Why millennials are giving up monogamy for August – Evening Standard

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Summer is a selfish, fatalistic season. You career around the city, flitting through barbecues and ascending to rooftops, your eyes always trained on the next destination and the newest crowd. Consequences vanish: youre physically in the office, at least, though the boss is away until mid-September, so anything you do now, youll have to do again anyway. This year, Brexits penumbra and North Koreas nuclear posturings add a frisson to proceedings: global uncertainty famously breeds hedonism. Essentially, if the end is nigh, might as well make it a large one.

So you are drunk and self-interested which in turn informs your dating strategy. Winter is, notably, cuffing season finding a relationship to save on a central heating bill but once your legs are out, and shaved for the first time in six months, its a shame to be tethered up or so some millennials reckon. For a certain fast-and-loose cohort, this is a summer of love: monogamy is on hiatus.

To some,sticking with one person just feels unimaginative. Take one twenty- something chap who, after a long-winded but amicable break-up, decided not to waste a single long, languid summer evening on moping. Instead he picked up his smartphone and started swiping often left, but periodically right. Soon he had nine suitors of mixed sexes, and duly has started dating them all.

Naturally some friends were aghast though not so much by the outrageous polygamy but because even if you went on a date every single evening of the week, you still wouldnt see them all, and surely Sundays and Mondays are verboten? Think bigger: there are 24 hours in a day, and a Monday morning hangover is naught but an inconvenience if youre the only person in the office that morning. Plus, no ones getting hurt: each one knows about the other one further proof that everyone in town is playing by the same loose morals. Its all in the spirit of a bit of healthy competition.

Man sends crush hilarious ideas for a date but it goes horribly wrong

Everyone lives for the summer its like everything is heightened, observes one twentysomething committed summer singleton. People put more effort into their appearance and making plans. Everyone looks fitter and goes out more, so youre way more likely to meet someone. Why bother putting all your eggs in one basket (thank you, Love Island) when you could be trying all of the eggs to find one thats 100 per cent your type on paper? The only people I know who are in relationships during the summer are people who have genuine feelings for someone they think is the dogs bollocks. In terms of Tinder, Ive had way more spontaneous dates over the summer with minimal messaging prior.

Granted, while summer is a catalyst, theres evidence this generation has a shifting attitude to monogamy in general. A survey by YouGov published at the end of last year found that nearly half of millennials perceived monogamy on a spectrum, rather than as a binary state. Those under 30 were the least likely of any age group to want a relationship that was wholly monogamous. This chimes with our attitude to sexuality: millennials resist labels and use evasive language to describe the relationships were in (seeing each other, linking, hanging out) and sometimes avoid endings, too, even when theyre strictly necessary (ghosting to leave your flame hanging, of course).

Nonetheless theres also something about summers prickly heat that makes people go doolally. We are overstimulated there is so much fun to be had! and too weak to resist the temptations of the flesh which, despite this weeks execrable weather, is usually visible and lightly tanned from the group holiday to Turkey. While winter evenings at the pub are nicer with a hand to hold, festivals, for example, create a lawless temporary world, a mirage of sparkling lights and sparkly faces, from which the realities of the outside world are excluded. Snogging strangers in tents is all part of it: indeed, a survey by uSwitch in June found one in five people planned to download Tinder just for a festival.

These are Tinder's most popular singletons

Tinder/Cosmpolitan

Matches a day: 10

Number of first dates: 5

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 15

Number of first dates: 10

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 20

Number of first dates: 5

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 4

Number of first dates: 18

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 15

Number of first dates: 3

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 6

Number of first dates: 10

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 1

Number of first dates: 8

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 5

Number of first dates: 6

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 5

Number of first dates: 13

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 10

Number of first dates: 1

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Number of first dates: 15

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 6

Number of first dates: 3

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Matches a day: 6

Number of first dates: 4

Tinder/Cosmopolitan

Barbecues are more fun with a flirtation in your sights; reaching last orders is more thrilling if youre not yet sure whether the fun is, indeed, drawing to an end, or whether that two (or three) person after-party is about to start. Plus, invites are open and fluid in summer: dates dont mean sticking to drinks you can bring someone along to Sunfall in Brockwell Park this weekend, or as a plus-one to a mates house party. Everyones up for meeting new people. Frankly, its strategic: if it doesnt work out with you it might do with one of your mates.

Tinderis having a month of field days: the Tinder tourists are in town, which gives Londoners a chance to attempt to atone for the sins of Brexit. Sure, youd have to be a top shagger to mitigate for Article 50 in its entirety, but you can make your best attempt at international relations. One twentysomething student whos kicking about over the long summer says she downloaded it as soon as she got off the train home, despite having a few flirtations on campus that she wouldnt really want to ruin. Im far away and looking for people to meet and while away the lonely summer, she observes, shrugging.

Others confess to having changed their Tinder subscription strategy for the summer: Tinder Boost, which sends your profile top of the pile for 30 minutes, and gathers up to 10 times more profile views in that time, is worth the premium when you know youre competing with a whole capital full of people on heat.

One twentysomething girl has just started seeing someone, but both have holidays booked so theyre barely in the country at the same time, and frankly, monogamy would seem like martyred self-deprivation. Another guy grumbles that hes stretching the limits of his local knowledge to come up with a new date location several times a week he fears the opprobrium of the bartenders if he brings a rotating cast of men in every week. Dont: theyre all doing it too. Why do you think every waiter and waitress in town has a glint in their eye?

Crucially, though, dont pretend. If being a polyamorous playboy or playgirl makes you feel empty and alone, then dont persevere. Youll probably find a real gem everyone else is too busy being a lothario.

@phoebeluckhurst

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Why millennials are giving up monogamy for August - Evening Standard

Review: Bored, Beautiful Terrorists With a Taste for Luxury Brands – New York Times

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Photo A group of young French militants carry out a series of attacks in Paris in Nocturama. Credit Grasshopper Film

Nocturama might be an interesting movie about terrorism if there were no such thing as terrorism. If, that is, politically motivated shootings and bombings in big cities were fantastical tropes or metaphorical conceits, like zombie epidemics or extraterrestrial invasions. But perhaps interesting is too strong a word. Without a real-world correlative for the actions it depicts, Bertrand Bonellos new film would merely be tedious and pretentious rather than repellent.

There is no denying that Mr. Bonello, whose previous films include House of Pleasures (a prurient peek behind the scenes at an early-20th-century bordello) and Saint Laurent (a salacious tour of 70s couture), possesses cinematic skill and suavity to spare. The story told in Nocturama splits neatly into before and after, with a few flashbacks thrown in for clarity and variety. The first half follows a collection of young French people as they prepare to carry out a series of attacks in Paris; the second stays with them in the immediate aftermath, as they kill time in a high-end department store.

Part 1 is fast-moving and suspenseful, Part 2 languorous and luxuriant. The young terrorists are brisk and businesslike until the plastic explosives detonate. Then they act out a parody of jaded consumerist hedonism, browsing among the brand names. Nike, Fendi, Issey Miyake Mr. Bonello places the products so lovingly in the frame that you might think he was being paid to do it.

A preview of the film.

Really, though, all he advertises is the vacuity of his imagination, which he mistakes for the moral emptiness of his characters and the society that spawned them. They are not or not all drawn from its margins or its oppressed groups. A few of the conspirators (there are eight in all, plus an inside man at the store) seem to be children of immigrants from suburban housing projects. The others come from Frances middle and upper classes. One of the leaders is a student at an elite university, with family connections to the minister of the interior, whose office is among the groups targets.

Other targets include the chief executive of a bank, a row of parked cars, a gilded equestrian statue and a skyscraper with the word global conveniently displayed near its crown. The cause that motivates this violence is never specified. One member of the gang is a Muslim who doesnt drink alcohol and believes he will be welcomed in paradise as a martyr, but religious extremism doesnt seem to be part of the overall agenda. Nor does any recognizable political ideology or economic grievance. It was bound to happen, a bored-sounding young woman says to a perpetrator who has wandered out for a cigarette.

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Review: Bored, Beautiful Terrorists With a Taste for Luxury Brands - New York Times

Thorpe St Andrew author Sabena Burnett publishes first autobiography – Norfolk Eastern Daily Press

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PUBLISHED: 12:01 11 August 2017 | UPDATED: 12:01 11 August 2017

Thorpe St Andrew author Sabena Burnett. Photo: Sabena Burnett

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Out of Order explores the life of Sabena Burnett during the 1960s, 70s and 80s in London.

The 62-year-old spent more than a year writing the book, which is described as a poignant journey of hedonism and aspiring stardom alongside the movers and shakers of London.

She said: I would say it is a very, very honest, no holds barred account of my quite eventful life up until now.

I take the reader through time from my birth in North London, through my miss-spent youth, through some difficult and life-changing experiences to the happiness I have found with my husband, children and friends,and the life we have made for ourselves here in Norfolk.

