' authority is that a similar question was included in all but one census between 1820 and 1950, and the question was also given to sub-samples in several censuses since then. But this evidence is less impressive than it might initially seem to be. During the 1820-1950 period, we did not have social science evidence showing that inclusion of a citizenship question would reduce accuracy. While the meaning of the enumeration power was the same, whether the inclusion of a given question furthers the authorized purposes of that power or impedes it is a factual question. This is one of a number of situations where originalists and textualists can and should take account of new factual evidence. The resolution of any legal case depends on a combination of textual meaning (which, at least under originalist assumptions, does not change) and factual evidence (which can indeed change, and often does). Moreover, during most of the time from 1820 to 1950 there were few or no federal immigration restrictions, and even less in the way of systematic federal efforts to deport undocumented immigrants from the interior of the country. Thus, there was little incentive to avoid participation in the census for fear of deportation. The situation today is, for obvious reasons, very different. Roberts also notes that the census has always been used to ask a variety of other demographic questions, such as ones about respondents' age and sex. But including these questions creates little or no risk of creating a significant undercount. Assessing whether the inclusion of a census question undermines the goal of enumeration would require courts to consider social science evidence. But no more so than is routinely done in a wide range of other routinely heard by federal courts, such as antitrust cases and redistricting cases where plaintiffs allege racial discrimination. It might be reasonable to defer to the federal government's judgment in close cases, where the evidence is ambiguous. But not so in cases like the citizenship question, where it is overwhelmingly on one side. As both Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer (in his partial concurring opinion), note, if the federal government cannot include a question on citizenship in the 2020 census, it can still do so in other surveys. Census Bureau experts recommended exactly that course of action. It is likely that a survey of citizens can be authorized under one of Congress' other enumerated powers (especially under the very broad modern interpretations of some of them), even if not under the Enumeration Clause. But the federal government cannot include such a question in the census mandated by the Enumeration Clause. This flawed part of yesterday's decision probably will have little effect on cases outside the context of the census. In that sense, the harm it causes will be limited. But it is still unfortunate that the five conservative justices (all of whom joined this part of the the Chief Justice's opinion) signed on to such a seriously flawed ruling which allows a federal power to be used for the opposite of its textually required purpose. That goes double for those, like Clarence Thomas, who are generally very careful to enforce structural constraints on federal power in other contexts. The four liberal justices also deserve some criticism here. They all refused to sign on to this part of Roberts' opinion, which suggests they likely disagree with it. Yet none bothered to explain the grounds of that disagreement. It would have been helpful if they had done so. UPDATE: It is worth noting that non-citizens (and other non-voters) have always been included in the "enumeration" required by the Enumeration Clause for apportionment purposes. Indeed, such inclusion is mandated by the text of the Constitution, which mandates a count of all "free persons," except for "Indians not taxed." | Ed Krayewski | http://freedombunker.com/2019/06/28/enumerated-powers-and-the-census-case/ | 2019-06-28 18:18:42+00:00 | 1,561,760,322 | 1,567,537,650 | science and technology | social sciences |
221,958 | freedombunker--2019-07-07--Our Big Brains Are Pre-Wired for Love Friendship Cooperation and Learning | 2019-07-07T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Our Big Brains Are Pre-Wired for Love, Friendship, Cooperation, and Learning | Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, by Nicholas A. Christakis, Little, Brown, 544 pages, $30 We finally have an answer to the nature/nurture debate, and it appears to be yes. It took billions of years of biological evolution for bacteria to morph into humanity, but the human ability to learn and to teach each other new tricks means that useful behaviors and ideas don't have to take biological time to spread through the species. Their emergence, the ways we spread them, and the ways they change over time amount to a kind of cultural evolution. A cultural discovery—our pre-human predecessors' capture of fire—externalized the digestive system that evolution had shaped for our variety of ape. That freed biological energy to grow a big brain. In Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of A Good Society, Nicholas Christakis argues that this coevolution has equipped us with a "social suite" of traits that arose through genetic evolution and that have been amplified by cultural evolution, which has in turn influenced our genetic evolution toward propensities that support the social suite. These include the "capacity to have and recognize individual identity," "love for partners and offspring," friendship, social networks, cooperation, "preference for one's own group ('in-group bias')," "mild hierarchy (that is, relative egalitarianism)," and "social learning and teaching." Christakis, a physician and a sociologist at Yale, buttresses his arguments with evidence from social science, evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience, and network science. He presents evidence from beyond the laboratory, drawing examples from the history of shipwrecks and communes and from studies of elephants, bonobos, and dolphins. He even addresses philosophical objections to his claim that our genetic and cultural history prepared humans "to make a particular kind of society—one full of love, friendship, cooperation, and learning." Christakis embraces a "glass is half full" interpretation of human sociality, but he doesn't shy away from the inseparable shadow consequences of the same traits: Our ancestors learned to be kind when they learned to be more effective groups of killer apes. People all over the world observe social norms of fairness and reciprocity, even without direct reward, in part because our otherwise different societies punish non-cooperators. We cooperate with others in our in-group in order to compete with out-groups. In gene-culture coevolution, contradictory and conflicting behaviors can power a kind of evolutionary arms race. Nature (pre-wired capabilities, such as the capacity for cooperation and social learning) and nurture (cultural development of teaching) can act as complementary forces, together driving the elaboration of cultural forms and the expansion of the social suite. "Evolution," Christakis writes, "provides the underlying foundation for human culture by equipping us with the ability to cooperate, make friends, and learn socially." Key to Christakis' arguments are the concepts of pre-wiring and exaptation. While a hardwired trait might equip a species of bird to voice the same tune everywhere in the world, a species pre-wired for birdsong might invent different songs in different environments. The former is often used to describe traits that are reflexive or instinctive. Hardwired compels; pre-wired enables. Exaptation is an evolutionary trick that human beings are not alone in exploiting, although we are particularly good at it. It means that a species can repurpose a trait like feathers, which probably evolved as a form of thermal insulation, to do other things, such as fly. Exaptation also bridges genetic and cultural forms of evolution. While long, slow, biological evolution provides us (and other species) with a strong tendency for parents to form lasting partnerships—"pair-bonding"—human cultures provide a wide variety of cultural forms, such as monogamy, polygamy, and polyandry. The biological advantage of pair-bonding is that the father stays around to help the mother take care of the offspring they have produced. This close partnership assures the father that he is indeed helping raise his own children, which is particularly useful in our species, which requires an investment of years of care before a child can act as an adult. And it assures the mother that she has help finding food and shelter while she births and nurtures offspring. As Christakis puts it: "The evolutionary psychology of both men and women is to exchange love for support." Christakis claims that over time, humans learned to extend the affection and partnership we have with our mates to our kin, then to our kin's friends, then to all the members of a strongly defined group—an expanding circle of attachment that enables us to form social networks and complex societies. When maternal love becomes marital love and those forms of love expand to create friendships, a norm of expectations spreads through the group: Friends expect reciprocity, a balance of favors asked and offered. Relationships with in-laws take a variety of forms in different human societies, but in all cases they expand the circle of people one expects to trust. As networks of trust grow, a norm of cooperation emerges: Everybody expects others to help further the aims of the in-group. I may do favors for people in my group, even if they aren't kin and even if they haven't done anything for me, because I know that I can also count on other members of my group to do me favors. In any group, some people will be willing to cooperate and others will "free ride" on the work of the cooperators. When free riding reaches a certain point, cooperation breaks down. Extensive research suggests that "altruistic punishment" may be a kind of social glue that maintains an acceptable level of cooperation. Think of how you'd like to tell off that person who cuts in line ahead of you. That's altruistic punishment—a norm upheld not by a police force but by public opinion. Culture, as Christakis defines it, is "knowledge that is transmitted between individuals and across time, that can be taught and learned, and that is distinctive to groups…a set of beliefs, behaviors, and artifacts that are shared by members of the group and are typical of it, and that are socially transmitted." Other species exhibit social learning, but human beings are by far the best at deliberately inculcating other members of our group with useful knowledge. In other words, we're the best at teaching. Human beings have compulsions and talents—some that most would consider "good," and some that most would consider "not good." We also have tools to create workarounds for the "not good" part: norms that enable people in groups to cooperate, even if they don't know each other; punishment that keeps "free riding" low enough that people will contribute to public goods; reputation that enables trust among people who may not have dealt with each other before. The critical uncertainty is choice: Will our pre-wiring—together with toxic cultural forces, such as racism—lead to fiercer, meaner, better-armed tribal conflict? Or will the part of us that expands love from mates to friends to shipmates come to dominate? Christakis is optimistic. I hope he's right. | Howard Rheingold | http://freedombunker.com/2019/07/07/our-big-brains-are-pre-wired-for-love-friendship-cooperation-and-learning/ | 2019-07-07 10:00:49+00:00 | 1,562,508,049 | 1,567,536,540 | science and technology | social sciences |
222,384 | freedombunker--2019-08-14--Why Read Economic Theory | 2019-08-14T00:00:00 | freedombunker | Why Read Economic Theory? | What is most exciting about the Austrian methodology of economic inquiry is that, to quote Mises himself, it does not relegate economics to the classrooms, to the “statistical offices,” and to “esoteric circles.” It instead offers to all who seek such knowledge, a body of insights as to how men relate to other men and how society itself developed from conditions of impoverished despair to a world of abundance and comfort. One of the most devastating aspects of the rise of mathematics and modeling as a method of economics is that this shift pushed economics as a science outside the interest— and grasp— of the layperson. It became a field of “expertise,” for professionals who were well-trained in complex formulas, statistical analysis, and arithmetic activities. But economic phenomena cannot be properly or even accurately understood by downplaying the role of human action in society. After all, what is an economy except a metaphor for the thousands of activities, judgements, allocation decisions, preference scales, and interpersonal relationships between real, living, and reasoning human beings? One of the lessons that we derive from studying economics is that the world of wealth that we see around us is not a given in nature. Man did not suddenly appear in the context of a highly refined structure of capital, where there was a completely built out division of labor and developed set of production factors. These things needed to be built and established over the course of thousands of years and, importantly, they were built by human actors who withheld consumption and instead invested their savings into the structure of capital. Over time, the more that this was done, the more later generations would benefit from such past decisions. But they were, in fact, decisions. These decisions were made by human beings who determined that in their choice to push gratification into the future, they would receive more satisfaction than if they had consumed in the present. Moreover, such decisions could only take place to the extent that they were allowed; to the extent that states were unable to prevent such decisions from being made. That is, it was from the freedom of private property owners to freely allocate their resources without state prevention that was the source of the wealth that surrounds modern society. In ages past, in the pre-capitalist era, life was indeed nasty, brutish, and short. It was Darkness and Old Night, where men lived lives of mere subsistence. It was the buildup of capital and the ability for mankind to become more productive with the advent of industry that ultimately created the setting for a more prosperous age. The world that we see around us is a result of the free market order and we know this not because we have tested and compared societies that have the market with those that do not, but because we understand the necessary relationships that men have with each other, with scarce resource allocation, with the capital structure, and with nature itself. It is in studying economic theory that we have the tools required to interpret the course of historical material progress. And with the ability to interpret, we also have the ability to appreciate and hold in high regard the contributions of capitalism and the market order. Liberty can be lost, but so can the benefits of capital accumulation. The well developed capital structure is not a given. It can be eroded by central banks, by government policies and regulations, by a mob of people who do not understand economics but who nevertheless swarm Washington on behalf of policies that will only undermine the progress afforded to us by capitalism. Capital is not self-sustaining; once built up, once it has provided benefits to the world, it can been destroyed, undermined, and consumed. This is in complete contradiction to the narratives of Marxists like Thomas Piketty, who argue that the return on capital is deterministic; merely to own capital is to guarantee future cash flows to oneself. But this is monumentally false. Among the most important roles that the capitalist plays is as a preserver of capital; he bears the burden of ensuring that capital is invested in ways that consumers demand and is allocated toward ends that fulfill not merely the capitalist’s own whims, but the actual demands of society, as communicated via the price mechanism. This means that economic progress depends on the decisions of the owners of capital, who respond not to a marketplace that nudges and suggests arbitrarily, but that threatens to wipe out the value of the capital upon a mistaken interpretation of consumer demand. But while the chance of a capitalist making a poor decision is always present in a world of uncertainty, it is the state, which is always eager to intervene in the market, that is the more systemic and economy-wide threat to the capitalist order. In our time, the intellectuals, the masses, the politicians, and the media all continue to suffer what Mises referred to as the Anti-Capitalist mentality. They propagate the very ideas that will, if employed, undermine the living standards and livelihoods of millions of people around the world. The narratives that they push about wealth, about economic progress, about inequality, and about how the state can save the world are the narratives of destruction and it is the burden of the student of sound economics to counter this message. This is why the understanding of economic theory is important. In the history of the social sciences, we only recently came to understand the nature of economic activity; economics is, as Mises taught us, the youngest of the social sciences. But in our time of bastardized economics and the false hope of state-driven progress, it is imperative, now more than ever, that we attain the intellectual ammunition to counter these themes. There is beauty in understanding the logic of man’s material progress, of gaining appreciation for a world of abundance that is not a given, in seeing the actual cause and effect relationship between liberty and prosperity. Mankind cannot expect continued progress if the components that led to prosperity are decimated. And in studying economics, we have the ability to see these components with staggering clarity. And further, we have in sound economic theory the lens through which we can properly decipher the various problems of our time. So often, we are met with competing storylines by statists of various stripes, all working to offer their own government solutions and centralization schemes to the troubles of the day; from inequality to joblessness to the provision of various goods and services. But in so many ways, the lack of a sound economic theory is precisely what unites the technocratic advisors and bureaucratic shapers of public policy. Thus, it is incumbent on those of us outside this realm to continue the depth of our own knowledge and to advance a better interpretation of the economic phenomena that surrounds us. We must read and understand economic theory because in knowledge of the truth, there is hope. To quote Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “if the power of government rests on the widespread acceptance of false, indeed absurd and foolish ideas, then the only genuine protection is the systematic attack of these ideas and the propagation and proliferation of true ones.” We read, and we share what we have come to understand with those around us. We share our knowledge with our children, to the next generation, in hopes that what has been gained shall not be lost. In our embrace of an Austro Libertarian grand narrative of the modern world, we must point out again and again that it was the freedom characterized by the private property system and free enterprise that brought mankind forth from the ravages of nature; and it is by the same that mankind can continue with such progression despite the narratives of statism in all its forms— from interventionism to socialism and everything in between. That is why we read economic theory. The post Why Read Economic Theory? appeared first on LewRockwell. | No Author | http://freedombunker.com/2019/08/13/why-read-economic-theory/ | 2019-08-14 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,565,769,660 | 1,567,534,184 | science and technology | social sciences |
227,873 | globalresearch--2019-02-06--Why the War on Conspiracy Theories Is Bad Public Policy | 2019-02-06T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Why the War on “Conspiracy Theories” Is Bad Public Policy | A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable. But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word “recommend” is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn’t really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying. When you watch YouTube videos, the YouTube search engine algorithm displays links to other videos that you are likely to be interested in. These obviously do not constitute “recommendations” by YouTube itself, which exercises no editorial oversight over content posted by users. (Or at least it didn’t until it joined the war on conspiracy theories.) The second and larger problem is that while there may be near-universal agreement among reasonable people that flat-earthism is wrong, there is only modest agreement regarding which health approaches constitute “phony miracle cures” and which do not. Far less is there any agreement on “claims about 9/11 and other historical events.” (Thus far the only real attempt to forge an informed consensus about 9/11 is the 9/11 Consensus Panel’s study—but it seems unlikely that YouTube will be using the Consensus Panel to determine which videos to “recommend”!) YouTube’s policy shift is the latest symptom of a larger movement by Western elites to—as Obama’s Information Czar Cass Sunstein put it—“disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories.” Sunstein and co-author Adrian Vermeule’s 2008 paper “Conspiracy Theories,” critiqued by David Ray Griffin in 2010 and developed into a 2016 book, represents a panicked reaction to the success of the 9/11 truth movement. (By 2006, 36% of Americans thought it likely that 9/11 was an inside job designed to launch wars in the Middle East, according to a Scripps poll.) Sunstein argues that conspiracy theories (i.e. the 9/11 truth movement) are so dangerous that some day they may have to be banned by law. While awaiting that day, or perhaps in preparation for it, the government should “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories” through various techniques including “cognitive infiltration” of 9/11 truth groups. Such “cognitive infiltration,” Sunstein writes, could have various aims including the promotion of “beneficial cognitive diversity” within the truth movement. What sort of “cognitive diversity” would Cass Sunstein consider “beneficial”? Perhaps 9/11 truth groups that had been “cognitively infiltrated” by spooks posing as flat-earthers would harbor that sort of “beneficial” diversity? That would explain the plethora of expensive, high-production-values flat earth videos that have been blasted at the 9/11 truth community since 2008. Why does Sunstein think “conspiracy theories” are so dangerous they need to be suppressed by government infiltrators, and perhaps eventually outlawed—which would necessitate revoking the First Amendment? Obviously conspiracism must present some extraordinary threat. So what might that threat be? Oddly, he never explains. Instead he briefly mentions, in vapidly nebulous terms, about “serious risks including the risk of violence.” But he presents no serious evidence that 9/11 truth causes violence. Nor does he explain what the other “serious risks” could possibly be. Why did such highly accomplished academicians as Sunstein and Vermuele produce such an unhinged, incoherent, poorly-supported screed? How could Harvard and the University of Chicago publish such nonsense? Why would it be deemed worthy of development into a book? Why did the authors identify an alleged problem, present no evidence that it even is a problem, yet advocate outrageously illegal and unconstitutional government action to solve the non-problem? The too-obvious answer, of course, is that they must realize that 9/11 was in fact a US-Israeli false flag operation. The 9/11 truth movement, in that case, would be a threat not because it is wrong, but because it is right. To the extent that Americans know or suspect the truth, the US government will undoubtedly find it harder to pursue various “national security” objectives. Ergo, 9/11 “conspiracy theories” are a threat to national security, and extreme measures are required to combat them. But since we can’t just burn the First Amendment overnight, we must instead take a gradual and covert “boil the frog” approach, featuring plenty of cointelpro-style infiltration and misdirection. “Cognitive infiltration” of internet platforms to stop the conspiracy contagion would also fit the bill. It is quite possible, perhaps even likely, that Sunstein and Vermeule are indeed well-informed and Machievellian. But it is also conceivable that they are, at least when it comes to 9/11 and “conspiracy theories,” as muddle-headed as they appear. Their irrational panic could be an example of the bad thinking that emerges from groups that reflexively reject dissent. (Another, larger example of this kind of bad thinking comes to mind: America’s disastrous post-9/11 policies.) The counterintuitive truth is that embracing and carefully listening to radical dissenters is in fact good policy, whether you are a government, a corporation, or any other kind of group. Ignoring or suppressing dissent produces muddled, superficial thinking and bad decisions. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the case even when the dissenters are wrong. Scientific evidence for the value of dissent is beautifully summarized in Charlan Nemeth’s In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business (Basic Books, 2018). Nemeth, a psychology professor at UC-Berkeley, summarizes decades of research on group dynamics showing that groups that feature passionate, radical dissent deliberate better, reach better conclusions, and take better actions than those that do not—even when the dissenter is wrong. Nemeth begins with a case where dissent would likely have saved lives: the crash of United Airlines Flight 173 in December, 1978. As the plane neared its Portland destination, the possibility of a problem with the landing gear arose. The captain focused on trying to determine the condition of the landing gear as the plane circled the airport. Typical air crew group dynamics, in which the whole crew defers to the captain, led to a groupthink bubble in which nobody spoke up as the needle on the fuel gauge approached “E.” Had the crew included even one natural “troublemaker”—the kind of aviator who joins Pilots for 9/11 truth—there almost certainly would have been more divergent thinking. Someone would have spoken up about the fuel issue, and a tragic crash would have been averted. Since 9/11, American decision-making elites have entered the same kind of bubble and engaged in the same kind of groupthink. For them, no serious dissent on such issues as what really happened on 9/11, and whether a “war on terror” makes sense, is permitted. The predictable result has been bad thinking and worse decisions. From the vantage point of Sunstein and Vermeule, deep inside the bubble, the potentially bubble-popping, consensus-shredding threat of 9/11 truth must appear radically destabilizing. To even consider the possibility that the 9/11 truthers are right might set off a stampede of critical reflection that would radically undermine the entire set of policies pursued for the past 17 years. This prospect may so terrify Sunstein and Vermeule that it paralyzes their ability to think. Talk about “crippled epistemology”! Do Sunstein and Vermeule really think their program for suppressing “conspiracy theories” will be beneficial? Do YouTube’s decision-makers really believe that tweaking their algorithms to support the official story will protect us from bad information? If so, they are all doubly wrong. First, they are wrong in their unexamined assumption that 9/11 truth and “conspiracy theories” in general are “blatantly false.” No honest person with critical thinking skills who weighs the merits of the best work on both sides of the question can possibly avoid the realization that the 9/11 truth movement is right. The same is true regarding the serial assassinations of America’s best leaders during the 1960s. Many other “conspiracy theories,” perhaps the majority of the best-known ones, are also likely true, as readers of Ron Unz’s American Pravda series are discovering. Second, and less obviously, those who would suppress conspiracy theories are wrong even in their belief that suppressing false conspiracy theories is good public policy. As Nemeth shows, social science is unambiguous in its finding that any group featuring at least one passionate, radical dissenter will deliberate better, reach sounder conclusions, and act more effectively than it would have without the dissenter. This holds even if the dissenter is wrong—even wildly wrong. The overabundance of slick, hypnotic flat earth videos, if they are indeed weaponized cointelpro strikes against the truth movement, may be unfortunate. But the existence of the occasional flat earther may be more beneficial than harmful. The findings summarized by Nemeth suggest that a science study group with one flat earther among the students would probably learn geography and astronomy better than they would have without the madly passionate dissenter. We could at least partially solve the real problem—bad groupthink—through promoting genuinely beneficial cognitive diversity. YouTube algorithms should indeed be tweaked to puncture the groupthink bubbles that emerge based on user preferences. Someone who watches lots of 9/11 truther videos should indeed be exposed to dissent, in the form of the best arguments on the other side of the issue—not that there are any very good ones, as I have discovered after spending 15 years searching for them! But the same goes for those who watch videos that explicitly or implicitly accept the official story. Anyone who watches more than a few pro-official-story videos (and this would include almost all mainstream coverage of anything related to 9/11 and the “war on terror”) should get YouTube “suggestions” for such videos as September 11: The New Pearl Harbor, 9/11 Mysteries, and the work of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Exposure to even those “truthers” who are more passionate than critical or well-informed would benefit people who believe the official story, according to Nemeth’s research, by stimulating them to deliberate more thoughtfully and to question facile assumptions. The same goes for other issues and perspectives. Fox News viewers should get “suggestions” for good material, especially passionate dissent, from the left side of the political spectrum. MSNBC viewers should get “suggestions” for good material from the right. Both groups should get “suggestions” to look at genuinely independent, alternative media brimming with passionate dissidents—outlets like the Unz Review! Unfortunately things are moving in the opposite direction. YouTube’s effort to make “conspiracy videos” invisible is being pushed by powerful lobbies, especially the Zionist lobby, which seems dedicated to singlehandedly destroying the Western tradition of freedom of expression. Nemeth and colleagues’ findings that “conspiracy theories” and other forms of passionate dissent are not just beneficial, but in fact an invaluable resource, are apparently unknown to the anti-conspiracy-theory cottage industry that has metastasized in the bowels of the Western academy. The brand-new bible of the academic anti-conspiracy-theory industry is Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford University Press, 2019). Editor Joseph Uscinski’s introduction begins by listing alleged dangers of conspiracism: “In democracies, conspiracy theories can drive majorities to make horrible decisions backed by the use of legitimate force. Conspiracy beliefs can conversely encourage abstention. Those who believe the system is rigged will be less willing to take part in it. Conspiracy theories form the basis for some people’s medical decisions; this can be dangerous not only for them but for others as well. For a select few believers, conspiracy theories are instructions to use violence.” Uscinski is certainly right that conspiracy theories can incite “horrible decisions” to use “legitimate force” and “violence.” Every major American foreign war since 1846 has been sold to the public by an official theory, backed by a frenetic media campaign, of a foreign conspiracy to attack the United States. And all of these Official Conspiracy Theories (OCTs)—including the theory that Mexico conspired to invade the United States in 1846, that Spain conspired to sink the USS Maine in 1898, that Germany conspired with Mexico to invade the United States in 1917, that Japan conspired unbeknownst to peace-seeking US leaders to attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, that North Vietnam conspired to attack the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and that 19 Arabs backed by Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and everybody else Israel doesn’t like conspired to attack the US in 2001—were false or deceptive. Well over 100 million people have been killed in the violence unleashed by these and other Official Conspiracy Theories. Had the passionate dissenters been heeded, and the truths they told about who really conspires to create war-trigger public relations stunts been understood, none of those hundred-million-plus murders need have happened. Though Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them generally pathologizes the conspiracy theories of dissidents while ignoring the vastly more harmful theories of official propagandists, its 31 essays include several that question that outlook. In “What We Mean When We Say ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Jesse Walker, books editor of Reason Magazine, exposes the bias that permeates the field, pointing out that many official conspiracy theories, including several about Osama Bin Laden and 9/11-anthrax, were at least as ludicrously false and delusional as anything believed by marginalized dissidents. In “Media Marginalization of Racial Minorities: ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ in U.S. Ghettos and on the ‘Arab Street’” Martin Orr and Gina Husting go one step further: Unfortunately, though Orr and Husting devote a whole section of their article to “Conspiracy Theories in the Muslim World” and defend Muslim conspiracists against the likes of Thomas Friedman, they never squarely face the fact that the reason roughly 80% of Muslims believe 9/11 was an inside job is because the preponderance of evidence supports that interpretation. Another relatively sensible essay is M R.X. Dentith’s “Conspiracy Theories and Philosophy,” which ably deconstructs the most basic fallacy permeating the whole field of conspiracy theory research: the a priori assumption that a “conspiracy theory” must be false or at least dubious: I hope Uscinski finds the time to read Nemeth’s In Defense of Troublemakers and consider the evidence that passionate dissent is helpful, not harmful. And I hope he will look into the issues Ron Unz addresses in his American Pravda series. Then again, if he does, he may find himself among those of us exiled from the academy and publishing in The Unz Review. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Featured image is from The Unz Review | Kevin Barrett | https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-the-war-on-conspiracy-theories-is-bad-public-policy/5667632 | 2019-02-06 11:50:48+00:00 | 1,549,471,848 | 1,567,549,414 | science and technology | social sciences |
230,200 | globalresearch--2019-07-28--Cubas Revolution in Thinking To Live and Not Lie | 2019-07-28T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Cuba’s Revolution in Thinking: To Live and Not Lie | In Dostoevsky’s Demons, liberal academic Stepan Trofimovich says before dying: It’s because lies are behaviour. Dostoevsky’s characters “eat” ideas. They don’t believe them, but more important, they don’t know they don’t believe them. Some beliefs are tacit, presupposed, not acknowledged, just lived. This aspect of thinking is known in Cuba. It is why its independence traditions, centuries-long, are so interesting, philosophically, although it’s largely unrecognized. In 1999 in Caracus, Fidel Castro said, It is not trivial. It has to do with lies that are lived and how to know them. José de la Luz y Caballero, in early 19th century Cuba, taught philosophy because of a lie: slavery. Progressives accepted it. They couldn’t imagine life without slavery. Luz taught philosophy so privileged youth could know injustice when injustice is identity: lived lies. José Martí, later, identified another lie. He built a revolution around it, not just the lie, but how to know it: a revolution in thinking. He said the South didn’t need to look North to live well. That lie is lived still. We can’t imagine life without a dominating North. Both Luz and Martí taught that “people think and feel”. It’s about reciprocity. A new book on the US medical system identifies just such thinking, known to science, but hard to practise. Reciprocity involves experiencing – that is, feeling – relations between people, and becoming motivated, even humanized. Anyone seriously ill (in Canada too), knows medicine is not about care. Soul of Care, by Harvard psychiatrist, Arthur Kleinman, explains why.[i] The failure is systemic. He cites an educator at a major medical school, who feels like a “hypocrite” teaching about care. She knows doctors don’t have time to listen and aren’t supported to try. Medicine is about “cost, efficiency, management talk”. Survival “depends on cutting corners, spending as little time as you can get away with in human interactions that can be emotionally and morally taxing.” As Kleinman tells his personal story, of caring for his beloved wife, Joan, he offers a different view. Caregiving is not a moral obligation; it is existential. At its heart is reciprocity, the ““invisible glue that holds societies together”. In caregiving, one finds within oneself “a tender mercy and a need to act on it”. Caregiving, Kleinman argues, made him more human Reciprocity offers solutions not identifiable previously. It matters for science, for truth. But the capacity must be cultivated. “Being present” means submitting intellectual judgment, on occasion, to experience of feelings. One can’t just decide to do it without preparation. Yet such training is not happening. It’s not likely to. It contradicts “politically useful fictions” like the “self-made man”. Kleinman says medicine needs help from sociology and “even philosophy”. But the myth of the self-made man is taught in philosophy. It’s called philosophical liberalism, providing ideas of identity, rationality and autonomy assumed in social sciences. It denies person-making reciprocity. Marx taught such reciprocity – the kind that recognizes receiving back, cause and effect, giving. So did Lenin, the Buddha, and Christian philosophers, Thomas Merton, Jean Vanier and Ivan Illich. We don’t teach these philosophers. We barely recognize them. Caregiving is so alien to medical practise that Kleinman’s “modest proposal” is to omit it from the curriculum altogether. Nonetheless, health institutions claim to care about care. Kleinman’s colleague says: “We can’t even tell ourselves lies we can believe in”. But they can. Whole societies can. I was reminded of this reading a recent book on hippie communes of the 70s.[ii] Having lived in such communes most of that decade, I spent subsequent decades figuring out lies: How to explain to students. Those communes weren’t about love and peace. They couldn’t be. You can’t love when you’re self-absorbed and morally superior. It doesn’t work. We didn’t know that we didn’t believe in love, or even know what it is. When Dostoevsky’s characters begin redemption, they fall, or are thrown, to the earth and “water it with tears”. Raskolnikov, after confessing, berates himself for “submitting”. But he: could not understand that even then, when he was standing over the river, he may have sensed a profound lie in himself and in his convictions. He did not understand that this sense might herald a future break in his life, his future resurrection, his future new vision of life. He must wait for “something completely different” to work itself out. Waiting, submission, is not the “self-made man”. The “self-made man” seizes control of their destiny. That’s what autonomy means, supposedly. Che Guevara saw the myth as an iron cage, blocking truth. If you believe it, there areno lies, not about you. Truth is whatever you want it to be. It’s easy but limiting – humanly so. Some understand Cuba’s famous medical internationalism as a mere moral achievement. They undervalue it. Being “good” doesn’t motivate sacrifice. Reciprocity does. It energizes, compels. It beats “smart weapons” because it’s about truth. Che Guevara told medical students in 1960: He meant capacities direction. Reciprocity means giving but also receiving back, humanly. José Engenieros, brilliant Argentinean psychiatrist, early 20th century, dedicated himself to educational reform across the continent. Philosophical liberalism, grounding medical education, had convinced Latin Americans, with its false freedoms, to support imperialism in World War 1. It convinces North Americans to “follow dreams” just because we have them. It makes it hard to live and not lie. Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. Susan Babbitt is author of Humanism and Embodiment (Bloomsbury 2014). She is a frequent contributor to Global Research. | Prof Susan Babbitt | https://www.globalresearch.ca/cubas-revolution-thinking-live-not-lie/5684845 | 2019-07-28 17:18:34+00:00 | 1,564,348,714 | 1,567,535,525 | science and technology | social sciences |
