All entries by this author

Some People

Sep 5th, 2006 2:09 am | By

About this survey that says 1 in 10 Asians think ‘honour’ killings can be justified. Did you notice something peculiar? The article left something out. It left a few things out, but there was one huge thing. And it so obviously matters that you’d think it wouldn’t have, but it did.

It just says ‘young Asians’ and ‘the 16 to 34-year-old age group interviewed.’ See it? It doesn’t say what the gender breakdown was! Duh. It doesn’t even say whether or not it was all one gender. Now, you might think that surely the BBC wouldn’t be as silly as that, it wouldn’t say ‘young Muslims’ if the interviewees were absolutely all male. But it would. Just the other … Read the rest



Also

Sep 5th, 2006 1:42 am | By

And besides (she went on), what’s really irrational is to think that sentiment is irrational. It’s irrational because unrealistic, unobservant, extraterrestrial. It’s not irrational to have feelings of attachment or repugnance to things or places or people because of certain associations and memories, even if there is no possibility of material physical benefit or harm. It’s bizarrely literal-minded to think it is. The wedding ring example for instance: if it made any sense to think it’s irrational to want to keep the same one in preference to a duplicate, then nobody would ever want a wedding ring at all; the custom would never have gotten started. If it made sense to think that, then wedding rings wouldn’t mean anything, they’d … Read the rest



Not so fast

Sep 4th, 2006 7:21 pm | By

Wait. Something wrong here

The battle by scientists against “irrational” beliefs such as creationism is ultimately futile, a leading experimental psychologist said today. The work of Bruce Hood, a professor at Bristol University, suggests that magical and supernatural beliefs are hardwired into our brains from birth, and that religions are therefore tapping into a powerful psychological force.

He told a science conference in Norwich that it’s simplistic to divide people into those who believe in the supernatural and those who don’t, and adds “But almost everyone entertains some form of irrational beliefs even if they are not religious.” That seems fair enough. But then he backs up the point in what I think is an odd way: “For example, many … Read the rest



Nick Cohen on Why Language Matters *

Sep 4th, 2006 | Filed by

‘The Left can’t talk in a way that convinces outsiders that it is honest.’… Read the rest



Vaccine Stops 75% of Cervical Cancer Deaths *

Sep 4th, 2006 | Filed by

Gardasil was found to be effective on more strains of HPV than first thought. … Read the rest



Honour Killings OK *

Sep 4th, 2006 | Filed by

10% of young British Asians thinks ‘honour killings’ can be justified, according to BBC poll.… Read the rest



Psychologist Says Humans Hardwired for Religion *

Sep 4th, 2006 | Filed by

But seems to equate religious belief with sentiment, which is dubious.… Read the rest



Ignatieff Frontrunner for Liberal Party Leadership *

Sep 4th, 2006 | Filed by

‘Many Liberals are now hoping the writer and academic will be the next Trudeau.’… Read the rest



Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt

Sep 3rd, 2006 7:11 pm | By

This is rather inspiring. There’s audio and also a full transcript.

MAATHAI: I realized part of the problems that we have in the rural areas or in the country generally is that a lot of our people are not free to think, they are not free to create, and, therefore, they become very unproductive. They may have knowledge. They may have gone to school but they are trained to be directed. They are trained to be told what to do. And that is some of the unmasking that the Green Belt Movement tries to do, is to empower people, to encourage them, to tell them it’s okay to dream, it’s okay to think, it’s okay to change your minds,

Read the rest


Foucault’s Oscillation

Sep 3rd, 2006 6:22 pm | By

Richard Wolin on Foucault’s shift.

In American academe, that’s the gist of the Foucault story. He has been venerated and canonized as the messiah of French antihumanism: a harsh critic of the Enlightenment, a dedicated foe of liberalism’s covert normalizing tendencies, an intrepid prophet of the “death of man.”…Considerable evidence suggests that, later in life, Foucault himself became frustrated with the antihumanist credo. He underwent what one might describe as a learning process. He came to realize that much of what French structuralism had during the 1960s rejected as humanist pap retained considerable ethical and political value.

And triumphantly reinvented the wheel. Okay, I know, cheap shot, but still – bobbing about as we are these days on a … Read the rest



Richard Wolin on Foucault’s Change of Mind *

Sep 3rd, 2006 | Filed by

Later Foucault was a human-rights activist, contrary to his canonization as the progenitor of identity politics.… Read the rest



What John Adams Scribbled in his Books *

Sep 3rd, 2006 | Filed by

‘What he most dislikes is breezy confidence; the pieties of both left and right set him off.’… Read the rest



MPs Worry About Rising Hatred of British Jews *

Sep 3rd, 2006 | Filed by

Accuse some left activists and Muslim extremists of using criticism of Israel as ‘pretext’ for anti-semitism.… Read the rest



Witches Have to Pay Tax *

Sep 3rd, 2006 | Filed by

‘If they sell something, whether it’s a potion or a curse, they need to pay tax.’… Read the rest



Scott McLemee Says Adios to Deadwood *

Sep 3rd, 2006 | Filed by

The characters delivered intricate arias of Victorian syntax and repetitive obscenity.… Read the rest



Women don’t want rights anyway

Sep 3rd, 2006 1:52 am | By

Lila Abu-Lughod has some questions.

What images do we, in the United States or Europe, have of Muslim women, or women from the region known as the Middle East? Our lives are saturated with images, images that are strangely confined to a very limited set of tropes or themes. The oppressed Muslim woman. The veiled Muslim woman. The Muslim woman who does not have the same freedoms we have. The woman ruled by her religion. The woman ruled by her men.

And now for a round of spot the irony – inadvertent irony on this occasion. Or you might call it spot the pratfall.

As the late Edward Said pointed out in his famous book, Orientalism, a transformative and critical

Read the rest


Dutch Xians Want to Ban Part of Madonna Act *

Sep 2nd, 2006 | Filed by

Article 147 says it is forbidden to do or say blasphemous things in public domain when it shocks believers.… Read the rest



Radio Netherlands on Naguib Mahfouz [audio] *

Sep 2nd, 2006 | Filed by

Excerpts from the Cairo Trilogy with discussion by Fouad Ajami.… Read the rest



More on Jahanbegloo’s Interview *

Sep 2nd, 2006 | Filed by

Said many Iranian intellectuals were in danger of being tricked into ‘acting against national security.’… Read the rest



Jahanbegloo’s Repressive Release *

Sep 2nd, 2006 | Filed by

Rasool Nafisi cites a new tactic in the regime’s campaign against independent free thought.… Read the rest