Mrs Burnett has so far sold around 70 copies of her book.

And on September 8, she will be selling copies of her autobiography at the Birdcage pub on Pottergate from 5 to 7pm.

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Thorpe St Andrew author Sabena Burnett publishes first autobiography - Norfolk Eastern Daily Press

Netanyahu’s cynical tactic: I’m Likud, Likud is me – Ynetnews

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Likud members know how to close ranks when they have too, and that includes the ministers, some of whom bit the bullet on Wednesday evening and sat at the front row at the Likud rally, opposite the stage. They found it difficult to hide the heartburn, but none of them opened their mouths. Anyone looking to the future knows that this isnt the time to talk.

Netanyahu at Wednesdays rally, against the backdrop of the Likud logo. Cynically and sophisticatedly binding himself and his family together with his party (Photo: EPA)

Theres so much Machiavellianism here, so many lies. Why even the latest polls have shown that if Likud is headed by a different leader, the party will gain even more Knesset seats.

Nevertheless, it was impossible not to feel discomfort. Watching this demonstration, the factual distortion (not to mention the historical distortion), hearing Netanyahu turn his familys unlimited hedonism and exploitation into a harassment of his wife by the media, as if its all about a cup of tea served to her righteous father on his deathbed.

Hearing the disparagement, the lies, the hatred towards members of a large public, who felt on Wednesday that this isnt their prime minister, that theyre outsiders in this country in light of such a divisive speech. A speech of a camp leader, turning to the members of his camp and inciting them against the other camp.

A person in Netanyahus situation should have bowed his head and kept silent. He definitely shouldnt have organized an Erdoan-style rally for himself. He should have waited quietly for the attorney generals decision. Instead, Netanyahu chose war.

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Netanyahu's cynical tactic: I'm Likud, Likud is me - Ynetnews

Hegelianism – Wikipedia

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Hegelianism is the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational alone is real",[1] which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. His goal was to reduce reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of absolute idealism.

Hegel's method in philosophy consists of the triadic development (Entwicklung) in each concept and each thing. Thus, he hopes, philosophy will not contradict experience, but will give data of experience to the philosophical, which is the ultimately true explanation. If, for instance, we wish to know what liberty is, we take that concept where we first find itthe unrestrained action of the savage, who does not feel the need of repressing any thought, feeling, or tendency to act.

Next, we find that the savage has given up this freedom in exchange for its opposite, the restraint, or, as he considers it, the tyranny, of civilization and law. Finally, in the citizen under the rule of law, we find the third stage of development, namely liberty in a higher and a fuller sense than how the savage possessed itthe liberty to do, say, and think many things beyond the power of the savage.

In this triadic process, the second stage is the direct opposite, the annihilation, or at least the sublation, of the first. The third stage is the first returned to itself in a higher, truer, richer, and fuller form. The three stages are, therefore, styled:

These three stages are found succeeding one another throughout the whole realm of thought and being, from the most abstract logical process up to the most complicated concrete activity of organized mind in the succession of states or the production of systems of philosophy.

In logic which, according to Hegel, is really metaphysic we have to deal with the process of development applied to reality in its most abstract form. According to Hegel, in logic, we deal in concepts robbed of their empirical content: in logic we are discussing the process in vacuo, so to speak. Thus, at the very beginning of Hegel's study of reality, he finds the logical concept of being.

Now, being is not a static concept according to Hegel, as Aristotle supposed it was. It is essentially dynamic, because it tends by its very nature to pass over into nothing, and then to return to itself in the higher concept, becoming. For Aristotle, there was nothing more certain than that being equaled being, or, in other words, that being is identical with itself, that everything is what it is. Hegel does not deny this; but, he adds, it is equally certain that being tends to become its opposite, nothing, and that both are united in the concept becoming. For instance, the truth about this table, for Aristotle, is that it is a table. (This is not necessarily true. Aristotle made a distinction between things made by art and things made by nature. Things made by art--such as a table--follow this description of thinghood. Living things however are self-generating and constantly creating their own being. Being in the sense of a living thing is highly dynamic and is defined by the thing creating its own being. He describes life not in terms of being but coming-into-being. For instance a baby's goal is to become old. It is neither absolutely young or absolutely old and somewhere in the process of being young and becoming old. It sounds like Hegel made the comparison between being and not being while Aristotle made the comparison between art and nature.)

For Hegel, the equally important truth is that it was a tree, and it "will be" ashes. The whole truth, for Hegel, is that the tree became a table and will become ashes. Thus, becoming, not being, is the highest expression of reality. It is also the highest expression of thought because then only do we attain the fullest knowledge of a thing when we know what it was, what it is, and what it will be-in a word, when we know the history of its development.

In the same way as "being" and "nothing" develop into the higher concept becoming, so, farther on in the scale of development, life and mind appear as the third terms of the process and in turn are developed into higher forms of themselves. (It is interesting here to note that Aristotle saw "being" as superior to "becoming", because anything which is still becoming something else is imperfect. Hence, God, for Aristotle, is perfect because He never changes, but is eternally complete.) But one cannot help asking what is it that develops or is developed?

Its name, Hegel answers, is different in each stage. In the lowest form it is "being", higher up it is "life", and in still higher form it is "mind". The only thing always present is the process (das Werden). We may, however, call the process by the name of "spirit" (Geist) or "idea" (Begriff). We may even call it God, because at least in the third term of every triadic development the process is God.

The first and most wide-reaching consideration of the process of spirit, God, or the idea, reveals to us the truth that the idea must be studied (1) in itself; this is the subject of logic or metaphysics; (2) out of itself, in nature; this is the subject of the philosophy of nature; and (3) in and for itself, as mind; this is the subject of the philosophy of mind (Geistesphilosophie).

Passing over the rather abstract considerations by which Hegel shows in his Logik the process of the idea-in-itself through being to becoming, and finally through essence to notion, we take up the study of the development of the idea at the point where it enters into otherness in nature. In nature the idea has lost itself, because it has lost its unity and is splintered, as it were, into a thousand fragments. But the loss of unity is only apparent, because in reality the idea has merely concealed its unity.

Studied philosophically, nature reveals itself as so many successful attempts of the idea to emerge from the state of otherness and present itself to us as a better, fuller, richer idea, namely, spirit, or mind. Mind is, therefore, the goal of nature. It is also the truth of nature. For whatever is in nature is realized in a higher form in the mind which emerges from nature.

The philosophy of mind begins with the consideration of the individual, or subjective, mind. It is soon perceived, however, that individual, or subjective, mind is only the first stage, the in-itself stage, of mind. The next stage is objective mind, or mind objectified in law, morality, and the State. This is mind in the condition of out-of-itself.

There follows the condition of absolute mind, the state in which mind rises above all the limitations of nature and institutions, and is subjected to itself alone in art, religion, and philosophy. For the essence of mind is freedom, and its development must consist in breaking away from the restrictions imposed on it in it otherness by nature and human institutions.

Hegel's philosophy of the State, his theory of history, and his account of absolute mind are perhaps the most often read portions of his philosophy due to their accessibility. The State, he says, is mind objectified. The individual mind, which, on account of its passions, its prejudices, and its blind impulses, is only partly free, subjects itself to the yoke of necessitythe opposite of freedomin order to attain a fuller realization of itself in the freedom of the citizen.

This yoke of necessity is first met within the recognition of the rights of others, next in morality, and finally in social morality, of which the primal institution is the family. Aggregates of families form civil society, which, however, is but an imperfect form of organization compared with the State. The State is the perfect social embodiment of the idea, and stands in this stage of development for God Himself.

The State, studied in itself, furnishes for our consideration constitutional law. In relation to other States it develops international law; and in its general course through historical vicissitudes it passes through what Hegel calls the "Dialectics of History".

Hegel teaches that the constitution is the collective spirit of the nation and that the government and the written constitution is the embodiment of that spirit. Each nation has its own individual spirit, and the greatest of crimes is the act by which the tyrant or the conqueror stifles the spirit of a nation.

War, Hegel suggests, can never be ruled out, as one can never know when or if one will occur, an example being the Napoleonic overrunning of Europe and putting down of Royalist systems. War represents a crisis in the development of the idea which is embodied in the different States, and out of this crisis usually the State which holds the more advanced spirit wins out, though it may also suffer a loss, lick its wounds, yet still win in the spiritual sense, as happened for example when the northerners sacked Rome, its form of legality and religion all "won" out in spite of the losses on the battlefield.