231,524 | globalresearch--2019-10-31--Lebanon’s “Revolution” Is Without Revolutionary Ideology | 2019-10-31T00:00:00 | globalresearch | Lebanon’s “Revolution” Is Without Revolutionary Ideology | There is a revolution in Lebanon without a revolutionary ideology. It is spontaneous, and if memory serves one well, spontaneous revolutions end up badly for the left. Although the left was at its peak in the less spontaneous German uprising of 1918-1919, the right-wing militias defended the state, won and murdered Rosa Luxemburg. There is practically very little left left, and the slogans of the Lebanese spontaneous revolution are as shallow and insidious as any of its Arab Spring predecessors. Calling for the removal of the sectarian system without removing its associated capital will rotate the same class into power with another form of sectarianism. Sectarianism is the form of working-class differentiation or the basis of capital, a social relationship rooted in history and incarnated by much of the working class. To misunderstand the impulsiveness of the uprising is suicidal for remnants of the socialist forces. People want bread and democracy, but it is geostrategic-rent bread, as opposed to homegrown bread, and Western-style democracy, or the rule of US-led capital delegated to its local proxies that they want. ‘Words mean so many different things’ and there is paucity of alternative revolutionary concepts.From the spectrum of democratic choices, only shades of selective democracy are being proposed. These are democracies that alienate the masses. They are based on the central democratic model where most vote for an imperial government to bomb and invade a developing country because they share a vested interest in imperial rents. In a selective democracy there are natural underlings and theworking-class lets capital to do what is best for capital. The ideology of capital incarnate in the working class, now the thingified people who replicate the thingified capitalists, reflects the short-termism of profit making. In Lebanon much has been invested in the idea that what is good for business is good for me. In short, there is a crisis of revolutionary consciousness and alternatives as elsewhere. The crisis in Lebanon however is severe. For thirty years, the private Lebanese banks owned by the comprador ruling class charged five to ten times the prevailing world interest rate on bonds of the Lebanese government. Today, the state’s debt to the national banking sector is close to twice the income of the country. After thirty years of borrowing to reconstruct, Lebanon has no potable water supply, public transport, electricity, and cannot even remove its trash. Its capital city and only freshwater lake are possibly the most polluted on earth. Jobs are scarce, and emigration is high. The neoliberal policy of fighting inflation under open capital account, dollarized the economy, usurped much of national wealth, and brought the share of the wage bill from national income from about 50 percent in the late nineties to twenty five percent in 2015. With so much rationing of credit to production and indirect taxes dragging down demand, most private-sector loans owed to the banking sector are non-performing or unlikely to be repaid. The state cannot service its debts without draconian tax and privatisation measures. After years of austerity to pay exorbitant interests on a self-fuelling debt, the public, business and household sectors are all effectively insolvent. If the US decided to delay disbursements to finance future spending with more debt, the house of cards could come tumbling down. In development finance, this latter point of US-governed international financial institutions (IFIs) lending US dollars on time to pay for state spending or imports, lest otherwise the national currency tumble and inflation lead to hunger and riots, is called the short-leash policy. It is a textbook case. In Ghana for instance, President Kufuor had to abide by the conditionality of privatising the Ashanti gold mines as loan disbursement was postponed forcing the population onto the streets just before the 2001 elections. In Lebanon too, the newly proposed reform programme by the incumbent prime minister proposes a fire-sale bonanza of most public assets. Through resource divestiture, neoliberalism imparted inimical growth in the productive forces, including productive capital stock, employment and growth in the incomes of the poorest working strata. Capital-biased institutions blocked broader participation in the decision-making process as the state retreated and vacated the ground for the imperialistically-funded civil society. Neoliberalism, the reigning ideology, does not choose people who are corrupt and in the business of promoting their self-interests. It creates the historical context into which it is only possible for corruption to grow. Corruption defined not in terms of personal ethical considerations is integral to a market economy and gauged by the rate of transfer of public into private wealth. The open capital account, the peg to the dollar, the tax on the poor and the privatisation of public assets are examples of context/corruption. The prevailing concepts with which the crisis is being tackled are the same ones that were used as weapons against people in the past. Tax workers and privatise public assets – that is Moses and the prophets. Clearly, such measures, or the demands to try the corrupt without eliminating the context of corruption, are not at all revolutionary. To be sure, there are no revolutions without revolutionising the concepts with which reform is carried out. In view of the socialist ideological disaster, the only concepts available for public consumption are the putative neoliberal ones. The working class asks how do we pay for a debt that has become the wealth of the comprador class, as opposed to how we get rid of the comprador and its neoliberal policies. The comprador, to be sure, is a class, a historical social relationship of power reproduced by ideology, by the idea that not only our bread is imported, but our conceptual framework as well. For now, the salient conceptual alternatives are all about increasing state revenues from bread and butter tax to service an odious debt. In the case of Lebanon, the leakages are so pronounced that no matter the earnings from privatisation, the remedy would still be short-term. No one is talking about debt cancelation or, lesser serious reforms, like standstill agreements whereby the banks take zero interests until the economy recovers. In Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and to a lesser extent Tunisia, the spontaneity of the Arab Spring, the revolution in times of socialist ideological retreat, resulted in deeper crises. The revolutionary spontaneity in Lebanon appears to further destroy the national sources of people’s incomes, which are already quite low. However, the Lebanese banks also have put themselves at risk by lending at rates that brought the economy to a halt. Had they accepted lower rates of return over longer periods to allow the country’s productive capacity and demand to rise in order to earn more in the future, their business would be more secure; that is simple arithmetic. However, the chemistry of sectarianism, the political process by which capital fakes its differences to acquire more rents from the state, is quite complex. It is sort of like a Buick competing with a Chevrolet although both are General Motors. The banks do not truly belong to Lebanon. They are institutions of the international financial class, the social relation that has organised the resilience of capital for centuries. It is a class that personifies the reason of the commodity as self-expanding value. It is impersonal and objective, it is history and knows no right or wrong. It is a class neither obtuse nor short-sighted. It risks some funds for the bigger booty, prospects of control and the business of militarism. The Middle East is a region of war and oil. Physicians for Social Responsibility noted that the global war on terror has killed 4 million or more.[1] The US has spent 32 Million per hour on war since 2001, which means some financial institution was absorbing the war debit as credit and billions were made in the spinoffs of the financial markets.[2] Now these numbers are gross underestimates, but they are indicative of how true, as Karl Liebknecht pointed out, that war is big business. Lebanon is at the heart of this region and it has almost always been in war whether with US-Israel or its Lebanese proxies. The now dormant inter-communal proxy war may awaken again. There is much more to be gained by the international financial class as it scapegoats its Lebanese compradors and immiserates Lebanon to the point of eroding the social basis by which Lebanon conducts people’s war in self-defence. The world ruling combination of finance and militarism could set Lebanon ablaze again. The evident objective of imperialism is to contain Hezbollah, but the not so obvious objective is the de-valorisation process, which reduces the costs of inputs for capital over its economic cycle. To shed light on the situation in deeply divided Lebanon, it is best to project the course of developments by moving from the broader political picture to the narrower one inside Lebanon. Looking at Lebanon from the outside in Had these been revolutionary times, or times in which radical concepts prevailed, nothing short of the expropriation of the robber baron class, the nationalisation of the banking sector, and the regulation of the capital account, could have been proposed as remedies. A revolution in revolutionary times and in this bloodied area may involve immediate violence against the ruling class. However, never in the past 200 years have the socialist alternatives available to humanity to organise its metabolic rate of reproduction been so absent. So far, the anarchy of production has overconsumed man and nature, yet economic planning, the historical priority by which to respond to the existentialist calamity, does not even figure on the spectrum of debate. The rich die earlier as a result of pollution related diseases, but not as early as the poor. The Veblenian consumption trap of recognition for status and power self-consumes the participants of all social classes. Impulsive uprisings are afoot across the planet, yet the people one sees on the streets are not the masses. They are not armed with progressive ideology, with ironclad modes of organisation, and a preparedness for peoples’ war. Capital is pure violence. People or working classes without revolutionary thought and the exercise of violence in self-defence are neither masses nor proletariat. They are appendages to capital, thingified people. The business of imperialism in the Middle East is bigger than the business of Lebanese banks. Nearly nothing to do with Lebanon’s internal political landscape has to do with Lebanon. Lebanon’s development and politics are all about the US’s ambitions to control the region, especially to retain hegemony over the Persian Gulf. Reigning over the Gulf is the power that underwrites global dollarization and the imperial rents attendant thereupon. In fact, the United States is already on a low-key war-footing with Iran, a war whose boomerang effect is part of the effort to contain China. The deepening sanctions, the US armed proxies and Kurdish secession are but the tip of the US-offensive. Unmistakably, no matter the calculated costs, US-capital whose mind is the reason of the commodity is preparing to strike the Eastern flank of the Persian Gulf. For the commodity and its reason, war is a means but also end in itself. The Gulf happens to be a most strategic waterway from which thirty percent of seaborne world oil supply passes every day. Hegemony over the Gulf is priceless. True, the US exports oil, but hegemonising oil is a source of controlcumpower, and power, both military and ideological, is the primacy in the primacy of politics. Without that primacy, without arresting the development of others and regulating labour reproduction, there will be no profits. Power is what makes a subject of history; a subject who is capable of moulding social relations to accommodate low-cost production. The subject in value relationships also shapes how much of what is being produced goes to capital, and how much goes to labour, albeit over the lifecycle of society. A powerful subject implements the demands of possibly the most egregious of laws, the law of value. This is no simple double entry bookkeeping in dollars designed and printed by the US-treasury. Capital is not a person; it has real people working for it. It is a social being or a social relationship, which political economy names capital for brevity or coquetry. The US is the operating structure of capital. It already controls the western shores of the Gulf and to control the eastern shores would undoubtedly strengthen its position at the helm in the international division of labour. If the US leaves things as they are and accepts Iranian partial control over Gulf waters, it would also have to accept a downgrading of its imperial stature, which would imply massive tectonic realignments of global powers, including perhaps an orderly workout of the US’s debt and its overstretched US dollar, among other losses de-structured around imperial rents. But the Gulf for US imperialism is an indispensable condition of empire. It epitomises an existential question for an empire whose crisis deepens with the ascent of China. Lebanon, bordering Israel to the North and in possession of effective weaponry, threatens the imperial security arrangement for the surrounding region. That Lebanon is socially and constitutionally sectarian and geopolitically rent-based is no anomaly under the rule of capital. Working class division or sectarianism is the normal condition of the labour process under capital. Without labour differentiation, capital, the ruling social relation, will appear for the fiction that it really is and cease to be. The French, former colonial power in Lebanon, and their heirs invested heavily in Lebanon’s sectarianism. Lebanon is sort of a precursor in sectarianism or a first experiment in the process applied in distinct ways in Iraq. As a society disarticulated along sectarian lines, a country whose national productive capacity was destroyed by war, Lebanon survives by geostrategic rents. It imports nearly twenty billion US$ and exports around three billion US$. These imports require the county to raise its interest rate and set aside nearly the equivalent of its GDP in reserves to finance imports. And although the country almost always has a primary surplus, as it reduces spending on schools and health to service the debt, it runs a significant fiscal deficit as a result of servicing high interest-internal borrowing. The interest rate is kept too high to account for the risks and to draw in dollars to address balance of payments shortfalls. Most of debt is internal, 80 or 90 percent. Such is an odd case for a small country recovering from years of war in the developing world. Lebanon’s debt to GDP is said to be at nearly150 percent, but it is in fact bigger (total income is about 50 billion US dollars). Only countries under the financial umbrella of US-led international finance can boast such an internal borrowing record while maintaining a currency peg and low inflation rates. A caveat is in order here: the debt to GDP ratio may be much higher because sometimes after 2005, the private bank responsible for issuing national statistics corrected the GDP figures upward to make the debt to GDP ratio look smaller. In December 2006, the debt to GDP ratio was 183 percent, and oddly enough, it went down to 151 percent in 2018. Lebanon did not have a national bureau of statistics then and most statistics were produced by one of its private banks. One must use the qualifying ‘nearly’ when speaking of figures, for although statistics everywhere are a point of view, they are even more so in Lebanon. Lebanon’s Banks are family and political nomenklatura-owned. These financial institutions have drawn tremendous profits from holding high-interest state debt. They did so knowing that the faulty reconstruction efforts boosted by a constitution that denied the representation of labour in the state made sure that all funds destined for reconstruction went to banks and to the ruling comprador class. Without social reconstruction nothing constructs, and people build the sect leader not themselves. The post-war constitution reconfirmed sectarianism de jure, and the masses became many sects competing for rents from the state through their own sectarian leadership. Lebanon’s financial institutions are overstocked with cash because of banking privacy, and a considerable portion of their assets is of dubious origin. Their assets are about quarter of a trillion US$. They have an interest in putting the state into debt and buying the debt to launder much of their illegitimate cash. A former finance minister complained that the central bank overruled him and issued bonds at high interest rates even when the state did not need to borrow. In 1990, the government issued reconstruction bonds at about forty percent yearly rates. The banks gladly obliged and doubled their initial loans in about two years. As noted above, the complex chemistry of baleful sectarianism is more complicated than the calculus of the debt. Banks earned tremendous rents on bonds and placed part of the capital abroad, while the remaining portions rolled over into additional debts. As time went by, new loans financed old and new debts, especially as internal and external deficits gaped wide. The debt grew as Lebanon’s tepid growth rates, powered by public and private borrowing to boost consumption, induced further austerity. Austerity compressed demand far below what was necessary to boost state revenues to settle new interest payments. As in typical Ponzi schemes, the debt grew at higher rates than the economy. If the scheme unfolds now, the earlier huge banking profits have been deposited abroad. The resulting runaway inflation would cripple the economy. Non-oil exporting states in the Near East are traditionally geopolitical rent states. After the first Arab oil boom in the seventies, these countries became more dependent on rents. It was a combination of IFI supported structural adjustment and Gulf aid and remittances that gradually de-industrialised them. De-industrialisation deepened their dependence on handouts, or properly put, imperialist investments in social divisions and imperialist securitisation. It would be bizarre to believe that the US-Euro imperialism that has mown down nearly a billion people in its wars since 1500 A.D. benevolently delivers aid to humanity, or it would make efforts to arrest wars and the natural disaster. It is rather odder to entertain the thought that the Gulf states enjoy any significant autonomy to deliver aid without American consent. As is typical of social processes under capitalism, which homogenise cultures and traditions and erase variety, Gulf aid to almost starving lower strata laced with Salafism homogenised the multifarious traditions of Islam. From dress codes to burial customs, the otherwise tolerant Islamic world was becoming more like a Xerox version of Saudi Islamism. To be sure, the Saudi version of Islam is a modern, colonially reared and concocted tradition meant to hold cultural and industrial development at bay while Arabian oil falls into the grip of empire. Gulf rents delivered to Lebanon and other states were plainly linked to the US’s political objectives to contain socialism and to create weak and internally divided states. US-sponsored rents from the Gulf not only eroded national production requiring indigenous knowhow, they reduced the state-distribution functions and the capacity of the state to deliver social welfare. Almost everywhere, the vacuum was filled by US-supported Islamists and liberals. During the Arab Spring, Islamists commandeered the revolts and with unconditional funding from the Gulf, they either attacked their states or were elected and introduced yet more neoliberal programmes than their predecessors. For post-war Lebanon things were no different. Rents bred either the liberal NGO’s or the Islamists. The former on paper declare women or any identity to be equal, but in actuality they do not deliver them from poverty. Liberalism is arguably more devastating than Islamism because it completely erases the social class or reality under the banner of freedom. It is indeed a freedom for humans to perish early from hunger while enjoying the liberty of fitting into an identity pre-selected for them by capital, the social power and the agent of history. Islamists, on the other hand justify the demobilisation of resources by divine fiat. Neither speaks of freedom from want. Post-war Lebanon which had suffered the destruction of its infrastructure and industry depended more on external sources of funding to maintain consumption. As the state emerged weaker after the war and its social function was delegated to US-European sponsored civil society or to the parallel institutions of the sect. To rephrase an earlier point, what we see in the demos of Lebanon today is a thirty years investment in reactionary politics personified in people who suffer the same dire class conditions under phantasmagorical doses of intense neoliberalism. The social reaction could boil into a solid class position, but the left is weak in terms of organisation and resources, while the Gulf or European backed NGOs and sects have at their disposal extensive financial means. In addressing the causes of lapses in development, mainstream social science falsely dichotomises constituents of the agency of history into internal and external. It blames the victimised classes for their self-inflicted misery. It does it so that history absolves the US-European structure of capital. But these Arab working classes are too weak and consistently under assault, often by the belligerence of war and poverty, and violently prohibited from organising into agents of history. The defeated are consistently stripped of agency. The truly powerful make historical choices. They truly vote in historical time. The colonials or later US imperialism lay down with the power of their bombs, starvations, invasions, and tailored constitutions the margins of actions available for subjugated people. These powers impose the historical imperatives. They empower and institutionalise sectarian and ethnic forms as purveyors of rent from the subjugated state such that the state is always in a state of low or high intensity civil war. They set the material foundations and impose a false scarcity to promote inter working-class war. And by doing this they make profits from the war and set the stage by the continual disempowerment of people to make future profits. The Lebanese, for instance, can cast this or that vote for the sectarian lackey of imperialism who will do whatever to provide jobs for some of his sect members. However, his rent acquisition action always comes at the expense of other sect members and the working class as a whole. Incomes under capital are rents and if sects bid against each other they lower the share of social wage from the total income pie for the whole of the working class. The dividedness also weakens the state by the loss of sovereignty arising upon the living insecurity of the working class and holds it hostage to imperialist strategy. In the case of Lebanon, the short leash of finance, the few billion dollars needed to service the debt are currently being delayed and US imperialism is calling the shots. It has something up its sleeve and it has to do with Hezbollah. The US-led financial class through its control of the Lebanese finance casts the real vote in real historical time. It just sits back and watches, while the vote of the vanquished Lebanese population, rhetorically speaking, appears as a mere ornament of modern-day slavery. The US spares no effort to destabilise the region. As should be obvious, it does so because by devastating and warring it empowers itself and reduces the reproduction costs of labour. This latter point is at the heart of higher profit rates not only because the pressure of refugees on wages, but also in terms of the real value, the real commodities and the hours of labour it takes to sustain the working class, much less is expended on labour. In political economy parlance, that is called a reduction of necessary labour, which is another way of saying if capital pays less than is necessary for people over their lifetime, it makes more profits. In-fighting lowers the cost of people and what they own in resources. At this historical juncture, fomenting the Sunni-Shiite divide, the in-fighting at play in Iraq and elsewhere is both an end in itself and end to weaken Iran. Also, by raising tensions in the Gulf, and by virtue of its gigantic military presence there, US-led capital holds the world in suspense relative to the instability it injects in oil supply routes. Imperial ransom from the rest of the world tallies with protracted military tension or turmoil in the Gulf. The scurry to the safety of the dollar market alone resituates the US atop of the global pyramid. War or tension in the Gulf is a win-win situation for ‘US-led capital.’ The use of the term US-led capital is more appropriate than the use of the term US because the poor in the US are also subjected to the wrath of their home grown imperialism. The recent figures on poverty in the US indicate that half the population subsists at below the poverty line.[3] Regionally, Israel, a state constructed around Jewish identity, has an innate aversion for Hezbollah and a less-sectarian Lebanon. Although Israel has no aversion to its adversaries wallowing in class conflict painted over by religion, Hezbollah is a successful paramilitary force and a model for people’s war. To be sure, Hezbollah’s power, its victory in liberating South Lebanon, had reconfirmed the effectiveness of people’s war. No weapon superiority bestows an occupier with the power to rule over a people against their will. Outright victory of an occupying force over an occupied people was and is no longer possible, short of complete annihilation – naturally under the rule of capital that means the continuation of wars. Hezbollah is stronger after its experience in the Syrian war and better armed. For that reason, Israel is keen to have Hezbollah consume itself in Lebanese misery or in an inter-communal war. Aware of Israel’s intentions, Hezbollah had solidified its ties to other progressive forces in Lebanon and the region. As per the old lessons of national liberation wars, the premise of larger and deeper fronts, especially ones that involve grassroots support that combine security with development, better positions liberation struggles. Although anti-imperialism is not a class-inherent characteristic of the Iranian ruling classes, imperialism deprives peoples, peoples from all sort of classes and not only the working class in developing formations, not only of their control over resources, but also of their lives or longevity. Imperialism often consumes the peripheral comprador, the labour aristocrat and possibly the whole of social nature with its uranium-laced bombs. It depopulates to earn profits. The prematurely wasted life in wars or war related austerity is itself a product of militarism, just as a coke can is a product of the Coca-Cola corporation and industrialism. The more cokes and wasted-lives are consumed-realised, the more returns capital generates. The Iranian ruling class is a rentier class. While some in Iran delude themselves with mini imperialist ambitions, the struggle of Iran’s people is a struggle to literally exist. Dreams of grandiosity related to past empire is delusional for Iran. The reality that Iran will meet the fate of Iraq or Afghanistan is demonstrably present. The barometer of the strength of its national front remains the extent to which it socialises, subsidises basic commodities, and creates social employment positions founded on a national money cycle – free from international finance, to cement the grounds for people’s war. Iran may have inroads in the Near East, but these were cavities purposefully carved by the US, not by some conspiracy, but by the reason of history abiding by the desires of the self-expanding commodity. Fetishism, the rule of commodities, through its ideology commands real processes and people believe that their imaginary relations to these real processes are real. Their relationship to the sect is not real because the only reality is that of the social class as it produces what people need to survive. Put differently, it is living labour deprived of better living conditions that produces and reproduces people and not identity. A reading of the historical moment, the balance of forces, would clearly show that Iran is in a position of self-defence. Its present government, however, is short on the delivery of jobs and welfare to solidify the social grounds for people’s war. Based on the premise that encroachment wars in this region are an industry of militarism and that imperialism reinforces waste accumulation through depopulation, the security of Iran through Hezbollah is a shared and co-dependent security with Lebanon. Security in Lebanon is inversely related to sectarianism – here one has in mind the historically determined modern identity sect that acts a conveyor belt for rents. The sect imposed by imperialism as a form of social organisation vitiates class unity, consciousness and the solidarity required for anti-imperialist struggle. The degree to which sectarian divisions surface and security sinks principally corresponds to the retreat of socialist ideological crisis worldwide. In better times, before the Lebanese war, working class cohesion was in the process of formation diluting sectarian differences. Some indicate that inter-sectarian rapprochement under progressive parties and slogans was the reason for which imperialism unleashed its right-wing cronies against the masses igniting the Lebanese war of 1975-1989. After the war ended in 1989, the right learnt its lesson and rents were channelled to sects by degree of loyalty. Such was the effort to obviate the real social being of people, the working class and its institutions. The Lebanese revolution faces the weight of a history in which a cultural identity instrumentalised by capital has acquired a supernatural power. Received perception has it that against all odds such identity exists in the same shape and form it is across history. The demos prove that class is the reality that resurfaces in times of crisis. Penuries of bread and democracy, poverty in Lebanon, are cross-sectarian. Bread and democracy are presupposed by social relationships before they become things or acts. They are historical and power relationships obtained from class struggle. These concepts, the bread and the democracy, even for the left they have become reified and ahistorical. They are simply the things and the boxes of the ballot boxes. They are maintained as such because Western Marxism peddles them as such. The Western left-intellectuals, with slightly more leisure than others in the developing world, churn out concepts that fit the R2P designs. Overlooking capital’s history and the current social and natural calamity, these pseudo-leftists harbour a deep fascination for the selective democratic model of Western capital and see its atrocities as prerequisites for progress. Conceptualised differently, bread is the social wage share that requires delinking from the West, working class solidarity and, necessarily but not exclusively, armed struggle against imperialism. Development obtains from combining security with resistance. Poverty in Lebanon could have been worse than Egypt’s without Hezbollah and its resistance. Some sectarian leaders are using the poverty they inflicted upon people through their banks to negotiate a higher share of imperial rents as a price for handing over Hezbollah. Democracy is an end to alienation. People no longer relinquish the popular will through the voting system. It is about the organs of labour consistently voting for labour in state policy with or without the ritual ballot box. Democracy is not labour as ‘an’ organic constituent of the state, it is ‘the’ organic constituent of the state. Yet, few understand the depth of the conceptual crisis and the idea that people’s representation in the state has to be organic. Demanding one-man one-vote realises democracy only when man is social man; the real man of society reproduced by the value of society, the socially necessary labour invested in him or her. Social man is a subcategory of the working class and, therefore, democracy is the rule of the working class. Who is more democratic China whose revolution of 1949 heralded prosperity and eliminated poverty or the US which sinks half of its population and half the world into poverty? The working class is there, but it is not brought into focus because people have been taught to think in forms devoid of history, in the ‘now,’ while indeed the ‘now’ or the present do not exist in real time. Capital paid teachers, universities and media to distort people’s minds and erase the social alternatives. The cliché capitalism won against socialism has become truth as if history is a football game and not an ongoing process of massacres and environmental destruction. Without being democratically armed with weapons, without revolutionising concepts and ideology, the working class will always be a proletariat in waiting. People negate the system, but adopt the conceptual alternatives of the system itself as their alternatives. As they uncritically assimilate the rule of capital, no matter what procedure of voting they choose, they will be electing capital’s authoritarianism. As capitalists and working people personify things or commodities, the development attendant upon the production-consumption of commodities by commodities will continue to end in the human and environmental waste visible all around. The crisis in Lebanon was inevitable. Why the banks usurped so much so as to debilitate the state has to do with capital’s objectives to create a social crisis capable of weakening Hezbollah. As the currency falls and the cost of living rises, sectarians and their NGOs are at work to derail the uprising. History bereft of socialist ideology is on their side. The NGO’s will divert cries for justice into a cry against Hezbollah. The US’s conditionality here is being put as such: hand over the weapons of Hezbollah and get the funding needed to maintain the consumerist standard of living. But borrowing short term will only delay the onslaught of poverty for few months. For imperialism, the reason of the commodity adopted by history, the poverty of all sects is necessary because it cheapens inputs from humans and otherwise in production and profits. To reiterate: the reason why the private banking sector has sucked the country dry with exorbitant interest rates for such a long time is because its patron the international financial class makes more money out of poverty and war in Lebanon and the region. The bigger world financial class and its militarism may sacrifice the smaller Lebanese banking class. However, no matter how sects are positioned on the inside, events in Lebanon will unfold in synch with how the US fares in its regional war offensive. A glimmer of hope exists here as the rise of China arrests the growth of European civilisation, a store of culture whose ethos is to waste or to accumulate by waste. The real world happens to be a planet plagued with overproduction crises, which necessitate that money should be made in wars and in socially imposed under-consumption. Waste produced under waste accumulation also produces a consumerist man indulged in an overly entropic mode of self-consumption. Scarcity constructed to differentiate labour or to pit the working class against each other by designating quaweaponizing identity as the vehicle for rent acquisition abounds. In terms of the real physical scarcity however, not even oil is scarce anymore. Capital’s logic of cost minimisation, the production of waste for profit, becomes the repository of the system. In times of socialist ideological retreat, the absurd becomes real as reality conforms to the logical forms of mainstream economics. Value relations become waste relations, the ruling class becomes the wasting class and the working class becomes the wasted class. The formalism of capital’s mainstream logic, the two-dimensional diagrammatic in which prices clear excess commodities, becomes more and more a condition in which the excess commodity to be cleared is living labour. Arresting European civilisation, the body of knowledge and traditions of expansion by war, the structural embodiment of that wasting capital, is the historical necessity. Subordinately, the flux of this spontaneous revolution in Lebanon is a test of the left’s resolve. The left is poised against imperialist NGOs with logistical support from the Gulf states destined to lure the support of despairing people with bribes needed for survival. As people lose income, the left has to provide the alternatives. For the working class to become a proletariat, it must broadly align against reactionary positions. So far, spontaneity mixed with liberal or Islamist NGOs has been a suicide-trap for socialism. The left can commit the anecdotal suicide, it could jump from the superstructure and hit the base, but it could also through struggle carry the day. Renowned author and Middle East analyst, Professor Ali Kadri teaches Economics ath the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc. [3] Yes, Half of Americans Are In or Near Poverty: Here’s More Evidence https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/10/16/yes-half-americans-are-or-near-poverty-heres-more-evidence | Dr. Ali Kadri | https://www.globalresearch.ca/lebanon-revolution-without-revolutionary-ideology/5693597 | Thu, 31 Oct 2019 14:15:44 +0000 | 1,572,545,744 | 1,572,534,556 | science and technology | social sciences |
234,158 | hitandrun--2019-04-11--The Politics of Game of Thrones Revisited | 2019-04-11T00:00:00 | hitandrun | The Politics of Game of Thrones Revisited | The final season of the hit TV series Game of Thrones begins this weekend, on April 14, ending a long wait that began when Season 7 ended in 2017. One of the many interesting aspects of the series and the books by George R.R. Martin on which it is based, is the attempt to address a variety of political issues. While some might consider it frivolous to assess the political message of a fantasy show, it’s worth remembering that far more people consume science fiction and fantasy media than read serious nonfiction analyses of political issues. And social science research indicates that science fiction and fantasy, such as the Harry Potter series, can even have a significant influence on fans’ political views. At the very least, discussing the politics of Game of Thrones is less painful than analyzing the much grimmer politics of the real world! Valar morghulis – “all men must die” – is all too true. But at least we can have some fun with fictional political economy first! Over the last several years, I have written a good deal about the politics of Game of Thrones. My most extensive analysis is a 2017 article focusing on what it might take to fulfill Daenerys Targaryen’s vow to “break the wheel” of Westeros’ awful political system: In a famous scene in Season 5 of Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen compares the struggle for power in Westeros to a spinning wheel that elevates one great noble house and then another. She vows that she does not merely intend to turn the wheel in her own favor: “I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.” In the world of the show, Daenerys’s statement resonates because the rulers of Westeros have made a terrible mess of the continent… Daenerys’s desire to “break the wheel” suggests the possibility of a better approach. But, what exactly, does breaking the wheel entail?… Even in the late stages of… Season 7, Daenerys seems to have little notion of what it means beyond defeating her enemies and installing herself as Queen on Westeros’s Iron Throne…. Unlike most of the other rulers we see in the series, Daenerys has at least some genuine interest in improving the lot of ordinary people. Before coming to Westeros, she and her army freed tens of thousands of slaves on the continent of Essos. She delayed her departure from Essos long enough to try to establish a new government in the liberated areas that would — hopefully — prevent backsliding into slavery. Nonetheless, it is not clear whether Daenerys has any plan to prevent future oppression and injustice other than to replace the current set of evil rulers with a better one: herself. The idea of “breaking the wheel” implies systemic institutional reform, not just replacing the person who has the dubious honor of planting his or her rear end on the Iron Throne in King’s Landing. If Daenerys has any such reforms in mind, it is hard to say what they are…. Daenerys’s failure to give serious consideration to institutional problems is shared by the other great leader beloved by fans of the show: Jon Snow, the newly enthroned King in the North. Perhaps even more than Daenerys, Jon has a genuine concern for ordinary people…. Perhaps to an even greater extent than Daenerys, however, Jon does not have any real notion of institutional reform…. But in Medieval Europe, on which Westeros is roughly based, parliaments, merchants’ guilds, autonomous cities, and other institutions eventually emerged to challenge and curb the power of kings and nobles. These developments gradually helped lead to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the economic growth that led to modern liberal democracy. Few if any such developments are in evidence in Westeros, which seems to have had thousands of years of economic, technological, and intellectual stagnation. The characters in the books and the TV show are not the only ones who largely ignore the need for institutional change. We the fans are often guilty of the same sin….. Most of us read fantasy literature and watch TV shows to be entertained, not to get a lesson in political theory. And it is much easier to develop an entertaining show focused on the need to replace a villainous evil ruler with a good, heroic, and virtuous one, than to produce an exciting story focused on institutional questions….. Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire is comparatively unusual in even raising the possibility that institutional reform is the real solution to its fictional world’s problems, and in making this idea one of the central themes of the story. However understandable, the pop culture fixation on heroic leaders rather than institutions reinforces a dangerous tendency of real-world politics. The benighted people of Westeros are not the only ones who hope that their problems might go away if only we concentrate vast power in the hands of the right ruler. The same pathology has been exploited by dictators throughout history, both left and right. It is also evident, in less extreme form, in many democratic societies….. For all its serious flaws, our situation is not as bad as that of Westeros. But we too could benefit from more serious consideration of ways to break the wheel, as opposed to merely spin it in another direction. And our popular culture could benefit from having more stories that highlight the value of institutions, as well as heroic leaders. However much we love Daenerys and Jon, they and their real-world counterparts are unlikely to give us a better wheel on their own. Back in 2016, I discussed Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire in an article on the politics of several science fiction and fantasy series where I highlighted the series’ skeptical view of political elites. In this 2013 post, I discussed the significance of the “Red Wedding,” one of the most shocking and controversial episodes in the history of the series. Back in 2011, when the series first began, I commented on some of the political issues raised by the struggle for the Iron Throne, building on an Atlantic symposium about the series. In August 2017, I participated in a panel on the politics of Game of Thrones, sponsored by the R Street Institute and the Cato Institute, along with Alyssa Rosenberg (Washington Post), Peter Suderman (Reason), and Matthew Yglesias (Vox). We are hoping to reprise our discussion during the final season. During the long interregnum between the end of Season 7 and the start of Season 8, George R.R. Martin published the first volume of Fire and Blood, the history of House Targaryen’s rule over the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. The book predictably divided fans, many of whom would have preferred that Martin finish the long-awaited Winds of Winter instead. But I thought it was fascinating. At the very least, it did provide a lot of information about Westeros’ political system. Here are a few examples (with spoilers largely avoided): 1. Even when the king is both competent and relatively well-intentioned, the political system doesn’t function all that well. When he is either malevolent or incompetent, all kinds of disasters happen. And badly flawed kings seem to be more common than good ones. The high frequency of bad kings and the inability of good ones to make much progress is a strong sign that the monarchy’s flaws are mostly systemic, rather than the fault of a few flawed individual rulers. 2. Like the Roman Empire, Westeros under the Targaryen kings never developed any generally accepted rules of succession. Thus, civil war breaks out over such issues as whether male relatives of the king take precedence over female ones who are older and/or more closely related. It is also not clear whether the king has the right to designate his own heir, or whether there are laws of succession that he cannot set aside (and if so, what they are). 3. Despite the above, Fire and Blood actually deepens the mystery of why Westeros has had so many centuries of economic stagnation. It shows that the kings invested in useful infrastructure (e.g. – ports and roads) and that there are many sources of investment capital other than the Iron Bank of Braavos. Plus, several of the great houses engage in extensive trade with other parts of the world. All of this should stimulate considerable innovation, growth, and technological progress. Yet very little seems to occur. 4. Fire and Blood makes clear that the stagnation probably is not caused by dragons, despite speculation to the contrary by commentators on the earlier books and TV show. There are never more than about 10-15 domesticated dragons in Westeros at any one time, and they don’t seem to be used for anything but warfare and transportation for their riders (mostly members of the royal family). They clearly do not substitute for labor-saving devices or provide transportation for trade. And, while they are powerful battlefield weapons, they are clearly not invincible and their presence should stimulate military innovation, not stifle it. 5. Based on what we see, it is far from clear that Targaryen blood is actually necessary to become a dragonrider. If it is, only a tiny bit seems to be enough. This suggests that the number of domesticated dragons and dragonriders could be greatly expanded. If so, dragons could actually help jumpstart the economy! There is a lot they could do to increase Westerosi productivity, if they started to take on jobs other than killing people and transporting VIPs. 6. Women are undeniably second-class citizens in Westeros. But they seem to have higher social status and more autonomy than their real-world medieval equivalents. We even see a number of cases of them entering male-dominated professions, including warfare. This further deepens the mystery of Westerosi stagnation, as relatively freer Westerosi women should be more productive than those of medieval Europe, yet this does not seem to result in much increased growth. Perhaps we will get more insights on the politics of Westeros from Season 8, and George R.R. Martin’s long-awaited Winds of Winter. Until then, don’t forget that political chaos is a ladder! | Ilya Somin ([email protected]) | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reason/HitandRun/~3/PaghaozopvM/ | 2019-04-11 14:30:00+00:00 | 1,555,007,400 | 1,567,543,172 | science and technology | social sciences |
