A lot of it just boils down to irrelevance. To changing the subject. To complete, utter, thorough-going abandonment of the work one is supposed to be doing in order to do another kind of work altogether. As if one should hire out as a French chef and spend all one’s time on the job carving ornate soap dishes out of driftwood. As if one should land a lovely job as a cardiologist and devote all one’s job time to training a turtle to recite poetry. As if one were a housing contractor who agreed to build a three bedroom house with a verandah and a library, and once on the site spent all one’s time knitting balaclavas for the troops.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Teacher and Muslim School Disagree Over Hijab
Oct 18th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEquality commission to rule whether school was wrong to demand she cover her head to work there.… Read the rest
Archbishop Whinges About Atheists
Oct 18th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDefended religious philosophies as kind of glue.… Read the rest
Pro and Anti Blogging Debate Reaches Library
Oct 18th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIs blogging a legitimate dimension of mass media, or the death of all standards and accountability?… Read the rest
Lawsuit Against Educational Website on Evolution
Oct 18th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonClaims Berkeley site’s disagreement with religious interpretations violates First Amendment.… Read the rest
The Trouble With Hypotheticals
Oct 18th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThought experiments are fine and useful – until one gets you in trouble.… Read the rest
David Hirsh ‘Against the Academic Intifada’
Oct 18th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWorrying about the connections between anti-imperialism, anti-Semitism, and hostility to Israel.… Read the rest
China Cancels Official Japanese Visit
Oct 18th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonApparently in protest at Prime Minister’s attending a controversial war shrine. … Read the rest
Does Relativism Matter?
Oct 18th, 2005 | By Simon BlackburnSeptember 11th, we are told, changed the world. That may be true, at least because it has changed how many people perceive the world. And a change in peoples’ ideas is a change in the world. We should not, however, expect many of those changes to be for the better, since it must be a general rule that when people are angry and afraid their ideas and actions go worse. In 1726, we may recall, Voltaire was exiled from France to London, where he was amazed and enchanted by the freedoms of the English. He was lucky not to be exiled here in the twenty-first century, and still less to the United States of America. As a foreign national, he … Read the rest
Faith is not a Virtue
Oct 18th, 2005 2:06 am | By Ophelia BensonWhat was that we were just saying about Thought for the Day? Thought for the Day and the kind of emetic bullshit offered up there by Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks? Who is, rumour has it, rather pompous, and a tad bossy. Now there’s a surprise.
Yes, Thought for the Day, we were talking about. So was Simon Blackburn in a lecture for the British Humanist Association a few years ago.
… Read the restThe debate in this country, and still more in the United States, too often aligns itself around a simple polarity. Are we to be religious? In that case, it is assumed, there are real truths, real standards, real values which we can use to guide our own behaviour and
Cultural Competence
Oct 17th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAbject refusal to articulate or defend ideas that might make certain protected groups uncomfortable… Read the rest
Shashi Tharoor Reviews Amartya Sen
Oct 17th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEconomist who is also sociologist, historian, political analyst, moral philosopher.… Read the rest
A Book That Gives You Furiously to Think
Oct 17th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSartre and Beauvoir had ‘complicated attitudes’ to certain kinds of truth.… Read the rest
Doing the Islamophobia Rag
Oct 16th, 2005 7:34 pm | By Ophelia Benson‘Islamophobia’ in the news today. There is Nick Cohen’s piece on Maryam, and comments on that at Normblog and Harry’s Place. And there is a Times article that says Hizb ut-Tahrir is recruiting students ‘using an anti-racist front organisation’ called ‘Stop Islamophobia.’
Well there’s part of the problem right there – ‘Stop Islamophobia’ shouldn’t even be seen as the name of an anti-racist organization. It’s too late now, of course, the name is well dug in, but it never should have been allowed to get so well dug in – it performs exactly the deceptive maneuver its proponents want it to do: it conflates criticism of Islam with criticism of Muslims, opposition to Islam with opposition to Muslims. … Read the rest
Hizb ut-Tahrir Using Anti-racist Front Organization
Oct 16th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHizb ut-Tahrir has been recruiting under the name Stop Islamophobia at UCL and other institutions. … Read the rest
Study Links Young Parents, Aggressive Children
Oct 16th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCritics worry about ‘demonising’ teenage parents.… Read the rest
Henry Adams as Superannuated Pest
Oct 16th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGarry Wills has set out to retire the malarial old crank and to re-claim the younger man.… Read the rest
Laura Bush and Identity Politics
Oct 16th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s sexist and elitist to think Harriet Miers is not ideal Supreme Court nominee.… Read the rest
October Bulletin from Middle East Women
Oct 16th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNews related to women’s rights from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Australia, Germany, more.… Read the rest
Nick Cohen on One Woman’s War
Oct 16th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMaryam Namazie’s obscurity remains baffling. She ought to be a liberal poster girl.… Read the rest