A peaceful revolution is also possible according to Hegel when the changes required to solve the crisis are ascertained by thoughtful insight and when this insight spreads throughout the body politic:

If a people [Volk] can no longer accept as implicitly true what its constitution expresses to it as the truth, if its consciousness or Notion and its actuality are not at one, then the peoples spirit is torn asunder. Two things may then occur. First, the people may either by a supreme internal effort dash into fragments this law which still claims authority, or it may more quietly and slowly effect changes on the yet operative law, which is, however, no longer true morality, but which the mind has already passed beyond. In the second place, a peoples intelligence and strength may not suffice for this, and it may hold to the lower law; or it may happen that another nation has reached its higher constitution, thereby rising in the scale, and the first gives up its nationality and becomes subject to the other. Therefore it is of essential importance to know what the true constitution is; for what is in opposition to it has no stability, no truth, and passes away. It has a temporary existence, but cannot hold its ground; it has been accepted, but cannot secure permanent acceptance; that it must be cast aside, lies in the very nature of the constitution. This insight can be reached through Philosophy alone. Revolutions take place in a state without the slightest violence when the insight becomes universal; institutions, somehow or other, crumble and disappear, each man agrees to give up his right. A government must, however, recognize that the time for this has come; should it, on the contrary, knowing not the truth, cling to temporary institutions, taking what though recognized is unessential, to be a bulwark guarding it from the essential (and the essential is what is contained in the Idea), that government will fall, along with its institutions, before the force of mind. The breaking up of its government breaks up the nation itself; a new government arises, or it may be that the government and the unessential retain the upper hand.[2]

The "ground" of historical development is, therefore, rational; since the State, if it is not in contradiction, is the embodiment of reason as spirit. Many, at first considered to be, contingent events of history can become, in reality or in necessity, stages in the logical unfolding of the sovereign reason which gets embodied in an advanced State. Such a "necessary contingency" when expressed in passions, impulse, interest, character, personality, get used by the "cunning of reason", which, in retrospect, was to its own purpose.

We are, therefore, to understand historical happenings as the stern, reluctant working of reason towards the full realization of itself in perfect freedom. Consequently, we must interpret history in rational terms, and throw the succession of events into logical categories and this interpretation is, for Hegel, a mere inference from actual history.

Thus, the widest view of history reveals three most important stages of development: Oriental imperial (the stage of oneness, of suppression of freedom), Greek social democracy (the stage of expansion, in which freedom was lost in unstable demagogy), and Christian constitutional monarchy (which represents the reintegration of freedom in constitutional government).

Even in the State, mind is limited by subjection to other minds. There remains the final step in the process of the acquisition of freedom, namely, that by which absolute mind in art, religion, and philosophy subjects itself to itself alone. In art, mind has the intuitive contemplation of itself as realized in the art material, and the development of the arts has been conditioned by the ever-increasing "docility" with which the art material lends itself to the actualization of mind or the idea.

In religion, mind feels the superiority of itself to the particularizing limitations of finite things. Here, as in the philosophy of history, there are three great moments, Oriental religion, which exaggerated the idea of the infinite, Greek religion, which gave undue importance to the finite, and Christianity, which represents the union of the infinite and the finite. Last of all, absolute mind, as philosophy, transcends the limitations imposed on it even in religious feeling, and, discarding representative intuition, attains all truth under the form of reason.

Whatever truth there is in art and in religion is contained in philosophy, in a higher form, and free from all limitations. Philosophy is, therefore, "the highest, freest and wisest phase of the union of subjective and objective mind, and the ultimate goal of all development."

The far reaching influence of Hegel is due in a measure to the undoubted vastness of the scheme of philosophical synthesis which he conceived and partly realized. A philosophy which undertook to organize under the single formula of triadic development every department of knowledge, from abstract logic up to the philosophy of history, has a great deal of attractiveness to those who are metaphysically inclined. But Hegel's influence is due in a still larger measure to two extrinsic circumstances.

His philosophy is the highest expression of that spirit of collectivism which characterized the nineteenth century. In theology especially Hegel revolutionized the methods of inquiry. The application of his notion of development to Biblical criticism and to historical investigation is obvious to anyone who compares the spirit and purpose of contemporary theology with the spirit and purpose of the theological literature of the first half of the nineteenth century.[citation needed]

In science, too, and in literature, the substitution of the category of becoming for the category of being is a very patent fact, and is due to the influence of Hegel's method. In political economy and political science the effect of Hegel's collectivistic conception of the State supplanted to a large extent the individualistic conception which was handed down from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth century.

Hegel's philosophy became known outside Germany from the 1820s onwards, and Hegelian schools developed in northern Europe, Italy, France, Eastern Europe, America and Britain.[3] These schools are collectively known as post-Hegelian philosophy, post-Hegelian idealism or simply post-Hegelianism.[4]

Hegel's immediate followers in Germany are generally divided into the "Right Hegelians" and the "Left Hegelians" (the latter also referred to as the "Young Hegelians").

The Rightists developed his philosophy along lines which they considered to be in accordance with Christian theology. They included Karl Friedrich Gschel, Johann Philipp Gabler, Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz, and Johann Eduard Erdmann.

The Leftists accentuated the anti-Christian tendencies of Hegel's system and developed schools of materialism, socialism, rationalism, and pantheism. They included Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Bruno Bauer, and David Strauss. Max Stirner socialized with the left Hegelians but built his own philosophical system largely opposing that of these thinkers.

In Britain, Hegelianism was represented during the nineteenth century by, and largely overlapped the British Idealist school of James Hutchison Stirling, Thomas Hill Green, William Wallace, John Caird, Edward Caird, Richard Lewis Nettleship, F.H. Bradley, and J. M. E. McTaggart.

In Denmark, Hegelianism was represented by Johan Ludvig Heiberg and Hans Lassen Martensen from the 1820s to the 1850s.

In mid-19th century Italy, Hegelianism was represented by Bertrando Spaventa.

Hegelianism in North America was represented by Friedrich August Rauch, Thomas Watson and William T. Harris, as well as the St. Louis Hegelians. In its most recent form it seems to take its inspiration from Thomas Hill Green, and whatever influence it exerts is opposed to the prevalent pragmatic tendency.

In Poland, Hegelianism was represented by Karol Libelt, August Cieszkowski and Jzef Kremer.

Benedetto Croce and tienne Vacherot were the leading Hegelians towards the end of the nineteenth century in Italy and France, respectively. Among Catholic philosophers who were influenced by Hegel the most prominent were Georg Hermes and Anton Gnther.

Hegelianism also inspired Giovanni Gentile's philosophy of actual idealism and Fascism, the concept that people are motivated by ideas and that social change is brought by the leaders.

Hegelianism spread to Imperial Russia through St. Petersburg in the 1840s, and was as other intellectual waves were considered an absolute truth amongst the intelligentsia, until the arrival of Darwinism in the 1860s.[5]

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Hegelianism - Wikipedia

How Silicon Valley’s Workplace Culture Produced James Damore’s Google Memo – The New Yorker

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Last week, a software engineer at Google, James Damore, posted a ten-page memo, titled Googles Ideological Echo Chamber , to an internal company network. Citing a range of psychological studies, Wikipedia entries, and media articles on our culture of shaming and misrepresentation, Damore argued that women are underrepresented in the tech industry largely because of their innate biological differences from mentheir stronger interest in people rather than things, their propensity for neuroticism, their higher levels of anxiety. Damore criticized the companys diversity initiatives, which focus on recruitment, hiring, and professional development, as discriminatory, and advanced concrete suggestions for improving them: de-moralize diversity, de-emphasize empathy, stop alienating conservatives, and be open about the science of human nature. On Monday, Googles C.E.O., Sundar Pichai, sent a note to his employees decrying the memos harmful gender stereotypes and noting that portions of it violated the companys code of conduct. Damore was fired, and promptly filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board.

As soon as news of the memo broke, tech workers took to the Internet. (Ours is a privileged moment: never before has it been so easy to gain access to the errant musings, rapid-fire opinions, and random proclivities of venture capitalists and others we enrich.) There were calls for Damore to be blacklisted from the industry; nuanced analyses of the memos underlying assumptions and ripple effects; facile analyses of the same; message-board debates about sexual harassment, affirmative action, evolutionary biology, eugenics, and wrongthink; and disagreements about the appropriateness of Googles response. (Firing people for their ideas should be opposed, Jeet Heer, a self-described Twitter Essayist and an editor at The New Republic , tweeted.) George Orwells 1984 was trotted out, discursively, and quickly retired. More than a handful of people pointed out that the field of programming was created , and once dominated, by women. Eric Weinstein, the managing director of Thiel Capital, an investment firm helmed by Peter Thiel , tweeted disapprovingly at Googles corporate account, Stop teaching my girl that her path to financial freedom lies not in coding but in complaining to HR.

Though Damores memo draws on familiar political rhetoric, its style and structure are unique products of Silicon Valleys workplace culture . At software companies, in particular, people talkand argue, and dogpile, and offer unsolicited opinionsall the time, all over the place, including in forums like the one where Damore posted Googles Ideological Echo Chamber. In my experience in the tech industry, such forums serve as repositories for all sorts of discussionsfeature launches, bug fixes, birth announcements, introductions, farewellsand are meant, in part, to promote the open-source ethos that everyone can, and should, pitch in. But they also favor the kind of discourse that people outside the industry may recognize from online platforms such as Reddit and Hacker News; it is solution-oriented, purporting to value objectivity and rationalism above all, and tends to see the engineers dispassion as a tool for solving a whole range of technical and social problems. (Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts, Damore writes.) But the format is ill-suited to conversations about politics and social justice.