234,823 | hitandrun--2019-05-27--Parenting Without Fear | 2019-05-27T00:00:00 | hitandrun | Parenting Without Fear | You may have heard the story about the Minnesota mother who faced jail time after accidentally failing to properly strap in her child's car seat. Or the cops who arrived to question a mom who told her neighbors that her 9-year-old could help them do chores. Or the police officers who went door to door hunting for a man after he drove off from the mall with a toddler—who turned out to be his daughter. They'd been shopping. An onlooker had assumed he was a kidnapper and called the police. We live in an age of fear, especially where children are concerned. Even as the world has become safer and richer, parenting has become a paranoid exercise in removing all possible risk from a child's life. This is exhausting for parents and even worse for children. Too many have been taught that they are fragile, weak, and in constant danger. Instead of getting experience problem-solving and bouncing back, they have grown up unable to rise to the challenges that life presents. No journalist has more effectively chronicled the strange and dismal culture of contemporary child rearing than Reason contributor Lenore Skenazy, 59, who is not ashamed of being "America's Worst Mom." She got that nickname after she let her son, then age 9, ride the New York subway home by himself in 2008. "Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse," she wrote in a much-read piece for The New York Sun. "As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids." Skenazy went on to found the Free-Range Kids movement, dedicating her career to investigating and explaining how today's parents became so afraid and what effects that fear is having on their children. In 2017, she co-founded the nonprofit Let Grow with a mission of encouraging schools and families to allow kids to "have some adventures" and therefore "grow resilient." In January, Skenazy spoke with Frank Furedi, 71, a Budapest-born sociologist now based at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. When Furedi was 9, he had an adventure even more exciting than riding a subway by himself: His family got caught up in Hungary's anti-Stalinist revolution of 1956. "The thing that I remember about that moment," he told Spiked years later, "was the sheer optimism, the sense of power expressed by people who were normally extremely passive and fatalistic." After the Soviets crushed the revolt, the family fled to Canada, where Furedi was drawn into the student left. Anti-Soviet and anti-statist—but not delighted with the West's status quo either—he became a self-styled libertarian Marxist. He "saw the state not as a medium of liberation but as a medium of oppression, as something that limited the possibility for more radical change," he explained to Spiked. Over the years Furedi has frequently taken stands on censorship, technology, environmentalism, identity politics, and other issues that set him apart from the rest of the left. He is also the author of many books about fear, parenting, and campus culture, including 2002's Paranoid Parenting, 2005's Politics of Fear, and 2016's What's Happened to the University. His latest, How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Continuum), looks at how fear has become the driving factor behind much of contemporary Western culture and the ways that has changed society for the worse. In a wide-ranging phone conversation, Skenazy and Furedi discussed the origins of today's fearful parenting, how schools and universities became incubators of scared kids, and why a refusal to tolerate risk has, paradoxically, led to a generation of children who are more fragile than ever before. Skenazy: Tell me the basic idea of your book. How does fear work? Furedi: What I'm trying to establish in the book is: What do we fear in the 21st century? There is a lot of material that is available on how people feared in the past, and it's very clear that there have been a number of very important changes in the way we talk about fear. For a start, in the contemporary era we talk much more about it. Fear is an overused word. We talk about it in relation to a lot more experiences than we did before—things that in the past would have been fairly uncontroversial, seen as being normal, not seen as a threat. I try to understand, Why is that? For example, something as ordinary and banal as children making a transition from primary school to secondary school is seen as a big deal. You need to bring in all kinds of experts to make sure that children are not threatened by going to the big school. My thesis is that the main reason we fear the way we do is because we have become increasingly prone toward medicalizing the threats we face. We tend to use the language of psychology rather than the language of morality or of politics or of social science to analyze the human condition. We tend to interpret the problems we face in terms of illness categories. I see this all the time too. Even some grandparents who let their children walk to school and play outside now think that letting the grandkids stand on the sidewalk in front of the house to wait for the bus is too dangerous. But I don't usually think of that as psychological or medicalized. I think of it as just fear inflation. What you describe as fear inflation is absolutely right. But the reason fear is being inflated so much is because we have a different idea of what a child or human being is like. We now seem to think that children are defined by their powerlessness, their vulnerability. We believe that children haven't got the psychological and the moral and the physical resources to deal with the challenges of everyday life. One of the most interesting developments is that in the past, adults used to understand that fearing is not a bad experience for children. If children fear the traffic, that's a good thing. In the last 50, 60 years, more and more, we're arguing that the very act of fearing is itself a psychologically dangerous kind of knowledge. It can damage a child. And parents are told almost to insulate children from any possible experience that might induce a sense of fear in their kids. There was a poll done in your country, England, of the worst fairy tales to tell children. I think the top result was "Little Red Riding Hood," because it's too scary. There's a wolf. The grandma is gone. The child gets eaten. Parents were saying that they were changing the ending because it was too traumatic for kids to hear about Little Red Riding Hood encountering the big eyes, big claws, and big teeth of the Big Bad Wolf. I think that's happening everywhere at the moment. Old wonderful fairy tales are being Disneyfied to the point at which anything that is remotely scary is immediately censored, and there's this really silly assumption that children are unable to deal with these kinds of stories. Whereas I'm sure that when you were a kid, you remember, these were precious moments. We remembered those scary stories quite well. We might have been a little bit frightened, but they did teach us a thing or two. At the moment, what we tend to do is seek refuge in the mundane: banal story lines where everybody's got big smiles on their faces. That seems to be the way we think that children should be socialized and brought up—all the while forgetting that it's totally impossible to shield young kids from the experience of fear. Whether you like it or not, things are going to frighten them. That's part and parcel of growing up. I think it's a good part. Fairy tales exist to teach you what not to do, but also to inculcate a certain sense of, "Ooh, that was scary….Tell it again!" You get used to it. You get a little comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable. Fairy tales communicated some very important moral messages about what is right and what is wrong, about good and evil. They really helped socialize young kids into a moral vision of the world. We've become very estranged from using the language of right and wrong with kids. In fact, in America, teachers often tell children there is no right and wrong answer. Everything is possible. Instead of teaching young people what's good and bad and giving them very clear rules, we tend to rely on what I call the therapeutic technique of validating them—making them feel good. We seem to believe that the way to bring kids up is continually raising their self-esteem by smiling at them, by not criticizing them, by not using a red pen to correct their essays. Children need to understand that failure is no big deal. They need to learn how to fail. They need to learn the difference between success and failure as early as possible, because that's what will give them strength later on. How did we get to this point? You seem to suggest that something happened after the '70s. What was it? At a certain point in Anglo-American culture, parents began to believe that they needed to be much more nurturing and caring [and] far less disciplinarian. Some of those beliefs were quite fine. But around the '60s and the '70s, these ideals mutated into ones that basically suggested it was really important that children were under adult protection as much as possible, because unless you were supervising them, they were likely to have very negative experiences. It takes about two or three generations of parents before these ideals pervade the entire parenting culture. By the time the new parents that are bringing children up in the 1980s begin to become fathers and mothers, these kind of ideals have been totally internalized. On both sides of the Atlantic, if you look at the elder generations of parents, people at my age or even older, they are far more permissive and far more chilled out than the youngest groups of parents. In fact, the younger generation of parents, the 26- and 27-year-olds, are more likely to be worried about virtually every dimension of a child's experience. I still don't understand what happened in the '70s that made us start thinking we had to watch over them more closely. Was it a crime wave? Was it a certain movie that scared everyone? The most important overall development that occurred in the 1970s was a shift in culture away from a confident, future-oriented belief in the capacity of society to do big things. You had President [Lyndon] Johnson talking about the Great Society in the 1960s. If you compare that to President [Jimmy] Carter's [1979] speech where he talks about the crisis of confidence in America, you can see a very big shift has occurred. As you have this loss of confidence, and this happens all over the world, it's paralleled by an emotionalism becoming institutionalized, where psychology becomes the dominant medium through which we interpret everyday human experience, and where problems that used to be seen as normal are increasingly recast in medical terms, as medical issues that we need to have a diagnosis for. It's in this context that you have a complete redefinition of what a child is, what they are capable of, what kind of risk and pressure they can handle. The whole therapeutic imagination that develops in North American societies fundamentally alters the way we view the child and the relationship of the child to the adults. Yeah, the idea that fear damages them is really what we're talking about. I read articles that are so disheartening, because they teach parents who might not feel worried that their job is to be worried and their job is to be supervising their children every single second. I feel bad for them. I never put down helicopter parents, because they're being taught that only this kind of helicoptering is good parenting, is safe enough. The key point for me is the underlying assumption that the real threat is not so much the physical injury that a child might have but the emotional one. Let's talk about the word vulnerability. You did a study where you looked at how much it's being used today—and not with kids that are chained to the crib in an orphanage. How did we start seeing regular children as all vulnerable to depression and every other kind of trauma? Mainstream psychology used to argue that children were much better at dealing with mental health issues than adults were, that when it came to trauma of all sorts, children could recover much faster than adults. That was the conventional wisdom. Then what happened was a number of studies were carried out in the late '70s and early '80s which began to suggest, bit by bit, that in fact we were wrong. Almost every dimension of childhood was reinterpreted as a potential threat to their mental health. If you look at the way children then became educated, we became so focused on preventing them from having major mental health issues that, actually, we create problems that did not exist before. If you go to university in America or in England, you'll find that mental health issues are like the No. 1 priority that all the administrators are focused on. Right. I've seen that at my own kids' universities. There are a lot of signs around: "Worried? Depressed? Don't hold it in. Come to the mental health center." On the one hand, it's nice. If a kid is having a tough time, I'm glad there's no stigma. But it does seem to assume that these problems are everywhere and that the university's job is to be proactive about noticing and having kids notice any time their emotional temperature is even a little out of whack. It normalizes the conviction that sooner or later, if not in your first year then in your second or third year, you're going to have a mental health problem. When I go to my university and I'm going into the toilet, I look up and there's an ad for if you're thinking of suicide. If you're lonely and you haven't got friends, there's a clinic where they have therapy dogs so you can feel more relaxed. If you look around, there's about six or seven of these mental health adverts. That to me seems to be a very, very real problem. These days, almost the entire university is meant to be a safe space. The argument is, whenever you feel that you're under pressure, you're traumatized. In your book you say, "powerlessness, fragility, and vulnerability are considered normal characteristics today." Do young people overcome these finally when they leave the university? Well, not really. I think that unfortunately we now see the human condition—in other words, what it means to be a human—very much in these terms. So the idea of being vulnerable and being powerless is something we carry on with us, or we're meant to carry on with us, for the rest of our life. Even when we become adults, biologically mature individuals, we still are meant to have what they call "issues." We expect people to have a variety of problems dealing with uncertainty. As a result of that, there's a whole industry of professionals, from life coaches—I don't know if you've ever met a life coach? I actually have a friend who was very much helped by her work coach. She was doing poorly, and somebody was advising her, like, "Don't say this to your boss" and "Don't do things that way." I don't think she knew how to succeed in the work world, so the coach really helped her. I'm sure that a lot of coaches can help. But I think there is a problem. If we're now relying on people to tell us how to speak at work, what to say or not to say to our friends, how to bring up our children, how to make love to our partners, how to decorate our houses—so virtually every aspect of our life is subject to some kind of professional expertise—then it does have that effect of undermining our autonomy as individuals where we are, in a sense, making choices on the basis of our experience. [It diminishes] our own capacity for independent behavior and our ability to take responsibility for our action and to live with the consequences of the action that we've taken. What interests me is that the fear is not just, like, "Oh, I might screw up and then I'll have to deal with the consequences." The fear is that if something bad happens, it's the end of the world and you will never recover. We go to the darkest possible place. When my mom let me walk to school, I don't think her heart was in her throat every day, thinking, "I will feel so bad for the rest of my life if she's kidnapped, raped, and murdered." She didn't think that way. She might have thought that I would fall down and I would have to get up, but I don't even think she was worrying about that. So how come today we all go straight to "kidnapped, raped, and murdered" every time we let our kids out of our sight? Worst-case thinking has become the norm in all institutions of society. That's been very much the dominant way that risk aversion—the fear of taking risks, the fear of experimenting, the fear of trying stuff out—takes. I think that "responsible parenting" these days is defined as a kind of child care that assumes the worst thing [that could possibly happen] and takes precautions to make sure that doesn't happen. Very often when you have discussions with intelligent people, they in their heart of hearts actually know that worst-case thinking is not very helpful. My mom quit her job to stay at home with her kids. So obviously her first priority was us and our well-being. And yet she could let us go outside, ride our bikes, walk to school, go to the beach, even—the big bad beach. How did we get to "I could never forgive myself if…" being this line that all parents say and feel now? Safety has acquired this enormous significance in our lives. It almost has a quasi-religious quality to it, where people regard everything that is safe as being, by definition, really, really good. And of course, the more we talk about safety and the more we focus on that, the more we become drawn to seeing a growing dimension of life and the world as unsafe. Experiences that in the past we would have called a good risk are today seen in a very different way. Even that expression—"a good risk"—sounds irresponsible. Risk is by definition bad. It's not an opportunity to make things happen. Risk is entirely a negative phenomenon. So we have this very one-sided way of dealing with risk, where we want to shield ourselves from it. Safety has become an obsession in a way that is quite unprecedented. I don't think there's ever been a time in human history where so many things were deemed problematic or unsafe. How do we turn the ship around? That's not an easy question to answer. It's something I struggle with. I think the way one does it is by personal example. You often get parents who demonstrate through their actions that having a robust orientation to their children's lives is going to make their kids stronger and more independent. I think that helps. The kind of work you guys [at Let Grow] are doing is really important in that respect, because it demystifies the reality that most parents live under. In their heart of hearts, most parents know they need to give more space to their children, that they need more independence and more freedom to explore the world. I am quite optimistic that it's possible to make headway. Not overnight, but certainly possible. The other thing that we need is to have more discussions on why taking risks can be an exhilarating and positive experience, not a road to disaster. I just think we need to challenge a lot of this stuff. In many ways, I regard our safety culture as not unlike the story about the emperor having no clothes. When the little boy says the emperor is naked. I think that if we basically ask some questions—some pointed questions, and point out the ridiculousness of all the stuff that's happening, maybe use a bit of humor alongside of it—I think we can make a positive impact. This conversation has been condensed and edited for style and clarity. | Lenore Skenazy | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/reason/HitandRun/~3/GoMf4mZ2lxE/ | 2019-05-27 10:00:13+00:00 | 1,558,965,613 | 1,567,540,106 | science and technology | social sciences |
240,251 | hotair--2019-06-19--Will the radicalization of white liberals create the monster they fear most | 2019-06-19T00:00:00 | hotair | Will the radicalization of white liberals create the monster they fear most? | I’ve written before about the “Great Awokening” of white liberals (or if you prefer Social Justice Warriors) who have made news in the past few years, often on college campuses. A couple of weeks ago, Zach Goldberg, a student pursuing his Ph.D. in political science, published a piece at Tablet offering a social science perspective on the phenomenon and his conclusions are interesting. Golberg argues that something quite dramatic has happened in the past few years among white liberals who are now the only group of Americans who express a preference for other racial groups over their own. Over the past decade, the baseline attitudes expressed by white liberals on racial and social justice questions have become radically more liberal. In one especially telling example of the broader trend, white liberals recently became the only demographic group in America to display a pro-outgroup bias—meaning that among all the different groups surveyed white liberals were the only one that expressed a preference for other racial and ethnic communities above their own. As woke ideology has accelerated, a growing faction of white liberals have pulled away from the average opinions held by the rest of the coalition of Democratic voters—including minority groups in the party. The revolution in moral sentiment among this one segment of American voters has led to a cascade of consequences ranging from changes in the norms and attitudes expressed in media and popular culture, to the adoption of new political rhetoric and electoral strategies of the Democratic Party… For the woke and their allies, these rapid changes are heralded as signs of progress, leading at times to harsh criticism of anyone who would stand in their way. This ideological stridency and triumphalist attitude can be powerful weapons against political opponents but are alienating—perhaps deliberately so—to moderates and conservatives. But, in a sense, no one is put in a more strained and problematic position by the politics of white liberals than the white liberals themselves. The woke elite act like white saviors who must lead the rest of the country, including the racial minorities whose interests they claim to represent, to a vision of justice the less enlightened groups would not choose for themselves. The jury is still out on what led to this sudden change but Goldberg points to the rise of woke media as playing a significant role. The reasons for this are interesting to tease out. There is a large amount of social science data based on the “big five” personality traits. One of those traits where liberals tend to score higher than conservatives is “agreeableness.” And a subset of that is “compassion.” Also important to liberals are issues of emotional harm and fairness. Goldberg argues that when you pair already low thresholds for harm with the new social media landscape in which the message of harm is constantly reinforced through partisan media outlets, you get a kind of moral outrage feedback loop. This is aided by the fact that liberals spend more time on social media than conservatives. As a result, they have a disproportionate impact on the market for what gets reported and produced. And so, over a fairly short time, you see woke social justice terminology appearing on sites like the NY Times: If you had to identify a reason why these terms became so common after 2014, a good guess would be the media dominance of Black Lives Matter, which succeeded in elevating several instances of police brutality into months-long national stories. But Golberg argues the prevalence of some of those stories may be misleading many online progressives about how common those incidents actually are in America: One way that constant media exposure can warp people’s perception of reality is by leading them to overestimate the danger from certain threats. For instance, research shows that frequent and vivid exposure to crime-related media increases perceptions of the prevalence of crime and police racism. Other more limited work points to a relationship between Twitter use and the perceived prevalence of school shootings. This tendency to overestimate the prevalence and significance of things we are frequently exposed to and thus more easily able to recall is known as the availability heuristic. As a cognitive shortcut for quickly arriving at judgments the availability heuristic can be a useful adaptation in some circumstances but misleading in others. It means, for example, that if videos of white-on-black police shootings or other instances of discriminatory behavior are circulating on Twitter, people may perceive such incidents to be far more common than they actually are and, consequently, that white society is more prejudiced than it actually is. And the misestimation of the moral climate creates activism that often seems detached from reality, i.e. the campus activism we’ve been seeing for the past few years: When these moral emotions become hyperactive and detached from objective reality; when they motivate the division of society into ‘allies’ and enemies; and when they generate a level of sanctimonious outrage and judgment that places all political dissent beyond the pale. The advent of digital and social media has fomented just such a carnival of excesses. It cultivates an image of the world soaked in the very oppression and injustices to which the user is most sensitive and attuned—and thus one that frequently triggers liberal moral alarms. There is no shortage of oppression and injustice in America and the wider world. But things are not nearly as bad nor as uniformly black and white as they appear on Twitter and YouTube feeds. In addition to the availability heuristic, i.e. overestimating how prevalent certain incidents are, liberals may also be underestimating the extent to which it is they who have become radicalized. Instead, they may assume it is conservatives who are suddenly becoming more extreme when in fact conservatives haven’t moved all that much: Due at least in part to digital media, white liberal attitudes that more or less endured for decades have been drastically overturned in the space of months or single years. In contrast, the attitudes of white conservatives—and conservatives in general—have moved at a more glacial pace, if at all. For liberals, the lack of awareness of how fast and far their attitudes have shifted fosters an illusion of conservative extremism. In reality, the conservatives of today are not all that different from the conservatives of years past. And it’s the frustration with white conservatives’ inability or reluctance to keep pace with liberals on the path to enlightenment that is intensifying our political divide. But conservatives tend toward normative and structural stability. They don’t take well to rapid social change. The perceived imposition and spread of progressive norms naturally elicits psychological reactance—a visceral desire to resist and affirm one’s agency in the face of perceived social pressure. This is the very process that is at least partly responsible for the election of Trump. We can argue over whether this helps explain the election of Trump but this leads me to another video making what I think is a related case about the danger of progressive activists becoming hyper-critical of conservatives with accusations of racism as their touchstone. As Bret Weinstein argues in this clip, the danger is that you wind up creating a cultural mindset that makes people on the receiving end feel threatened. “People who are the object of ire from the intersectionalists are going to be backed against the wall together. Who are they going to be? Well primarily they are going to be straight and white and male,” Weinstein said. He predicts that if this happens those groups are then likely to fall into their own identity-based cooperation, i.e. something like white nationalism (which is obviously not a desirable outcome). So the progressive effort to aggressively attack “the enemy” winds up creating conditions that help foster the thing they oppose. To be clear, Goldberg isn’t endorsing this view and, so far as I know, Weinstein hasn’t connected his thoughts here to Goldberg’s research. But I think you can see this as an additional danger that results from the moral outrage feedback loop that has been radicalizing white liberals for the past several years. | John Sexton | https://hotair.com/archives/2019/06/19/will-radicalization-white-liberals-create-monster-fear/ | 2019-06-19 23:21:10+00:00 | 1,561,000,870 | 1,567,538,785 | science and technology | social sciences |
241,432 | hotair--2019-09-09--UC Irvine professor End of democracy near because cultural elites no longer control the media | 2019-09-09T00:00:00 | hotair | UC Irvine professor: End of democracy near because cultural elites no longer control the media | Politico Magazine published a piece Sunday about the work of a UC Irvine professor named Shawn Rosenberg. As described by author Rick Shenkman, Rosenberg is the elite equivalent of a guy marching around wearing a sandwich board that reads: The end is nigh! Professor Rosenberg believes Democracy is nearing its end in the modern world because elite voices don’t have power over the thoughts and opinions of the rabble that they used to have. Rosenberg, who earned degrees at Yale, Oxford and Harvard, may be the social scientist for our time if events play out as he suggests they will. His theory is that over the next few decades, the number of large Western-style democracies around the globe will continue to shrink, and those that remain will become shells of themselves. Taking democracy’s place, Rosenberg says, will be right-wing populist governments that offer voters simple answers to complicated questions. And therein lies the core of his argument: Democracy is hard work and requires a lot from those who participate in it. It requires people to respect those with different views from theirs and people who don’t look like them. It asks citizens to be able to sift through large amounts of information and process the good from the bad, the true from the false. It requires thoughtfulness, discipline and logic. Unfortunately, evolution did not favor the exercise of these qualities in the context of a modern mass democracy. Citing reams of psychological research, findings that by now have become more or less familiar, Rosenberg makes his case that human beings don’t think straight. Biases of various kinds skew our brains at the most fundamental level. For example, racism is easily triggered unconsciously in whites by a picture of a black man wearing a hoodie. We discount evidence when it doesn’t square up with our goals while we embrace information that confirms our biases. There are no footnotes in this piece so I don’t know which study of unconscious racism the author is referring to. I do know that one of the best-known tests to purportedly reveal unconscious bias, the IAT, is junk social science. If Rosenberg is relying on the IAT to inform his position then his position needs revision. The author argues that democracy peaked in the 20th century and is slipping now but this seems counter-intuitive. Is there anyone who would argue racial bias is more prevalent now than in the 1950s when Jim Crow laws were still legal? Granted we may all have biases but hasn’t there been some social progress in the past 70 years? And if so, why is democracy struggling more now than it was then? It’s not clear if Rosenberg has addressed that question directly, but he does have an explanation for why things are worse now than in the past: elite control over the masses has waned. When people are left to make political decisions on their own they drift toward the simple solutions right-wing populists worldwide offer: a deadly mix of xenophobia, racism and authoritarianism. The elites, as Rosenberg defines them, are the people holding power at the top of the economic, political and intellectual pyramid who have “the motivation to support democratic culture and institutions and the power to do so effectively.” In their roles as senators, journalists, professors, judges and government administrators, to name a few, the elites have traditionally held sway over public discourse and U.S. institutions—and have in that role helped the populace understand the importance democratic values. But today that is changing. Thanks to social media and new technologies, anyone with access to the Internet can publish a blog and garner attention for their cause—even if it’s rooted in conspiracy and is based on a false claim, like the lie that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring from the basement of a Washington D.C. pizza parlor, which ended in a shooting. While the elites formerly might have successfully squashed conspiracy theories and called out populists for their inconsistencies, today fewer and fewer citizens take the elites seriously. Don’t you feel terrible about the twilight of the elites who were so fragile they could be easily demolished by bloggers? You don’t? Me neither. This whole tale strikes me as a very partisan reading of what is essentially a bipartisan issue. Professor Rosenberg apparently cites Pizza-gate (a stupid right-wing conspiracy theory) but doesn’t mention 9/11 Trutherism which at one point led 1/3rd of Democrats to answer that President Bush knew about the attack in advance. In fact, there is evidence that both left and right are pulling away from each other, though the people doing the pulling on each side are a small but vocal minority. And neither side has a monopoly on authoritarianism. Reason reported on a study about left-wing authoritarianism last year: Once all of the numbers were crunched, the researchers’ results were consistent with the authoritarianism symmetry hypothesis. In fact, after sorting participants into conservatives and liberals based on whether they scored in the top or bottom half of a 10-point conservatism scale, the researchers found that “the highest score for authoritarianism was for liberals on LWA.” “Our data suggest that average Americans on the political left are just as likely to be dogmatic authoritarians as those on the political right. And those left-wing authoritarians can be just as prejudiced, dogmatic, and extremist as right-wing authoritarians,” Conway tells PsyPost. Anyone paying attention to college campuses in the past few years can see that left-wing authoritarians are alive and well. In those circumstances, it’s usually the conservatives upholding the traditional liberal values of logic and mutual respect while their progressive opponents seek to shout them down. As for the self-appointed elites, if they aren’t as respected as they used to be that’s partly because we’ve learned that their pronouncements often carry a lot of partisan freight. Indeed it seems almost anything can win the approval of today’s academic elites so long as it appears to give voice to progressive views. | John Sexton | https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/09/09/uc-irvine-professor-end-democracy-near-cultural-elites-media/ | 2019-09-09 22:43:25+00:00 | 1,568,083,405 | 1,569,330,719 | science and technology | social sciences |
275,836 | ipolitics--2019-08-13--18-year-old NDP candidate facing tough task in bid to become Baby of the House | 2019-08-13T00:00:00 | ipolitics | 18-year-old NDP candidate facing tough task in bid to become Baby of the House | Kevin Hua, the NDP candidate for Carleton, is looking to become the youngest-ever representative elected to the House of Commons. Photo by Charlie Pinkerton/iPolitics It’s at almost the half-an-hour mark into an interview when Kevin Hua is posed with the question, “How did this government let you down?” “How long do we have?” quips back the 18-year-old. More pointedly, Hua says it’s the Trudeau government’s failure to live up to its promise to deliver electoral reform and do away with the first-past-the-post electoral system, as well as what he deems as the government’s failure to effectively address climate change in Canada. That’s part of what’ll drive him to vote for the first time ever in this election for his NDP candidate: himself. As the NDP’s representative for Carleton, Hua will be (at least) one the youngest contestants’ whose name will be on a ballot in the federal election this fall (the NDP did not get back to an iPolitics request for a list of its similarly aged candidates). And to succeed in becoming the Baby of the House (a moniker unofficially given to the youngest MP in the Chamber), Hua will have to unseat Conservative mainstay and former cabinet minister Pierre Poilievre, who is in his 16th year of sitting in the House after he was elected for the first time at just 25 years old. Though he only reached voting age in April, Hua’s not a rookie to the political arena. An overachiever in school, specifically the social sciences, he points out, Hua’s interest in politics drew him online, which led him to connect with the NDP. He was led to the NDP by participating in House of Commons-styled simulations on social media site Reddit. “The (simulations) tried to emulate Parliament as close as they possibly could – standing orders, everything; everything is emulated to be as close as possible, so people can create bills, they debate on the bills, there are political parties, there’s even elections to decide on who gets into parliament,” Hua told iPolitics in an interview in July. From there, Hua became involved with Courtney Potter’s campaign in last year’s provincial election, volunteering by canvassing Carleton on her behalf. Hua says he has a “professional relationship” with one-time baby of the House Pierre-Luc Dusseault, who was elected to the House of Commons as part of the NDP’s “Orange Wave” in Quebec in the 2011 federal election. Hua would take Dusseault’s record as the youngest MP ever if he could pull off an upset against Poilievre, which is a task that’s difficulty would be tough to overstate. A representative of the NDP has never won the riding. The party’s candidate came in a distant third place to Poilievre and Liberal candidate Chris Rodgers in the 2015 election (Rodgers is again the Liberal candidate in the upcoming election). Poilievre had won the seat in each of the three previous elections with more than 50 per cent of the vote. In his first try at being elected in 2004, Poilievre unseated David Pratt, who had been a cabinet minister of the incumbent Liberals. But winning, Hua says, isn’t his only reason for running. “It’s about winning, if possible, but it’s also about that option – that option has to be available to the voters that if they want to choose, not the Liberals, not the Conservatives, not the Greens, or if they legitimately want to vote for policies that the NDP hold, they have that option,” Hua said. In case that isn’t the result, Hua will have already begun his next politically-involved pursuit as a first year student in Carleton University’s bachelor of public affairs and policy management program. But if need be, he’d be happy to put those plans on hold. And for what he wants voters to take of his claim as perhaps this election’s youngest candidate: “Don’t look at my age.” “Listen to what I have to what I have to say,” Hua says, adding later, “and watch out for me in the riding.” | Charlie Pinkerton | https://ipolitics.ca/2019/08/13/18-year-old-ndp-candidate-facing-tough-task-in-bid-to-become-baby-of-the-house/ | 2019-08-13 20:50:28+00:00 | 1,565,743,828 | 1,567,534,260 | science and technology | social sciences |
285,427 | lewrockwell--2019-01-11--Toxic Masculinity | 2019-01-11T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Toxic Masculinity | Attention boys: bullying, homophobia, sexual harassment and abuse are all your fault, according to new guidelines published by the world’s largest association of psychologists. While traditional gender roles – under which men are stoic, competitive, dominant and aggressive – have existed for millennia, the rise of social justice culture has seen a new phrase popularized in recent years: toxic masculinity. This idea, that traditional male traits are ‘toxic’ and dangerous, has largely remained confined to feminist blogs and social sciences faculties, but now the American Psychological Association (APA) has jumped on board. In the APA’s “first ever” set of guidelines to help psychologists work with men and boys, the association states that “traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful,” and “causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.” But what is ‘traditional masculinity’ anyway? The APA says traditional masculinity is defined by “stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression.” It’s found in men’s resilience in the face of adversity and insistence on “looking tough” despite mental suffering, and in their tendency to handle emotional strain with anger. 12 Rules for Life: An ... Jordan B. Peterson Best Price: $11.40 Buy New $14.07 (as of 02:30 EST - Details) According to the APA, “traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict and negatively influence mental health and physical health.” The association blames this masculinity for the fact that 90 percent of homicides in the US are committed by men, and for the fact that men are over three times more likely to die from suicide than women. Boys are also far more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than girls, and suffer harsher punishments for misbehaving in school. As such, the APA is instructing psychiatrists to change how they talk to their male patients. Clinicians, the association says, must be aware of and challenge “dominant masculine ideals,” and “combat these forces.” Furthermore, in a nod to the social justice warrior (SJW) movement, they must “understand how power, privilege and sexism work” to both benefit and harm men. “If we can change men,” Dr. Ryon McDermott, a psychologist who helped draft the guidelines wrote, “we can change the world.” But do men need to be changed? Some psychologists think not. Dr. Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist and professor who has emerged as a leading voice against the SJW movement, has said that the societal “backlash” against masculinity is a futile attempt to change inherent differences in the sexes. While there are mountains of research for and against biological gender differences, the APA’s guidelines are noteworthy because the association is the largest psychiatric organization in the world and is often at the forefront of changing the worldwide psychological consensus. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $25.00 (as of 10:20 EST - Details) The association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the go-to guide for clinicians, researchers and policymakers around the world. The association was one of the first such groups to stop considering transgenderism as a mental illness, with the publication of its fifth DSM in 2013, clearing the way for a raft of pro-trans policies, like President Obama’s decision to open the military up to transgender recruits in 2016. Shifts in society’s perception of gender have influenced the latest set of guidelines too. “What is gender in the 2010s,”McDermott wrote in the guidelines. “It’s no longer just this male-female binary.” On Twitter, commentators disagree wholeheartedly. “They are taking the wrong stance on men, also due to politics,” one psychologist wrote. | No Author | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/01/no_author/toxic-masculinity/ | 2019-01-11 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,547,197,260 | 1,567,553,016 | science and technology | social sciences |
285,520 | lewrockwell--2019-01-21--Notre Dame Prof Offers 21 Reasons | 2019-01-21T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Notre Dame Prof. Offers 21 Reasons | A professor at the University of Notre Dame is argued that higher education is drowning in “bullshit” in a recent column for the Chronicle. Writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Notre Dame Professor Christian Smith argued in a column last week that higher education has some serious issues. BS is universities hijacked by the relentless pursuit of money and prestige, including chasing rankings that they know are deeply flawed, at the expense of genuine educational excellence (to be distinguished from the vacuous “excellence” peddled by recruitment and “advancement” offices in every run-of-the-mill university),” one complaint read. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $15.00 (as of 05:10 EST - Details) Smith bemoaned the lacked of intellectual diversity in many academic fields, specifically the humanities and social sciences. He argues that the academics in these fields are hypocrites because they fail to live up to the values of diversity and tolerance that they often preach. “BS is the grossly lopsided political ideology of the faculty of many disciplines, especially in the humanities and social sciences, creating a homogeneity of worldview to which those faculties are themselves oblivious, despite claiming to champion difference, diversity, and tolerance,” Smith wrote. | No Author | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/01/no_author/notre-dame-prof-offers-21-reasons-why-higher-ed-is-bullsht/ | 2019-01-21 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,548,061,260 | 1,567,551,590 | science and technology | social sciences |
285,712 | lewrockwell--2019-02-08--Life in the Marxist Age | 2019-02-08T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Life in the Marxist Age | Portland State University philosophy professor Peter Boghossian recently attempted to expose how ludicrous political correctness has become. Unfortunately for him, his attempt succeeded all too well—and now he may be out of a job. Over the course of a few years, Boghossian and two academics produced 20 hoax essays, collectively called “the Grievance Studies” experiment, that were written to be as ridiculous as possible and designed to appeal to small special interest groups made up of mostly far-left scholars. Seven of Boghossian’s bogus studies were accepted for publication by social science journals, including a feminist rewrite of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The journal Gender, Place, and Culture bit on a piece claiming to study “canine rape culture.” In that study, Boghossian and his colleagues charged that, “dog parks are rape-condoning spaces and a place of rampant canine rape culture and systemic oppression against ‘the oppressed dog’ through which human attitudes to both problems can be measured.” Boghossian’s team even claimed to have “tactfully inspected the genitals of slightly fewer than 10,000 dogs whilst interrogating owners as to their sexuality.” Hidden History: An Exp... Donald Jeffries Best Price: $17.28 Buy New $18.76 (as of 07:35 EST - Details) In another eagerly accepted article, the hoaxers demanded that the world of bodybuilding recognize “fat bodybuilding, as a fat-inclusive politicized performance.” For his efforts, which once brought to light should have caused academia to engage in some self-analysis, Portland State University moved to fire Boghossian. “I truly hope the administration puts its institutional weight behind the pursuit of truth, but I’ve been given no indication that’s what they intend to do,” Boghossian said. All of the journals involved are part of the dubious field of “grievance studies.” Some in the mainstream media attempted to rationalize and defend academia’s attachment to the most extreme, and in these cases totally fabricated, areas of identity politics that focus on gender and race. A group of 11 Portland State professors and one graduate student published an anonymous letter in the student newspaper Vanguard, which featured a menacing image of Boghossian equipped with a Pinocchio nose. They charged Boghossian’s team with repeated “fraudulent behavior violating acceptable norms of research in any discipline” and castigated the beleaguered professor for inviting James Damore, who was fired by Google for exercising his right to free speech, to an event at the university. “Boghossian has not only indicated his less-than-collegial attitude through his hoaxes,” they charged, “but has actively targeted faculty at other institutions. None of us wish to contend with threats of death and assault from online trolls.” Some in the academic world displayed a degree of rationality. Yascha Mounk, a Harvard lecturer in government, condemned what he viewed as unfair attempts to undermine the hoaxers. “Even if all of the charges laid at the feet of Boghossian [and the two other authors] were true, they would have demonstrated a very worrying fact,” Mounk wrote. “Some of the leading journals in areas like gender studies have failed to distinguish between real scholarship and intellectually vacuous as well as morally troubling [expletive deleted].” In a recent YouTube video, Boghossian read out an email from Portland State, which threatened an investigation and sanctions against him. “I think that they will do everything and anything in their power to get me out,” he stated. “And I think this is the first shot in that.” Boghossian’s case is merely the latest example of political correctness run amok on college campuses across the country. Earlier this month, it was widely reported that Washington, D.C.’s American University would be hosting a multisession seminar aimed at getting faculty to combat “white language supremacy.” The seminar will also propose “alternative” methods of assessing writing other than quality, such as “labor-based grading contracts.” Survival of the Riches... Donald Jeffries Best Price: $5.00 Buy New $6.35 (as of 07:40 EST - Details) While even the most unthreatening and lukewarm “conservative” voices have been denied the opportunity to speak at various universities, some astonishingly anti-white figures have been welcomed. Christian evangelical Wheaton College, not a typical leftist institution, permitted Emory University philosophy professor George Yancy to speak there in 2017, in the esteemed Billy Graham Center on campus. His speech was filled with expletives and hateful declarations like, “To be white is to be racist.” Stephens College, a women’s college in Columbia, Mo., recently announced that it will “admit and enroll students who were not born female, but who identify and live as women.” All-women Mount Holyoke College canceled plans to change its logo due to protests that it could be perceived as not being inclusive to transgender students. Boghossian merely demonstrated what is obvious: In today’s America, satire is impossible while a frighteningly authoritarian political correctness rules the day. The Best of Donald Jeffries | Donald Jeffries | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/02/donald-jeffries/life-in-the-marxist-age/ | 2019-02-08 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,549,616,460 | 1,567,549,264 | science and technology | social sciences |
