All entries by this author

The silent women whose voices we never hear

Dec 2nd, 2007 11:39 am | By

I heard Robin Fox explaining that democracy is not ‘natural’ on NPR this morning. He said we think that what we’re used to is human nature, but it’s not, it’s just what we’re used to. Most people in the world are used to tribalism, he went on, and that’s what they want. They don’t care about nation or categories like ‘Arab,’ they care about family and tribe and what brings honour to them.

It’s interesting, and persuasive up to a point, but only up to a point. For one thing, there are objective benefits that tend to go with democracy and don’t tend to go with tribalism. And for a perhaps more significant and more far-reaching thing, what does Fox … Read the rest



Confusion has its uses

Dec 1st, 2007 4:15 pm | By

Are you shy? Introverted? Reserved? Hostile? Easily bored? Hypercritical? Tightly wound? Quarrelsome? High maintenance? Have you considered medication? It could be that KlineGlasgowSmith has just the pill for you. Do you have restless legs? A limp dick? Flat hair? Do you get hungry several times a day? Do you scratch a lot? You could have a treatable syndrome: please turn on your tv, and the right ad for your condition will appear sooner than you expect.

Frederick Crews looks at the wonderful interplay between Big Pharma and middle-class hypochondria.

Most of us naively regard mental disturbances, like physical ones, as timeless realities that our doctors address according to up-to-date research, employing medicines whose appropriateness and safety have been tested

Read the rest


Bunglawala tells us where he stands

Dec 1st, 2007 12:39 pm | By

A couple of days ago I asked what if there had been (quoting Bunglawala) ‘apparent intention to offend Islamic sensibilities or defame the honour and name of the Prophet Muhammad’ – would that make the arrest of Gibbons okay?

Should ‘defaming the honour and name of the Prophet Muhammad’ or ‘offending Islamic sensibilities’ be a criminal offense under the law? It’s good that Bunglawala said Gibbons shouldn’t have been arrested, but his reason for saying so is not so good, and the fact that the BBC is still automatically phoning the MCB for the obligatory comment is also not good. The BBC still needs to expand its Rolodex.

Bunglawala obliged us by answering the question*, and what do you … Read the rest



Deborah Lipstadt on Irving at Oxford Union *

Dec 1st, 2007 | Filed by

‘How does [Tyrl] propose “debating” someone such as David Irving who is a proven falsifier of history?’… Read the rest



UK Peers to Visit Gibbons *

Dec 1st, 2007 | Filed by

FO ‘pleased that they have been able to convey the views of British Muslims to the Sudanese authorities.’… Read the rest



Bunglawala: Gibbons Case a ‘Silly Affair’ *

Dec 1st, 2007 | Filed by

Ridiculous case – Sudan already has a poor image – silly affair – Sun readers barbarous too.… Read the rest



Garton Ash on How to Get Along *

Dec 1st, 2007 | Filed by

When a Muslim says the Koran favours free speech, why argue?… Read the rest



Nick Cohen on Liberal Condescension *

Dec 1st, 2007 | Filed by

How does Garton Ash know what seeds Hirsi Ali is planting in the minds of Muslim women?… Read the rest



Turkish Publisher Faces Jail for Atheist Book *

Dec 1st, 2007 | Filed by

Dawkins’s publishers threatened with legal action by prosecutors who accuse TGD of ‘insulting believers.’… Read the rest



Book or no book?

Dec 1st, 2007 1:02 am | By

Ed Husain takes Ayaan Hirsi Ali to task.

Just as Wahhabites and Islamists bypass scholarship, context, and history in the name of “returning to the book”, Hirsi Ali and others such as Robert Spencer and Ibn Warraq commit exactly the same error…Let’s take the question of apostasy. At an Evening Standard debate the other night, Rod Liddle had no qualms in declaring Islam, with a barrage of other baseless abuse, “a fascistic ideology”. Why? Because the Qur’an commands the killing of those who abandon it…[T]here is no verse in the Qur’an that calls for the killing of apostates…There is no stronger argument against religious fanatics than to illustrate the scriptural weaknesses of their case.

Well, maybe so, when you’re … Read the rest



Like bread

Dec 1st, 2007 12:54 am | By

Just a little more.

First of all, I mostly agree with Norm here.

One thing we are saying is that the human worth of those prisoners in the camps was being denied. Making them stand naked and vulnerable in the circumstances I have described was a way of announcing that anything – anything at all – could be done to them…To put the same thing differently, the respect or status we normally hold to be due to people simply in virtue of their humanity has here been removed.

But then that is putting it differently, and that’s what I’m saying. I don’t really literally think ‘dignity’ is meaningless – but I do think it means too many things and that … Read the rest



Taboo

Dec 1st, 2007 12:47 am | By

And just a little more. I’m like a dog with a bone, you know. There’s a rather Kassian argument in comments on an older post (combined with some vituperation to make it go down more smoothly). It’s interesting.

One doesn’t need to be a Christian, or even a theist, to be extremely alarmed at some of the directions that secular ethical thinking seems naturally inclined to go in – especially in its common utilitarian and more generally consequentialist forms…The concept of human dignity is central to any attempt to articulate the strong feeling shared by many (including many atheists) that something has gone badly wrong with this sort of ethical thinking….It’s difficult to say what’s wrong with necrophilia (if anything

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In the image of

Dec 1st, 2007 12:36 am | By

Dignity. We got an interesting discussion in the comments, and I suddenly realized (belatedly) that I could think of contexts in which the word ‘dignity’ wouldn’t repel me: contexts and situations in which people have managed to hang onto their dignity despite the assaults of other people or of nature. I probably still wouldn’t use it myself, but I would see the point of it.

But where this started was with Leon Kass; that’s why potentilla asked the question that prompted my series of them. I left Kass out of the dignity post, because I wanted to talk about the idea more generally and also (partly) more loosely. I wanted to free associate, partly. But now let’s look at … Read the rest



Taslima Nasreen Will Censor Her Own Book *

Nov 30th, 2007 | Filed by

‘Some people are upset with what I have said, I have decided to drop the controversial portions.’… Read the rest



Mo is on a Pedestal *

Nov 30th, 2007 | Filed by

You have to say a little prayer every time you say his name. But pictures?! Never!… Read the rest



Pope Attacks ‘Cruel and Unjust’ Atheism *

Nov 30th, 2007 | Filed by

All wrong; only God can do everything; God doesn’t happen to feel like it, that’s all.… Read the rest



Freud Not Taught in Psychology Departments *

Nov 30th, 2007 | Filed by

Why? Lack of evidence. Fine for gender studies, post-colonial studies, Queer theory though.… Read the rest



Biometrics Will Fix Everything *

Nov 30th, 2007 | Filed by

Or perhaps not. Ben Goldacre fools the machine.… Read the rest



Foreign Office Seeks Gibbons’s Release *

Nov 30th, 2007 | Filed by

The FO was in contact with Sudan’s government overnight and will repeat demands for her release. … Read the rest



Sudanese Ambassador Called Back to Explain *

Nov 30th, 2007 | Filed by

Officials at the Foreign Office say the mood has changed as a result of the verdict. … Read the rest