One of the documents that resurfaced in the online discussion of the Google memo was What You Cant Say , by Paul Grahamthe co-founder, along with his wife, Jessica Livingston, of the startup accelerator Y Combinator , which runs Hacker News. The five-thousand-word essay, which Graham published on his personal blog, in 2004, begins with the premise that there exist moral fashions that are both arbitrary and pernicious. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good, he writes. The essay makes a case for contrarian thinking through a series of flattering analogiesGalileo was seen as a heretic in his time; John Milton was advised to keep quiet about the evils of the Roman Inquisitionand argues that opinions considered unfashionable in their time are often retroactively respected, if not taken as gospel. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed, Graham writes. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true. At several points, he refers to political correctness.

What You Cant Say is by no means a seminal text, but it is the sort of text that has, historically, spoken to a tech audience. Googles Ideological Echo Chamber, with its veneer of cool rationalism, echoes Grahams essay in certain ways. But, where Grahams argument is made thoughtfully and in good faithhe is a proponent of intellectual inquiry, even if the outcome is controversialDamores is a sort of performance. His memo shows a deep misunderstanding of what constitutes power in Silicon Valley, and where that power lies. True, Google and its peers have put money and other company resources toward diversity efforts, and they very likely will continue to do so. But today, in mid-2017, menwhite menare still very much in the majority. It is still largely white men who make decisions, and largely white men who prosper. By positioning diversity programs as discriminatory, Damore paints exactly the opposite picture. He frames employees like himself as a silenced minority, and his contrarian opinions as a kind of Galilean heresy.

It is conceivable, of course, that Damore distributed his memo to thousands of his colleagues because he genuinely thought that it was the best way to strike up a conversation. Open and honest discussion with those who disagree can highlight our blind spots and help us grow, he writes. Perhaps he expected that the ensuing dialogue would be akin to a debate over a chunk of code. But, given the memos various denigrating assertions about his co-workers, it is difficult to imagine that it was offered in good faith. Damore wasnt fired for his political views; he was fired for how (and where) he applied them. The memo also hints at a larger anxietya fear, possibly, of the future. But technological advancement and social change move at different velocities; someone like Damore might sooner be automated out of a job than replaced by a woman.

Minority groups in tech are no strangers to being second-guessed, condescended to, overlooked, underpaid, and uncredited. But seeing Damores arguments made publicand, in some cases, seeing them elicit supportwas a fresh smack in the face. It was a reminder that plenty of tech workers and executives still consider hiring women and people of color lowering the bar, and that proving ones place is a constant, Sisyphean task. After all, not so long ago, advocacy on behalf of womenand black, Latino, nonbinary, and otherwise underrepresented peoplewas the unfashionable, contrarian alternative in the tech industry.

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How Silicon Valley's Workplace Culture Produced James Damore's Google Memo - The New Yorker

The best ism to explain our time: Surrealism, which turns 100 this year – Los Angeles Times

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Surrealism is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term to describe his play Les Mamelles de Tiresias (The Teats of Tiresias), which opened in a small Parisian theater in 1917. Beginning with an actress removing her breasts and ending early with an unscripted riot featuring a pistol-flailing audience member the play launched a movement that long convulsed French art and politics.

The centenary arrives in a surreal news environment. Indeed, among the dozens of isms used to explain the Trump presidency from isolationism and pluto-populism to narcissism and authoritarianism none does a better job than surrealism in capturing the current mood.

Andr Breton, the Pope of Surrealism, defined it as a psychic automatism in its pure state exempt from any moral concern. In his First Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton railed against rationalism and the reign of logic. Clarity and coherence lost bigly to the tumult of unconscious desires, while civility and courtesy were for bourgeois losers. Upping the ante in his Second Manifesto, he claimed the simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down into the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd.

Unarmed Surrealists were content to brandish their ids. What was once the stuff of repression was now ripe for expression. Everything that welled up into the conscious mind flowed across paper and canvas. The true Surrealist turns his mind into a receptacle, refusing to favor one group of words over another. Instead, it is up to the miraculous equivalent to intervene.

Or not. As a sober reader finds, most Surrealist literature is unreadable. The precursor to Surrealism, the Romanian Tristan Tzara, famously composed poems by cutting words from a newspaper, tossing them into a bag, pulling them out and reciting them one by one. The result, Tzara declared, will resemble you. (Perhaps thats true if you happen to be crashed on your kitchen floor, sleeping off an all-night bender.) As for Breton, he favored automatic writing by becoming a recording machine for his unconscious. The final product, he beamed, shines by its extreme degree of immediate absurdity.

Trumpian word salads bear the surrealist seal of absurdity. In Exquisite Corpse a Surrealist exercise aimed at unleashing the unconscious you write a word on a piece of paper, pass it to your neighbor who jots a second word without looking at the first word, and so on. This led to sentences like The exquisite/corpse/shall drink/the new/wine. Trumps gift of free association His one problem is he didnt go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death allows him to play a solitaire variation of the game.

A French translator recently marveled that Trump seems to have thematic clouds in his head that he would pick from with no need of a logical thread to link them. This is true not just of his speech, but also of his governing strategy.

Igniting a reaction similar to those following Marcel Duchamp entering a urinal at an art show, Trump has exhibited his Surrealist aesthetic in bureaucratic Washington. But he subverts ready-made expectations instead of ready-made objects. With a Surrealist flair for showmanship worthy of Salvador Dali, he randomly pairs titles and individuals. Thus, his son-in-law, a New York real estate developer, plays Middle East envoy one day, opioid crisis czar the next. Trumps claim that if Jared Kushner cannot bring peace to the Middle East, no one can expresses the Surrealist conviction that where reason and strategy have failed, unreason and whim will prevail.

The same aesthetic lies behind or, rather, below the Wall. Its failure to make economic, strategic or diplomatic sense is not beside the point; it is the point. Its raison dtre is to shock the political establishment and to give shape to what, until now, had been the repressed desires of Trumps base. Think of it not as a real security measure, but as a virtual sculpture that will allow its audience to touch, and not just talk about their phobias. Like a Surrealist object, the Wall is a shape-shifter opaque or transparent, continuous or discontinuous, topped with barbed wire or solar panels and expresses the Surrealist values of excess and extravagance, aggression and transgression.

In the end, Trumpism, like Surrealism, seeks to force reality to conform to individual desires, no matter how illicit, illegal or simply outrageous. This might work aesthetically, even financially just ask Dali, whose name Breton turned into the anagram Avida Dollars and, it seems, politically. But, one can hope, only in the short term.

Eventually, Surrealisms revolt against the reality-based community ended with a whimper, with its art relegated to post-dinner games and dorm room posters. One day, perhaps, politicians will look back on Trumpism in the same dismissive way.

Robert Zaretsky teaches at the University of Houston and is finishing a book on Catherine the Great and the French Enlightenment.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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The best ism to explain our time: Surrealism, which turns 100 this year - Los Angeles Times