285,922 | lewrockwell--2019-02-28--The Trouble With Conservatives | 2019-02-28T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | The Trouble With Conservatives | Daniel McCarthy, editor of Modern Age and editor at large for The American Conservative, recently published an essay on the Spectator USA site titled “Why Libertarians are Wrong.” It merits a response because Mr. McCarthy is friendly and sympathetic toward libertarianism, and despite the infirmities of his article ought to be seen as a fellow traveler. The title misleads us a bit from the beginning, because McCarthy is sound on the single most important libertarian political issue: war and peace. He objected to George W. Bush’s foray into Iraq, he attacks the permanent-war complex and its funding, and he consistently advocates a reasonably non-interventionist US foreign policy far closer to Ron Paul than John Bolton. He also has read Mises and Hayek, and unlike many intellectual conservatives (a dwindling group) McCarthy is not mired in Burke or Buckley or Reagan. He even blogged for the 2008 Paul presidential campaign and has spoken at the Mises Institute on foreign policy. So unlike a Bill Kristol or Sean Hannity, his conservative critique comes without ignorance or malice. But it doesn’t come without errors, a few of them gross. First and foremost, McCarthy reads political libertarianism and support for free markets far too broadly. He wants answers to the great civilization and cultural questions of our day, from China’s influence to the growth of Islam in Europe to wealth inequality and the rise of a bureaucratic overclass. Consider this sweeping criticism: Man, Economy, and Stat... Murray N. Rothbard Best Price: $8.77 Buy New $22.00 (as of 04:20 EST - Details) If this America without a middle class is more politically stable than I think it will be, I suspect it will nonetheless face insuperable external challenges. China won’t have to fight a war with us; it will just outgrow us. When the differential of power and economic productivity is great enough, China will determine the strategic and economic environment in which we live. The cultural and religious environment will also be strongly influenced, if not determined, by the growth of Islam, particularly if Islam succeeds in dominating sub-Saharan Africa. Europe will have to deal with that to a greater extent than we will, of course. I’m not sure that Hayek or Mises are the relevant texts for understanding any of this. Does a libertarian even care whether Islam displaces Christianity or China displaces America, as long as there are no tariffs on steel? You might not have freedom of religion or freedom of speech in the post-Western future, and those cheap consumer goods won’t be so cheap any more, but a libertarian will rest content knowing he fought to import as much foreign-subsidized steel as possible. This is why I consider libertarianism to be every bit as much a suicidal ideology as left-liberalism. In some ways it is even more so, as libertarians are more oblivious than left-liberals to the consequences for themselves of hewing to their ideology. Here is a classic mischaracterization of political liberty, captured so well by Frédéric Bastiat in his famous quote: “every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.” Of course libertarianism per se can’t answer the civilizational questions of our day; of course economics per se can’t make us moral or ethical, much less strategic. Libertarianism is a narrow legal doctrine dealing with the justified use of force in society, a doctrine that makes no exceptions for state actors. Economics is a social science which studies how human actors choose among scarce means to achieve ends. What liberty and markets can do is get out of the way of civil society and markets. A more libertarian society approaches problems privately, outside the narrow purview of the state, with private property and incentives creating skin in the game. Surely Mr. McCarthy, no grandiose neoconservative, understands the limits of state power to solve existential problems. Surely he understands the inherent problems with vote-seeking politicians, public finance, time preference, and democratic voting. Does he really think a more political society, in an increasingly secular and progressive America, is likely to yield conservative answers to the problems he worries about? Does he not understand that civic, social, religious, and cultural organizations ought to have more power than the state? Does he really want social, culture, and moral perspectives — which drive attitudes and actions on issues like immigration, inequality, race, and religion — driven by centralized politics in DC? If so he definitely seeks to redefine “conservatism.” And perhaps he must, succumbing as he does to the progressive hubris that our time, place, and technology somehow create a situation unique in history. Mises and Hayek are insufficient for the vaunted 21st century! We need something new new new! McCarthy, like so many pundits today, imagines a third way between politics (force) and markets (cooperation). He acknowledges the libertarian argument that economies are too complex to be directed, that government interventions create unintended consequences and inefficiencies. But he does not acknowledge how decades of government intervention not only failed to prevent our current predicament, but helped create it. The problems he deems libertarianism unsuitable to fix were largely created by government in the first place. China and the (supposed) loss of manufacturing jobs? Even a slightly more libertarian US economy, with a somewhat lighter regulatory, tax, and tariff monkey on its back, would walk away not only from China but the rest of the world too. Foreign policy and defense spending? Immediate troop withdrawals and radical reductions in military projection, along with real cuts to the military state. Immigration? Private sponsorship and vetting of immigrants, with legal and financial liability residing with sponsors for a term. Rent seeking and cronyism in industries like Big Pharma? Radically slash regulatory and approval processes, eliminate patents, and let generics flourish. Entitlements? Immediate means testing, coupled with a thirty-year phaseout of benefits and immunity from federal payroll taxes for younger workers. As for Islam, why not worry about what’s killing Christianity instead? Is the rise of modern western welfare states and the abject decline of Christianity just a strange coincidence to McCarthy, or does he understand progressive state religion? A robust Christianity, one that serves as a counterbalance to Islam, can’t exist when it’s in direct competition with the state that has far greater control over education, culture, and resources than any Christian group could ever dream of attaining. Now we can argue about the political chances of these ideas, but McCarthy seems to think libertarian proposals (or more libertarian proposals than we’ve got) simply don’t exist. None of this requires conservative government, or much government at all. None of this requires a New Deal, or some Teddy Roosevelt muscular vision for America, or any kind of robust “policies” favoring the middle class. What it does requires radically shrinking the size and scope of the state in society. But as always this makes conservatives suspicious, because they cannot overcome their mythical homo economicus caricature of libertarianism. Human Action: The Scho... Ludwig von Mises Best Price: $7.00 Buy New $10.99 (as of 12:35 EST - Details) Consider this hypothetical: imagine Mr. McCarthy could increase his income tenfold immediately by selling crack cocaine instead of editing conservative journals, without risk of criminal prosecution. Would he do so? Of course not. But why not? Is he a morally superior being, capable of rising above such an enticement—or is the notion of libertarianism as low-tax liberalism for grasping, deracinated economic actors actually silly? It’s even sillier applied across an entire economy of people. Of course McCarthy also questions whether libertarianism can ever succeed as a practical matter, insisting that secession and decentralization are mostly pipe dreams. Fair enough; they may well be pipe dreams in the current environment. But it’s one thing to say libertarians likely won’t prevail, it’s another to insist they’re wrong. Incoherent modern conservativism offers no real alternative to the grim, incremental march of progressive political centralization over the past hundred years; only the exceedingly distant hope that someday they’ll control everything and impose their conservative views on blue state America. But why not focus on reducing political power altogether, especially centralized political power? Social conservatives, even the most well-intentioned and thoughtful, have no answer to the aforementioned collapse of Christianity as an animating force in America. The country is not going to vote its way back into any kind of cultural condition favored by Mr. McCarthy or the Rod Drehers of the world (Mr. Dreher also writes for The American Conservative). Progressivism dominates every sphere of public life in America, and increasingly intrudes into private life as well. So however far-fetched McCarthy might find libertarianism as a political project, the prospects for a President Rand Paul exceed those of a Mike Huckabee or a red state evangelical governor. McCarthy might not see decentralization of state power as a viable strategy, but at this point it’s the only strategy his conservative readers have left, short of expatriation. Only libertarians offer a critique of centralized power in the current environment, and only libertarians offer “live and let live” as a solution to the cultural rancor and political rancor all around us. Only libertarians propose real money, reality-based economics, and abolition rather than reform of doomed government programs. Only libertarians offer any just or humane approach to the question of what politically-vanquished people might do via decentralization and subsidiarity. Realistic conservatives should acknowledge the role the state has served in destroying the culture they claim to want to conserve. Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute. The Best of Jeff Deist | Jeff Deist | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/02/jeff-deist/a-response-to-daniel-mccarthys-why-libertarians-are-wrong/ | 2019-02-28 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,551,344,460 | 1,567,547,068 | science and technology | social sciences |
286,128 | lewrockwell--2019-04-01--Western Culture Has Died | 2019-04-01T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Western Culture Has Died | It is amazing the power that politically correct kooks have acquired over language, art, and literature. It is a sign that the West is culturally dead. When high museums rename paintings because some emotional weakling declares the name to be offensive, it becomes obvious that the custodians of Western culture have lost their belief in Western culture. When universities cover up murials because of a claim they are offensive to people whose presence on the campus is miniscule if present at all, you know that learning is no longer the purpose of the university. When a people are afraid to use the words and terms of their forefathers, you know they have been intimidated to abandon even their own language and ways of speaking. Western culture today consists of pornography, sexual deviants, whinning whimps devestated by mere words, self-hatred, and craven cowards afraid to stand up for themselves against the onslaught of hate directed toward them by political correctness freaks. The Tyranny of Good In... Paul Craig Roberts, La... Best Price: $4.87 Buy New $5.00 (as of 09:00 EDT - Details) The political correctness people are the most alienated and emotionally weak element in the society. Yet they dominate in the media, entertainment, universities, and art world. How is it possible that the Washingtonians are prepared to take us to war with real people—Russians, Chinese and North Koreans—two countries that have already whipped us once—and Persians, an ancient race that even the Romans had a hard time with? Do the fools in Washington really think that our homosexualized, feminized, transgenderized military can take on Russians, Chinese, and Persians? Hollywood can make all the movies it wants with female superheroes, but superheroes are the last thing whinning American feminists are. The real questions for the politically correct crowd are: (1) why isn’t war politically incorrect, and (2) why isn’t it politically incorrect for the politically correct arbiters of language to call the rest of us names? The real racists in America are those who call white people racist. What Your Sons and Daughters Will Learn at University Universities in the 20th century were dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. Scholarship and research were pursued, and diverse opinions were exchanged and argued in the “marketplace of ideas.” This is no longer the case. Particularly in the social sciences, humanities, education, social work, and law, a single political ideology has replaced scholarship and research, because the ideology presents fixed answers to all questions. And, although the most important thing in universities today is the diversity of race, gender, sexual practice, ethnicity, economic class, and physical and mental capability, there is no longer diversity of opinion. Only those committed to the ideology are admitted to academic staff or administration. Universities have been transformed by the near-universal adoption of three interrelated theories: postmodernism, postcolonialism, and social justice. These theories and their implications will be explored here. There Is No Truth; Nothing Is Good or Bad Postmodernism: In the past, academics were trained to seek truth. Today, academics deny that there is such a thing as objective Truth. Instead, they argue that no one can be objective, that everyone is inevitably subjective, and consequently everyone has their own truth. The correct point of view, they urge, is relativism. This means not only that truth is relative to the subjectivity of each individual, but also that ethics and morality are relative to the individual and the culture, so there is no such thing as Good and Evil, or even Right and Wrong. So too with the ways of knowing; your children will learn that there is no objective basis for preferring chemistry over alchemy, astronomy over astrology, or medical doctors over witch doctors. They will learn that facts do not exist; only interpretations do. All Cultures Are Equally Good; Diversity Is Our Strength Our social understanding has also been transformed by postmodern relativism. Because moral and ethical principles are deemed to be no more than the collective subjectivity of our culture, it is now regarded as inappropriate to judge the principles and actions of other cultures. This doctrine is called “cultural relativism.” For example, while racism is held to be the highest sin in the West, and slavery the greatest of our historical sins, your children will learn that we are not allowed to criticize contemporary racism and slavery in Africa, the Middle East, and the equivalents in South Asia. The political manifestation of cultural relativism is multiculturalism, an incoherent concept that projects the integration of multiple incompatible cultures. Diversity is lauded as a virtue in itself. Imagine a country with fifty different languages, each derived from a different culture. That would not be a society, but a tower of babble. How would it work if there were multiple codes of law requiring and forbidding contrary behaviors: driving on the left and driving on the right; monogamy and polygamy; male dominance and gender equality; arranged marriage and individual choice? Your children will learn that our culture is nothing special and that other cultures are awesome. The West Is Evil; The Rest Are Virtuous Postcolonialism, the dominant theory in the social sciences today, is inspired by the Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism, in which the conflict between the capitalist and proletariat classes is allegedly exported to the exploitation of colonized countries. By this means, the theory goes, oppression and poverty take place in colonies instead of in relation to the metropolitan working class. Postcolonialism posits that all of the problems in societies around the world today are the result of the relatively short Western imperial dominance and colonization. For example, British imperialism is blamed for what are in fact indigenous cultures, such as the South Asian caste system and the African tribal system. So too, problems of backwardness and corruption in countries once, decades ago, colonies continue to be blamed on past Western imperialism. The West is thus the continuing focus on anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist sentiment. Your children will learn that our society is evil, and the cause of all the evil in the wider world. Only the West Was Imperialist and Colonialist This ahistorical approach of postcolonialism ignores the hundreds of empires and their colonies throughout history, as well as ignoring contemporary empires, such as the Arab Muslim Empire that conquered all of the central Middle East, North Africa, southern Europe, Persia, Central Asia, and northern India, and occupied them minimally for hundreds of years, but 1400 years in the central Middle East and North Africa, and occupy them today. China, once the Communists took power, invaded Inner Mongolia to the north, Chinese Turkestan to the west, and Tibet to the south. Once in control, the government flooded these colonies with Han Chinese, in effect ethnically cleansing them. Postcolonialists have nothing to say about any of this; they wish to condemn exclusively the West. Your children will learn to reject history and comparisons with other societies, lest the claimed unique sins of the West be challenged. Postcolonialists like to stress the racial dimension of Western imperialism: as an illustration of racism. But postmodernists are not interested in Arab slave raiding in “black” Africa, or Ottoman slaving among the whites in the Balkans, or the North Africans slave raiding of whites in Europe, from Ireland through Italy and beyond. Your children will learn that only whites are racist. White Men Are Evil; Women of Color Are Virtuous Social justice theory teaches that the world is divided between oppressors and victims. Some categories of people are oppressors and other are victims: males are oppressors, and females are victims; whites are oppressors, and people of color are victims; heterosexuals are oppressors, and gays, lesbians, bisexual, etc. are victims; Christians are oppressors, and Muslims are victims. Your sons will learn that they are stigmatized by their toxic masculinity. Individuals Are Not Important; Only Category Membership Is Social justice theory has taken university life by storm. It is the result of the relentless working of Marxist theory, adopted by youngsters during the American cultural revolution of the 1960s, then brought to universities as many of those youngsters became college professors. Marxism as an academic theory was explicitly followed by some in the 1970s and 1980s, but it did not sweep everything else away, because the idea economic class conflict was not popular in the prosperous general North American population. The cultural Marxist innovation that brought social justice theory to dominance was the extension of class conflict from economics to gender, race, sexual practice, ethnicity, religion, and other mass categories. We see this in sociology, which is no longer defined as the study of society but has for decades been defined as the study of inequality. For social justice theory, equality is not the equality of opportunity that is the partner of merit, but rather equality of result, which ensures the members of each category at equality of representation irrespective of merit. Your sons will learn that they should “step aside” to give more space and power to females. Your daughters, if white, will learn that they must defer to members of racial minorities. Justice Is Equal Representation According to Percentages of the Population The Neoconservative Th... Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Best Price: $9.27 Buy New $16.88 (as of 08:50 EDT - Details) As there is allegedly structural discrimination against all members of victim categories, in order for equality of result to prevail, representation according to percentages of populations must be mandated in all organizations, in all books assigned or references cited, in all awards and benefits. Ideas such as merit and excellence are dismissed as white-male supremacist dog whistles; they are to be replaced by “diversity” of gender, race, sexual preference, ethnicity, economic class, religion, and so on. (Note that “diversity” does not include “diversity of opinion”; for only social justice ideology is acceptable. Any criticism or opposition is regarded as “hate speech.”) Academic committees now twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain that “diversity is excellence.” Members of Oppressor Categories Must Be Suppressed Of course, the requirement of representation according to population applies only one way: to members of victim classes. If whites, men, heterosexuals, Christians, etc. are underrepresented, that is fine; the fewer the better. For example, females now make up 60% of university graduates, although in the general age cohort males are 51%. There is no social justice clamoring for males to be fully represented. Members of disfavored oppressor categories are disparaged. The classics of Western civilization should be ignored because they are the work, almost exclusively, of “dead white men.” Only works of females, people of color and non-Western authors should be considered virtuous. So too in political history. The American Constitution should be discarded because its writers were slaveholders. “intersectionality” is an idea invented by a feminist law professor. It argues that some individuals fall into several victim categories, for example, black, female lesbians have three points in the victim stakes, as opposed to male members of the First Nations who receive only one point. Further, on the action front, members of each victim category are urged to unite and ally with members of other victim categories, because sharing the victim designation is the most important status in the world. This leads to some anomalies. Black victims of racism are urged to unite with Arab victims of colonialism, even though Arabs have been and still are holders of black slaves. Being Educated Is About Being on The Right Side As Karl Marx said, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” The objective of a university education today is to ensure that students chose “the right side” in changing the world. The idea that it probably makes sense to try to understand the world before attempting to change it, is rejected as outmoded, modernist empiricism and realism, now superseded by postmodernism and social justice. If there is no Truth, and whatever one feels or believes is one’s truth, then trying to gain an objective understanding of the world is futile. Things you are not allowed to say anymore. The Best of Paul Craig Roberts | Paul Craig Roberts | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/04/paul-craig-roberts/western-culture-has-died-a-politically-correct-death/ | 2019-04-01 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,554,105,660 | 1,567,544,536 | science and technology | social sciences |
286,374 | lewrockwell--2019-04-30--On the American Ideology | 2019-04-30T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | On the American Ideology | “We paint the world to ourselves as we like – until everything breaks down and no longer holds.” We live in the age of the American Empire. It can be that this empire will someday crumble. In the foreseeable future, however, it is here to stay, not on account of its military strength but first and foremost because of its ideological power. For the American empire has achieved something truly remarkable: the internalization of its core belief system as an intellectual taboo into the minds of most people. Granted, all states rest upon aggressive violence, and the USA is no exception. The United States as well do not hesitate to annihilate everyone who opposes their legislative despotism. Though the USA had thus far employed little actual violence to have its orders submissively followed because the overwhelming majority of the population and especially of the opinion-forming intellectuals have accepted the system of values and convictions which makes up the American empire. According to the official, USA approved belief system, we are all equally intelligent and reasonable people, who are confronted with the same “harsh reality” and are bound to the same facts and truths. Of course, it is true, that even in the age of the American empire, in the USA, people do not live in the best of all worlds. There are many more problems to be solved. Though with the American system of a democratic state, humanity has found the perfect institutional framework which makes the next step in the direction of a perfect world possible; and if only would the American system of democracy takeover worldwide, would the way to perfection be clear, smooth and free. The single legitimate form of government is democracy. All other forms of government are worse, and any government is better than none. Democratic states like the USA are of the people, by the people and for the people. In democracies no one rules over the other; instead, the people rule over themselves and are thus free. Taxes in democratic states are therefore contributions and payments for governmentally provided services; accordingly, tax avoiders are thieves, who take without paying. To provide shelter for fleeing thieves is thus an act of aggression against the people, from whom they are trying to escape. Though there are still other forms of governments around the world. There are monarchies, dictatorships, theocracies, and there are feudal landowners, tribes, and warlords. And for this reason, democratic states often must necessarily deal with non-democratic states. Eventually, all states must be converted to the American ideal, because only democracy allows for a peaceful and continual change for the better. Democratic states like the USA and its European allies are inherently peaceful and do not wage war against each other. If they must fight any wars all at, then these are preventive wars of defense and liberation against aggressive and undemocratic states, that is, just wars. All countries and territories that are presently in war with or occupied by American troops or its European allies – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libyan, Syrian, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen – were therefore guilty of aggression and their war waging and occupation on behalf of the democratic West were an act of self-defense and liberation. However, there is still much to be done. Especially Russia and China still pose a huge threat and must be liberated, in order to make the world finally safe. Private property, markets, and profits are useful institutions, but a democratic state must ensure that with the appropriate legislation, private property and profits are acquired and used in a socially responsible manner and that markets function efficiently. Moreover, markets and profit-seeking entrepreneurs cannot produce public goods and are thus incapable of satisfying any social needs. And they cannot take care of the truly needy. Only the state can take care of social needs and the less fortunate. The state alone can, through the finance of public goods and aid to the poor, increase the public welfare, and diminish poverty and the number of the needy, if completely not eliminate. Especially the state has to put the private vice of greed of the pursuit of profit under control. Greed and the pursuit of profit were the leading causes of the most recent large financial crisis. Reckless financiers generated an irrational exuberance among the public, which ultimately had to crash into reality. The market was wrecked, and only the state stood ready to save the day. Only the state, through appropriate regulation and supervision of the banking industry and financial markets, can prevent such a thing from happening again. Banks and companies went bankrupt, yet the state and its central banks held ground and protected the money and jobs of the workers. Advised by the leading and best-paid economists in the world, states and especially the USA have discovered the causes of economic crises and realized that in order to get out of an economic mess, the people must simultaneously consume more as well as invest more. Every cent under the mattress is a cent withheld from consumption and investment, which in turn impairs future consumption and investment expenditure. In a recession, spending must first of all and under all circumstances be increased; and when the people do not spend enough of their own money, the state has to do it instead. Prudently, states have this option, for their central banks can produce any necessary liquidity. If billions of Dollars or Euros are not enough, then trillions will do; and if trillions do not meet the goal, then surely quadrillions will. Only massive state expenditure can prevent an otherwise unavoidable economic meltdown. In particular, unemployment is the result of low consumption: people who do not have enough money to buy consumer goods; this problem must be remedied by providing them with higher wages or higher unemployment benefits. When the last financial crisis is finally overcome, the democratic state can and must devote itself once more to the really urgent remaining problems of humanity: the battle against inequality, the elimination of all unjust discrimination, and the control of the global environment and the global climate in particular. In principle, all people are equal. Differences are only apparent, shallow and meaningless: some people are white, some brown, some black, some are big, others are small; some are fat and others thin; some are male, and some are female; some speak English and others Polish or Chinese as mother tongue. These are accidental human traits. It is a coincidence that some people possess these and some do not. But accidental traits like these have no influence whatsoever on and do not correlate with mental properties like motivation, time preference or intellectual abilities, and they do not contribute to the explanation of economic and social success, especially of income and wealth. Mental and psychic properties have no physical, biological or ethical basis and are limitlessly malleable. In this regard is everyone, except for a few pathological individual cases, equal to the other, and every nation has made in the course of history a contribution to civilization of equal value or would have done so, if only it would have gotten the same chance. Seemingly obvious differences are solely the result of different external circumstances and education. All differences in income and achievements between Whites, Asians, and Blacks, women and men, Latins, Anglos-Saxons and Thais as well as Christians, Hindus, Protestants, and Moslems would disappear, if only equality of opportunity would be established. If instead it will be discovered, that all these different accidental groups are unequally represented in and distributed across different levels of income, wealth, or professional status, some are richer and more successful than others, then this demonstrates unjust discrimination; and such discrimination must be counterbalanced through appropriate, targeted affirmative action on behalf of the state, in which the discriminators have to compensate the unjustly discriminated. And the studies of the leading and best paid social scientists have clearly shown, who, above all, are the discriminators. The people in question are first and foremost white heterosexual males and the institution of the traditional, patriarchal organized family. It is, therefore, most notably this group of people and this institution which must compensate all other groups and apologize to all other forms of social organization. But this would not do. The reparations to all disadvantaged, to all victims of inequality and discrimination, require likewise strong governmental support of multiculturalism. The highly developed and white male dominated countries of the Western world have obtained their wealth at the expense of the inhabitants of all other regions of the world and are caught in a disastrous and prejudiced particularism and nationalism. This situation lends itself to be overcome through the promotion and systematic incentivization of immigration of people from different, foreign countries and cultural environments, in order to ensure that the foreign immigrants could finally unleash their full human potential and simultaneously replace the Western parochialism with an authentic cultural diversity. And with the victory over the disastrous particularism and nationalism through a systematic policy of multiculturalism is one finally able to turn to the crucial stride toward a solution to the undoubtedly biggest global, borderless and world-encompassing problem of climate change. Divergent particularistic and nationalistic interests have thus far lead to the fact that the production and the consumption of non-renewable energy sources were left mostly unregulated and worldwide uncoordinated. And that is why, as the leading and best-paid climate researchers have undoubtedly proven, is the whole globe threatened by unimaginable catastrophes: floods, strong and sudden rising sea levels and the emergence of fatal ecological disequilibria and instabilities. Only through a worldwide, concentrated action by all states, and ultimately the establishment of a supranational world government under the leadership of the USA and an enforced systematic regulation of any production and consumption activities, can this life-threatening danger be avoided. “The common good comes before the individual good” – this is above all, what the problem of climate change shows, and it is on the states and especially on the USA to permanently implement this principle. Now, I tell you no secret when I admit that I hold this for a massive pile of rubbish, for complete nonsense and a highly dangerous one at that – but I also do not belong to the leading and best-paid economics and social scientists, and of climate research, I understand nothing at all! Except that I know, for example, that a global climate warming is no global problem, but one that affects people in different places of the globe entirely differently, a curse for one is a boon for the other, and insofar downright forbids a global solution. Question: who are we to thank for this nonsense, whom does it benefit, and how is it that we are fed daily with it by the official media? Here I want to hint at the answer only very briefly. It has two parts. One has to do with the institution of a state, and especially of a democratic state, with its occupants and representatives. And the other has to do with the intellectuals. The state is a monopoly of legislation and law enforcement. In all conflicts, including those which it or its representatives are involved in, the state or people appointed by the state decide who is right or wrong. The predictable result is: the state is always right, in everything that does. Whether robbed, plundered, killed, lied to and threatened in the name of the state – or summarized in single sentence: when force is exerted on other people and violence is used against other persons – everything can and everything will be painted by it and its agents as just and assigned with another, deceptive and attractive name. This makes the institution of the state naturally attractive for all people who would like to rob, plunder, kill, lie, defraud other people, that is, use violence against others. Above all, it is these kinds of people who therefore try to infiltrate and take over the institution of the state. And if, as under democratic conditions, the entrance in and the occupation of the state stands free and open for everyone, that is, when it becomes a downright competition for votes between power thirsty crooks, then it is to expect, that the persons who will get to the top of the state are those who possess the greatest talent of rhetorically covering up their own predatory, treacherous and murderous intentions and selling these as good deeds to the voting masses. In short: The best demagogues, the best pied pipers, and corrupters get to the top. Though when one looks at these democratically elected politicians and members of parliament, whom day by day impose their obvious megalomaniac will though law or decree on millions of people– can one only marvel. Because these people are as a rule not some kind of formidable, impressive alpha males or females, but an epitome of mediocracy or merely a collection of losers, idiots and failures, who have never in their entire life produced a product or rendered a service which someone would have voluntarily bought with his own money. And faced with these tragic figures, who grandiosely claim to be “our” highest representatives, the question then arises, whether such light-calibrated people are even in the position of conceiving by themselves the entire nonsense which they tell us every day, and furthermore, whether they have what it takes to come up with the diverse justifications and rationalizations for this nonsense which they everywhere feed us. There one surely has a considerable doubt! And that leads me directly to the second part of my answer to the question of the originators and beneficiaries of the above described “politically correct” view of the world and the nature of things: the intellectuals, or put more precisely, those intellectuals who occupy themselves with social, economic and philosophical question and problems, and their connection to the state and its leaders. As in the case of the politicians, so is there in the case of the intellectuals hardly a person who through her intellectual work, her writings and speeches, for these are what she produces, that could secure a comfortable livelihood and income. The market demand for such products is low and is furthermore subject to large deviations. Only a small number of intellectuals would succeed in making a profession out of their writings and speeches. The vast majority of actual or alleged intellectuals would be advised to conduct their scientific interests as a mere inner vocation and to earn their livelihood elsewhere, by the practice of a normal civilian profession. But this naturally contradicts the feeling of self-esteem of an intellectual, and all those who view themselves as such. The intellectuals are convinced of the importance and value of their work like no other group and are accordingly resentful when the alleged appropriate high social recognition fails to materialize. What is then left for them instead? They are usually not suitable for politics, for they are typically too honest and wonkish, too shy, awkward, introverted and particularly antisocial. And for this reason, they mostly lack the desire for power, which is precisely what makes a politician. But the intellectuals are naturally smart enough to know that even if they are not made to be politicians, they nevertheless need the politicians to get the money required for a comfortable living. And they obviously also know what they must offer as a service in return so to get the biggest possible cut of their pillage: namely well-sounding justifications for continually expanding the powers of the state, and “bold” visions and programs with noble, well-intentioned goals, for example, that of “equality of all people” which cannot ever be achieved, no one can ever achieve, but precisely because of this one never has to give up on, but can repetitively revive and ceaselessly renew. And so it comes to an unholy alliance: that of the early, monarchical times between church and crown, and that of today, in the American age, between democratic politicians and intellectuals. The result? Never before were there so many politicians and above all so many alleged intellectuals as well who live and indulge in luxuries at the expanse of an ever-decreasing number of productive persons. And never before, in order to stay among the intellectuals, have the numerous and large universities, as the publicly funded and supported citadels of intellectual power and influence and the breeding ground of future politicians and intellectuals, produced so much horrific intellectual nonsense and contributed to the misleading of the public as in our times. In light of this fact, what can one do? I am afraid that not much – except to repetitively and openly call out the whole hoax. This means that for one thing, to recognize and describe the politicians for what they really are: a band of liars, crooks, robbers, murderers, and associates to murder; and treat them accordingly with contempt, scorn, and ridicule. But also their intellectual masterminds and assistants, without whom the politicians could never carry out their evil work, must be targeted, and as the first step toward a return to normalcy and sound human understanding, to common sense, it is imperative to push for the financial draining of the universities. Not only should all centers for Blacks, Latins, women, gender, and Queer-studies, and everything else that there is of this then unheard of exotica, be closed, but also the social science departments altogether, starting with political science and history, through sociology and up to economics and social and economic statistics (whose statistics also serve the goals of uncovering ever new “inequalities” and to call for redistribution or reeducation!) And likewise should the profession of the academic literary studies and criticism and, as much as it hurt me to say, the profession of the academic philosophers as well be thinned out. And the people who believe, that they know how one controls the climate, one should issue them a certificate of illness and send them for treatment in a psychiatric clinic. Democracy u2013 The Go... Hans-Hermann Hoppe Best Price: $31.84 Buy New $35.73 (as of 11:15 EDT - Details) This does not mean that one should have anything in principle against the work of political scientists, sociologists, economists, statisticians, literary critics, philosophers or climate scientists, or wish that they should cease to exist. Without a doubt, there will be people who genuinely occupy themselves with questions and problems of all disciplines. And that is good and necessary. But surely would the number of such scientists be much smaller. But quantity is not the same as quality, and the reduction in the number of tax-funded social scientists of all kinds is by no means tantamount to an intellectual descent. Completely the opposite. Freed from the intellectual pollution which is currently produced by the universities, appear once more the possibility of a rise of a class of new and better intellectuals, characterized by firm stance and authentic understanding of reality. Yet all of this lies, if it is even possible to arrive at, in the far future. But thank god one need not wait for it any longer. For in the niches of the present madhouse, totally apart from today’s universities and schools and the ongoing charade, there is, in any case in Vienna, around Vienna, and all around Vienna in the German-speaking region, still – or even better: once more – a place in which though one cannot earn any professional credentials or governmental certificates, but in which man can acquire real education and learn and practice critical thought and argumentation: Rahim’s Scholarium. [1] Ohad Osterreicher is studying undergraduate economics at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. The Best of Hans-Hermann Hoppe | Hans-Hermann Hoppe | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/04/hans-hermann-hoppe/on-the-american-ideology-and-its-proponents-and-beneficiaries/ | 2019-04-30 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,556,611,260 | 1,567,541,700 | science and technology | social sciences |
286,740 | lewrockwell--2019-06-29--The Tech Industrys War on Kids | 2019-06-29T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | The Tech Industry’s War on Kids | “We called the police because she wrecked her room and hit her mom… all because we took her phone,” Kelly’s father explained. He said that when the police arrived that evening, Kelly was distraught and told an officer that she wanted to kill herself. So an ambulance was called, and the 15-year-old was strapped to a gurney, taken to a psychiatric hospital, and monitored for safety before being released. Days after being hospitalized, Kelly was brought to my office by her parents who wanted to get help for their troubled girl. Kelly’s parents spoke first. They said that their daughter’s hospitalization was the culmination of a yearlong downward spiral spurred by her phone obsession. Kelly had been refusing to spend time with her family or focus on school. Instead, she favored living her life on social media. A previously happy girl and strong student, Kelly had grown angry, sullen, and was now bringing home report cards with sinking grades. Kelly’s parents had tried many times in prior months to set limits on their daughter’s phone use, but she had become increasingly defiant and deceitful, even sneaking on her phone at all hours of the night. When Kelly’s latest report card revealed a number of failing grades, her parents felt compelled to act. They told Kelly early in the afternoon on the day the police were called that she would need to turn in her phone by 9 p.m. But when the time came, Kelly refused, and a pushing match ensued between her and her parents, concluding in the violent tantrum that led the girl to be hospitalized. 131 Conversations That... Jed Jurchenko Check Amazon for Pricing. I asked Kelly, who was sitting in a corner, to help me understand her perspective on that evening. She didn’t respond and instead glared at her parents. But then, surprising everyone in the room, she cried, “They took my f***ing phone!” Attempting to engage Kelly in conversation, I asked her what she liked about her phone and social media. “They make me happy,” she replied. As Kelly and her family continued their appointments with me in the coming months, two concerns dominated our meetings. The first was that Kelly’s unhealthy attachment to her phone continued, causing almost constant tension at home. The second concern emerged during my meetings with Kelly’s parents alone. Even though they were loving and involved parents, Kelly’s mom couldn’t help feeling that they’d failed their daughter and must have done something terribly wrong that led to her problems. My practice as a child and adolescent psychologist is filled with families like Kelly’s. These parents say their kids’ extreme overuse of phones, video games, and social media is the most difficult parenting issue they face — and, in many cases, is tearing the family apart. Preteen and teen girls refuse to get off their phones, even though it’s remarkably clear that the devices are making them miserable. I also see far too many boys whose gaming obsessions lead them to forgo interest in school, extracurricular activities, and anything else productive. Some of these boys, as they reach their later teens, use their large bodies to terrorize parents who attempt to set gaming limits. A common thread running through many of these cases is parent guilt, as so many are certain they did something to put their kids on a destructive path. What none of these parents understand is that their children’s and teens’ destructive obsession with technology is the predictable consequence of a virtually unrecognized merger between the tech industry and psychology. This alliance pairs the consumer tech industry’s immense wealth with the most sophisticated psychological research, making it possible to develop social media, video games, and phones with drug-like power to seduce young users. These parents have no idea that lurking behind their kids’ screens and phones are a multitude of psychologists, neuroscientists, and social science experts who use their knowledge of psychological vulnerabilities to devise products that capture kids’ attention for the sake of industry profit. What these parents and most of the world have yet to grasp is that psychology — a discipline that we associate with healing — is now being used as a weapon against children. | No Author | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/06/no_author/the-tech-industrys-war-on-kids/ | 2019-06-29 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,561,795,260 | 1,567,537,638 | science and technology | social sciences |
