On Albert Einstein’s peaceful musings – The Livingston County News

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One of the smartest people that ever lived, Albert Einstein, wasnt just a scientific genius; he was also one of the 20th centurys strongest peace advocates.

Einstein believed that, if there had been a stronger alliance of countries against fascism in the 1930s, the World War of the 1940s would have been prevented. Because of this, Einstein was a strong advocate of the abolition of war through the creation of a world government composed of nations that shared their military forces in order to prevent nationalist nations from starting wars. What follows are excerpts from some of his writings about peace

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. You cannot subjugate a nation forcibly unless you wipe out every man, woman, and child. Unless you wish to use such drastic measures, you must find a way of settling your disputes without resort to arms.

If unrestricted egoism leads to dire consequences in our economic life, it is still worse as a guide in international relations. Only the absolute repudiation of war can be of any use here. Without disarmament there can be no lasting peace.

The opposition to this unquestionably necessary advance lies in the unhappy traditions of the people which are passed on like an inherited disease from generation to generation because of our faulty educational machines. Of course the main supports of this tradition are military training and the larger industries.

This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. How despicable and ignoble war is. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. Is it not terrible to be forced by the community to deeds which every individual feels to be most despicable crimes? Only a few have had the moral greatness to resist; they are in the true heroes.

A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels. In the light of new knowledge, a world authority and an eventual world state are not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, they are necessary for survival. Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars.

Taken on the whole, I would believe that Gandhis views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit... not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in what we believe is evil.

The way to joyful and happy existence is everywhere through renunciation and self-limitation. Where can the strength of such a process come from? Only from those who have had the chance in their early years to fortify their minds and broaden their outlook through study. Only if the statesmen have, to urge them forward, the will to peace of a decisive majority in their respective countries, can they arrive at their important goal. It is not the task of the individual who lives in this critical time merely to await results and to criticize. He must serve this great cause as well as he can.

We have emerged from a world war in which we had to accept the degradingly low ethical standards of the enemy. But instead of feeling liberated from his standards, and set free to restore the sanctity of human life and the safety of noncombatants, we are in effect making the low standards of the enemy in the last war our own. Unless Americans come to recognize that they are not stronger in the world because they have the bomb, but weaker because of their vulnerability to atomic attack, they are not likely to conduct their policy in a spirit that furthers the arrival at an understanding.

Genesee Valley Citizens for Peace was established in 1972. For more information on the organization, go to http://www.gvcp.org. The preceding essay is the result of a collaboration among several GVCP members.

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On Albert Einstein's peaceful musings - The Livingston County News

Nihilism for everyday life – Ubyssey Online

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A trope of the family-friendly Hollywood movie is that of the dead-eyed, whatever-sighing teenager. This teen is apathetic, bored, and nihilistic. They roll their eyes at family fun and take pleasure at resisting their parents values. Think of John Bender of The Breakfast Club, Lindsay Lohans character in Freaky Friday, Kristen Stewarts character Bella Swan in the Twilight saga or Hyde from That 70s Show. The list is long. Although these characters have their nuances, their archetype is that of a person misunderstood and disillusioned with the world as they perceive it. Sometimes, alarmingly, I recognize myself in this character.

Professor Anders Kraal of UBCs philosophy department defines nihilism, in the most basic terms, as the belief that there is no objective meaning in life, there is no way things ought to be in an objective sense.

This means, at the root, that life has no inherent meaning or code. When tragedy strikes and people search for deeper meaning, maybe seeking the design plan of a higher power, nihilists shrug. Their answer to the meaning of life: nothing.

Born in the early 19th century out of Europes rejection of religion, nihilism claims that nothing has value. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche best articulates nihilism in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra, the books main character, sees the dark clouds of meaninglessness on the horizon.

As Kraal notes, I dont think it takes much imagination to see that there could be a lot of pain in seeing things this way.

Anecdotally, I see nihilism all around me. But its crucial to recognize the specific subset of youth who embrace nihilism.

There are liberal youth, said Kraal. "There are conservative youth. There are Christian youth, Muslim youth, Buddhist youth, secular youth, Korean and Danish and American and Pakistani youth. Your generation is not a monolithic whole. This is important. There are various other kinds of youth that dont show up in Hollywood movies or CBC discussion panels.

From my own vantage point, nihilism seems alluring to highly-educated, politically left-leaning millennials. Often those brought up in worlds of Western privilege, much like the people at the movements inception. Can all of these nihilists be people in pain?

Some people see a lack of objective meaning as freedom. An example: transgender and non-binary folks may look at the construct of gender and, with a healthy dose of nihilism, determine that there is no inherent meaning to the concept. Thus, they are free to define themselves how they please.

This is a looser version of the philosophy. It posits that there is no objective meaning to life but there is subjective meaning.

For those, like myself, who need a refresher on the difference: objective values are unbiased and can be proven with concrete facts and figures, otherwise known as the capital "T" Truth. A non-nihilist might state an objective fact: The sun is shining, the birds are singing, so its a beautiful day. Who can disagree? But a nihilist would call the meaning of beautiful into question. Does the day have any inherent and objective value? To them, no. Subjective values, on the other hand, are coloured by an individuals experiences and beliefs. These values cant be verified with concrete facts, but they reflect that persons version of reality. For example, my subjective opinion is that pineapple on pizza is delicious.

So, nihilists can embrace meaning, but that meaning is particular only to them.