Muslims and Modernism – Kasmir Monitor

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The nineteenth century witnessed a great change in the outlook of Muslims of the Subcontinent. Colonialism, along with the development of scientific attitude, affected the religious universe drastically. And, this, in turn, led to a hot debate on religious dogmas and rationality; rather a paradigm shift in the thought of educated Muslims. This shift created a modernist school, comprised mainly of those Muslims who showed a keen receptiveness to western institutions of learning and who judged things through the prism of modernity. This intellectual vibrancy took place in a more enthusiastic and radical way around the person of Sir Syed Ahmad khan, who was born in Delhi in 1817. To make the re-conciliation between religion and western attitude was central to his religious philosophy. He started a famous periodical Tahdhib al-Akhlaq and set up a scientific society for translating English books into Urdu so that the Muslims of the subcontinent would get acquainted with the advanced/progressive ideas of the West. While expounding the belief in naturalism, he stated, Today we are in need of modern Ilm al Kalam by which we should refute the dogmas of modern Science or show that they are in conformity with the Islamic creeds. According to him, whole physical universe including man is the work of God and religion is His word, so there cant be any contradiction between the two. The only touchstone of a real religion can be this: if it is in conformity with human nature or with nature in general, then it is true and real. Like the modernists of Christian world, he too tried to relinquish the metaphysical realities from the realm of faith. Reason and empiricism, according to him, are the only yardsticks to measure the reality. Swathed with the ideas of rationalism, he maintained that there is no intermediary between God and the prophet(SAW). Gabriel is in reality a symbolic representation of the prophetic faculty. Eschatologically, he further maintained that paradise and hell described in a sensuous terms in the sacred text are just emblematical representation of the psychological states of individuals in the life after death. Ibn Khuldun, a great Muslim historian and thinker, dealt well with the people like Sir Syed who were the preachers of rationalism during medieval era and has rightly mentioned in his famous Muqadimah that the mind is an accurate scale, whose recordings are certain and reliable; but to use it to weigh questions relating to the unity of God, or after life, or nature of prophecy or other such subjects falling outside its range, is like trying to use a goldsmiths scale to weigh mountains. To reconstruct the edifice of Muslim civilization, Sir Syed strongly advocated the ijtihadic endeavour. Apart from trying to untie the cosmic knots with reason and science, his buttressing to nullify Taqlid was very energetic and progressive. Taqlid is the sole reason, according to him, for the downfall of Muslim Ummah. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan not only started a sort of neo-Muttazilite understanding of the cosmos and the sacred text but also endeavoured to dilute the antagonistic attitude of western colonials. To meet this end, he dedicated himself to write an exegesis of the Bible in the light of Islamic intellectualism. Tabayin al-Kalam fi Tafsir al-Torahwa al-injilalamillahal-Islam is the name of that exegesis. It is not a commentary in a sense of Muslim Tafsir of the Quran. It is a collection of critical essays on certain aspects of Christianity that tends to stress the common ground rather than the differences between the Christians and Muslims. The main contention of Sir Syed, as Syed MunirWasti would put it, is that there is no fundamental difference between the account of Christianity given in the Bible and that given in the Quran. The Muslim society in India was very much hesitant to get socially intermingled with Christians. In order to dismantle this social barrier, he wrote a booklet, entitled Ahkam-iTaam-i Ahli-Kitab, to explain that Muslim Jurisprudence doesnt prevent Muslims from dining with the people of Book provided Haram food is not served.

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Muslims and Modernism - Kasmir Monitor

How well do you know your suburb? – Daily Advertiser

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11 Aug 2017, 2:21 p.m.

How well do you know where you live?

How well do you know where you live?

Are your neighbours likely to be young or old? Single or with kids? Renting or paying off a home? Born overseas or in Australia?

Take our seven-question quiz and find out. And if you get stuck try again, you'll getdifferent questions each time. There are also some hints below.

Enter the name of your suburb.

Once you have your score youcan compare your resultwith other people from your area.

The quiz covers almost every one of Australia's 15,000-plus suburbs. The only ones not included are those with tiny populations.

Oceania includes Australia, Papua New Guinea New Zealand and Pacific Islands such as Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga.

The Americas includes North and South America.

Family households include any home that consists of a couple or some dependent children. For example, a family household can be a married couple without kids, a same-sex couple living together, a single parent looking after their two children, or a blended household with step parentsand stepchildren.

Christianitytakes in all denominations such as Catholicism, Protestantism and Seventh Day Adventism.

No Religion includes Agnosticism, Atheism and secular beliefs such as Rationalism and Humanism.

The data used in this quiz comes from the2016 Census.

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How well do you know your suburb? - Daily Advertiser

Harry T Dyer – The Conversation UK

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Dr Harry T Dyer is a digital sociologist and lecturer in education at the University of East Anglia.

Harry joined UEA as a lecturer after successfully completing his PhD with UEA in the Department of Education and Lifelong Learning. He has a broad academic background, with degrees in linguistics and social science research methods, as well as his ongoing research in online identity presentation.

Harrys current research is in the emerging field of Digital Sociology, in which he looks at how social media platform design affects identity presentation and social interaction. His research proposes a new theoretical framework through which to consider the relationship between platform design and user that results in unique but bound identity performances.

Harry has taught on a range of courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level, including courses on research methodology, social theory, media and education, and research ethics. Given his broad academic background, Harrys research and teaching interests are equally expansive, and include education, digital sociology, identity theory, social theory, science and technology studies, research methodology, ethics, sociolinguistics, posthumanism, poststructuralism, and media.

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Harry T Dyer - The Conversation UK

Leo Igwe, Distinguished Services to Humanism Award 2017 – Patheos (blog)

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My friend Leo Igwe, a courageous and inspiring man if ever Ive met one, was recently given the Distinguished Services to Humanism Award by the International Humanist and Ethical Union. They surprised him with it, he had no idea he was getting it. In the guest post below, he thanks the IHEU and calls for the protection of humanists at risk around the globe.

Distinguished Services to Humanism Award: To All Humanists at Risk Worldwide

By Leo Igwe

Thank you the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) for selecting me as the recipient of the Distinguished Services to Humanism Award for 2017. I dedicate this award to all humanists at risk around the globe. I feel humbled by this honour, although I must acknowledge that if one goes through the list of past recipients, it is obvious that the contributions that I have made to international humanism and to organized humanism are quite small. How would anyone compare my contributions to those of the likes of American Philosopher Corliss Lamont, Indian Humanists Indumati Parikh and Abe Solomon, British Humanists, David Pollock, Robbi Robson and my friend Josh Kutchinsky and past IHEU presidents Roy Brown and Sonja Eggerickx? There is no doubt that I have eventually found myself in the midst of humanist giants, and that is humbling.

I must state that this award was not actually meant for me. This award rather speaks to the vision that has been there since the founding of IHEU. This is the vision that drove British Humanist Harold Blackham and other humanist delegates from across the world to start the IHEU in Amsterdam in 1952. This vision has been the main pillar of international humanism till date-that is the refusal to accept humanism as it is and to try and organize, and mobilize to realize humanism as it should be.

It was the same reason that led me to start the Nigerian Humanist Movement in 1996. I was not born a humanist. In fact, I trained to become a priest, not a humanist leader. I had no experience in organized humanism. However, I knew that there was something missing in humanism as it was then. And I did the much I could to supply the missing link and helped move Nigerian humanism towards what humanism should be!

Luckily the movement in Nigeria has survived and has remained on course for 20 years and still counting. In fact, we are beginning to see strong signs of humanism as it should be. We have witnessed the emergence of humanist groups and activists who are working and campaigning vigorously to promote an effective alternative to dogmatic religions and supernatural faiths. Two of these organisations, The Humanist Assembly of Lagos and the Atheist Society of Nigeria are now registered with the government!

We all witnessed a successful campaign that led to the release of Mubarak Bala whose family consigned to a mental hospital after he renounced Islam. That is humanism as it should be. Then last month, just last month, IHEYO African Working Group, held their African Humanist Youth Day event in Lagos, Nigeria. Yes, that is humanism as it should be!

This same vision led me to contact IHEU in the 90s and to attend the World Humanist Congress in Mumbai in 1999 where I addressed for the first time an IHEU event. I joined the IHEU Growth and Development Committee and later served as one of the representatives in Africa and at the African Commission on Human and People Rights and used the position to raise humanist issues for the first time with state parties in the region. I will never forget the deep feeling I had that day I addressed for the first time the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights. I felt like: Yes! That is humanism as it should be!

Let us also not forget that the quest for humanism as it should be led the then IHEU President, Norwegian Humanist Levi Fragell to visit Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda in 2002 This same vision led IHEU to organize its first General Assembly in Africa in 2004 and sent a strong delegation that included then IHEU director, Babu Gogineni, to the humanist conference in Ikenne in Nigeria, the same year!

IHEU appointed two representatives in the region and secured an NGO status at the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights.

IHEU and its member organisations have helped establish and support secular schools in Uganda because humanists understand clearly that without secular education, a secular society cannot stand, without secular education, humanism-as-it-should-be cannot stand.

In recent years we have witnessed other changes within the IHEU. These developments give me hope for the future. For instance, we now have IHEU Board representatives from Asia and Africa. That gives me hope. Since 2012, IHEU has been publishing The Freedom of Thought Report that documents the discrimination and persecution against non-religious people in countries around the world including my own country, Nigeria. That gives many humanists across world hope. In fact, the latest IHEU campaign to support humanists at risk was a masterstroke and again that gives me hope.

So keep moving in the direction of humanism as it should be, IHEU! And be assured of my continued support and contribution to your work and programs for the rest of my active years.

Thank you for this award!

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Leo Igwe, Distinguished Services to Humanism Award 2017 - Patheos (blog)

‘Toilet: Ek Prem Katha’ review: The robust love-story strikes a balance between entertaining and educating – Economic Times

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There is a point of no return in the plot when we, the audience, become so immersed in the protagonist's crusade for a better tomorrow that we are cheering and stomping our feet in encouragement for that bright sunshine-drenched tomorrow of which Sahir Ludhianvi dreamt in "Pyaasa" and "Phir Subah Hogi".

Our protagonist Madhav's battle is not really reformatory in the way the great heroes of our times meant it to be. In Hrishikesh Mukherjee's "Satyakam", when the protagonist Dharmendra marries the rape victim, he does it with the least amount of self-congratulations. In "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha", Akshay Kumar's mission to build a toilet for his wife is compared with Shah Jahan building the Taj Mahal for his wife.