287,065 | lewrockwell--2019-08-14--Why Read Economic Theory | 2019-08-14T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Why Read Economic Theory? | What is most exciting about the Austrian methodology of economic inquiry is that, to quote Mises himself, it does not relegate economics to the classrooms, to the “statistical offices,” and to “esoteric circles.” It instead offers to all who seek such knowledge, a body of insights as to how men relate to other men and how society itself developed from conditions of impoverished despair to a world of abundance and comfort. One of the most devastating aspects of the rise of mathematics and modeling as a method of economics is that this shift pushed economics as a science outside the interest— and grasp— of the layperson. It became a field of “expertise,” for professionals who were well-trained in complex formulas, statistical analysis, and arithmetic activities. But economic phenomena cannot be properly or even accurately understood by downplaying the role of human action in society. After all, what is an economy except a metaphor for the thousands of activities, judgements, allocation decisions, preference scales, and interpersonal relationships between real, living, and reasoning human beings? Getting Libertarianism... Hans-Hermann Hoppe Check Amazon for Pricing. One of the lessons that we derive from studying economics is that the world of wealth that we see around us is not a given in nature. Man did not suddenly appear in the context of a highly refined structure of capital, where there was a completely built out division of labor and developed set of production factors. These things needed to be built and established over the course of thousands of years and, importantly, they were built by human actors who withheld consumption and instead invested their savings into the structure of capital. Over time, the more that this was done, the more later generations would benefit from such past decisions. But they were, in fact, decisions. These decisions were made by human beings who determined that in their choice to push gratification into the future, they would receive more satisfaction than if they had consumed in the present. Moreover, such decisions could only take place to the extent that they were allowed; to the extent that states were unable to prevent such decisions from being made. That is, it was from the freedom of private property owners to freely allocate their resources without state prevention that was the source of the wealth that surrounds modern society. In ages past, in the pre-capitalist era, life was indeed nasty, brutish, and short. It was Darkness and Old Night, where men lived lives of mere subsistence. It was the buildup of capital and the ability for mankind to become more productive with the advent of industry that ultimately created the setting for a more prosperous age. The world that we see around us is a result of the free market order and we know this not because we have tested and compared societies that have the market with those that do not, but because we understand the necessary relationships that men have with each other, with scarce resource allocation, with the capital structure, and with nature itself. It is in studying economic theory that we have the tools required to interpret the course of historical material progress. And with the ability to interpret, we also have the ability to appreciate and hold in high regard the contributions of capitalism and the market order. Liberty can be lost, but so can the benefits of capital accumulation. The well developed capital structure is not a given. It can be eroded by central banks, by government policies and regulations, by a mob of people who do not understand economics but who nevertheless swarm Washington on behalf of policies that will only undermine the progress afforded to us by capitalism. Capital is not self-sustaining; once built up, once it has provided benefits to the world, it can been destroyed, undermined, and consumed. This is in complete contradiction to the narratives of Marxists like Thomas Piketty, who argue that the return on capital is deterministic; merely to own capital is to guarantee future cash flows to oneself. But this is monumentally false. Among the most important roles that the capitalist plays is as a preserver of capital; he bears the burden of ensuring that capital is invested in ways that consumers demand and is allocated toward ends that fulfill not merely the capitalist’s own whims, but the actual demands of society, as communicated via the price mechanism. This means that economic progress depends on the decisions of the owners of capital, who respond not to a marketplace that nudges and suggests arbitrarily, but that threatens to wipe out the value of the capital upon a mistaken interpretation of consumer demand. But while the chance of a capitalist making a poor decision is always present in a world of uncertainty, it is the state, which is always eager to intervene in the market, that is the more systemic and economy-wide threat to the capitalist order. In our time, the intellectuals, the masses, the politicians, and the media all continue to suffer what Mises referred to as the Anti-Capitalist mentality. They propagate the very ideas that will, if employed, undermine the living standards and livelihoods of millions of people around the world. The narratives that they push about wealth, about economic progress, about inequality, and about how the state can save the world are the narratives of destruction and it is the burden of the student of sound economics to counter this message. This is why the understanding of economic theory is important. In the history of the social sciences, we only recently came to understand the nature of economic activity; economics is, as Mises taught us, the youngest of the social sciences. But in our time of bastardized economics and the false hope of state-driven progress, it is imperative, now more than ever, that we attain the intellectual ammunition to counter these themes. There is beauty in understanding the logic of man’s material progress, of gaining appreciation for a world of abundance that is not a given, in seeing the actual cause and effect relationship between liberty and prosperity. Mankind cannot expect continued progress if the components that led to prosperity are decimated. And in studying economics, we have the ability to see these components with staggering clarity. The Anti-Capitalistic ... Ludwig von Mises Best Price: $12.90 Buy New $3.95 (as of 08:40 EDT - Details) And further, we have in sound economic theory the lens through which we can properly decipher the various problems of our time. So often, we are met with competing storylines by statists of various stripes, all working to offer their own government solutions and centralization schemes to the troubles of the day; from inequality to joblessness to the provision of various goods and services. But in so many ways, the lack of a sound economic theory is precisely what unites the technocratic advisors and bureaucratic shapers of public policy. Thus, it is incumbent on those of us outside this realm to continue the depth of our own knowledge and to advance a better interpretation of the economic phenomena that surrounds us. We must read and understand economic theory because in knowledge of the truth, there is hope. To quote Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “if the power of government rests on the widespread acceptance of false, indeed absurd and foolish ideas, then the only genuine protection is the systematic attack of these ideas and the propagation and proliferation of true ones.” We read, and we share what we have come to understand with those around us. We share our knowledge with our children, to the next generation, in hopes that what has been gained shall not be lost. In our embrace of an Austro Libertarian grand narrative of the modern world, we must point out again and again that it was the freedom characterized by the private property system and free enterprise that brought mankind forth from the ravages of nature; and it is by the same that mankind can continue with such progression despite the narratives of statism in all its forms— from interventionism to socialism and everything in between. That is why we read economic theory. | No Author | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/08/no_author/why-read-economic-theory/ | 2019-08-14 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,565,769,660 | 1,567,534,242 | science and technology | social sciences |
287,074 | lewrockwell--2019-08-15--University Sources of Gender and Other Sexual Madness in Our Schools | 2019-08-15T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | University Sources of Gender and Other Sexual Madness in Our Schools | We have reached a point of utter madness where a child is ejected from a classroom for calling a boy a boy. How did this happen? Nuttiness like “gender studies” comes out of the universities. Universities divide academics into departments and fields. Gender studies in universities is a “bullshit” field that sprang from other bullshit fields, meaning unscientific fields, with political and value-laden agendas kept in the background but always present. The civil rights movement and affirmative action in universities created the initial thrust for the formation of these fields. Women’s lib took over from the civil rights movement. From the link above: “After the universal suffrage revolution of the twentieth century, the women’s liberation movement of the 1960 and 1970s promoted a revision from the feminists to ‘actively interrogate’ the usual and accepted versions of history as it was known at the time. It was the goal of many feminist scholars to question original assumptions regarding women’s and men’s attributes, to actually measure them, and to report observed differences between women and men. Initially, these programs were essentially feminist, designed to recognize contributions made by women as well as by men.” 40 Alternatives to Col... James Altucher Best Price: $1.25 Buy New $4.95 (as of 10:15 EDT - Details) The major and early victory of the feminists was to get a SEPARATE area of study for themselves, women’s studies, a discipline separate from the history and other university departments. How did this occur? How did a bullshit field become a discipline with its own journals, budget, hiring, promotions, standards, funding, etc. I hypothesize that this was an “easy” way out for existing administrators and departments to accommodate new affirmative action demands that women be hired. It was the path of least resistance. Furthermore, many existing academics were receptive to these new social ideas of equality. It made them look as if they were progressive and on the cutting edge of research and practice. For administrators, it meant increased donations and government funding through an image of being modern and on the forefront of new findings and ideas. The image is false. No one can make sense of senseless ideas and impenetrable rhetoric and writing. Governments have no business funding departments that are promoting their preferred social and political agendas. Administrators at all levels (presidents, deans, department chairs) like to promote growth. The more people and areas they run, the more capable they seem, especially if they innovate by adding new areas and departments. On paper they look better, and that means a better chance at moving up or moving to another university in a more responsible post. Their budgets rise and they have a stronger case for higher budgets as they add people. Their horizons are relatively short; their incentives are not typically aligned with long-term quality objectives. Universities have a large bureaucratic backbone. The new areas/disciplines could call upon continental European obscure philosophers to gain respectability. After that, it’s just one step more and one thing more: “Soon, men began to look at masculinity the same way that women were looking at femininity, and developed an area of study called “men’s studies”. It was not until the late 1980s and 1990s that scholars recognized a need for study in the field of sexuality. This was due to the increasing interest in lesbian and gay rights, and scholars found that most individuals will associate sexuality and gender together, rather than as separate entities.” The major key to the society-wide spread of nutty ideas is the university acceptance of bullshit fields, because the university influences state funding and donor funding. It presents itself as a worthy recipient of funds. Under this hypothesis, these funding sources also are receptive to ideas of social justice and view the new fields of study as indicative of a progressive university. Besides, legislated funds do not get the scrutiny they should. Subcommittees of legislators interested in their specific little fiefdoms scratch each other’s backs. Donors do not think deeply about where their money is going or what it’s supporting. Better Than College: H... Blake Boles Best Price: $2.29 Buy New $2.99 (as of 02:30 EDT - Details) Within the university, no one is held responsible to a significant degree if bullshit areas develop. Existing tenured professors are even happy if new areas split off and their own department is left intact. Often the existing members vote to hire a radical new person, feeling the pressure to undertake affirmative action. Little by little, the complexion of research areas alters, and eventually we arrive at gender studies. Tenured faculty vote on new hires and unless they defend the purity of their field and defend its science, it will be infiltrated. The older humanities and social science areas are broken down by “interdisciplinary” fields of studies like “woman’s studies”. These have their own journals after awhile. Weaker academics in the traditional areas may be attracted to these new areas if it means gaining publication numbers. Standards of publication are more fuzzy and looser in these new journals. It is easier to say something that is new. In trying to get promoted and tenured, numbers count as opposed to quality, to some extent. A quality publication in an existing field is very hard to achieve, so that some of the weaker professors will try to offset this with higher numbers. The largest external support for the growth of these fields in universities has been the social and political background external to the university: ideas of affirmative action, equality, social justice. However, it’s university “scholars” and “experts” who spread their ideas to secondary and elementary schools. Soon they’ll push these ideas onto pre-schools. Universities need to be taught a lesson, and the way to do that is to defund them. Stop donating freely and blindly. Defund them at the state and federal levels. The Department of Education became a cabinet-level department in 1980. Eliminate it. The Best of Michael S. Rozeff | Michael S. Rozeff | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/08/michael-s-rozeff/university-sources-of-gender-and-other-sexual-madness-in-our-schools/ | 2019-08-15 04:01:00+00:00 | 1,565,856,060 | 1,567,534,178 | science and technology | social sciences |
287,500 | lewrockwell--2019-10-10--Pro-Vaccine Internet Trolls May Be Trained Government Agents | 2019-10-10T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | Pro-Vaccine Internet Trolls May Be Trained Government Agents | Glenn Greenwald, a journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, and author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, has been working with NBC News in publishing a series of articles on how covert government agents infiltrate the Internet to “manipulate, deceive, and destroy reputations.” The information is based on documents leaked by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden. Greenwald’s article, How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations, is based on four classified documents produced by the British spy agency GCHQ, and presented to the NSA and three other English speaking agencies reportedly part of “The Five Eyes Alliance.” In this shocking piece, Greenwald publishes a copy of a spy training manual used entitled: “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.” Greenwald writes that agencies like the NSA are “attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.” Greenwald writes: Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums. No Place to Hide: Edwa... Glenn Greenwald Best Price: $1.85 Buy New $10.92 While this kind of counter-intelligence activity may not sound surprising given the objectives of spy agencies going after terrorists, what disturbs Greenwald (and many others) is that the discussion regarding these techniques have been greatly expanded to include the general public: Critically, the “targets” for this deceit and reputation-destruction extend far beyond the customary roster of normal spycraft: hostile nations and their leaders, military agencies, and intelligence services. In fact, the discussion of many of these techniques occurs in the context of using them in lieu of “traditional law enforcement” against people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or, more broadly still, “hacktivism”, meaning those who use online protest activity for political ends. The title page of one of these documents reflects the agency’s own awareness that it is “pushing the boundaries” by using “cyber offensive” techniques against people who have nothing to do with terrorism or national security threats, and indeed, centrally involves law enforcement agents who investigate ordinary crimes. No matter your views on Anonymous, “hacktivists” or garden-variety criminals, it is not difficult to see how dangerous it is to have secret government agencies being able to target any individuals they want – who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crimes – with these sorts of online, deception-based tactics of reputation destruction and disruption. And while these leaked documents concern the British spy agency, Greenwald is quick to point out that the Obama administration has actually been open and forward about using such techniques in the U.S.: Government plans to monitor and influence internet communications, and covertly infiltrate online communities in order to sow dissension and disseminate false information, have long been the source of speculation. Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein, a close Obama adviser and the White House’s former head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote a controversial paper in 2008 proposing that the US government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-“independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites, as well as other activist groups. Sunstein also proposed sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups” which spread what he views as false and damaging “conspiracy theories” about the government. Ironically, the very same Sunstein was recently named by Obama to serve as a member of the NSA review panel created by the White House, one that – while disputing key NSA claims – proceeded to propose many cosmetic reforms to the agency’s powers (most of which were ignored by the President who appointed them). Trolls Used by Big Pharma to Attack Vaccine Objectors Have you ever been on an Internet forum, blog, or Facebook Page where all of a sudden, out of nowhere, several people appear to contradict the main topic being discussed, especially if it is regarding a controversial topic like vaccines? Well it is entirely possible, and even likely, that it is not coincidence, and that it is a well-coordinated attack by “trolls”. As Greenwald reveals in his recently published article, there are definitely programs in place in government spy agencies to do just that. This tactic of trained trolls can be used by those outside of government also, and Big Pharma seems to be one business sector that employs this tactic as well, especially targeting publishers who report on the dangers of vaccines. Of course it should also be pointed out that the distinction between the government and the pharmaceutical industry is a very hazy one. As we have pointed out several times in the past, the vaccine industry cannot survive in a free market, but needs the government to prop them up. In the 1980s there were so many lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for vaccine damages, that the vaccine industry blackmailed Congress by threatening to get out of the vaccine business unless they passed legislation protecting them from lawsuits. Congress obliged, and legislation was passed preventing the public from suing pharmaceutical companies for damages due to vaccines, and this law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011. The pharmaceutical industry now has a free pass to put as many vaccines into the market place as they want to, regardless of efficacy or dangerous side effects, since there is no accountability left in the judicial system. Today, the pharmaceutical industry is practically a branch of the government. The government awards grants from your tax dollars to research new vaccines, the FDA approves them, and then government organizations like the CDC and UNICEF purchase the vaccines with your tax dollars. The CDC even holds patents and earns royalties on vaccines, and many of the top scientists work for both the government and the pharmaceutical companies. Julie Gerberding, for example, was the head of the CDC from 2002 to 2009, and then took over as head of the pharmaceutical company Merck’s vaccine division overseeing billions of dollars in sales. The government definitely has a vested interest in protecting the vaccine market. So it should surprise no one that there are coordinated efforts to infiltrate and discredit those who publish the truth about vaccines, which may lead to fewer people wanting to purchase or receive them. Consider the following comments appearing on a blog post from a pro-Pharma site discussing how to target sites and Facebook Pages who publish the alternative view of vaccines. Advice is given on how to infiltrate and flood discussions about vaccines by pretending to be victims of diseases because they failed to get vaccinated. I am not going to mention the name of the website and give them publicity, but it has already been established that this site is financed by those with clear ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Here are some comments that appeared in a blog post that was trying to convince readers that outbreaks of diseases were due to “anti-vaccinationists”: Use emotional warfare on anti-vax blogs. Tell emotional stories full of tears and sobbing and unbearable grief and terror, about people in your own family or people you read about, who were sick with or died of terrible diseases. Don’t hold back details about bodily fluids and suchlike: the more gross the better. This stuff has a way of infiltrating the minds of readers and subtly influencing their decisions, in a manner similar to advertising.’ ‘Go in there and “agree with them” and then say things that appear thoroughly delusional, overtly nuts, blatantly and obviously wrong even to nincompoops, etc. Occasional spelling and grammar errors are also useful but don’t over-do. The point of this exercise is to create an impression that drives away undecideds who may come in to check out these sites. It helps to do this as a group effort and begin gradually, so the sites appear to be “going downhill slowly.”‘ ‘But it is useful to have an email address that can’t be traced back, for certain legitimate and ethical uses, just as it is useful to have a mail box at say the UPS store.’ As you can see from this advice, trying to reason or debate on the merits or lack of merits regarding vaccines does not work, so they have to resort to manipulative and deceptive tactics, much the same as what Greenwald was reporting about above in regards to government spy agencies. Here is a comment showing how they also try to outnumber those who are not trolls: These trolls are also adept in creating fake personalities with fake email addresses so that they can continue to infiltrate those who publish the other side of the vaccine debate: 76: The way to do it is to set up a fictitious email address. Speaking from experience working on research on extremist groups: Start by setting one up on your existing broadband provider: AT&T, Comcast, and the rest of ’em give you five or more email addresses of your choice. Create a totally fictitious name and then an address that reflects that name e.g. John Doe and JDoe1234@. Next, get an address on a free service provider such as Yahoo or Hotmail or whatever. Since most of these ask for your “other” email address as proof of identity, give them the one on your broadband provider. They will send a confirmation email to that address giving you your starting password. Third, after about a week of using your new fictitious address in various places that let you sign up for comments, you can be sure it’s working, so then go in and delete the address you created on your broadband service. Typically they deactivate the address immediately and then take a month to free up that slot for re-use. This step ensures that your Yahoo or Hotmail address becomes un-traceable back to your broadband provider. Fourth, wait a month for the original fictitious name to completely purge from your broadband provider. Fifth: Now you’re home free to get onto the anti-vax boards and any other objectionable boards you want to go after, and make all manner of noise to make them look ridiculous and drive away the undecideds. Yeee-hawww, round ’em up! Speaking of rounding ’em up, you now have an untraceable email address … That said, the option of simply going forth and making noise on anti-vax boards makes it all worthwhile. Every undecided you scare away from those boards, is one more family that will probably get their kids vaccinated. The “CENSORSHIP” Accusation: Don’t fall for it Trolls and Internet dissenters love to level the accusation of “CENSORSHIP!” as soon as they are restricted from carrying out their often highly orchestrated opposition to information they would love to suppress from being propagated on the Internet. Don’t fall for this ploy. Permanent Record Edward Snowden Best Price: $14.56 Buy New $13.40 First, there is a huge difference between “moderating” and “censorship.” A blog or Facebook Page that allows for interaction of opposing viewpoints, for example, may still moderate the discussion and prevent trolling. As we have shown above, manipulative deception is common on the Internet, and allowing this kind of activity in one’s own private space is actually allowing the opposing view to get away with their own form of “censorship” by means of deception. Secondly, “censorship” is a neutral term, not a negative one. 100% uncensored speech is both dangerous and illegal. You can be prosecuted in a court of law for many forms of speech, such as slander, child pornography, threats of intent to harm, and many others. I am always amused when moderating Internet discussions on content owned by myself or others we are publishing, and having to delete comments that are either derogatory, offensive, or anything else opposing the purpose of our communication, that we are accused of “censorship” as if we are the ones doing something wrong for suppressing such speech. There seems to be a misguided assumption that anything published on the Internet is owned by the public. Businesses, especially, fall for this common misconception all the time, by allowing unmoderated discussions to occur on their own Internet content. But back when there was only print media, everything that was sent into a media source was censored and filtered, with only the opinions judged by the editors to be worthy of publishing to their readers being accepted and printed. And if businesses published information about their products, they certainly did not allow competitors and adversaries to come into their place of business to attack them and voice their opinions! And if they purchased advertising space in any media, either print, radio, or TV, the voices of those who did not like it were certainly not heard in the advertising space of media it was appearing in. They had to purchase their own space, or try to get a “letter to the editor” published. Yet, when you publish something on the Internet, you own that content! If it is a blog, you can either turn off comments altogether, or you can allow certain comments to be published, according to any standards you see fit! As far as social media, the social media company might provide the platform, but you still own the content. You are under no obligation to allow trolls and others to voice their contrary opinions on your content just because it is published on the Internet. People are free to publish their own content in their own space – they have no right to do it in yours. Of course the owner of the social media platform might engage in their own form of censorship or restrictions, but that is a topic of another article to follow. For now, if you are a publisher of content on the Internet today (as almost everyone is), just be aware that as you grow in popularity, you may very well start attracting trolls trying to discredit you or your message. Be aware of their tactics, and take action accordingly to protect your freedom of speech. This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC. | No Author | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/10/no_author/internet-trolls-may-be-trained-government-agents-according-to-leaked-document/ | Thu, 10 Oct 2019 04:01:00 +0000 | 1,570,694,460 | 1,570,715,330 | science and technology | social sciences |
287,781 | lewrockwell--2019-11-18--This Is the Big Reason Why Corporate America Has Gone Woke (plus 4 more) | 2019-11-18T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | This Is the Big Reason Why Corporate America Has Gone Woke (plus 4 more) | Why have the biggest and most profitable American corporations embraced leftist politics, as seen in their woke advertising and social justice activism? Hint: It’s not because they’ve become non-profits and taken up philanthropy. Judging by the Ted Talks of woke American CEOs, by the woke corporate advertising, and by the public relations campaigns promoting corporate ‘brand activism,’ one might reasonably conclude that the most successful, for-profit corporate giants in America have gone out of the money-making business to become centers of leftist political propaganda. And it’s not only the most woke corporate behemoths that promote leftist political notions. Go to a startup crowdfunding portal and count how many times the word “democratizing” is used to describe the mission of the startups there, or how many startup investments are pitched with the supposedly progressive political outlook of the prospective investor in mind. What one encounters – from the boardrooms to the storyboards and beyond – is a nauseating, woke-up blend of equal parts Communist Manifesto, social justice handbook, sanctimonious sermon and used car sales pitch. Google Archipelago: Th... Michael Rectenwald Best Price: $14.76 Buy New $14.60 Just why has corporate America gone woke (while not yet broke)? Below, I run-down some of the possible explanations for woke capitalism or corporate leftism – from five to one – with five being the least compelling and one being the most. 5. The bosses are woke themselves. CEOs and other corporate executives went to business schools that weren’t that far away from social science and humanities departments. Business professors became friends with humanities and social science professors, who are notoriously left-leaning. Their leftism rubbed off on the business professors, who then spread it to their students, who went on to run corporate America. 4. To pander to their clients. Corporate leftism pleases the corporate customers with the most disposable income, those between 25 and 54, who likely live on the east and west coasts. This demographic includes millennials, whose politics are notoriously left-leaning. Choosing these “coastal elites” over the deplorables in “flyover states” has been an easy decision. The deplorables have less money anyway and they can go to hell if they don’t like corporate wokeness. 3. Being woke is easier than actually paying workers. Corporate wokeness acts as a placebo, a substitute for economic concessions by corporations. The statements of woke CEOs, the woke ads, the woke activism – these cost a lot less than higher wages and better benefits for workers, or lower prices for customers. Plus, the dummies seem to fall for it every time. 2. To keep the government wolf from the door. Woke capitalism appeases the political elite, putting corporations in the good favor of liberal lawmakers, in the hopes of favorable treatment from the latter. As liberals, these political operatives are more likely to impose burdensome regulations or to initiate anti-trust legislation that would pose big problems. Why not tell them what they want to hear? 1. Wokeness is itself part of globalist capitalism. Leftist politics are perfectly compatible with and supportive of the agendas of global corporate giants. Global corporations and leftist activists want the very same things: · Globalism – or, in Marxist terms, “internationalism” – has always been a goal of the left and it has become a goal of multinational corporations. The latter extend their markets far and wide while the former think it advances the Marxist objective of “workers of the world unite!” Springtime for Snowfla... Michael Rectenwald Check Amazon for Pricing. · Unrestricted immigration: Provides cheap labor for corporations and makes leftists feel politically edgy and morally superior for being anti-racists who welcome everyone – whatever their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation – including Mexican gang members running drugs and children? – into the country, but not to camp out in their living rooms. · Transgenderism or polygenderism, the leading edge of leftist identity politics, is also good for business. It creates new niche markets for corporate products, keeps the workforce divided, and distracts leftists with daily arcana and absurdities. · Getting rid of nations, stable gender, the family, Western culture and (why not?) Christianity – the hallmarks of leftist “progress” and avant garde politicking – also advances global corporatist objectives, removing any remaining obstacles to global corporate dominance. | No Author | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/no_author/this-is-the-big-reason-why-corporate-america-has-gone-woke-plus-4-more/ | Mon, 18 Nov 2019 04:01:00 +0000 | 1,574,067,660 | 1,574,106,053 | science and technology | social sciences |
287,973 | lewrockwell--2019-12-09--The Genius of Hoppe | 2019-12-09T00:00:00 | lewrockwell | The Genius of Hoppe | [This talk was delivered 23 November at the Palais Coburg in Vienna, Austria, at an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the publication of Mises’s Human Action.] Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for people as young as 20 or 30 to feel they have to share their memories with the world. Even at an advanced age, I prefer not to talk publicly about personal things and experiences in my life, but to reserve this for private conversations. But on the occasion of this event I would like to tell you something about my intellectual development: about my development from a child of his time, who through his encounter with Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian School of Economics became an intellectual exotic – some would say a dangerous madman – apparently from a different time. And to this end a little biographical background is appropriate. I was born in 1949 in post-war Germany, the same year that Ludwig von Mises’ magnum opus Human Action was published, which I was to discover almost 30 years later, and which had a decisive influence on my intellectual development, and which today, on this occasion, is to be presented for the first time translated into German. Human Action: The Scho... Ludwig von Mises Best Price: $17.50 Buy New $24.95 My parents were both refugees from the area of the former GDR, who after the war had ended up in a small village in Lower Saxony, West Germany. My father was a self-employed master tailor – among many other things, a common feature I have with Roland Baader, whose father was also a master tailor – who after having been a prisoner of war did not return to his Soviet-occupied hometown. The family of my mother, who was later to become a primary school teacher, had been expropriated by the Soviets in 1946 as so-called east-Elbian Junkers and had been driven out of their homes and farms, carrying nothing more than their backpacks. Until our move to the nearby district town, seven years after my birth, we lived in great poverty, with an outhouse outside the tiny workshop apartment. But as a boy I didn’t really notice that. On the contrary, I remember my first years as a little village boy as a very happy time. Since the early fifties my family, thanks to the enormous hard work of my parents and their life-long practiced resolute and disciplined thriftiness, experienced an economic upswing year after year. The local edition of the Hannoversche Allgemeine was read regularly in my parents’ house and every Monday Der Spiegel magazine fluttered into the house. There were also a number of books, classical literature like that of Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist and Fontane, and modern literature like that of Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Max Frisch, Böll and Grass. There were also a few works on German, European, and ancient history, as well as various reference works and atlases. My parents were eager readers themselves and always encouraged me to read, whereby history always fascinated me more than literature (and this has remained so to this day). We did not have a television until I was 16 or 17 years old. But my parents were not intellectuals who could have guided me in my reading, disciplined me or sharpened my judgment. And I would pass the same judgment on my grammar school teachers, almost all of whom came from the war and pre-war generation. The history lessons at school strengthened my interest in studying history, the biology lessons drew my attention to Konrad Lorenz and ethology, and the religious instruction given by a Protestant theologian awakened my interest in philosophy for the first time. It was however not least this burgeoning interest in philosophical questions that also led to my increasing intellectual dissatisfaction and disorientation. Many of the answers and explanations I received for my questions seemed arbitrary, more opinion than knowledge, contradictory or inconsistent. Where did these contradictions and disputes come from, on the basis of which criteria could they possibly be resolved and decided, or was there perhaps no clear answer to certain questions? Above all, however, I missed something like an intellectual systematization, an overall view of all things and connections, and it was especially this need and the search for a solution that made me – initially and for some years – a typical child of my time: the time of student rebellion, which began in the late 1960s, during my final two school years, and reached its peak in 1968, the year in which I began my university studies, and whose spiritual products were later to be called the 68 generation. Inspired by the leading figures of the student rebellion, I first began to study Marx and then the theorists of the new left, the so-called cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School: Marcuse, Fromm, Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas, etc., assuming I would find an answer to my questions from them. I became (temporarily) a socialist, albeit not a follower of the ‘real existing socialism’ as practiced in the former GDR, which I knew from my own experience from regular visits of relatives and whose miserable, pitiful economy of scarcity and its proletarian leaders disgusted me. Instead, I became a follower of, as it was called, “humane democratic socialism,” led by a supposedly wise elite of philosophers. And so it came to pass that Jürgen Habermas, at that time the rising young star of the new left and today the high priest of social democratic statism and politically correct virtue-signalling, became my most important first philosophy teacher and dissertation supervisor. In 1974, the year of my PhD, my socialist phase was of course already over, and my dissertation on an epistemological topic – a critique of empiricism – had nothing to do with socialism or ‘the “left.” My short leftist phase was followed by an equally short ‘moderate’ phase. Instead of the Frankfurt School, my intellectual curiosity was now increasingly focused on the Viennese School. More specifically: to the so-called Viennese circle around Moritz Schlick, and even more specifically to Karl Popper’s philosophy, which is located at the edge of this circle of logical positivists. The core of Popper’s philosophy, which to this day is probably the most widespread and influential worldview, especially in the non-academic field, is the following double thesis: All statements about reality are of a hypothetical nature, i.e. they can be refuted or falsified by experience. Conversely, all non-hypothetical, a priori or apodictic statements, i.e. statements which in principle are not exposed to falsification, are statements without reference to reality. I was by no means prepared to accept the universality of this thesis. (By the way: Is this a hypothetical or an apodictic statement?) Even while working on my doctoral dissertation, I came across Paul Lorenzen and the so-called Erlangen School, which made the validity of the Popper thesis appear highly doubtful, especially in the field of natural sciences. Isn’t it necessary to first collect and measure data and carry out controlled experiments in order to test a hypothesis regarding causal connections? Doesn’t the knowledge regarding the construction of measuring instruments and the performance of controlled experiments come methodically before the hypothesis test? And doesn’t the falsifiability of hypotheses owe itself to the non-falsifiability of the construction of measuring instruments and the methodology of experimenting? Today I consider the importance of these questions to be greater than I did then, but this is not the place or the opportunity to pursue this subject (or any higher philosophy at all). Then (as now), my main interest was in the social sciences, and as far as that is concerned, I was to a large extent initially willing to follow Popper. Like Popper, I thought that social science statements were generally hypothetical, in principle falsifiable ‘if then’ statements, and that practical social research must be, as Popper put it, “piecemeal social engineering.” One must always test one’s hypotheses before either proving them for the time being (but never definitively) or falsifying and revising them. Non-falsifiable statements, on the other hand, especially those that relate to reality, i.e. about real objects, do not exist in the social sciences. Democracy - The God Th... Hans-Hermann Hoppe Best Price: $34.81 Buy New $43.12 Today I consider this thesis of Popper’s, apparently so tolerant and open to experience, not only to be wrong, but I also consider it to be downright disastrous or even dangerous. First, a small example from everyday experience to demonstrate their error. No one will want to expose the statement “a person cannot be in two different places at the same time” to falsification. Instead, we accept it as an “apodictic” or “a priori” true statement. And yet it undoubtedly has a reference to reality, as every fan of crime thrillers knows. For if Mr Meier was stabbed to death in Vienna on January 1, 2019 and Mr Müller was in New York at that time, then Mr Müller cannot be considered a murderer in this case: not only hypothetically not, but clearly and categorically not. This statement forms the basis of the so-called alibi principle, which repeatedly provides us with infallible help in everyday life. My complete break with Popperism came about while working on my habilitation thesis on the foundations of sociology and economics. On the one hand, it became clear to me that when explaining human action one cannot in principle do without the categories of choice, purpose or goal, means, success or failure, whereas natural events and natural processes “are as they are” and must be explained causally, without any reference to choice, goal, means, success or failure. On the other hand, less obvious and of incomparably far greater significance, it became clear to me that the sciences of human action contain a segment: the economy (in contrast to history and sociology), in which one can very well make apodictic statements and judgments, in such a way that one does not have to test something in order to know how it ends, but where one knows the result from the outset, ‘a priori,’ and is able to predict it with certainty. While studying economics I came across statements such as the quantity theory of money, according to which an increase in the money supply leads to a reduction in purchasing power per monetary unit. For me it was obvious that this statement is a logically true statement, which cannot be falsified by any ‘empirical data,’ and nevertheless a statement with a clear reference to reality, about real things. But wherever I looked in contemporary literature, whether on the left by Paul Samuelson or on the right by Milton Friedman, the entire guild of economists was, to put it bluntly, in love with the Viennese philosophy of logical positivism or Popperism, according to which such apodictically true real statements are impossible or scientifically inadmissible. For them, this statement was instead either a mere tautology, a definition of words made up of other words (without any reference to reality), or a hypothesis to be tested that could be empirically falsified. However, the intellectual tension and irritation which initially arose from this apparent discrepancy quickly dissipated to my full satisfaction. On winding paths I had finally come across Mises’s Human Action in my studies – in the library of the University of Michigan. Mises not only confirmed my judgment about the logical character of central economic statements, he also presented a whole system of apodictic or a priori statements (his so-called praxeology) and explained the errors and disastrous consequences of the positivist philosophy of Viennese provenance, the central protagonists of which he, as their contemporary, was intimately familiar with. The discovery of Mises and, immediately afterwards, that of his American students, in particular of Murray Rothbard, brought me, on the one hand, a great intellectual relief – here was finally the long-awaited integrated, coherent overview of all things, an architectonic of human knowledge! – on the other hand, however, it also brought with it much anger and disappointment and led to an increasing alienation from the academic-university business and prevailing public opinion. This ambivalent development – increasing intellectual certainty on the one hand coupled with increased social alienation on the other – can be illustrated and explained on the basis of a small list of examples of apodictic or quasi-apodictic statements, as brought to light by the Mises-Rothbard School – the so-called Austro-Libertarians. For each of the following examples, a more detailed explanation exists as to how far the statement in question is not a falsifiable statement in Popper’s sense, but I simply trust here that this circumstance is always immediately, intuitively understandable, and that in any case