I wonder who should feel more affronted by such flamboyant self-glorification: Moghul history or Modi politics. Either way, there is much too much self-congratulations and heroic hurrahs playing at the foreground of this eventful drama, accompanied by an over-punctuated background score.

Akshay Kumar means business. This film is not so much a vehicle to promote the Prime Minister's Swachh Bharat campaign as to promote Akshay Kumar, period. He milks the film for all his trademark chuckles and giggles, making Madhav seem like a Basu Chatterjee hero with a certain sly and smooth sinewiness to his heroism.

It is debutant director Shree Narayan Singh who proves you don't need extra sinewiness to shine in every frame. He is the Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee of our times. He makes hygiene and sanitation seem humorous without trivialising or tempering the issue. The sorority evidenced among the village women as they troop off in the morning for nature's call is captured with a respectful laugh.

Here is proof that a film can make a social point without wearing a constantly sullen demeanour.

Throughout the lengthy film, the director maintains a kinetic momentum. He has his character's feelings on his fingertips. He digs into the high-points in the drama with the disarmed delight of a kid scooping into a bowl of icecream. He negotiates the dips and curves in this bombastic tale of a man who must fight 'sanskaar' (no no, not the kind favoured by the censor board) to build a toilet for his newly married wife.

A warm earthiness and a nimble wisdom pervade the storytelling. The plot is a pyramid of high-pitched drama captured in the basic colours of nature's components by cinematographer Anshuman Mahaley (he had shot the first "Jolly LLB" film using an equally gritty palate). That the director is also the editor, helps him to remain on top of the commodious material. But the film could have been shortened post-interval where some of the toilet-building drama gets repetitive and shrill.

Though the high-pitched propagandist tenor and tone of the narration become overpowering after a point -- as does Akshay Kumar's exaggerated humanism -- the film keeps us absolutely close to its heart as Madhav and Jaya's love story acquires a universality by dint of their intimate affinity to the grassroot level of existence.

Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar play against one another in sparring spasms, their age difference notwithstanding. They look like a couple. The real performing sparks fly when the supporting cast -- Sudhir Pande, Divyendu Sharma, Anupam Kher -- are around to lend heft to the socio-political argument on how women in rural India need dignity before empowerment.

This is essentially a cause-without-pause melodrama set at an opulent octave. Happily, director Shree Narayan Singh counterbalances those shrill notes of self-righteousness and propaganda with just the right doses of warmth, humour and irony.

Don't look for subtlety in the storytelling in "Toilet: Ek Prem Katha" and you will come away a happy viewer with some relevant thoughts on how non-metropolitan India exists without caving into a depression.

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'Toilet: Ek Prem Katha' review: The robust love-story strikes a balance between entertaining and educating - Economic Times

‘Balcony’ film avows a woman’s place is in the shul – Jewish Post

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Set among a congregation of observant Jews in a quiet neighborhood in the Old City, The Womens Balcony begins with a bar mitzvah and ends with a wedding.

But theres plenty of tsuris (trouble) between the celebrations, triggered by a structural collapse just before the haftorah that shutters the shul and threatens the foundation of the affable community.

Things fall apart and, happily, fall back together stronger than ever in this skillfully constructed, crowd-pleasing saga of reasonableness fending off extremism, and humanism triumphing over ideology.

Emil Ben Shimons spirited film, from Shlomit Nehamas warm, wise screenplay, pays unusual homage to the autonomy and power of women in Jewish religious patriarchies. The Womens Balcony both honors and pokes fun at traditional roles and relationships, but it is unambiguous in its critique of an adherence to scripture that overrules fundamental values of compassion and understanding.

The Womens Balcony opens Aug. 11at the Loft.

With their aged spiritual leader sidelined by shock and grief the rebbetzin was injured when the balcony gave way, and the rabbi remains riveted to her bedside the small congregation struggles to navigate the way forward.

The status quo is further disrupted by an ultra-Orthodox man who chances to be walking by one morning when the men are struggling to make a minyan. In a calculated twist of fate, this helpful fellow turns out to be a rabbi, and he notes the congregations leadership void and shrewdly moves to fill it.

Smartly, The Womens Balcony doesnt position Rabbi David (Aviv Alush) as a total opportunist and villain (even if he wears a black hat). Sure, his sermons are more conservative than his adopted flock is used to hearing, and his attitude that a womens place is in the home is contrary to the ethos that defines and binds the congregation. But everyone interprets the Torah a little differently, dont they?

Rabbi David issues instructions for dressing modestly in public that are an affront to some of the women, while others are fine with the new discipline. This fissure between longtime friends adds a dramatic subplot whose strongest aspect is that it allows us to observe the lives of religious women when the men arent around. (An interview with screenwriter Shlomit Nehama: jpost.com/Israel-News/Culture/View-from-The-Womens-Balcony-474340)

The prevailing dynamic between husbands and wives is also challenged by Rabbi Davids teachings, of course. Zion (Igal Naor) and Ettie (Evelin Hagoel), middle-aged and deeply in love, are the main couple we get to know in The Wedding Balcony, and the accretion of details depicting their steady, solid relationship imbues the film with texture and heart.

The movies attention to Ettie and Zion (and their fellow congregants, to a lesser degree) subtly reminds us that the real problem with authoritarian philosophies and dogmatic policies is the way they impact individuals on an everyday level.

Meanwhile, the community is grateful for Rabbi Davids energy and plans for repairing and renovating the synagogue. Every successive pronouncement and act, however, excludes the women from the decision process and pushes them to the margins of their own shul.

Rabbi David is indifferent to the idea that he has planted the seeds of a resistance, and he underestimates the womens resolve and their ability to strategize.

The Womens Balcony deepens as it goes, smoothly combining a humanistic worldview with a timely political undercurrent. It delivers witty, intelligent and emotionally satisfying entertainment, along with a retort to Israels powerful religious conservatives.

The Womens Balcony is in Hebrew with English subtitles, 96 minutes, unrated.

Michael Fox is a film critic in San Francisco.

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'Balcony' film avows a woman's place is in the shul - Jewish Post

The Price of Censorship for China’s Internet Giants – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Wall Street Journal (subscription)
The Price of Censorship for China's Internet Giants
Wall Street Journal (subscription)
By blocking foreign competition, China's censorship regime has groomed the country's internet companies into some of the world's biggest companies. Now Big Brother is turning against the behemoths. The country's largest social-media platforms ...
China Steps Up Censorship of Social Media SitesTheStreet.com
China probes Tencent, Baidu and Sina over subversive contentFinancial Times
China Is Investigating Tencent, Baidu and Weibo for Breaching Strict Cyber LawsFortune
BBC News -MIT Technology Review
all 68 news articles »

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The Price of Censorship for China's Internet Giants - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

The alt-right is planning to protest Google’s censorship with nationwide rallies on its US campuses – Quartz

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The alt-right supporters of James Damore, the fired Google engineer who authored the so-called anti-diversity memo, are planning nationwide protests on Googles US campuses.

The first demonstrations are slated to happen on Aug. 19 at five locations: Mountain View, California, where Google is headquartered; New York City; Washington, DC; Austin, Texas; and Boston, Massachusetts. A website for organizing the details for #MarchOnGoogle says it plans to hold protests at every Google office. The website says demonstrators might exercise their right to free speech by protesting in front of the homes of Googles executive team.

A company representative tells Quartz that it is aware of the upcoming protests, but has declined to comment or say if it would try to stop them.

The protests are meant to raise awareness on how Google does not respect freedom of speech and censors dissenting voices on its video-sharing site YouTube, according to the organizer, Jack Posobiec. (To the ire of far-right radicals, YouTube does police hate speech.) Google canceled a town-hall meeting for its 60,000 employees at the last minute on Aug. 10, citing concerns for their safety, after the names of some staff were leaked to right-wing sites.

Posobiec has also invited Damore, who was fired on Aug. 7, to speak. At the heart of the brouhaha is an internal email he wrote that went viral when it leaked to the media. In it he questioned Silicon Valleys efforts to boost diversity, calling them a form a discrimination, and argued that techs gender gap was partly due to biological differences between men and women.

Damore, who has said he is considering his legal options, has not publicly commented on whether he will attend or speak at any of the rallies. A Twitter account that appeared to belong to him recently posted photos of a man wearing a shirt emblazoned with Goolag and holding a sign that reads Fired for truth on Googles Mountain View campus.

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The alt-right is planning to protest Google's censorship with nationwide rallies on its US campuses - Quartz

How to fight Trump’s climate science censorship – The Hill (blog)

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Farmers are on the front lines of climate change. The people who grow the food we eat deserve clear, candid scientific advice on coping with global warming and the growing threat drought and extreme weather pose to American agriculture.

But such honest counsel, it turns out, wont come from the Trump administration. A recently revealed series of emails shows that U.S. Department of Agriculture experts who help farmers deal with manmade warming were told after President Trump took office to stop using terms like climate change and reduce greenhouse gases.

My organization, the Center for Biological Diversity, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain these remarkable emails sent to staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a component of the USDA that provides land-conservation assistance to farmers.

The USDA emails have ignited a firestorm of controversy because they reveal the Trump administrations stark impact on language used by agency staff. NRCS leadership instructed employees to describe their work without any reference to climate change, instead describing weather extremes and eliminating any reference to human causes.

But obtaining those incriminating communications which are clearly public records was no easy task.

As an attorney specializing in public records law, I am profoundly grateful for the Freedom of Information Act, a landmark law that provides Americans with the right to know what their government is up to.

Yet in just the first six months of Trumps presidency, Ive been flabbergasted by his administrations dogged determination to avoid complying with this critically important law.

After the center submitted its FOIA request to the USDA in early April, the agency blocked the release of records under an exemption so abused by the government that some have labeled it the withhold it because you want to exemption.

The center was forced to appeal the NRCSs withholdings of information. We pointed out that officials failed to conduct an adequate search for responsive records and improperly redacted information.

As a result of the centers appeal the NRCS finally released 65 pages of records without redaction.

In other public records cases, weve actually had to sue. Indeed, weve filed 10 lawsuits to force the Trump administration to comply with its legal duty to make public records available to the public.

For example, the center sued the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to provide public records of closed-door meetings between the agency, states and industry groups regarding Trumps weakened wetlands regulations under the Clean Water Act. Those changes could potentially eliminate protections for millions of acres of wetlands, which are critical to water purification and provide habitat for hundreds of endangered species.

Weve also had to sue the EPA, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior and Department of State for failing to provide records addressing the censorship of words or phrases related to climate change in formal agency communications, violating deadlines established under the law.

We dont yet have the full picture of Trumps scientific censorship, since were still waiting for many federal agencies to release public records.

Yet one thing seems clear: The administrations opposition to transparency is closely connected to its desire to censor climate scientists and other federal experts. An administration that favors alternative facts over the truth is naturally determined to operate under the cover of darkness.

Thankfully, we have an open records law that can reveal disturbing realities like the fact that the climate-deniers now running our federal government are so determined to ignore science that theyll avoid telling farmers about climate changes increasingly potent threats to our food supply.

Thats not a pleasant thing to know, but its critical for Americans to have the full facts about the Trump administrations alarming attacks on truth.

Meg Townsend is an open government attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit advocacy organization focused on protecting at-risk species and protecting thelands, waters and climatethose species need to survive.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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How to fight Trump's climate science censorship - The Hill (blog)

Step inside a Los Angeles bookstore that takes on Iran’s censors … – PRI

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Poets are a big deal in Iran, and Forugh Farrokhzad was one of the biggest. In the 1960s, her modern, highly personal work won wide acclaim and brought her the poetry equivalent of rock stardom she cut records, made films, and even today is known popularly by her first name.

When Farrokhzad was killed in a car crash in 1967, thousands of fans thronged to her funeral. But after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, her work vanished, banned for a decade, and since then heavily censored by the government.

Bijan Khalili knows plenty aboutFarrokhzadand Iranian censorship. Banned books are a specialty of his. For 36 years he has owned Ketab Corporation, a Persian bookstorein Los Angeles. It started as a simple service to exiles who had fled Iran's revolution, leaving their books behind. But as post-revolutionary censorship took hold in Iran, selling books untouched by Iran's censors became a daily act of defiance.

Reading books is a human right, he says.

No book, songor film gets legally published in Iranwithout permission from Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Government censors have the power to demand changes or major cuts or to ban works outright.Among taboo topics are criticism of Islam or Iran's Islamic regime, acknowledging the Holocaust, and interactions between unmarried and unrelated men and women. Kissing and dancing scenes in the Harry Potter books were changed or excised in Iranian editions. Khalili says censors force cookbook writers to remove references to wine, or adapt the recipe for a nonalcoholic ingredient.

George Orwell's 1984 is a book Khalili knows well. When he fled Iran, he took a suitcase stuffed with books, among them the classic Orwell dystopia, as well as books by Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo,and the Persian poets Hafez and Omar Khayyam. In 1981, when Khalili opened Ketab, which means book in Persian, his suitcase full of books stocked the store's first shelf.

Today, it's much bigger, but the store on busy Westwood Boulevard, in theIranian exile neighborhood known as Persian Square, still has an old-time feeling. The spacious, quiet rooms are filled with tall stacks of books on spirituality, sociology, politics, history there's even a shelf marked books prohibited in Iran. And between the stacks, people are reading whatever they want.

For Iranians raised with censorship, it's amazing. Browsing in the business section, I meet Ali, who recently moved to the US from Iran.

This ...just blows your mind, because you do not expect such a thing to be here. You can find the most illegal books in the bookshelves here, he says.

Ali asked me to use only his first name over fear of retaliation against his family back home for talking openly with a reporter about books.If you know more about what's going on around you you will have more knowledge, he says. The knowledge is the power.

If knowledge and power are a tug-of-war in Iran, books are a rope. But Iranian readers are pulling hard on their end, with the help of exiles like Khalili. Because Ketab isn'tjusta bookstore. It's also one of nearly a dozen Persian publishersoutside Iran helping writers bypass censorship to get their books out to the world. (See below for a list oftop-selling titles at Ketab Corporation.)

Some writers secretly publish uncensored books inside Iran, but it's risky. Often, writers in Iran will contact publishing houses abroad instead. Iranian readers who can crack the government firewall can access e-books online. There's also a thriving black market in pirated books published abroad.

Khalili says he's pleased his books are smuggled into Iran and reproduced, even if it takes a big bite out of sales. But Khalili is proud of his contribution to the fight against censorship. I'm proud that I help some Iranian to beknowledgeable about whatever happened, or whatever is close to truth, he says.

The truth, he believes, could someday set Iran free. If we are being successful to break that ban, and that censorship, I believe the Islamic regime era will be ended very soon, he says.

Ending censorship for good still feels a long way off. But Ketab books havereached at least one unexpected bookworm: Iran's government.

Ketab books on taboo topics like gender equalityand political prisoners have somehow, mysteriously,made it from Los Angeles to the collection of Iran's National Library.

And who knows? Maybe someone is reading them.

Here isa selection of top-selling titles at Ketab Corporation in Los Angeles:

See the rest here:

Step inside a Los Angeles bookstore that takes on Iran's censors ... - PRI

Diamond and Silk accuse YouTube of ‘censorship’ after company demonetized ‘95%’ of their videos – Twitchy

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Trump supporters Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson better known as Diamond and Silk took to Twitter on Thursday to accuse YouTube of censorship and a violation of their 1st Amendment rights (yeah, we know) after the company demonetized a reported 95% of the duos videos:

The pair thinks it might have something to do with their being Trump supporters and conservatives:

YouTube responded with instructions the pair could follow to appeal the decision:

Coincidentally, Hardaway and Richardson met with officials at the Commerce Department on Monday to discuss ways in which to grow their business and build their brand. From Gizmodo:

YouTube stars Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardsonbetter known as Diamond and Silk, respectivelywere invited to the Commerce Departments headquarters this week, apparently to discuss ways in which they could expand their business. The pair runs a political blog aimed at promoting President Trump and denigrating his critics.

The Commerce Department revealed Diamond and Silks visit in a photo posted on the departments official Twitter account, which said the duo had met with the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) to discuss how to grow their business and build their brand.

A spokesperson for the department later told Gizmodo that the tweet was deleted out of an abundance of caution as the department was not clear it had received permission to post the photo:

***

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Diamond and Silk accuse YouTube of 'censorship' after company demonetized '95%' of their videos - Twitchy

The Head Of Indian Film Censorship Has Been Fired – Birth.Movies.Death.

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Goodbye, old friend.

This is a big moment for Indian cinema, and for me personally. If youve been following along these last two years, you might recall the Central Board of Film Certifications decisions about the length of the kiss in Spectre, censoring drugs and the state of Punjab in a film about the drug crisis in Punjab, banning a feminist film for being lady oriented, among a whole host of other decisions that range from silly to outright homophobic. You may also recall my bizarre interview with CBFC chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani in January, which ended with me being kicked out of his office. Hes been a thorn in my side and in the side of artistic expression here in India. Heheld the word "intercourse"ransom, claiming he would only restore it to the film Jab Harry Met Sejal if 100,000 married people above the age of 36 voted for it on his Twitter poll (after a poll open to everyone was cleared with ease), and he even recentlyannounced cigarettes and liquor would be blurred out of movies entirely, in addition to the recent blackening out of partially nude bodies.

So it is with great pleasure that I now report Pahlaj Nihalani just been fired and replaced as the head of the CBFC.