the concentrated power of the various examples is sufficient to recognize that one by no means has to try and tolerate everything in order to know how it ends (and also how it definitely does not end). Thus, for example, the previously mentioned quantity theory leads to the statement that it is impossible to increase social prosperity by increasing the money supply. How else should one explain that despite the existing possibility of any amount of increase in paper money, poverty continues to exist in some places, unchanged. An increase in the amount of money can only ever lead to a redistribution of a given stock of welfare goods. It favors the first and early recipients of the new, additional money at the expense of the last and late users. Let me continue with a whole battery of statements of similar, i.e. apodictic or quasi-apodictic, quality. Human action is the conscious pursuit with scarce resources of goals regarded as valuable. No one can deliberately not act. Every action strives to increase the subjective well-being of the actor. A larger quantity of a good is always preferred to a smaller quantity of the same good. The earlier attainment of a given goal by given means is preferred to its later attainment. Only those who save – spend less than they earn – can increase their prosperity permanently (unless they steal). What is consumed today cannot be consumed again tomorrow. Price fixings above the market price, such as minimum wages, lead to unsalable surpluses, i.e. to forced unemployment. Price-fixing below the market price, such as rent ceilings, leads to shortages and a persistent shortage of rented housing. Without private ownership of production factors – in classical socialism – there can be no factor prices and without factor prices an economic calculation is impossible. Taxes – compulsory charges – are a burden on income producers and/or property owners and reduce production and capital formation. No form of taxation is compatible with the principle of equality before the law, because any taxation involves the creation of two unequal classes of persons with conflicting interests: those of the (net) taxpayer on the one hand, for whom taxes are a burden one seeks to reduce, and on the other hand the class of recipients or rather consumers of (net) tax, for whom taxes qua source of income are a delight that one seeks instead to increase as much as possible. Democracy – majority rule – is incompatible with private property – individual property and self-determination – and leads to creeping socialism, i.e. to ongoing redistribution and the progressive erosion of all private property rights. Whatever is subsidized by taxes, such as lounging about or doing things for which there is no profitable customer demand, is further encouraged and strengthened by the subsidy. Whoever is not personally liable for the repayment and redemption of so-called public debts incurred by him or with his participation, as is the case today with all politicians and parliamentarians, will frivolously and without hesitation take up debts for his own present advantage and to the detriment of an impersonal future public. A Theory of Socialism ... Hans-Hermann Hoppe Best Price: $6.99 Buy New $10.70 Whoever controls a territorial money printing monopoly enforced by state power, like all so-called central banks, will also make use of this privilege and, even if an increase in the amount of money can never increase social prosperity as a whole, but can only redistribute it, will still print more and more new money for his own benefit and that of his direct affiliates and closest business partners. And finally, there’s this: Whoever or whichever institution has a territorial monopoly on the use of force and jurisdiction, as actually claimed by all states, will also make use of it. I.e. he will not only exert violence himself, but he will also declare his exertion of violence to be lawful by virtue of his ultimate legal representative. And in all conflicts and disputes of a private person with representatives of this institution (the state) no independent, neutral third party decides on good and evil, or about the guilt and innocence of the opponents, but always and invariably an employee, i.e. a dependent representative, one of the two conflict parties (the state) itself, with a corresponding, reliably predictable partisan, “state-supporting” result. The list of such apodictic or quasi-apodictic statements could easily be continued, but it should be long enough to see what kind of consequences arise from this ensemble of elementary insights of social science. Obviously, these insights are in blatant conflict with social reality. In this reality there are monopolies of violence, monopolies of money printing, taxes, taxpayers and tax consumers, tax-subsidized idleness and uselessness, majority rule (democracy), public debt, politicians and parliamentarians exempt from liability, capital consumption (consumption without saving), redistribution of property, minimum wages and maximum rents. And what’s more, all these acts and institutions are not subject to constant criticism. On the contrary, they are, almost monotonously and from all quarters, presented and praised as self-evident, correct, good and wise. The consequence of these insights and their comparison with social reality should be clear. To put it colloquially: one is – and I myself was – at first simply flabbergasted. It became increasingly clear to me what blatant madness prevails in the present world. And I was flabbergasted at the time and effort it had taken me to arrive at this in fact obvious insight. And there were obviously two reasons for this insanity. One was simply human stupidity. Although the ends one supposedly pursued might have been well-meaning, one was mistaken in the choice of means. It was stupid, for example, to try to fight unemployment with minimum wages or housing shortages with rent caps. It was stupid to expect more general prosperity from an increase in the money supply or more economic growth from an expansion of credit (without increased savings). It was stupid to introduce democracy as a means to protect property. And it was also stupid to expect a reduction in violence or even justice, i.e. impartial conflict resolution, from the establishment of a monopolist on the use of force and the judiciary (i.e. a state); because taxes, i.e. the threat and use of force, and partisanship in conflict resolution are essential characteristics of any state. But it was by no means (and unfortunately) only stupidity or ignorance that was responsible for the rule of madness. There was also deliberate deception, lies and fraud. There were also liars and deceivers who knew all this. They knew that the aforementioned measures and institutions could not, and could never, lead to the benevolent results hoped for by their simpler contemporaries, who nevertheless or precisely because of that propagated and supported them vigorously, because they themselves and their friends and followers could profit from them – even if only at the expense and to the chagrin of others. And, of course, it became immediately clear to me who the people and circles, who were these crooks and their minions, were. And another thing I understood through my studies of Mises and his school of thought: the reason for the popularity and the affectionate promotion of Popperism especially in these circles. For it is not only this philosophy that allows any insane assertion to be considered hypothetically possible and any nonsense to be tried out. On the contrary, it also allows, quite contrary to its alleged receptivity and openness to experience, to protect any nonsense with cheap excuses against refutation. If minimum wages do not reduce unemployment or poverty, it is because they are not high enough. If money or credit expansion does not lead to increased prosperity, it is because it is too small. If socialism leads to impoverishment instead of prosperity, it is only because it was executed by the wrong people, or because climate change or some other ‘intervening variable’ has intervened, etc., etc. However, as already indicated, all this knowledge and understanding and the inner peace, satisfaction and yes, joy, which one, which I, experienced through my encounter with Mises’s work, also had its price. For once you have understood your Mises and learned to see the world with Austrian eyes, you will quickly notice, at least if you admit to it, that in many respects you are quite lonely and isolated. Not only was one faced with the opposition of all (these) political crooks, but also of large sections of their various minions, especially the entire, almost exclusively tax-financed academic-university establishment, which I tried to find a way into. An academic career was difficult, if not impossible, and it took considerable courage, willingness to fight, and sacrifice not to resign or give up. In Germany – let alone Austria – I was at that time out on a limb. I therefore decided to move to America. And so Mises became not only an intellectual but also a personal role model for me. Mises had been denied a regular academic career in Austria and, after the National Socialists seized power, was forced to emigrate to the US. Even there, in the heartland of capitalism, it was difficult for him to gain a foothold. But his courage and will to fight were unbroken and he managed to make his work increasingly heard and to raise a new generation of students, especially the brilliant Murray Rothbard. Rothbard, too, had been obstructed throughout his life, and his academic career had been rather bumpy. But it was Rothbard who now took me under his wing in the USA, helped me to obtain a professorship and in particular connected me with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, founded by Lew Rockwell in 1982 and inspired by him, Rothbard, as academic director. It is, essentially, thanks to the work of the Mises Institute, with which I have remained closely connected from its humble beginnings to the present day, and which, under the direction of the incomparable Lew Rockwell, has grown into an institution with worldwide appeal and connections, that an event like this one can once again take place in Austria today. Thanks to his work, the names and works of Mises and Rothbard are much better known today than they were during their lifetimes. In fact, there is no country in the world where there are no Misesians or Rothbardians. My own writings are now also available in more than 30 languages. And it is certainly also an indicator of the progress that the Austrian school has since made, when an audience of 1,500 attended a lecture that I recently gave, in Moscow of all places, and a few hundred more even had to be turned away due to lack of space. In spite of this undeniable progress, one cannot, of course, hide the fact that the Misesian Austrian School still represents an intellectual outsider-position. Indeed, especially as an “Austrian” one has every reason to be pessimistic about the further development of the Western world, at least in the short and medium term. For we are currently living through a period in which the normal madness, which I have already mentioned, is once more intensified by the crazy doctrine of political correctness and the pathological, quasi-religious climate mania of infantile so-called climate protectors, confronted with whom one often no longer knows whether to simply howl and cry, or instead crack up laughing. However, today there is no more stopping the Mises School. And when the truth finally wins out, because only what is true can also work smoothly in the long run, then the hour of the Austrian School of Economics will have come. The Best of Hans-Hermann Hoppe | Hans-Hermann Hoppe | https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/12/hans-hermann-hoppe/my-path-to-the-austrian-school-of-economics/ | Mon, 09 Dec 2019 04:01:00 +0000 | 1,575,882,060 | 1,575,894,770 | science and technology | social sciences |
290,112 | lifesitenews--2019-11-01--Trump admin: Adoption agencies won’t be forced to give kids to same-sex couples | 2019-11-01T00:00:00 | lifesitenews | Trump admin: Adoption agencies won’t be forced to give kids to same-sex couples | WASHINGTON, D.C., November 1, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The Trump administration announced Friday that it will not be enforcing Obama-era rules forcing faith-based adoption and foster agencies to place children in same-sex households, and proposed new rules specifically recognizing the religious and conscience rights of such organizations. Whereas the Obama administration added “sexual orientation” language to “non-discrimination” rules governing federal funds to adoption and foster agencies, the Trump Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it will be replacing it with a new rule that retains most of the old rule’s non-controversial langauge. However, it will revise certain provisions to bring them in line with “applicable nondiscrimination provisions passed by Congress and signed into law, including legislation ensuring the protection of religious liberty, and to provide that HHS complies with all applicable Supreme Court decisions in administering its grant programs.” “The proposed rule represents the Trump Administration's strong commitment to the rule of law―the Constitution, federal statutes, and Supreme Court decisions,” HHS said. “These require that the federal government not infringe on religious freedom in its operation of HHS grant programs and address the impact of regulatory actions on small entities.” Religious and conservative groups praised the move as a fulfilment of President Donald Trump’s commitment to religious liberty. “We commend the Administration for acting to change a 2016 regulation that threatened to shut out faith-based social service providers, namely adoption and foster care agencies that respect a child’s right to a mother and a father,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement. “We are alarmed and saddened that state and local government agencies in multiple jurisdictions have already succeeded in shutting down Catholic adoption and foster care agencies as a result of their Catholic beliefs. At a time when over 400,000 children are in foster care, we need to take steps to increase – not decrease – their opportunities to be placed with safe and loving families.” “The proposed HHS rule frees faith-based adoption and foster care groups participating in programs that receive federal grants from the prior administration’s demand they include sexual orientation as a protected trait under anti-discrimination protections,”said Catholic Association Foundation legal advisor Andrea Picciotti-Bayer. “This demand, made in the waning days of the Obama administration with no legislative or judicial mandate, limits the good done for needy kids by faith-based agencies because of their longstanding beliefs about marriage. Agencies that find loving foster and adoptive homes shouldn’t be subject to ideological shakedowns by the government.” “Until recently, the idea of the government assisting these groups in their work was completely uncontroversial,” American Principles Project executive director Terry Schilling said. “Incredibly, however, states and localities like Michigan and Philadelphia have lately begun to demand these groups violate their consciences or lose all support, as did the Obama administration. Amid a nationwide foster care crisis, this ideological grandstanding is utterly unconscionable. Thankfully, from day one President Trump has committed to put the needs of children and the protection of religious liberty above politics.” A variety of social science literature supports the view that children are best served by homes with both a mother and a father, as men and women bring distinct strengths and emphases to parenting, and children require guardians and role models of both sexes for development and socialization. Furthermore, numerous individuals raised in same-sex homes have attested that the experience was harmful. Last year, House Republicans introduced legislation that also would have also prevented religious groups from losing federal funds solely because they refuse to place children in same-sex homes. | null | https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/trump-admin-announces-rules-protecting-conscience-rights-of-religious-adoption-orgs | 2019-11-01T21:36:00+00:00 | 1,572,658,560 | 1,572,881,004 | science and technology | social sciences |
290,672 | lifesitenews--2019-12-18--Without children raised by their moms and dads, the US will destroy itself | 2019-12-18T00:00:00 | lifesitenews | Without children raised by their moms and dads, the US will destroy itself | December 17, 2019 (CatholicCulture.org) — When social scientists study family life, one factor trumps all others. Study after study confirms what common sense suggests: children are better off when they are raised in an intact home, raised by their mothers and fathers together. The data are overwhelming, and they all point in the same direction. Children raised in a single-parent household are, statistically: • less likely to perform well in school, • more likely to live in poverty as adults, • less likely to be physically healthy, • more likely to compile a criminal record, • less likely to earn a college degree, • more likely to suffer emotional disorders, • less likely to succeed professionally, • more likely to abuse alcohol or recreational drugs, • less likely to marry and stay married, and therefore • more likely to continue the cycle of misery by becoming single parents themselves. Yet despite what we know about all these problems, our nation’s policies continue to encourage single-parent households. Welfare programs encourage women to give birth out of wedlock, and penalize them for marrying the babies’ fathers. Lawyers paid by the government help women secure divorces, and social workers (again paid by the government) discourage reconciliation. Tax deductions and outright subsidies are available to parents who send their children to day-care centers — but not those who care for their children in their own homes. Here’s another common-sense observation that social science confirms: If you subsidize something, you’ll get more of it; if you tax it, you’ll get less. Sure enough, after decades of misbegotten family policies, the US now leads the world — by a wide margin — in the one category most likely to produce societal disaster. Today nearly one-fourth of all American children — 23% — are living in a single-parent household. No other country comes close to that mark. In most European countries the figure is in the low to middle teens; in Asia, below ten. In 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan called attention to a crisis in the African-American family, he pointed to the rate of out-of-wedlock births: 25%. At the current rate the entire nation will surpass that rate within the next year or two. The implications of that shocking statistic are predictable. Over the next generation — barring a dramatic change in our society — we will face higher rates of crime, drug addiction, welfare dependency, unemployment, emotional pathology, and, yes, family breakdown. (Oh, and by the way China, which is bidding to replace the US as the world’s superpower, won’t have the same problems; there the percentage of children in single-parent households is just 3%.) Do you want to salvage our future? Save our children. You want to save our children? Save marriage. | null | https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/without-children-raised-by-their-moms-and-dads-the-us-will-destroy-itself | 2019-12-18T00:22:00+00:00 | 1,576,646,520 | 1,576,670,516 | science and technology | social sciences |
292,058 | liveaction--2019-09-01--Economist Birth control has devastating financial consequences for women children | 2019-09-01T00:00:00 | liveaction | Economist: Birth control has devastating financial consequences for women, children | Despite the popular belief that birth control is necessary to lift women out of poverty, the United States Census Bureau found that more, not fewer, children are being raised by single mothers — and single mothers are more likely to live in poverty. From 1960 to 2016, the number of U.S. children living with two married parents dropped 19 percent — and the number of children living with just their mother tripled from nine percent to 23 percent of all children under the age of 18. This represents about 17 million children. Numbers from the Pew Research Center report that 27 percent of single mothers live in poverty. Even though there are five times more single mothers raising children than single fathers, single mothers are significantly more likely to be poor than single fathers are. In 2010, economist Timothy Reichert argued that contraception actually has devastating economic consequences for women and children. He suggested that “the contraceptive revolution has resulted in a massive redistribution of wealth and power from women and children to men,” because it “sets up what economists call a ‘prisoner’s-dilemma’ game, in which each woman is induced to make decisions rationally that ultimately make her, and all women, worse off.” Despite being a lose-lose situation for women, and the children that rely on them, he wrote that because of the “prisoner’s dilemma,” contraception would continue to be the law of the land “unless legal restrictions or social mores ‘tax’ men and ‘subsidize’ women and children.” Reichert argued that birth control separated what has historically been a mating market, inhabited by roughly equal numbers of men and women, into two separate markets. One market, called the sex market, includes men and women seeking sexual relationships without any plan for marriage or a permanent future together. The other market, called the marriage market, is inhabited by people seeking what its name suggests. This split of one mating market into sex and marriage markets becomes a problem when “imbalances exist in these markets (so) that the ‘price’ of either marriage or sex tilts in favor of one or the other gender.” Reichert explained how at any given time, more men are likely to be in the sex market because they don’t have a “biological clock” necessitating that they move into the marriage market by any certain age. Women in the sex market tend to “have more bargaining power than men” for two reasons: relative scarcity and age. Firstly, they are typically in shorter supply in the sex market. Secondly, women in the sex market tend to be younger, as a typical woman will decide by her early 30s that she is interested in marriage and a family, and thus leave the sex market. Younger women tend to be interested in older men, and vice versa, whereas younger men are not equally likely to be interested in older women. Using charts, graphs, and research from the social sciences to illustrate his point, Reichert contrasted the sex market with the marriage market. In the marriage market, women face significant challenges in finding marriageable men because there are fewer men in the market than women. Reichert isn’t the only one to have made this observation. Riffs on the topics “Why can’t I find a good man?” and “Why are good men hard to find?” abound online, backing up Reichert’s economic analysis with personal anecdotes. He went on to argue that women become more likely to settle for less in order to get married, and then end up getting divorced later on. A 2017 study by Stanford University found that in 2,500 divorce cases studied, women initiated 69% of them. Reichert further argued that the creation of separate sex and marriage markets caused by contraception correlated with a higher “cost” of infidelity to women than men, higher rates of divorce (and women heading up single-parent households), a “need” for abortion, and even — surprisingly — a driving up of the cost of real estate. Reichert considered contraception a “prisoner’s dilemma,” or a situation in which “all parties have a choice between cooperation and noncooperation, and where all parties would be better off if they choose cooperation. But because people in a prisoner’s dilemma setting cannot effectively coordinate and enforce cooperation, all parties choose the best individual choice, which is noncooperation. The social result is disastrous, and everyone is made poorer.” He wrote that “women (and, by implication, children) would be better off had there been no separation of the mating market into separate sex and marriage markets,” because of the long-term negative consequences of the imbalance between the two markets on women, children, and society at large. But, they are nonetheless highly motivated to continue using contraception because of the short-term benefits to themselves. Reichert’s consideration of contraception’s economic fallout adds to the growing sentiment that birth control is bad for women. It doesn’t dramatically reduce abortion rates and it isn’t necessary to prevent overpopulation. It does, however, have serious health implications and it does pit women against their preborn children. Quite frankly, women deserve better. “Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary! | Anne Marie Williams | https://www.liveaction.org/news/birth-control-devastating-women/ | 2019-09-01 17:17:59+00:00 | 1,567,372,679 | 1,569,331,673 | science and technology | social sciences |
307,291 | mediamattersforamerica--2019-01-03--Tucker Carlson says women making more money than men leads to more drug and alcohol abuse higher i | 2019-01-03T00:00:00 | mediamattersforamerica | Tucker Carlson says women making more money than men leads to “more drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates” | TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): Male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry all but disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools and the hospitals, and both of them are traditional employers of women. In many areas, women suddenly made more than men. Now, before you applaud that as a victory for feminism, consider some of the effects. Study after study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don't want to marry them. Maybe they should want to marry them, but they don't. Over big populations this causes a drop in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births and all the familiar disasters that inevitably follow. More drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the next generation. This is not speculation, it's not propaganda from the evangelicals. It's social science. We know it's true. Rich people know it best of all, that's why they get married before they have kids. That model works. | Media Matters for America | https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/01/02/tucker-carlson-says-women-making-more-money-men-leads-more-drug-and-alcohol-abuse-higher/222400 | 2019-01-03 01:34:05+00:00 | 1,546,497,245 | 1,567,554,151 | science and technology | social sciences |
307,366 | mediamattersforamerica--2019-01-10--Tucker Carlson says studies dont exist showing undocumented immigrants commit less crime - hes wro | 2019-01-10T00:00:00 | mediamattersforamerica | Tucker Carlson says studies don’t exist showing undocumented immigrants commit less crime - he’s wrong | Carlson: “We do this topic a lot and we’re pretty conversant with the social science on it. I’ve never seen that study” In an interview with former Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan, Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed he’s “never seen” a study that shows immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native born citizens. During the segment, Carlson said, “We do this topic a lot and we’re pretty conversant with the social science on it. I’ve never seen that study.” Perhaps Carlson should become more conversant with search engines, as a Google search returns numerous studies and articles published on this subject. A 2018 Cato Institute study shows that “there were 50 percent fewer criminal convictions of illegal immigrants than of native-born Americans in Texas in 2015.” A Washington Post write-up of the study included this chart visualizing Cato’s data: In August 2017, Politifact looked into a claim made by Antonio Villaraigosa that “undocumented immigrants commit less crimes than the native born,” a claim rated “mostly true.” In its ruling, Politifact quoted assistant professor and director of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Program at the University of Massachusetts in Boston as saying “the rhetoric of the ‘criminal immigrant’ does not align with the bulk of empirical research.” Furthermore, a study completed by research scientists from four universities shows that while immigrant populations have increased in size during the last few decades, the crime rate has gone down in those same communities. According to The New York Times’ review, “In general, the study’s data suggests either that immigration has the effect of reducing average crime, or that there is simply no relationship between the two.” Tucker Carlson’s refusal to acknowledge the reality of the academic literature on this subject is no accident. He has a well-documented history of embracing white supremacy and demonizing immigrants on his show, and white supremacists love him back. Tucker Carlson’s extremist views and fact-free demonization of immigrants has been one factor contributing to the loss of at least 24 advertisers in the last month. | Media Matters for America | https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/01/09/tucker-carlson-says-studies-don-t-exist-showing-undocumented-immigrants-commit-less-crime-he-s-wrong/222478 | 2019-01-10 03:15:36+00:00 | 1,547,108,136 | 1,567,553,155 | science and technology | social sciences |
307,492 | mediamattersforamerica--2019-01-23--The social science explaining why Fox News wants you to believe masculinity is under threat | 2019-01-23T00:00:00 | mediamattersforamerica | The social science explaining why Fox News wants you to believe masculinity is under threat | Gillette was probably hoping for a little bit of buzz when it released its Super Bowl ad a few weeks early. What it got was wall-to-wall coverage -- at least on Fox News. Titled “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be,” Gillette’s video begins with a play on its long-time slogan, asking, “Is this the best a man can get? Is it?” The video then cuts to scenes touching on bullying, the #MeToo movement, and behavior that people often justify by saying “Boys will be boys.” It’s provocative, and deliberately so. The core message is that men should be their best selves and set a good example for future generations because, as the ad concludes, “the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow.” Fox News, as expected, didn’t take kindly to it, and the network put its outrage machine to work in response. During the January 15 edition of The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld said the ad “bashed men, men who fought wars, who built bridges -- they just bashed them.” Fox host Brian Kilmeade appeared on Fox Business’ Varney & Co. to say that, sure, there may be times boys will “show an aggression,” but “that’s just the way men are made up to be.” Even so, he continued, he doesn’t need a razor company telling him how to live his life. On that morning’s episode of Fox & Friends, guest Darrin Porcher said the ad represented “an atrocity,” adding, “We should be seen as equal to women, not as beneath.” Overall, the show devoted 12 minutes of discussion time to the Gillette ad while providing just 30 seconds for the House of Representatives’ decision the night before to strip Rep. Steve King (R-IA) of his committee assignments after he made comments in support of white supremacy. That’s 24 times more coverage for the razor ad than for an objectively huge story within the world of politics. The next day, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh appeared on Fox & Friends to denounce the ad as “clearly insulting,” saying, “I didn't learn anything from the #MeToo movement.” The last bit is not so surprising, as he’s already written articles and published videos on why the movement has “overstayed its welcome.” While segments about a war on masculinity do appear to have increased in frequency in recent years, at least at first glance, the theme is not exactly new. It’s a catch-all designed to give a sense of urgency and create a personal investment between viewers and issues they otherwise might not feel motivated to act on. And there’s actually a fair amount of social science explaining why this sort of laser-focus on masculinity is a politically savvy move for a politically motivated media outlet. “Men have been emasculated, they have been feminized by the left that has pushed us on a culture, and they do see Donald Trump as someone who speaks for them,” said then-Fox host Andrea Tantaros during the December 22, 2015, edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. A year earlier on the same program, she claimed that “young men … have been completely feminized,” leading to educated women “having the government subsidize their sex lives.” Months before that, she warned that the left “would love to feminize” the NFL, adding, “The White House has been weighing in on the NFL on concussions and other issues.” In October 2015, when Playboy made the decision to no longer publish nude photos, T.J. McCormack penned for FoxNews.com something of a requiem for the magazine and America’s collective masculinity: In response to a May 2017 article in Vox about the U.S. Marine Corps’ inaction over a revenge porn scandal among its ranks, Fox host Todd Starnes took a jab at “the emasculated pajama boys” who “seem to want our Marines to prance into battle wearing high heels and camouflage rompers.” The report came as a set of guidelines designed to help psychologists work more effectively with men and boys. Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce appeared on the January 10 edition of Fox & Friends to decry the APA’s findings and recommendations, mounting a defense of masculinity as a force for good: The way Bruce and others on Fox described the guidelines, you’d think the APA had republished Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto and was calling for elimination of the male sex. The guidelines weren’t created to blame men or masculinity, but to help men and boys by giving psychologists the same kind of specialized tools for working with them that APA provided for working with women and girls in 2007. The guidelines aren’t anti-masculinity, either. In fact, just a quick look shows that their aim is to help men embrace their masculine traits in healthy and appropriate ways and develop a deeper understanding of themselves. In fact, during the January 3 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson pointed to the male suicide rate in America as a problem that must be specifically addressed. Carlson suggested that the one solution is to promote marriage, while his guest, the Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald, stressed the “need to valorize males,” citing the “uniquely male” characteristics of “valor, courage, chivalry, heroism in war.” Male suicide is one of the primary issues the APA’s guidelines aims to address (emphasis added): On the January 8 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson and guest Christina Hoff Sommers discussed the APA guidelines, with Carlson lamenting that the report concluded that “the problem with men is their maleness,” adding, “Newly issued guidelines argue that ‘traditional masculinity’ is harmful and that psychologists should somehow undermine it.” It should be noted that this isn’t what the guidelines actually suggest. So Fox News is upset that nobody wants to address challenges that disproportionately affect men, but when a professional organization invests 13 years in developing guidelines designed to address those issues, that is also … bad. It’s almost as though commentators like Carlson and Bruce are more interested in using these problems as talking points than in actually finding solutions. Throughout March 2018 -- Women’s History Month -- Carlson used his massive platform at Fox to shine a light on the supposed plight of American men. In many of these shows, he could be found parroting the talking points of YouTube misogynists such as Gavin McInnes, Paul Joseph Watson, and Stefan Molyneux, and playing host to the likes of Jordan Peterson. “The patriarchy is gone: Women are winning; men are failing,” he said during a March 28 episode. Two weeks earlier, he had argued that undocumented immigrants cause lower wages, which in turn reduce “the attractiveness of men as potential spouses, thus reducing fertility and especially marriage rates.” A week before that, he delivered a monologue about how “something ominous is happening to men in America. Everyone who pays attention knows that.” The theme has carried on to more recent months, as well. During the October 11 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson warned that Democrats were waging war on the very concept of fatherhood: During the show’s August 23 episode, Carlson defended a video from conservative commentator Allie Stuckey that Facebook had temporarily removed and which stoked fears that “the current trend is to feminize young men in the hopes of achieving some Utopia notion of equality and peace. It's not masculinity that is toxic. It is the lack of it.” Why is Fox News so obsessed with the idea that masculinity is under attack? The concept may have its roots in beliefs about what it means to be a man. There’s a theory in psychology -- the precarious manhood theory -- that our society views men’s status as something to be earned -- and something that can be easily lost. To oversimplify it a bit, it’s the theory that men view their maleness as though a “man card” were a real thing that could be revoked for not meeting social expectations of masculinity. In turn, the fear of losing status prompts men to make public displays of masculinity and rejection of what they perceive as feminine. A 2015 study published in the journal Social Psychology explored what happens when men feel their masculinity is under threat. The article looked at threats to masculinity as political motivators, theorizing that perceived threats would inspire “men's efforts to reestablish their power over women via the promotion of ideologies that implicitly subordinate women.” The authors found that “men’s power over women is a key aspect of men’s masculinity” and that threats to masculinity “led to greater public discomfort, anger, and ideological dominance” among those studied. That anger “predicted greater endorsement of ideologies that implicitly promote men’s power over women.” Something called social dominance theory offers an explanation for how people justify hierarchies and inequality within a society. For much of history, men held virtually all power in government and business -- a patriarchy. In just the past hundred years or so, women emerged from their position as second-class citizens and demanded equal rights and treatment. While most men likely understand that there’s no good excuse to oppose equality between men and women, social dominance theory gets at how those with the most to lose -- men, in this instance -- might subconsciously try to preserve the status quo while convincing themselves that they treat all people equally. Through what are called “legitimizing myths,” people in positions of power can convince themselves that there aren’t any structural barriers to success, that the playing field is already level. For instance, some could justify the dearth of women in positions of power in government and business by saying that maybe women are simply too emotional to lead, that perhaps men just happen to be the ones best suited for a specific position. To point out that a playing field isn’t already level or promote institutional change is to threaten the existing hierarchies of society. Some people respond to these threats by gravitating to political ideologies associated with the preservation of existing social norms. In other words: conservatism. Fear and anger are a powerful political motivators, and Fox News knows how to bring those emotions out: by creating the appearance of a threat. It’s not a huge stretch to see how the success of women in comparison to men can function as a threat to masculinity in itself. If, for instance, a media outlet wanted to sway voters toward candidates who embody certain identities -- white, male, and Christian, for example -- one of the most obvious things it could do is bombard the public with the idea that those very identities are under attack. If an outlet wanted to sway people from voting for a woman, or for a candidate running on pledges to upend the current system of male social dominance, it would regularly promote stories that evoke a type of existential threat to manhood. This is what Fox News does. Candidates themselves might try to adopt a more masculine public image -- Donald Trump did this often, once donning a hard hat to promote his support for coal miners, bragging about the size of his hands (and, indirectly, his penis) during a debate, and making frequent claims that his female opponent simply didn’t have the “stamina” to be president. But it is the news media that shapes the underlying narrative. It’s for exactly this reason that things aimed at helping men and promoting healthy masculinity -- such as the APA guidelines or the Gillette ad -- are twisted into attacks on male identity. | Media Matters for America | https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/01/23/social-science-explaining-why-fox-news-wants-you-believe-masculinity-under-threat/222606 | 2019-01-23 17:27:42+00:00 | 1,548,282,462 | 1,567,551,249 | science and technology | social sciences |
308,111 | mediamattersforamerica--2019-04-05--Tucker Carlson How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science | 2019-04-05T00:00:00 | mediamattersforamerica | Tucker Carlson: "How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science?" | TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): Is this the science that you grew up with? MARK STEYN (GUEST): Well, I confess I was at first skeptical. If I understand this thesis, my insecurities about my masculinity are causing rising sea levels in the Maldives. And at first I didn't really buy that. But as I think about it, I think in fact it's actually one of the least visible climate science theses of recent years. So I'm kind of on board with where they are going on this. CARLSON: How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science? I mean, isn't that - we're sort of bound to get a study like this, right? STEYN: I think, in fact, it's very difficult to tell with social science as with climate science whether or not it's an ingenious parody. It's almost impossible to tell in fact. But I think this goes back to -- I think the important point here is toxic masculinity. They're saying that they did a survey here, this is the kind of hard core science behind it, in which they gave someone a Walmart gift card and it was pink and had lots of flowery patents on it. So it looked a bit girlie, looked a bit sissy, looked a bit milk toast panty waist. So the guy given this gift card went out and bought a lot of very macho masculine things that melt the polar ice caps. Whereas if you give him something - he's so impressionable this toxicly masculine male - that if you give him a masculine type card, he just thinks oh that's really nice and he goes out and he buys a Sierra Club tote bag and saves the planet. This is the kind of social science that the higher education institutions of America are spending a fortune investigating. | Media Matters for America | https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/04/04/tucker-carlson-how-did-we-wind-country-which-feminists-do-science/223350 | 2019-04-05 01:00:14+00:00 | 1,554,440,414 | 1,567,543,933 | science and technology | social sciences |
314,963 | mercurynews--2019-07-28--Walters UCs new political litmus test echoes McCarthy-era oath | 2019-07-28T00:00:00 | mercurynews | Walters: UC’s new political litmus test echoes McCarthy-era ‘oath’ | If you’ve never heard of the Levering Act, you’re not alone. Few Californians are old enough to remember that during the years immediately after World War II, a Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States and its allies generated a wave of popular fear about communist subversion. Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover led crusades to root out what they claimed was widespread infiltration by communists. California had its own version of McCarthyism, as it came to be known. The Legislature created a Committee on Un-American Activities and in 1950 enacted the Levering Act, requiring all state employees to sign “loyalty oaths.” It was specifically aimed at the University of California’s faculty, and 31 tenured professors were fired for refusing to sign it. The state was unconstitutionally imposing “a political test for employment,” as the California State Federation of Teachers said at the time. And after much legal wrangling, the state Supreme Court voted 6-1 in 1967 to declare the Levering Act unconstitutional. Although UC’s Board of Regents officially declares that “No political test shall ever be considered in the appointment and promotion of any faculty member or employee,” a new UC policy seems to be doing exactly that. As part of its “commitment to diversity and excellence,” UC’s administrators are telling recruiters for faculty positions, as one directive puts it, to take “pro-active steps to seek out candidates committed to diversity, equity and inclusion.” To enforce that dictum, UC also requires applicants for new faculty employment and promotions to submit “diversity statements” that will be scored “with rubrics provided by Academic Affairs and require applicants to achieve a scoring cutoff to be considered.” The academic affairs department at UC-Davis says that diversity statements from tenure-track faculty applicants should have “an accomplished track record…of teaching, research or service activities addressing the needs of African-American, Latino, Chicano, Hispanic and Native American students or communities.” Their statements must “indicate awareness” of those communities and “the negative consequences of underutilization” and “provide a clearly articulated vision” of how their work at UC-Davis would advance diversity policies. Jeffrey Flier, former director of the Harvard Medical School, is among the respected academics who see the inherent contradictions and perils in UC’s one-size-fits-all concept of political correctness. “As a supporter of the original goals of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, my skepticism toward this policy surprised a number of friends and colleagues,” Flier wrote this year in the Chronicle of Higher Education. “But it is entirely inappropriate to require diversity statements in the process of appointment and promotion. Such requirements risk introducing a political litmus test into faculty hiring and reviews.” While Flier sees the new policy as “far from the loyalty oaths deployed at the University of California during the McCarthy era,” he adds: “It’s not unreasonable to be concerned that politically influenced attestations might begin to re-emerge in the current hyperpartisan political environment, either in response to politically driven demands for faculty to support populist or nationalist ideas, or from within the increasingly polarized academy itself. Since progressive/left identifications are dominant in the academy, especially in the humanities and social sciences (as well as in administration), politically influenced litmus tests could easily arise in that sphere.” They’ve already arisen at UC, implicitly denying employment or promotion for anyone who fails to enthusiastically endorse “diversity,” however that might be defined. In the name of “diversity,” therefore, the new litmus test would make the overwhelmingly liberal UC faculty even less ideologically diverse. Walters: The DMV is Newsom’s very deep, very dark pothole California tax revenues are soaring — what does that mean? Walters: Trump and California are at it again Navarrette: America’s dialogue on race is now a vexing monologue Letter: Trump’s insults may be signs of ‘a weak mind’ Letter: Tax on recycling carpet will rise even more with this bill | Dan Walters, CALmatters | https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/07/28/walters-ucs-new-political-litmus-test-echoes-mccarthy-era-oath/ | 2019-07-28 07:01:53+00:00 | 1,564,311,713 | 1,567,535,537 | science and technology | social sciences |
326,471 | nationalinterest--2019-11-06--Ken Loach’s New Film on the Gig Economy Should Shock Us All | 2019-11-06T00:00:00 | nationalinterest | Ken Loach’s New Film on the Gig Economy Should Shock Us All | Long-term unemployment is no longer a serious social policy problem, but standard, full time, long-term employment is also much less common. Ken Loach’s film, Sorry We Missed You, tells the harrowing tale of Ricky, Abby and their family’s attempts to get by in a precarious world of low paid jobs and the so-called “gig economy”. But how realistic is it? Can Loach’s film be accused of undue pessimism? After all, UK government ministers have applauded the gig economy and the freedom and flexibility of being an “everyday entrepreneur”. A new study by myself and employment expert Andreas Giazitzoglu investigates what we know about the gig economy, in order to get a clearer picture of what is really going on in the contemporary world of work in the UK. Narrowly conceived, the gig economy means workers (as independent contractors) doing discrete, short-term tasks – or “gigs” – for companies via digital platforms such as Deliveroo, Amazon or Uber. As one study describes them, these are “labour contracts that are as temporary as is possible for them to be”. We argue that it is better to see the gig economy as part of a wider shift towards insecure forms of work. Long-term unemployment is no longer a serious social policy problem, but standard, full time, long-term employment is also much less common. More and more people are churning from “one shit job to another shit job”, as Ricky puts it in Loach’s film, punctuated with periods of unemployment. And as Loach observed (in a Q&A session following a preview), Sorry We Missed You is a sequel to the 2016 film I, Daniel Blake, which explores the degradations of the UK’s benefit system. These are two sides of the same coin, as research on “the low-pay, no-pay cycle” has shown. Many of these jobs are on zero-hours contracts, which although illegal across much of the EU, have boomed in the UK. Read more: We showed I, Daniel Blake to people living with the benefits system: here's how they reacted There were fewer than 200,000 of these contracts in 2007. Ten years later, in 2017, there were over 1.8m. Employers insist that workers want this “flexibility”. But two-thirds would prefer a fixed-hours contract. The government celebrates high levels of employment but two-thirds of employment growth since the 2008 financial crash has been in self-employment or other forms of “atypical work”. Much of this self-employment appears to be bogus. Just like in Sorry We Missed You, employers designate workers as “independent contractors” to cut wage costs and employment rights Investigative journalism has exposed the degraded work conditions of “self-employed” delivery drivers like Ricky: intense pressure to meet delivery schedules, breaking speed limits, snatching meals on the run, urinating into plastic bottles rather than stopping, barely making the national minimum wage. Even a government inquiry found that “some companies are using self-employed workforces as cheap labour”, damaging workers’ well-being in order to “increase profits”. If not bogus, then much self-employment is likely to be “forced”, perceived as the only alternative to being unemployed. This was typical of the “young entrepreneurs” I interviewed in the 1980s. Held up as role models for Margaret Thatcher’s “enterprise culture”, their ambitions were, in fact, much more prosaic. Rather than go on the dole, they used the (recently re-launched) Enterprise Allowance Scheme to set up “micro-businesses” – knitting jumpers, repairing bicycles, freelance photography – keeping going by undercutting other businesses and by gross self-exploitation. Very few succeeded over the long term. Most plodded along until, exhausted, demoralised and in debt, they closed down their businesses. Low pay is also typical of more recent forced self-employment and has been a key factor in the UK’s shift towards low paid work. Across the research, we found ten things that were common to workers’ experiences of this new, insecure labour market: • Modest aspirations (people were not looking to get rich quick but wanted regular work and to be able to pay the bills) • Disempowerment (employers now have “disciplinary discretion” to withhold offers of work to people on zero-hours contracts) One of the duties of critical social science is to question fashionable ideas. We should be particularly alert when comfortably placed, middle-aged politicians exhort younger people to “take up opportunities” that they themselves would never dream of going near. Would government ministers be quite so “excited” about the gig economy if they had to surrender their fixed salaries, paid holidays and pension schemes in favour of working a daily schedule so gruelling that toilet stops are impossible and the minimum wage cannot be earned? All of us – the public who rely on the services of the gig economy just as much as the politicians who proclaim its virtues – need to wake up to the reality that, in this instance, “flexibility” is just another word for exploitation. Robert MacDonald, Professor of Education and Social Justice, University of Huddersfield This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. | Robert MacDonald | https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ken-loach%E2%80%99s-new-film-gig-economy-should-shock-us-all-93771 | Wed, 06 Nov 2019 01:15 EST | 1,573,065,149 | 1,573,065,149 | science and technology | social sciences |
327,628 | nationalinterest--2019-11-30--Why Support for the Death Penalty Is Much Higher Among White Americans | 2019-11-30T00:00:00 | nationalinterest | Why Support for the Death Penalty Is Much Higher Among White Americans | I study the impact that public policies like the death penalty have on African Americans, and I see a problem that isn’t often discussed in the media: the significant racial disparity in public opinion about the death penalty. Sentencing a person to die is the ultimate punishment. There is no coming back from the permanence of the death penalty. In the U.S., the death penalty is currently authorized by the federal government, the military and 29 states. The primary rationale for using the death penalty is deterrence. As public policy, I believe that capital punishment has largely not proved to be an effective deterrent. Nevertheless, for decades the death penalty has been popular. However, support for the death penalty has been declining over the past 25 years and is near historic lows. Critics point to issues such as inhumane killing procedures, a plunge in crime rates and the death penalty’s high cost. I study the impact that public policies like the death penalty have on African Americans, and I see a problem that isn’t often discussed in the media: the significant racial disparity in public opinion about the death penalty. The racially inequitable application of the death penalty was highlighted on Nov. 15, 2019, when, in an unexpected turn of events, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution of Rodney Reed less than one week before he was scheduled to be executed for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. The case was racially charged. Reed, a black man, is accused of killing Stites, a white woman, and was found guilty by an all-white jury. The Reed case is one of many capital murder cases that present an opportunity to critically examine the application of the death penalty. As director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin, I lead an organization that is committed to the elimination of racial bias and disparities through promoting equitable public policies. Since 1976, people of color have accounted for 43% of total executions and make up over half of inmates who are currently scheduled to be executed. In Texas, African Americans make up less than 13% of the population yet represent 44.2% of death row inmates. Nationally, African Americans make up 42% of death row inmates. When both race and gender are considered, disparities in sentencing become even more pronounced. Homicides involving white female victims are significantly more likely to result in a death sentence than homicides with any other victim characteristics. However, beyond the explicit examples of racial bias in the criminal justice system that typically get the most attention, there remains another, more subtle bias related to the beliefs held by jurors. People who oppose the death penalty cannot serve on a murder case jury where the death penalty is a possibility. Only individuals who say they would consider the death penalty can serve. When you examine the numbers behind support of the death penalty, a trend emerges. White people make up the core of support for the death penalty in the United States. Studies indicate that white people show significantly higher support for the death penalty than do black people. This is consistent with a 2018 poll by the Pew Research Center, which found that 59% of white people favor the death penalty, compared with 47% of Latino and 36% of black people. Among white people, evangelical Protestants show the strongest support for the death penalty, with 73% favoring it. Why do white people support the death penalty at much higher levels than black people? According to research, one answer is racial prejudice. White Americans tend to associate criminality with racial minorities. In one study, researchers found that, after controlling for factors including education, family income, religion and political ideology, white people with stronger anti-black attitudes were more likely to support the death penalty. It should come as no surprise that views about the criminal justice system diverge widely between black and white Americans, with black Americans being much more likely to see the system as racially biased. Perhaps this explains why prosecutors, in spite of the illegality of excluding prospective jurors based on race, still use tactics to strike potential black jurors from the jury. When juries are more racially diverse, that increases the likelihood that potential racism is discussed. What’s more, social science research indicates that all-white juries convict black defendants significantly more often than white defendants. In my view, in capital murder cases, an all-white jury combined with white support for the death penalty stacks the odds against black male defendants like Rodney Reed. [ You’re too busy to read everything. We get it. That’s why we’ve got a weekly newsletter. Sign up for good Sunday reading. ] Kevin O'Neal Cokley, Professor of Educational Psychology and African and African Diaspora Studies, University of Texas at Austin This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. | Kevin O'Neal Cokley | https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/why-support-death-penalty-much-higher-among-white%C2%A0americans-100792 | Sat, 30 Nov 2019 11:20 EST | 1,575,130,800 | 1,575,141,114 | science and technology | social sciences |
329,340 | nationalreview--2019-01-08--Can Higher Education Be Saved | 2019-01-08T00:00:00 | nationalreview | Can Higher Education Be Saved? | Universities are expensive engines of propaganda and intolerance, and many non-academics are offering scholarly material free online. America is schizophrenic about its major universities and, to a lesser extent, its undergraduate colleges. On the one hand, higher education’s professional schools in medicine and business, as well as graduate and undergraduate programs in math, science, and engineering, are the world’s best. America dominates the lists of the top universities compiled in global surveys conducted from the United Kingdom to Japan. On the other hand, the liberal arts and social sciences have long ago mostly lost their reputations. Go online to Amazon or to the local Barnes and Noble bookstore, and the books on literature, art, and history are often not the products of university professors and presses. Few believe any more that current liberal-arts programs have prepared graduates to write persuasively and elegantly, to read critically and to think inductively while drawing on a wide body of literary, linguistic, historical, artistic, and philosophical knowledge. In fairness, that is no longer the aim of higher education. When students at tony colleges present petitions objecting to free speech or the right of guests to give lectures, they are usually full of grammatical errors and often incoherent. Colleges, with some major exceptions (Hillsdale most preeminently), simply do not ensure the teaching of such skills any more. Of course, there remain wonderful classes, courageous deans who buck trends, and hardworking faculty who teach splendidly and have received modest compensation and little credit for their yeoman work. But they are a minority and a shrinking one at that. By and large, the bachelor’s degree, even in a liberal-arts major, no longer certifies that a graduate will be able to read, reason, compute, or draw on a body of knowledge far more effectively than those without an undergraduate degree. The decline of the university has been an ongoing tragedy since the 1960s, but the erosion has accelerated because of ideological bias and its twin, incompetence. Here are five major recent and additional catalysts. Students owe about $1.5 trillion in student loans, much of it at interest rates higher than those of contemporary mortgages. At least a half-trillion dollars cannot and won’t be paid back. It is hard to know whether unsustainable college mortgages are a reflection or a cause of university decline, or both. But the crushing student debt plays a variety of pernicious roles in wider society. Students postpone marriage and child-rearing, a trend that is negatively affecting U.S. demography. Home ownership is put off, in favor of living at home in prolonged adolescence, ending the old idea of becoming an adult in one’s early twenties. Most of today’s pejoratives, such as “snowflake” or “social justice warrior,” originate from the reality that on-again-off-again college debt has arrested the development of adult men and women and consumed their twenties. Much of the debt is due to federally guaranteed loans that were sold to students, and looked on by them, as a virtual loan—more as a grant not necessarily to be paid back. And universities saw the loan guarantee as a green light to jack up their costs higher than the annual rate of inflation. Thanks to such huge cash influxes into campuses, students got Club Med rec centers and well-appointed apartments, while administrators hired a costly legion of diversity and inclusion officers, whose chief duties were to monitor faculty thought, indoctrinate students, and protect their superiors from charges of intersectional racism, sexism, homophobia, nativism, and xenophobia. Perhaps the last hired diversity czar can turn out the lights at another insolvent private liberal-arts college. Staggering student debt came at time when major research universities no longer measured their endowments and income in the millions, but in some cases the many billions. In other words, some institutions did very well, even as most students did not. Any alumni donations that are not strictly targeted should be seen as a waste of philanthropy; they function like toxic drugs to an end-stage addict. And the most frightening idea for most elite academic socialists is that the government might tax endowments over $5 billion or adopt some sort of professional-sports nostrum in which the richest campus franchises must share with the poorest. Most college courses in literature and history — despite their sometimes anachronistic and traditional titles — focus on “diversity.” That is, they present a play or novel, or a past historical period or event, in terms of how it adversely portrayed or affected the poor, women, and minorities. The larger agenda is ideological: to instruct how the superior present can craft remedies to ensure that incorrect thinking and the biases throughout history and literature do not contaminate contemporary life and society. What is often forgotten is that political correctness comes at a price of not learning a language, or reading the plays of Shakespeare, or mastering the basic outlines of the Civil War or World War II — given that for youth learning is so often a zero-sum game with only limited hours in the day for study and reading. Today’s students, like their professors, not only do not possess, but feel no need to possess, familiarity with Thucydides, or Dante’s Inferno, or some idea of the Napoleonic Wars, or the work of T. S. Eliot. And at least one reason they do not is that teaching and reading these texts and studying complex histories are far more difficult tasks than various therapeutic -studies courses about prejudices, biases, and -isms and -ologies. Becoming woke is not the same as being educated. The former is easy and seeks the affirmation of the majority, the latter harder and often a lonely experience. Finally, the morality of the curriculum is upside down. If the purpose of the contemporary university is to empower the marginalized and the previously discriminated against, then it would be hard to envision classes that could more deprive first-generation college students of the very analytic tools and knowledge that might ensure their success. Two simple proposals — predicating the bachelor’s degree on an exit exam analogous to required admission tests, and allowing teachers to opt for an academic master’s degree in lieu of a teaching credential — would expose the current poverty of the curriculum. Perhaps half the nation’s graduates could not pass a basic exit exam in the arts and sciences. And, if given a choice, most would-be teachers would prefer studying for an academic M.A. to spending a year with the Ministry of Credentials. Higher education invests a huge fortune in faculty “development,” more specifically in sabbaticals, grants, teaching reductions, release time, accelerated promotions, cash prizes, and awards and merit raises to conduct research. In theory, such subsidies are a wise investment, even in the humanities and social sciences. The mostly unknown work of scholars supposedly expands the body of wisdom. Ideally, seemingly narrow, unheralded work finds its way into surveys and popular knowledge. Scholars become better teachers as they ground their classroom work with the facts and data of their own narrower investigations. Moreover, scholarship benefits the larger public. For example, the tedious work of establishing accurate Linear B texts allows us to understand why Mycenaean civilization more or less mysteriously collapsed in the 13th century b.c. Using archival work to reconstruct the year-by-year lives of a Ulysses S. Grant or William Tecumseh Sherman allows biographers to provide the public with a richer appreciation of their complex careers. Thanks to scholarly and often underappreciated work, we have a more nuanced understanding of prior simplistic views, such as the notion that the Versailles Treaty was too punitive. Yet as universities expanded, scholarship became deeply embedded in careerism and, in many cases, became scholastic nitpicking and, in other instances, abjectly political. Then came the Internet, which destroyed many academic hierarchies and brought the law of the arena into scholarly work. Rather than wait a year for a prestigious journal to peer-review a submission (supposedly blindly but more often not quite) and then, when published, to reach an audience of 20 to 30 fellow scholars, most academics could post anything on a blog and sometimes find an audience of hundreds if not thousands. The absence of peer review, scholarly critique, and editorial intervention, of course, green-lighted incompetent work, but the majority thumbs-up/thumbs-down opinion of thousands of online readers also tended to glean some chaff from the wheat. In sum, thousands of autodidacts and independent scholars are now publishing as they please, and often their ideas and research are as good as, or better than, the costly university bureaucracy of academic production. As we look back at the 75-year massive investment in post-war scholarly research, it is increasingly clear that, in our present age of over-specialization and postmodern partisanship, the results often no longer justify commensurate release time from teaching or the careerist rewards that “research” provides. Universities would be better off investing in part-time faculty to end the rank exploitation of those with provisional contracts. The Internet likewise destroyed lots of other protocols and, by extension, university titles and the notion of a mandarin class of Ivy League scholars and the sanctity of the campus. Not only do autodidacts freelance and post their lectures through free podcasts, but colleges themselves offer online classes. The faculty who most effectively can speak before a camera without notes and maintain anonymous audiences of thousands are not always the faculty who win traditional teaching awards and get fast-tracked through promotion. For-profit “diploma mills” are laughed at by serious colleges on the rationale they offer neither “the college experience” nor a “broad education” but simply sell units of online certification in vocational skills, education, and business. But if the universities do not offer a rich liberal-arts curriculum that emphasizes literature, philosophy, and history, and if the modern campus is a cultural and political landmine where perhaps four of the ten amendments of the Bill of Rights do not apply, then millions will ask, Why pay for academia’s toxic bells and whistles? Colleges have an argument to make that close interaction among faculty and students, the larger landscape of cultural opportunities available on a physical campus, and the ability to see and talk directly with an instructor inside a classroom are essential to an undergraduate experience, but they have not made that case. Instead, they have invalidated it by their very intolerance and warping of the curriculum. There should always be an argument for tenure given that administrators and academics are by nature timid and vindictive and will predictably bend to the mob’s demand to fire someone for saying something that someone else doesn’t like. But the 80-year experience with widespread academic tenure suggests that it no longer encourages diverse views or protects freedom of speech — the university is now one of the most monolithic and ideologically repressive institutions in society. Moreover, at many state schools, nearly 40–50 percent of the courses offered are taught by part-time, non-tenured faculty, who enjoy no such career protection. In sum, tenure has become a medieval caste system. It gives mandarins life-long career security without much post-tenure review or encouragement of diversity of thought, while simply writing off thousands of faculty helots as not worthy of commensurate career security. It could be easily replaced by five- or ten-year contracts, specifying teaching and research expectations without discriminating between part- and full-time faculty. We are entering an age in which college, as we have understood that term, will no longer be assumed essential to becoming educated. And the number of colleges will shrink either because of consolidation, transformations to online institutions, or bankruptcy. The reasons for these existential changes are not just technology and economics but are found within the university itself. It broke its pact with the public to offer a disinterested and good education at an affordable price to the nation’s youth — and instead ended up doing precisely the opposite. | Victor Davis Hanson | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/higher-education-decline-propaganda-intolerance/ | 2019-01-08 11:30:36+00:00 | 1,546,965,036 | 1,567,553,404 | science and technology | social sciences |
329,962 | nationalreview--2019-02-12--Were Failing Our Students and It Hurts Us All | 2019-02-12T00:00:00 | nationalreview | We’re Failing Our Students, and It Hurts Us All | They can go through their entire education without coming across a principled, non-left viewpoint. In late January 2019, Kenneth Mayer, a political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin, drew the attention of a Republican state legislator for language in his syllabus that described Trump as “a president who gleefully flouts the norms of governing and presidential behavior.” His supporters see this as “not a bug, but a feature,” the professor wrote in his syllabus, adding, “To others, he is a spectacularly unqualified and catastrophically unfit egomaniac.” In response, the campus issued a statement supporting Mayer, stating that he “leaves his political opinions at the classroom door and asks his students to do the same.” Regardless of one’s views of the current administration, it is difficult to support the claim that Mayer’s opinions stayed at the door, given that they’re embedded in the course syllabus. Professor Mayer’s endorsement of a singular political perspective in the classroom points to a larger problem that plays out more broadly and has serious implications. We can trace the current level of political polarization to multiple sources, but, whatever the causes, we could arguably reduce polarization by increasing our ability to see issues from perspectives other than our own. Given its potential to bridge divides, nurturing this ability should be a high priority. And yet, this is neglected in one of the places where it could do the most good: the college classroom. Our universities are failing students by teaching them that there’s only one right way to understand our most vexing inequalities and social problems. This undoubtedly disproportionately affects students focusing their studies in the social sciences, but the near universality of cross-disciplinary general-education requirements (such that many students, regardless of their area of study, are required to take courses in the social sciences) suggests that almost no student is immune. In sociology, for instance, we teach students about a wide range of social disparities. This entails conversations about the causes of those differences. Yet we do students an enormous disservice teaching them only about the possible structural causes of those disparities — aspects we can blame on the “system” or on “institutions.” Students learn, for example, that the gender pay gap is due to systemic labor-market discrimination against women and a devaluation of women’s work. These are likely contributing factors. But when pressed on the topic, most students can’t name a single additional factor that might contribute to the wage difference (such as variation between the sexes in job preferences or priorities). I have had a chance to see this firsthand in an undergraduate course I am currently teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Aptly, the course is called Social Problems. It is an intro-level course in the sociology department and serves as a gateway to the major. On the first day of class, I told students that I would be teaching from multiple political angles — i.e., from a “heterodox” perspective — an approach that would necessarily include conservative viewpoints that are likely heard less often in their other classes. We’re now almost four weeks into the semester and it’s clear that these bright, engaged students are not being exposed to the range of perspectives that they will need in their lives after college. I expect that, in this regard, they resemble students at many other institutions across the country. They are led to believe that our most difficult problems have simple causes and that those causes are rooted in structural bias that the right policies will fix. In addition, they are taught that this is the only right way to view these challenges. For example, consider the Gillette advertisement that sparked so much controversy in January 2019. The ad used the idea of “toxic masculinity” to suggest that men should discard aspects of stereotypical “male” behavior. After showing the ad in class for the students, I asked them what they thought was positive about it. They gave thoughtful answers, including the messages to men and boys that it’s okay to show emotion and that fighting is not the best way to solve problems. Then I asked them why they thought someone might object to the ad or to the idea of an overly broad application of “toxic” as a description of masculinity. After a few quiet moments, a couple of hands went up. The consensus was that people might object to the ad because they’re consciously or unconsciously afraid of letting go of old gender norms. I responded that, yes, that might explain a viewer’s objection, and then I asked for other suggestions. When none were offered, I asked, What would it mean if there are biological differences between men and women that might lead to certain behavioral differences? I gave the example of men being more aggressive. I pressed on, asking, What would it mean to pathologize certain male character traits if some of them are biologically determined? Curious silence was the answer. The students seemed open to considering the implications of that possibility — that biological difference may account for some behavioral differences. Not a single student seemed familiar with the notion. This kind of example is not unusual. A similar scenario played out when we talked about “white privilege.” I asked students first why it’s a useful concept, to which they generally replied that it helps people become aware of their unearned and unacknowledged advantages in society. Again, a perfectly reasonable response. I then asked them to break into groups and discuss why someone might object to the concept. The response in the majority of the groups was that someone might object because they think it means a denial or a minimization of the hardships they’ve faced in life. There was only one group (of the seven or eight in the class) that offered the suggestion that the concept might be divisive. This way of thinking is reinforced in the textbooks we use. In the book I am using, when individual — as opposed to structural — determinants of poverty or racial disparities are mentioned, the textbook authors present them in the same context as theories of biological inferiority, thereby implying a conceptual link. Or, in another example, an opposition to redistributive policies is presented as a manifestation of “modern racism.” In this environment, the message is actively conveyed that nonstructural perspectives on social problems are synonymous with viewpoints that are racist, sexist, etc. Students can and do go through entire courses and indeed through their entire undergraduate (and in some cases graduate) education never encountering the possibility that there can be valid reasons to think differently about how to approach social problems. The only possible causes and solutions are structural. These students then go out into the world and interact with many people, some of whom have a similar background and some of whom do not. And the only response they have to someone who, for instance, objects to the notion of “toxic” masculinity is that such a person must be invested in maintaining antiquated gender norms. This myopia is a disservice to the students themselves and to anyone with whom they interact who thinks differently. Some may make the point that there are people, to continue with the same example, who object to the idea of “toxic” masculinity because they in fact wish to maintain traditional gender norms. But there are other possible principled justifications for an objection — students should know that many people object in good faith and should be open to the possibility that they may even be correct to do so. | Ilana Redstone Akresh | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/colleges-universities-left-wing-bubbles-failing-students/ | 2019-02-12 11:30:24+00:00 | 1,549,989,024 | 1,567,548,756 | science and technology | social sciences |
330,471 | nationalreview--2019-03-23--Finishing What Darwin Began | 2019-03-23T00:00:00 | nationalreview | Finishing What Darwin Began | David Sloan Wilson's new book argues that evolutionary biology can inform society and politics. In This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson continues the project of scientific imperialism that has defined much of the latter part of his career. This View of Life takes as given that humans are shaped by our evolutionary past, and proceeds to show how general principles derived from the discipline can be applied to policy decisions and social problems, guiding our species-wide goals to further our flourishing. Wilson aims to break evolution out of its biological box, offering it as a universal framework for understanding and shaping human phenomena. This is an ambitious program. But first one has to address the historical elephant in the room: the misapplication of evolutionary principles. The prosecution argues that evolution stands of accused of aiding and abetting the abominations that culminated in Nazi Germany. After the defeat of Hitler’s regime, evolutionary theory retreated into the redoubt of biology, concerning itself with natural history, laboratory experiments, and abstruse mathematical models. And there it should stay, argue its critics, lest we repeat the mistakes of the past. David Sloan Wilson rejects this argument in totality. He notes that the opprobrium hurled at evolution’s application to social problems draws from Richard Hofstadter’s Social Darwinism in American Thought. Hofstadter was a man of left-wing commitments writing in 1944, as the war against Hitler’s regime was still a live concern. His was not a dispassionate scholarly analysis. He aimed to produce something which could be deployed in the fight against “racism, nationalism, or competitive strife.” This View of Life highlights how men as diverse as Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, and Thomas Malthus were not united in their views, nor were they the cruel anti-humanitarians that their detractors portray them as (Hitler’s own views were scientifically inchoate at best, and ignorant at worst). Wilson’s arguments are familiar to libertarians in particular, many of whom have long argued that Hofstadter misrepresented classical liberals. The argument for the defense that one encounters in This View of Life may not entirely convince, at least in the chapter-length treatment Wilson provides. The great evolutionary geneticist R. A. Fisher’s central work, Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, contains a long exposition of eugenicist thought as applied to humanity. To not put too fine a point on this, contemporary readers invariably find this section quite offensive. And yet Fisher himself was a complicated figure, a patriotic British Tory conservative and Anglican Christian. The past was truly a different age. Most of This View of Life, though, presents a forward-looking positive vision, not a backward-looking apologia. Wilson argues cogently that humanity, both in its biology and its culture, is a product of evolution. The central pillars of his narrative are the “four major questions” elucidated by the ethologist Niko Tinbergen in the 20th century as essential aspects of any evolutionary analysis. First, what is the function of a trait? Second, what is the history of the trait over many generations? Third, what is the physical mechanism of the trait? Finally, how does the trait develop during the history of the particular organism? At this point you may wonder how Wilson applies these questions outside of biology, in religion for example, thereby completing the Darwinian revolution. Though This View of Life touches upon religion, it is in an earlier book, Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, that he elaborates in detail how religious belief systems are evolutionarily shaped cultural phenomena. Consider the trait of missionary activity. The function of the trait is to increase the flock and bear witness to the message of salvation. In regards to its history, the earliest records of missions go back to Buddhism, many centuries before Christ, during the reign of the Emperor Ashoka. The trait seems to have become common in many Roman “mystery religions,” culminating with Christianity, and later adopted by Islam, evolving over time in vigor and centrality to various faiths. The mechanism is straightforward. Believers leave their homelands and propagate their views. Finally, the nature of missionary activity has changed in many religions over time, as aims and methods have been refined – changes that develop through selection. A specific religion can be thought of as a cultural organism. Consider the Western Christian tradition – the Roman Catholic Church and the eruption of the Reformation. It made forays into organized missionary work under Gregory the Great in the sixth century a.d., but it truly refined the process in the 16th and 17th centuries with the emergence of orders such as Jesuits – missionary arms of the Church tasked with countering the spread of Protestantism – taking the faith across the oceans to new lands. The application of evolutionary principles to religion illustrates that This View of Life is not wedded to genetics. Genetics revolutionized our understanding of evolution in the 20th century, but in our time Wilson wants to push evolution beyond its genetic basis. All that evolution requires is inheritance of characteristics. This vision is grounded strongly on a “multi-level” understanding of organismic complexity, extending ideas Wilson developed in the early part of his career. In the biological context, that means viewing organisms from their simplest level – that of the gene – up to the individual, above that to kin groups, and then to large entities such as tribes and nations. And once you extend your analysis to large groups, cultural processes become much more powerful than biological ones. Due to its ambition, This View of Life takes aim at the incumbent imperium of applied social science: economics. Wilson has no time for the utilitarian individualism of neoclassical economics and its fixation on static equilibria. He rejects Homo economicus as intellectually impoverished, with thin insights not conducive to fostering human flourishing. Just as with the refutation of the arguments popularized by Hofstadter, skeptics may raise their eyebrows at the broad-brush dismissal of economics in Wilson’s narrative, but the thing to focus on is the alternative vision he presents. You can set This View of Life next to Tim Harford’s The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World with no guilt. It is simply a fact that humans are fundamentally social animals. Though the liberal vision emphasizes the centrality of the individual in terms of worth, our evolutionary history suggests that human uniqueness lies in our incredible sociality and cultural creativity. Individual human beings exist, but so do a wide range of social organizations. Consider the various city-states of ancient Greece, with their myriad political systems, or the communes of the Burned-over District of upstate New York in the 19th century after the Second Great Awakening. Religions, civic associations, and polities: These are all unique and ubiquitous to our species. Evolution on the individual level favors selfishness, as one might see in Homo economicus. Greed is, on the one level, good. But Wilson shows that in the broader context of animal breeding, maximizing the most “fit” lineages results in lower overall productivity, as rapacious individuals tear down the social fabrics on which they rely to exist. It is often the case that selection for groups of cooperative organisms, who may on an individual level be less impressive, results in greater yield. Evolution is more than the sum of its parts. And so it is with human societies, as the total drive toward selfishness leads to a war of all against all, and social collapse. Homo economicus may win against other members of their own tribe, but their tribe always loses to Homo sapiens, which is a much less rapacious creature. This View of Life presents a progressive vision of human complexity increasing over the eons, as bands becomes clans, and clans become tribes, and tribes become nations. The ultimate level of organization Wilson envisions is a global one. But here he does not imagine a centralized, top-down leviathan. Rather, he posits iterative experimentation as an essential feature of evolutionary systems, which evolve and change over time. They depend not on eternal equilibriums, but on contemporary responses to current conditions. Wilson inveighs against laissez-faire, but does not offer up as a utopian uniform alternative a centralized command economy. Evolution is not top-down design, as might apply to a physical system, but bottom-up adaptation and experimentation, as is the norm in biological systems. Small businesses, civic associations, localities, and nonprofits will likely drive social change and advancement on a global scale in the view promulgated in Wilson’s narrative. They incentivize innovation and promote what works. This View of Life begins with a discussion of the ideas of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, an evolutionary biologist, Jesuit priest, and philosopher, whose impact in the 20th century has been largely forgotten in the 21st century. It concludes with a frank admission that Wilson is aspiring to the same aim of de Chardin’s work in The Phenomenon of Man, which argued that humanity is pushing forward the project of increased social complexity so that there will evolve a supreme-consciousness, the “Omega Point.” In a broad sense Wilson too aspires to the Omega Point. He states that the “evolutionary worldview” in This View of Life is an ethic, while “evolutionary theory” is simply a description. This is a large step for a scientist – so large that it changes his work from that of a scientist to that of a pundit. Most evolutionary biologists would no doubt feel The Phenomenon of Man is a bizarre work. Richard Dawkins has praised sharp critiques of The Phenomenon of Man. In his scientific work Dawkins has suggested that humanity is good not in spite of its nature, but because of it. Similarly, many scientists will look askance at the grand claims Wilson promotes in This View of Life, as he mixes “is” and “ought,” jumping from a positive description of reality to normative prescriptions for human happiness and well-being. In contrast, religious conservatives may see Wilson’s visions as materialistic and hubristic. Its ultimate evolutionary basis, and nearly messianic aims, ensure that This View of Life will alarm many traditionalists. The fact is, one can argue that Wilson’s This View of Life is all of these things, and that the author believes in the importance of his vision to such an extent that he is not particularly concerned with causing alarm. Wilson begins the book as an evolutionary biologist, describing the facts as they are. He ends it like de Chardin, an evolutionary priest, preaching to the unconverted the good news at hand. | Razib Khan | https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/david-wilson-this-view-of-life-evolutionary-biology-society-politics/ | 2019-03-23 10:30:40+00:00 | 1,553,351,440 | 1,567,545,083 | science and technology | social sciences |
1,142 | abcnews--2019-01-17--Second lady to teach art at Christian school that bans LGBT teachers families | 2019-01-17T00:00:00 | abcnews | Second lady to teach art at Christian school that bans LGBT teachers, families | The White House has announced that Second Lady Karen Pence will teach art classes twice a week at a Northern Virginia’s Immanuel Christian Elementary School through the end of May. But the announcement has been drawn into focus the school’s policies seen as hostile to the LGBT community, including a ban on any students and teachers, and a policy that reserves the right to remove students who are children of LGBT parents. According to a copy of the school’s employment application, aspiring faculty must pledge they will “strive to live a personal life of moral purity,” and notes that should include an understanding that “the term “marriage” has only one meaning; the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive covenant union." The school also asks applicants to commit to not engage in "moral misconduct," which it says includes “homosexual or lesbian activity… transgender identity, [and] any other violation of the unique roles of male and female.” A separate agreement required for parents to sign notes that the school reserves its right to “refuse admission to an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student” if conduct in the home is “in opposition to… a biblical lifestyle" – which it says includes “participating in, supporting, or condoning sexual immorality, homosexual activity or bi-sexual activity. Vice President Mike Pence faced similar scrutiny during the 2016 campaign for his past promotion of policies that were seen as hostile to the LGBT community. In the 1990s, Pence’s congressional campaign website included a statement that raised questions whether he advocated for “conversion therapies” for gay youths. “Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior,” the website said. But a spokesperson for Pence after the website comments surfaced said he was merely calling for federal funds to “be directed to groups that promoted safe sexual practices” and that he was not a proponent of conversion therapy. The Vice President's office did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment on the school's policies. The Second Lady's office in its announcement said that Karen Pence had previously taught art for 12 years at Immanuel Christian School, as well as 13 years at public and private schools in Indianapolis, Indiana. | Alexander Mallin | https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/lady-karen-pence-teach-school-ban-lgbt-students/story?id=60428528 | 2019-01-17 00:46:14+00:00 | 1,547,703,974 | 1,567,552,026 | education | teaching and learning |