The news broke on Times Now earlier today, but its been a long time coming. Once Udta Punjab beat an 89-cut mandate in the courts last year, and once Alankrita Srivastavas Lipstick Under My Burkha made it to Indian cinemas last month after being banned entirely, the writing seemed to be on the wall for Nihalani. Nothings a sure thing until its a sure thing, so the months worth of rumblings about him losing his job didnt necessarily inspire confidence (nothing eventually became of that parallel certification committee proposed in 2016 either), but here we are. Hes gone, and hopefully the boards regressive attitude will follow.

Nihalajis successor is Prasoon Joshi, lyricist, poet, screenwriter,CEO of McCann World Group India and Asia Pacific chairman of McCann Erickson. Its hard to say whether or not things will improve under him just yet; he was, after all, a communications manager for Prime Minister Narendra Modis campaign, and you may recall what silliness Nihalanis affection for Modi, whom he once called his action hero, eventually resulted in. Pragmatically speaking though, so long as Joshi doesnt want to try and ban the word lesbian and censor any and all forms of sexual content even from films rated A (Adult), its a step up.

Joshi is notably forward-thinking when it comes to depictions of women in cinema. Whether that manifests as artistic dialogue or restriction remains to be seen, but by all accounts, things look good. Its worth noting that Joshi was involved with the film Aarakshan, which was banned in several states back in 2011. Hes also worked on several films (like the anti-authoritarian Rang De Basanti) with actor Aamir Khan and an ad with Udta Punjab producer Anurag Kashyap, both strong vocal opponents of censorship, and according to filmmaker Mukesh Bhatt, whos been publicly embroiled in censorship debates since things began to worsen, Joshi understands the necessity of creative freedom.

Given that Nihalanis term was set to end in January 2018, his early removal feels like a positive sign. The problem as a whole isnt going to go away overnight, since its a combination of the widespread social inability to disagree on art and the continued ability of the Government to make these decisions for cinema via the Cinematograph Act of 1952, but this feels like a step in the right direction. The general attitude towards censorship as a means of cultural preservation can best be summed up in this exchange from my interview with Nihalani:

PN: As a filmmaker youre protected, I will say the certificate is very important for the movie, and its the responsibility of the filmmaker when we are projecting heritage property.

SA: Sorry?

The government protects heritage property, the Red Fort and other things. So isnt it the Governments job to protect Indian culture? Which is also heritage?

It is, but if were talking about specific monuments versus this nebulous idea of Indian culture

No, no, see, its life! When there is nothing, its only the heritage property which supports Indian culture.

So are we talking just about physical monuments, or

Im talking about when its the responsibility of the government to protect them! So the same way, its the governments job to protect our Indian culture.

And who defines what Indian culture is?

Thats the government.

And if someone disagrees with that stance

No, no, no, no, no. Thats not my-- then go and fight with the Parliament. Fight with the government. Ive got the duty to go according to the Act. If they want changes, Ill go with the changes.

Given the way the Indian film industry has vocally opposed every censorship controversy, replacing Nihalani with a seasoned Industry regular feels like something of a victory. Hopefully it means a more positive environment when it comes to art and artistic discourse too.

Now if youll excuse me, Im going to go do this for a while:

Originally posted here:

The Head Of Indian Film Censorship Has Been Fired - Birth.Movies.Death.

Corporations are cracking down on free speech inside the office and out – Washington Post

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By Fredrik deBoer By Fredrik deBoer August 11 at 6:00 AM

Fredrik deBoer is an academic and writer based in Brooklyn.

When Google fired James Damore this week for circulating a bizarre and offensive attack on their diversity practices, free speech advocates rushed to his defense, accusing the company of curtailing his right to free speech. The trouble was that hed written his memo and sent it to colleagues, imperiling his ability to have a healthy working relationship with his peers. Surely he knew, when he signed his employment contract, that hed have to abide by the companys code of conduct. It is Googles prerogative to decide what is right and wrong to say at the office.

But corporations arent just enforcing speech codes at the office. Increasingly, they are cracking down on their workers expression outside of it. In 2009, a Philadelphia Eagles stadium worker was fired for criticizing the teams personnel moves in a Facebook post. That same year, Georgia public school teacher Ashley Payne was forced to resign, she says, for posting pictures of herself drinking beer and wine while on vacation. An Ohio woman, Patricia Kunkle, sued the military contractor that had fired her in 2012, alleging that the reason was her public support of President Barack Obama. (She eventually settled the case.) In late 2013, public relations rep Justine Sacco was famously let go for tweeting an off-color joke about AIDS while traveling to Africa. In 2014, the chief executive of software company Mozilla, Brendan Eich, was forced out, resigning amid a public backlash against his stance opposing same-sex marriage. This trend even extends to academia, where speech is supposedly sacrosanct: Yale University dean June Chu resigned earlier this year under intense pressure after her offensive Yelp reviews were made known to the Yale community. And Lisa Durden, an adjunct professor at Essex Community College, was given the boot after an incendiary conversation about race with Fox Newss Tucker Carlson.

Most of these people said something that I find, to varying degrees, wrong or unhelpful. Some of it was outright offensive. But none of it deserves firing, because none of it happened in the workplace or had anything to do with work. Rather, each of these people was let go because of statements or gestures they made outside of their working duties. In doing so, they demonstrate the ways that private employers can constitute a grave threat to our free speech rights and expose a conflict between genuine freedom and capitalism.

There is a reason that, rather than letting legal codes alone protect expression, liberal societies have traditionally adopted a robust norm of free speech. The basic processes of democracy require that we all feel free to disagree with one another in the public sphere; without such a norm, its impossible to deliberate as democracy requires. To abandon that norm is to give up the means by which people in democracies make decisions. When that norm has been abandoned, such as in the McCarthy era, we have considered it an injustice, and for good reason. The American Civil Liberties Union, lately a proud public challenger of President Trump and his travel bans, puts the point succinctly: Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Yet thinkers on the left and the right have failed, in many cases, to grapple with this.

Right-wing theorists have always insisted that free-market economics is the best guarantor of individual liberty. Friedrich Hayek, the economist and philosopher who did so much to create modern economic conservatism, insisted that only societies with free markets could ensure free people. We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice, he wrote, arguing against social programs that protect the poor and unlucky, programs that he insisted throughout his long career would lead inevitably toward authoritarianism. The libertarian movement embraces Hayeks view, insisting that personal freedom must include the freedom to act in a market economy unencumbered by government regulation.

In contrast, the left has argued that the fickle turns of the market inevitably erode freedom. Karl Marx and his followers famously said that only through radical egalitarianism in material and social terms could the Enlightenment ideal of personal freedom be fully realized. Todays left-leaning thinkers have echoed this sentiment, pointing to the highly regimented conditions of workers on factory floors and in white-collar offices as proof that capitalist enterprise curtails freedom rather than protects it. The political science professor Corey Robin, in particular, has made a career out of demonstrating that the tyrannies that most consistently afflict ordinary Americans are workplace tyrannies, part of what he calls the private life of power. Progressives who are pleased when businesses discipline workers illiberal speech have lost this essential thread of leftism, arguing that if the government isnt the one enforcing speech codes, then there are no threats to free speech. This is clearly wrong.

Why have so many companies turned into petty dictators when it comes to their employees speech, political and otherwise? Progressives enamored of speech codes might like to imagine that corporations are motivated by genuine concern for social equality, but this gives them far too much credit. The reality is that in the Internet era, when outrage goes viral at incredible speed, companies have a pressing need to get out in front of potential controversies as swiftly as possible. Quick termination often works quite well to stamp out such fires until the publics attention shifts. Meanwhile, though the official unemployment rate has declined for years, flatlined wages and a steadily falling labor force participation rate suggest a weaker job market than the unemployment figures alone would indicate. Under such conditions, employers probably think they have little to lose in cracking down on workers speech, since there are probably eager replacements waiting to fill the spots of those who object.

Most Americans have no legal right that prevents them from being fired for their political beliefs. Public workers enjoy some protection, and some states such as New York and California afford private employees certain leeway to speak politically outside of work, free from reprisals by their employers. But the vast majority of American workers have no such defenses and can be fired for their political expression at the whim of their bosses. As Alina Tugend wrote in a 2015 New York Times essay on these issues, If youre a nonunion private employee, your boss has great latitude to control your political actions.

This condition is not new. What protected employees in the past was, first, a dividing line between work life and private life that has been blurred by digital technology. And second, that aforementioned norm of free speech, a societal expectation that workers were entitled to say what they wanted to say away from the workplace. Now, that norm is being eroded, from both the left and the right.

Tools of surveillance, whether public or private, coercive or voluntary, have never been more powerful or sophisticated, and while the reactions of private employers to employees speech vary, it doesnt take many incidents like those listed above to create a chilling effect. Every engine of online expression is also a tool with which our bosses might investigate our lives and our opinions. They will also therefore be key instruments of employer coercion going forward. As businesses gain new ways of observing the private lives of employees, they will become more adept at policing those off-the-clock moments, and all of us will become less free.

Twitter: @freddiedeboer

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Corporations are cracking down on free speech inside the office and out - Washington Post