1,664 | abcnews--2019-10-16--Chicago teachers to strike in nation's 3rd largest district | 2019-10-16T00:00:00 | abcnews | Chicago teachers to strike in nation's 3rd largest district | Chicago parents and community groups are scrambling to prepare for a massive teachers' strike set to begin Thursday, prompting the city to preemptively cancel classes in the nation's third-largest school district. The Chicago Teachers Union confirmed Wednesday night that its 25,000 members would not return to their classrooms Thursday after months of negotiation between the union and Chicago Public Schools failed to resolve disputes over pay and benefits, class size and teacher preparation time. The strike is Chicago's first major walkout by teachers since 2012 and city officials announced early Wednesday that all classes had been canceled for Thursday in hopes of giving more planning time to the parents of more than 300,000 students. "We want this to be a short strike with an agreement that will benefit our schools and our teachers. We have a ways to go," Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said during a union news conference. "We actually want to see improvement on all the issues we are talking about here." Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she was disappointed by the union's decision to strike. "We are offering a historic package on the core issues — salary, staffing and class size," she said Wednesday night at her own news conference, adding that school district negotiators will remain at the bargaining table and that she hopes the union does, too. During the 2012 strike, the district kept some schools open for half days during a seven-day walkout. District officials said this time they will keep all buildings open during school hours, staffed by principals and employees who usually work in administrative roles. Breakfast and lunch will be served, but all after-school activities and school buses are suspended in the district serving more than 300,000 students. Janice Jackson, the district's CEO, encouraged parents to send their children to the school that they normally attend, however they will be welcome in any district schools. "We've put together a really comprehensive plan for the students," Jackson said. "We will make sure they are safe and they have a productive day." Also striking will be 7,000 support staffers, whose union also failed to reach a contract agreement. Before the strike announcement, June Davis said if teachers walked out, she would likely send her 7-year-old son, Joshua, to his usual elementary school — Smyth Elementary on the city's South Side where almost all students are low-income and minority. Davis, 38, said she would otherwise have to take her son to his grandmother's in a southern suburb, requiring an hourlong trip on a regional bus line. "Everybody's hoping they will come to some kind of agreement, find some compromise," Davis said. Lightfoot preemptively announced that classes on Thursday would be canceled, saying she wanted to give parents more time to plan. A clearly frustrated Lightfoot said the city had not only offered a 16% pay raise over the five-year contract, but the city also had agreed to put language in the contract addressing "enforceable targets" on class size and increasing staffing levels for positions such as nurses, librarians and social workers — items the union said were critical. She said the union's demands would cost an unaffordable $2.5 billion per year. Union leaders disputed Lightfoot's characterization of the city's willingness to concede to their demands on several issues, including class sizes. "CPS' current class size offer falls far short of what's needed to address the sweeping scale of the problem," they said in a statement. Lightfoot said the city agreed to make substantial changes on some of the union's top priorities, but its negotiators responded by issuing additional demands, including some she deemed unacceptable. "The union is still demanding to shorten instructional time by 30 minutes in the morning," she said. "We won't do that. We will not cheat our children out of instructional time." Before heading into a downtown law firm for bargaining talks Wednesday morning, union vice president Stacy Davis Gates said there is a "gross disconnect" between Lightfoot's comments and what negotiators have put in writing. "To say that you have offered a proposal that respects what we are asking for, to say you've bent over backward ... it's absolutely ridiculous," Davis Gates said. Community organizations have been preparing for days to welcome students, ranging from a $100 per day camp for elementary school kids at the Shedd Aquarium to all-day programs run by the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago and accessible for a $20 annual membership fee. Mimi LeClair, president of the Boys & Girls Club of Chicago, said a strike is particularly difficult for single parents and those whose jobs have inflexible schedules. "It's a horrendous dilemma, deciding between likely losing their job or having their paycheck docked when they rely on every penny or leaving their children home alone," LeClair said. The city's public libraries also are planning programs for students, along with a network of churches and community centers that are part of the city's Safe Haven program intended to give kids a safe place during the summer months particularly on the city's South and West sides. The YMCA of Metro Chicago expects highest demand for its all-day programs for children between the ages of 5 and 12, who are too young to stay home alone but whose parents may oppose sending them to schools unstaffed by teachers. "Real life still happens," said Man-Yee Lee, a spokeswoman for the organization. "Parents still need to go to work and their kids still need somewhere to go." | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/classes-canceled-threat-chicago-teacher-strike-looms-66317593 | Wed, 16 Oct 2019 21:30:15 -0400 | 1,571,275,815 | 1,571,314,303 | education | teaching and learning |
1,665 | abcnews--2019-10-16--Chicago teachers' contract talks about more than money | 2019-10-16T00:00:00 | abcnews | Chicago teachers' contract talks about more than money | Chicago's public schools will be closed Thursday as the city's 25,000 teachers are set to go on strike . A strike in the nation's third-largest school district would mean no classes for more than 300,000 students. Like most workers threatening to walk off the job, the teachers want a raise. But money is only part of the story. Here are some of the issues behind the school district's second strike in seven years: WHAT KIND OF MONEY ARE THE TEACHERS LOOKING FOR AND WHAT KIND OF RAISE IS THE CITY OFFERING? The city has offered 16% raises for the teachers over a five-year contract and calls for the teachers' health care costs not to increase for three years. The city says that's a pretty good deal for teachers, whose starting annual salary of just under $53,000 is higher than the salary for teachers in any other school district in the state. But the union, which is asking for a 15% raise over three years, says its analysis shows teachers at the end of the contract will make about $15,000 less than the city says they will. The union also said the contract leaves unclear just how much health care costs will increase during the final two years. WHY DON'T TEACHERS JUST TAKE THE MONEY? At first blush, it seems like a pretty good deal: a 16% raise over five years. But the teachers' union sees a potential trap. Teachers say if they take the raise, they lose negotiating leverage as they demand more school nurses, social workers, librarians and smaller classrooms because those are not the kinds of things they can legally strike over. The union knows about the city's vow to add at least 200 social worker positions and at least 250 full-time nurse positions but has made it clear that the only way to make sure the city follows through on its promises is to put it in writing in the next contract. WHY NOT JUST INCLUDE STAFFING REQUIREMENTS IN THE CONTRACT? Until this week, the city wanted nothing to do with adding staffing requirements to the collective bargaining agreement, saying it would make it tougher for principals to run their individual schools because it would require them to use a chunk of their budgets to fill those positions at the expense of the "needs and desires of the local community or school." But this week the CPS and city announced a willingness to write into the contract language that would address class sizes and staffing issues. That's potentially good news to the union, which has made it clear that any deal must address staffing shortages and overcrowded classrooms. JUST HOW CROWDED ARE THE CLASSES? It depends on who you ask. The school district contends that 80% of the kindergarten to third-grade classes made the 28-student maximum and 90% of the fourth- to eighth-grade classes met the 31-student maximum. The union estimates that a quarter of the city's elementary school students are in overcrowded classrooms. That disagreement is partly why the union wants a contract provision that calls for teachers to receive an extra $5 a day per student whenever their classes exceed the mandated size limit. The union also is pushing for smaller class sizes. The district says that would require the hiring of another 1,150 teachers and 1,000 teacher assistants at a cost of at least $225 million annually. WHY ARE NURSES, LIBRARIANS, SOCIAL WORKERS, AND COUNSELORS SUCH A STICKING POINT? There is no disputing the fact that the school district needs more people on those jobs. According to the union, about one-fifth of the district-run schools have librarians. And as scarce as they are citywide, the union says they are even harder to find in schools where most students are black. As for nurses, both the union and the school district agree many more are needed, though they can't agree on how many are currently working in the district. The union wants contract language that spells out that people will only be asked to do the jobs for which they are hired. It also has expressed concern about the number of students currently assigned to counselors and about various roles counselors are expected to fill, including as substitute teachers and lunchroom help. WHAT IS THE DEBATE OVER AFFORDABLE HOUSING ABOUT? Chicago is an expensive place to live and the way the union sees it, too expensive for some teachers and way too expensive for teaching assistants, clerks and other support staff. Like other city employees, teachers are required to live in Chicago and the union said that if police officers and firefighters receive housing subsidies, they should also get them. They want language in the contract that would call for the school district to provide housing assistance for new teachers and others, and to help students' families who are at risk of losing their housing. Mayor Lori Lightfoot agrees affordable housing is an important issue but a collective bargaining agreement between the teachers and the city isn't the place to solve it. | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/chicago-teachers-contract-talks-money-66319578 | Wed, 16 Oct 2019 21:39:43 -0400 | 1,571,276,383 | 1,571,314,302 | education | teaching and learning |
1,760 | abcnews--2019-10-31--Anxious students feeling pinch amid Chicago teachers' strike | 2019-10-31T00:00:00 | abcnews | Anxious students feeling pinch amid Chicago teachers' strike | Deadlines that could affect both Chicago students and striking teachers are looming over talks to resolve a walkout that has canceled classes for 11 days in the nation's third-largest school district. High school students are trying to meet Friday deadlines to submit early applications to colleges without access to their teachers or counselors, while athletic teams have been prevented from participating in playoff games. Chicago's teachers union voted to approve a tentative contract agreement with city officials Wednesday but refused to end a strike that has canceled two weeks of classes unless the city's mayor adds school days to cover that lost time. Teachers, meanwhile, could lose health insurance coverage at the start of November. Union leaders said this week that their 25,000 members will have to weigh the "risks and rewards" of continuing. | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/anxious-students-feeling-pinch-amid-chicago-teachers-strike-66665023 | Thu, 31 Oct 2019 11:16:11 -0400 | 1,572,534,971 | 1,572,534,997 | education | teaching and learning |
1,803 | abcnews--2019-10-31--The Latest: Teachers pleased, relieved strike is over | 2019-10-31T00:00:00 | abcnews | The Latest: Teachers pleased, relieved strike is over | The Latest on Chicago Public Schools teachers' strike (all times local): Teachers say they're pleased and relieved to be going back to work after their union and the city reached an agreement to settle an 11-day strike. Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday announced a contract agreement that will re-open schools Friday. Teachers say they are satisfied with mayor's decision to allow five days to make up for time lost to the strike. Fifty-year-old high school physical education teacher Lloyd Jimenez says he thinks the city made a greater concession than he expected. He says the settlement comes as a huge relief. He had feared he might lose his health benefits and jeopardize a kidney transplant his wife needs. Elementary school science teacher Hillary Remis says she believes both sides compromised but the deal can only benefit students. Families across Chicago are breathing a sigh of relief after learning a two-week teachers' strike is over and classes are set to resume. Parent Dominique Dukes has two children who are Chicago Public Schools students. They're ages 7 and 14. She says she printed worksheets for them at the library to keep them occupied during the 11 days that they missed school but she fears they missed out on their education. She's happy they can go back to class on Friday and hopes there isn't ever another strike. Officials with the Chicago Teachers Union and Chicago Public Schools announced that they reached an agreement Thursday afternoon and that classes would resume Friday. The last sticking point had been whether the district would make up days lost to the strike. They agreed to make up five lost days. The Chicago Teachers Union says it has reached agreement with the nation's third-largest school district to make up five of 11 school days lost during the teachers strike. The union and city officials announced Thursday that the strike has ended and that classes will resume Friday. CTU tweeted that members have agreed to "make up five days of student instruction." The city has provided no further detail. The union's delegates voted Wednesday night to accept a tentative agreement that includes pay raises over a five-year contract. But they said they wouldn't end the strike unless the mayor committed to making up some of the lost days. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she would not respond to a "unilateral demand" but was open to negotiations. The Chicago mayor and the city's teachers union say a strike that has cancelled classes for 11 days has been suspended and that classes will resume Friday. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday that the Chicago Teachers Union has agreed to the terms of a tentative deal. The president of Chicago's teachers union says he's open to a compromise on making up two weeks of lost class time because of a strike. Jesse Sharkey said Thursday that restoring all 11 days of canceled classes may not be feasible. He says union leaders want to have a conversation with Mayor Lori Lightfoot but that the amount of makeup time "can't be zero." Chicago Teachers Union delegates voted Wednesday night to accept a tentative agreement that includes pay raises over a five-year contract. But they say they won't end a strike unless the mayor commits to making up class days. Lightfoot says adding two weeks is a "nonstarter" but has suggested she's open to a compromise. The impasse has led to more than 300,000 students missing 11 days of school. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the teachers union's demand to make up two weeks of lost class time because of their strike is a "nonstarter." Lightfoot said Thursday that the Chicago Teachers Union presented a "unilateral demand" as they accepted a tentative agreement late Wednesday with the nation's third-largest district. Lightfoot says she's only open to continuing discussions that are in the "spirit of compromise." She has maintained throughout the strike that she won't extend the school year. Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson says there isn't a way to do it without further disrupting families' lives. CTU delegates voted Wednesday night to accept a tentative agreement that includes pay raises over a five-year contract. The impasse has led to more than 300,000 students missing 11 days of school. Striking Chicago teachers say they will return to their classrooms but only if the city agrees to make up two weeks of lost class time. Elected delegates for the Chicago Teachers Union voted Wednesday night to accept a tentative agreement with the nation's third-largest school district but say they won't come back without Mayor Lori Lightfoot's commitment. The union is encouraging members to fill the streets outside City Hall on Thursday, hoping to pressure Lightfoot into accepting its terms. The impasse cancelled classes for an 11th day for more than 300,000 students. Lightfoot says she won't accept the union's demand. She's said throughout the strike that she would not extend the school year CTU President Jesse Sharkey says Lightfoot's refusal feels like punishment for teachers and will hurt students. | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latest-mayor-calls-demand-make-days-nonstarter-66665848 | Thu, 31 Oct 2019 22:51:59 -0400 | 1,572,576,719 | 1,572,609,941 | education | teaching and learning |
2,408 | abcnews--2019-11-19--Thousands of teachers expected at Indiana Statehouse protest | 2019-11-19T00:00:00 | abcnews | Thousands of teachers expected at Indiana Statehouse protest | Thousands of teachers are expected to pack the Indiana Statehouse for a rally calling for further increase teacher pay in the biggest such protest in the state amid a wave of educator activism across the country. Teacher unions says about half of Indiana’s nearly 300 school districts will be closed while their teachers attend Tuesday’s rally on the same day legislators gather for 2020 session organization meetings. Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and leaders of the GOP-dominated Legislature have avoided direct criticism of teachers or the decisions by school districts to close, but don’t expect to take action on further boosting school funding until at least 2021. Teacher unions say members are frustrated over seeing little or no pay raises in a decade. | null | https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/thousands-teachers-expected-indiana-statehouse-protest-67122817 | Tue, 19 Nov 2019 00:02:47 -0500 | 1,574,139,767 | 1,574,165,159 | education | teaching and learning |
71,922 | breitbart--2019-08-21--1000 Kentucky Teachers Get Warning They Broke Law in RedforEd Sick Outs | 2019-08-21T00:00:00 | breitbart | 1,000+ Kentucky Teachers Get Warning: They Broke Law in #RedforEd 'Sick Outs' | But none of the 1,074 teachers who broke the law will be fired or prosecuted, Secretary of Labor David Dickerson said. Instead, they were given a one-time warning, with the promise of future consequences should they break the labor law again. “The Kentucky teacher sickout saga began on February 28, when the local #RedforEd affiliate in the state, Kentucky 120 United, launched a protest of legislation under consideration at the state legislature that shut down public schools in several counties,” Breitbart News reported. Subsequently, Kentucky Commissioner of Education Dr. Wayne Lewiss asked for “the names of those teachers who called in sick in order to protest education legislation at the state capitol, forcing schools in several counties to close for six days in the last two weeks,” which began the investigation that culminated in Dickerson’s announcement on Friday. “An investigation by Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration showed 1,074 teachers violated Kentucky law when they participated in a “sick out” during this year’s legislative session over concerns about their pension benefits, Labor Cabinet Secretary David Dickerson said Friday,” the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. The Louisville Courier-Journal reported on Tuesday, “[Gov.] Bevin said in the interview that while his cabinet could have fined those teachers up to $1,000 per day, his administration instead will ‘show some grace in this instance’ and ‘use this as a teachable moment.’ However, he left open the possibility of fining teachers if such sickouts happen again.” Bevin, a Republican, faces a tough re-election challenge in November against the Democrat gubernatorial nominee, Attorney General Andy Beshear, who was recently endorsed by KY 120 United. A Gravis Marketing Poll of 741 registered voters in Kentucky conducted between June 11 and June 12 showed Bevin leading Beshear by six points, 48 percent to 42 percent. The poll has a 3.6 percent margin of error. As Breitbart News reported in February, #RedforEd is a teachers union movement that “has its roots in the very same socialism that President Trump vowed in his 2019 State of the Union address to stop, and it began in its current form in early 2018 in a far-flung corner of the country before spreading nationally.” Its stated goals–higher teacher pay and better education conditions–are overshadowed by a more malevolent political agenda: a leftist Democrat uprising designed to flip purple or red states to blue, using the might of a significant part of the education system as its lever. . . Ostensibly focused on better pay for teachers, the real objective of the #RedforEd movement, as expressed by its young founder [Noah Karvelis, then 23-years-old] at the Socialism 2018 conference held in Chicago this July, is to obtain political power to advance a socialist agenda. “We’ve created an organization now. We have a network of 2,000 leaders who are experienced. They’ve been out on a job action. They’ve organized their campuses. They’ve collected signatures for a ballot initiative,” Karvelis said in his 13 minute speech to an estimated 1,800 fellow socialists from around the country, a number of whom were also teachers. (Beginning at the 11:00 minute mark of the video of his speech found at this KFYI webpage. #RedforEd teacher activists in Kentucky responded to the one-time warning scornfully. “School is just barely back in session and already Kentucky teachers have received their first threat from one of Bevin’s heavies at the Labor Cabinet,” KY 120 United, the Kentucky #RedforEd affiliate, said in a post published on its Facebook page Friday, shortly after Dickerson’s announcement: In a move that surprised exactly no one, the Labor Cabinet rules that teacher sickouts in 2019 were illegal work stoppages and 1,074 teachers were guilty of this. While they could be assessed a fine of $1000/day, they won’t at this time. They ended their release with a threat against anyone attempting to sick out again in the future, stating there would be penalties assessed in that event. Maybe if the labor cabinet secretary wasn’t so busy being a Bevin lapdog, he could have done his actual job and ensured the bonds were secured to pay the BlackJewel miners when the company shuttered. Our Kentucky teachers continue to show up for our kids and help them achieve their goals. We should expect our legislators and governor and his hand picked cabinet to respect our education system and its lifeblood–teachers. As we face critical teacher shortages, this administration is bent on continuing the attacks. Game. On. As #RedforEd teachers in Kentucky continued their dispute with the Bevin administration, an estimated 640,000 children returned to classes in Kentucky’s K-12 public schools this month. Kentucky’s public school students have performed slightly below national averages in a number of the most recent standardized tests of reading and math. “Despite years of effort in classrooms, Kentucky still has significant numbers of students achieving at the lowest levels and too little performing at the highest, according to a Herald-Leader analysis of the 2016-17 statewide scores released Thursday by the Kentucky Department of Education,” the Herald-Leader reported in September 2017. “Consider one-fourth of the state’s high school students earn the lowest marks possible in math and one-third scored the lowest in reading. Meanwhile, only half of the state’s elementary students can read or perform math at high achievement levels,” the Herald-Leader noted. This past September, the Herald-Leader reported “In most areas, Kentucky schools have not made much progress at all in the last five years, Kentucky Interim Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis said in releasing statewide accountability results for 2017-2018.” In 2017, 33 percent of 8th graders in the country were rated proficient in math, according to the Nation’s Report Card, prepared annually by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, while 29 percent of Kentucky 8th graders were rated proficient. In 2017, 35 percent of 8th graders in the country were rated proficient in reading, while 34 percent of Kentucky 8th graders were rated proficient. | Michael Patrick Leahy | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/3q8_SEckZQM/ | 2019-08-21 01:16:26+00:00 | 1,566,364,586 | 1,567,533,805 | education | teaching and learning |
72,720 | breitbart--2019-09-04--NYC Teachers Given Dear White Teacher Essay to Encourage Student Discipline Across Racial Lines | 2019-09-04T00:00:00 | breitbart | NYC Teachers Given ‘Dear White Teacher’ Essay to Encourage Student Discipline Across Racial Lines | The New York Post learned about the essay and reported that it differs from the city’s Department of Education’s controversial teacher training program: Unlike the Department of Education’s controversial “implicit bias” training — which, among other lessons, tells teachers that “racial equity” requires favoring black students over whites — the essay’s message is that white instructors should stop being afraid to discipline black students. Essay author Chrysanthius Lathan blasts white teachers who she says routinely send minority students to “teachers of color” for discipline — because they’re scared of being called racist. “My strength in the classroom does not come from my racial identity, and neither does yours,” Lathan, a former teacher in Portland, Oregon, who now works as an educational consultant, wrote in her essay. “It comes from the way we treat — and what we expect from — kids and families. It is time for you to take back the power in your classroom,” Lathan wrote. “Lathan also gives blunt advice to the white teachers she says ‘live in fear of their good faith actions being labeled as racist,’” the Post reported. “You need to find that bone in your body that tends to recoil when it comes time to deal with people of color — and purposely straighten it back out,” she wrote. “By contrast, the $23 million, ‘implicit bias’ training mandated by schools Chancellor Richard Carranza included consultant Darnisa Amante’s justification that a middle-class black student would ‘have less access and less opportunities’ over the course of a lifetime than a poor white classmate, according to sources who heard her say it,” the Post reported. “Dear White Teacher” is one of more than 50 essays in the book distributed at the orientation. The New Teacher Book is a 324-page manual published by Rethinking Schools, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit, according to the Post. Other essays in the book are controversial, the Post reported, including ones that attack charter schools as a “fundamental threat to the hope of sustaining a multicultural democracy” — and others that encourage new teachers to join unions and activist groups. | Penny Starr | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/DUvyvBYo_MQ/ | 2019-09-04 17:41:27+00:00 | 1,567,633,287 | 1,569,331,375 | education | teaching and learning |
73,830 | breitbart--2019-10-03--Kamala Harris More Books Pencils Not Armed Teachers | 2019-10-03T00:00:00 | breitbart | Kamala Harris: More Books, Pencils, Not Armed Teachers | Breitbart News reported that Florida’s new law empowers school districts to allow teachers to be armed to defend themselves and their students, should an attacker strike. The push to arm teachers came after Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri reviewed evidence in the February 14, 2018, Parkland shooting and said, “People need to keep an open mind to it as the reality is that if someone else in that school had a gun it could have saved kids’ lives.” The law allowing teachers to be armed took effect on Monday, October 1, 2019. The next day Harris tweeted, “We need more books and pencils in our classrooms — not guns. Period.” On April 16, Breitbart News reported Harris’ admission that she owns a firearm “for personal safety.” This admission came even as she maintained her opposition to teachers being armed for the safety of themselves and their students. AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at [email protected]. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. | AWR Hawkins | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/cNTpgxbeTD0/ | 2019-10-03 21:47:33+00:00 | 1,570,153,653 | 1,570,221,698 | education | teaching and learning |
74,768 | breitbart--2019-10-18--Company Announces 'Bogus' China Arrest of U.S. English Teachers | 2019-10-18T00:00:00 | breitbart | Company Announces 'Bogus' China Arrest of U.S. English Teachers | A company bringing U.S. teachers to China announced Thursday that China arrested two of its members running an English language school on “bogus charges.” In a post on their Facebook page, China Horizons confirmed the company would be closing down following the arrest of owner Jacob Harlan and director Alyssa Petersen in Jiangsu province last month, citing increasing political and economic problems between the U.S. and China. “Over the past 17 years we have had the great opportunity to help you experience China in a personal and unique way,” the statement read. “We are grateful for the memories and relationships that have been built over the years.” “Unfortunately, because of increasing political and economic problems between the U.S. and China, we are no longer able to send teachers to China safely,” it continues. “As a result, our company will be closing our doors at the end of October.” The statement also announced that the two Americans had been detained for nearly two weeks already while admitting the grim reality that they could face months or even years behind bars. “Because of the changes that are taking place in China right now the owner, Jacob Harlan, and the director, Alyssa Petersen, have been detained in China for 13 days now and may be so for the next few months or years,” the statement read. “They are being charged for bogus crimes and their families are working on getting them international lawyers to help them get back home to the states,” it continued. “If you would like more information and would like to help, there are 2 separate GoFundMe accounts that have been created for them both.” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he did “not see any concrete links” between their detention and U.S.-China relations. According to Petersen’s GoFundMe aimed at supporting her legal fees, Petersen was detained by authorities on September 27 and has since been held in a facility in Zhenjiang city and is said to be “doing OK.” Harlan’s GoFundMe explains that he and his eight-year-old daughter were taken by police from the hotel in which they were staying. His daughter was later allowed to board a flight home to Utah accompanied by a family friend, and the family is said to be “doing well under the circumstances.” China’s English-teaching industry has seen substantial growth over the past two decades, with thousands of Americans going out to teach for relatively high salaries. However, many face problems securing visas and navigating the strict control of life under the Chinese Communist Party. Speaking to the South China Morning Post on the condition of anonymity, a U.S. State Department official confirmed that they were monitoring the situation and the detainees were receiving “all appropriate consular services.” “We are aware of the detention of two US citizens in Jiangsu, China and the charges being brought against them by the provincial government,” the official said. “We take seriously our responsibility to assist US citizens abroad and are monitoring the situation.” Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at [email protected]. | Ben Kew | http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/breitbart/~3/LGecFhGDJbw/ | Fri, 18 Oct 2019 11:36:58 +0000 | 1,571,413,018 | 1,571,413,022 | education | teaching and learning |
79,540 | buzzfeed--2019-03-26--Kamala Harris Has Announced A Plan To Increase Salaries For Teachers | 2019-03-26T00:00:00 | buzzfeed | Kamala Harris Has Announced A Plan To Increase Salaries For Teachers | Kamala Harris announced a plan Tuesday to raise the salaries of teachers across the country by as much as 20%, offering a “historic” federal investment in American educators as the first major policy proposal of her presidential campaign. The California senator’s plan would try to close is known as the “teacher pay gap,” a gulf in pay between educators and comparable workers. It would mean a direct federal investment of some $315 billion over 10 years, her campaign said, as well as incentives to push states to close the gap on their own. The plan would give $3 in federal dollars for every $1 states put toward increasing teacher pay relative to other professions in their state. And it would make a “targeted investment” in teacher pay at high-poverty public schools, which mostly serve students of color — a salary boost that is meant, Harris's campaign said, to solve problems with high turnover and low experience that plague many struggling schools. The plan would also include funding for teacher training and recruitment programs, particularly at historically black colleges. The proposal is a sign of an increasing focus on raising teachers wages among Democrats after a string of high-profile teacher strikes and walkouts nationwide. Strikes last year in Oklahoma, West Virginia, and elsewhere stirred grassroots political energy and organizing, particularly among women voters. In the early days of the 2020 campaign trail, candidates from Harris to Beto O’Rourke to Elizabeth Warren have fielded questions on how they will help teachers. Education is consistently at the top of voters’ minds, according to national surveys that have found people consider education more pressing than almost any other issue. But it often receives little attention in the crush of presidential campaigns, losing out to flashier, more heated topics like health care, gun control, and abortion. That’s partly because, compared to states, the federal government has long played a relatively small role in K–12 education. Only a tiny fraction of funding comes from the federal level; the vast majority is made up by states, which fund education — and pay teachers — at vastly differing levels. The Harris initiative would mark a shift in that dynamic, giving a significant chunk of federal government money to states to pay elementary and secondary educators. The $315 billion is a massive investment compared to other federal education initiatives; Barack Obama's Race to the Top grants, his signature education initiative that gave federal money to states, cost $4.3 billion. Her campaign said it would pay for the investment by “strengthening the estate tax” — which in 2019 does not apply to the first $11.4 million of an individual’s estate — and closing other tax loopholes that favor the wealthy. The teacher pay proposal fits in with another signature policy for Harris’s campaign. Last year, in the Senate, Harris introduced a bill to offer $500 in monthly tax credits to working- and middle-class families, called the LIFT Act, which she has made a core piece of her early presidential run. She said at the outset of her campaign that passing the LIFT Act would be her first priority as president. | Molly Hensley-Clancy | https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/kamala-harris-teacher-pay-raise | 2019-03-26 18:55:57+00:00 | 1,553,640,957 | 1,567,544,888 | education | teaching and learning |
88,423 | channel4uk--2019-04-14--Worsening child poverty stopping learning say teachers | 2019-04-14T00:00:00 | channel4uk | Worsening child poverty stopping learning, say teachers | Children from low income families are avoiding school because they’re worried about being bullied, teachers have warned. A new survey by the national education union says some children are coming to school without having eaten for two days, while others can’t afford basic equipment like pens and rulers. Teachers say a lack of government funding means measures to tackle poverty, like free breakfast clubs, are being scrapped. We’re joined by Shoshannah Thompson, Headteacher at Halley Primary School in Tower Hamlets. | Krishnan Guru-Murthy | https://www.channel4.com/news/worsening-child-poverty-stopping-learning-say-teachers | 2019-04-14 18:13:58+00:00 | 1,555,280,038 | 1,567,543,013 | education | teaching and learning |
89,460 | channel4uk--2019-09-19--Teachers warn more children starting school unprepared and not potty-trained | 2019-09-19T00:00:00 | channel4uk | Teachers warn more children starting school unprepared and not potty-trained | Children barely able to speak in sentences, some still in nappies under their school uniform, some unable to use a knife and fork. These are just a few of the challenges faced by reception teachers of the class of 2019. In an exclusive survey carried out by this programme, 82% of reception class teachers say increasing numbers of children aren’t adequately prepared for school. Nearly two thirds say they’ve seen an increase in the numbers of new pupils not toilet trained. They told us about children who didn’t recognise books, swiping them like tablets. And – with some parents delegating story time to technology – is Alexa becoming nanny? | Jackie Long | https://www.channel4.com/news/teachers-warn-more-children-starting-school-unprepared-and-not-potty-trained | 2019-09-19 18:42:27+00:00 | 1,568,932,947 | 1,569,329,851 | education | teaching and learning |
92,998 | chicagosuntimes--2019-03-12--UIC draws up plan to help train high school art teachers | 2019-03-12T00:00:00 | chicagosuntimes | UIC draws up plan to help train high school art teachers | The University of Illinois at Chicago is giving students who want to become high school art teachers some help. The school says in a news release that for the first time since 2010 it is giving students pursuing an undergraduate degree in studio art the opportunity to obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education — or BFAAE degree — along with a professional teaching license. Five undergraduate students entered the art education major last fall and school officials expect that number will nearly double next fall and continue to grow. Because UIC has a large number of diverse students, the hope at the school is that it will be able to help fill the need for more teachers of color in Illinois and throughout the country. | Associated Press | https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment/uic-help-train-high-school-art-teachers-bachelor-fine-arts-education/ | 2019-03-12 01:02:08+00:00 | 1,552,366,928 | 1,567,546,524 | education | teaching and learning |
128,750 | dailyheraldchicago--2019-08-31--15 area school districts will have to raise starting teachers salaries to 40000 a year | 2019-08-31T00:00:00 | dailyheraldchicago | 15 area school districts will have to raise starting teachers' salaries to $40,000 a year | Some suburban school districts will have to raise starting salaries by as much as 22% over the next five years to meet a new state minimum pay requirement for educators. That's according to a Daily Herald analysis of 96 suburban school districts' teacher contracts. Currently, 15 of the school districts in the analysis have starting salaries below the $40,000 minimum mandated for the 2023-24 school year. Fox Lake Elementary District 114 has the lowest starting salary among the 96 school districts at $32,341, according to the district's teacher contract. Maine Township High School District 207's current starting salary of $59,517 topped the analysis. On average, the starting salary among the suburban districts is a little more than $45,000 a year. Eighteen of the districts have starting salaries higher than $50,000 this year. Of those, 13 are high school or unit districts where many teachers might be required to have more specialized or advanced degrees to teach certain subjects. District 207 Superintendent Ken Wallace said the performance of students has grown despite a growing number of students from low-income families in the district. Studies have shown students living in poverty often have lower academic achievement than wealthier peers. "Our student performance is the highest it's ever been by every meaningful measure," Wallace said. "That is the value of great teachers, and our District 207 teachers are some of the best in the nation." Proponents of the mandatory minimum wage see it as a way to make teaching a more attractive occupation and help solve the growing teacher shortage problem in some parts of the state. But critics worry it will start an arms race among school districts that will ultimately result in higher property taxes and set precedents that could result in similar mandated wages for other public-sector jobs. Meanwhile, many school administrators said it's too early to know what the effects of the new law will be on future teacher contracts. "The talent follows the money, so I do think it matters, but I don't think it's the only thing that matters," said Joe Williams, superintendent at Queen Bee Elementary District 16 in Glendale Heights where the starting teacher salary is $48,200 this year. "It's not just the cost of living new teachers are looking at, but the quality of life." Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the new law less than two weeks ago setting a minimum wage for educators at specific levels for the next five years, stepping up to $40,000 by the start of the 2023-2024 school year. Subsequent yearly increases in the minimum salaries for teachers are based on the Consumer Price Index, subject to review by the legislature. The first step that schools must meet is a $32,076 minimum salary for the 2020-21 school year, which all 96 of the suburban school districts exceed. Salaries must be $34,576 for the 2021-22 year and $37,076 for the 2022-23 year. Before the new law, the minimum wage for teachers had been $10,000, according to the Illinois Education Association, though no school district's starting salary was that low. In fact, many downstate school districts' starting salaries are higher than some suburban counterparts. "It's important that the focus of this minimum wage law is to attract and retain good teachers for the entire state," said Kathi Griffin, president of the Illinois Education Association. "The intent of the bill was not to pit one part of the state against another part of the state. It's to encourage more people to go into the profession." Grant Wehrli, a Republican state representative from Naperville who supported the bill, said setting minimum wages for teachers could be a bad precedent resulting in minimum wages for other government jobs. "That's absolutely something that should be a concern going forward and something I'll be keeping my eye out for," he said, "but this law (for teachers) was something that is going to help in areas of the state that are struggling right now." Several suburban school districts are going through contract negotiations with the teachers union, leaving officials hesitant to talk about what the new law means for that process. At Woodland Elementary District 50 in Gurnee, the starting salary is $34,220, the second lowest among the districts in the analysis. "I can't speak to its impact because we don't want it to have any bearing on our negotiations," said Chris Bobek, District 50's associate superintendent for business services. Contact Jake at [email protected] or (847) 427-4602. And go to dailyherald.com/subscribe to access the entire Suburban Tax Watchdog archive. | null | http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20190831/15-area-school-districts-will-have-to-raise-starting-teachers-salaries-to-40000-a-year | 2019-08-31 20:09:35+00:00 | 1,567,296,575 | 1,569,416,894 | education | teaching and learning |
177,193 | eveningstandard--2019-06-19--More than half of teachers in England find their job aposunmanageableapos | 2019-06-19T00:00:00 | eveningstandard | More than half of teachers in England find their job 'unmanageable' | More than half of secondary schoolteachers in England think their job is “unmanageable”, a global study has revealed. Teachers in England have one of the highest workloads in the world, according to the survey which was conducted in 48 countries. They were also found to have the second longest working days in the world, trumped only by teachers in Japan. John Jerrim, professor of education and social statistics at UCL’s Institute of Education, said there had been a clear drop in job satisfaction over recent years. “Low levels of job satisfaction amongst secondary is clearly a serious problem in England, one that education policymakers need to urgently address,” he said in a commentary on the survey, which was conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). More than half of secondary teachers said they may have been better off choosing another career, according to the participants’ responses. Vast amounts of marking were blamed for much of the dissatisfaction. The high proportion of teachers in England having to mark and write feedback for pupils remains unchanged since the previous survey in 2013, the Guardian has reported. The study further revealed that secondary teachers in England tended to have fewer years of experience than other OECD countries: 13 years in the profession compared to the OECD average of 17 years. The UK education secretary Damian Hinds said the results offered an accurate glimpse into the challenges faced by teachers. “These findings reflect many of the frustrations that I heard from teachers and heads when I first took on the role of education secretary and underlines the importance of the teacher recruitment and retention strategy that I launched in January this year. “We know that too many teachers are having to work too many hours each week on unnecessary tasks, which is why I have taken on a battle to reduce teachers’ workload so that they can focus on spending their time in the classroom, doing what they do best – teaching.” The OECD’s latest survey showed that working hours for secondary school teachers in England have increased from from 48 in 2013 to more than 49 hours a week today. While Primary school teachers in England recorded working 52 hours a week – longer than their peers in all other countries participating in the study, apart from Japan. Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the survey of 4,300 teachers at 300 schools “should act as a wake-up call for any future prime minister”. She said: “The government must end teachers’ unsustainable workload by tackling the high-stakes school accountability system which is fuelling the long hours culture and driving teachers out of the profession.” | Harriet Brewis | https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/more-than-half-of-teachers-in-england-find-their-job-unmanageable-a4171326.html | 2019-06-19 19:28:43+00:00 | 1,560,986,923 | 1,567,538,695 | education | teaching and learning |
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