Many nihilists consider various things to give them a sense of the meaning of life and they subscribe to values they are comfortable with. But they deny that these values have any objective validity, said Kraal.

Kraal mentions a student who revealed to him that she sees no objective meaning in life whatsoever, and thus was unmotivated to study hard in school. I can relate. Grades and academia as a measure of intelligence feel wrong and unfulfilling. And yet, I still strive to get good grades and often measure my own worth by them. For me, the small belief in the back of my mind that grades and school dont really mean anything is a comfort on a day when I get a crummy grade or just dont feel like working. I will choose to invest imaginary meaning in the importance of school, but ultimately, I wont beat myself up about it.

Nihilism, then, in a strange reversal to the clouds of meaninglessness, can be a kind of protection. In 2017, as political destruction, human suffering, and the terrifying effects of climate change filter in to us, often through social media, the backlash against this toxic negativity comes in an unlikely form: memes.

The Facebook page titled Nihilist Memes has nearly 2 million followers. Jokes about the void and being dead inside are abound across the internet. Depression, anxiety and existential angst are suddenly somehow trendy, at least in its Twitter-joke format. From an outsiders perspective say, someone from my parents generation this sort of humour is alarming. But to those who like it, this humour is both funny and strangely uplifting. It is a kind of comforting buffer between ourselves and the pain of the outside world.

It is worth questioning, however, why we young people who subscribe to some form of nihilism are so heavily represented in media. Why is the list of nihilistic film characters so long? Kraal, who reveals that he does not believe in nihilism, thinks it would be good if we showed some resistance to this stuff.

In each generation, there is always this in group that wants to set the norm for others, and this in group is partly determined by who has the big money, and who has the means necessary to project a public image of what young people are like today. Cue the image of the gum-popping and eye-rolling teenager. Hollywood and music companies are examples of entities with this sort of money, and who do this sort of thing.

By painting nihilism as cool, and linking nihilism to their products, are companies able to sell more to young people who very desperately want to be cool? Think of those multi-colored Whatever t-shirts at Forever-21, or the artist The Weeknd, who sells out stadiums with his brooding and self-destructive lyrics.

How would Hollywood and other wealthy, consumption-based industries benefit from a generation of youth who dont care about anything? Do nihilist youth buy more of their products to fill the void? Do nihilists lay down and accept the inevitability of war and the earths destruction?

Nihilism, like any other philosophy, serves a myriad of purposes, some more harmful than others. Its purpose depends entirely on the degree to which you embrace it.

Professor Kraal recommends reading some of the serious philosophers who argued both for and against nihilism; Kant, Leibnitz, Kierkegaard are a few.

Kraals note of warning is simple: If people want to embrace nihilism, then do so. But don't do it until you have first studied the other side seriously. Otherwise you might wake up one day with deep regrets.

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Nihilism for everyday life - Ubyssey Online

Arcade Fire takes indie outlook to dance floor – Malay Mail Online

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Canadian band Arcade Fires upcoming album, 'Everything Now,' released on July 28, 2017. AFP Relaxnews picNEW YORK, July 29 Few bands have straddled the divide between indie and mainstream quite like Arcade Fire eclectic in tastes and cerebral in views, yet enjoying rock-star recognition in the industry.

Releasing its first album in four years, the Montreal-based group which has always cast its net wide on instrumentation steps away from the rugged guitar that characterised its hits and heads to the dance floor, infusing its songs with disco.

Everything Now, which came out yesterday, nonetheless keeps the favourite lyrical themes of Arcade Fire introspective takes on modern consumer culture and self-image.

The result is an album that is both dark and full of catchy hooks vital to a band that has become legendary for its live performances. Yet Everything Now is also less consistent than Arcade Fires more conceptual works such as The Suburbs which in 2011 won the Grammy for Album of the Year in a startling first for indie rock.

Everything Now, the groups fifth studio album, starts off with a title track that reconfirms Arcade Fires skill at weaving together diverse influences into a unique but accessible pop song.

Built around a flute sample by the late Cameroonian artist Francis Bebey, the title track is driven by a choral refrain by the New Orleans-based Harmonistic Praise Crusade, as a funky bass and melancholic piano melody work in counter-balance.

Mourning what has passed in the age of universal internet and 24-hour media consumption, frontman Win Butler sings: Every inch of space in your head is filled with the things that you read / I guess youve got everything now.

And every film that youve ever seen / Fills the spaces up in your dreams, he sings.

Daft Punks Thomas Bangalter serves as a producer, bringing a retro electro sound that evokes the robot-clad French electronic duo on Signs of Life, a biting rap about empty hedonism, and the darkly abstract Electric Blue.

Dance music becomes dark and grand

Arcade Fire, masters since the bands inception at crafting a grandiosity around the sound, brings a disconcerting sense of uplift to Creature Comfort, a dance track with an industrial beat about self-hatred and suicide.

God, make me famous / If you cant, just make it painless, Butler sings.

Yet uncharacteristically for Arcade Fire, the album can also become predictable, with Chemistry, Good God Damn and Put Your Money On Me built over minimalist dance rhythms that stay confined. On Peter Pan, the band famed for its sophisticated lyricism takes up a surprisingly obvious metaphor for youth.

Everything Now marks Arcade Fires first album to be fully released by a major label, Columbia, after the band built its career on Merge, the celebrated North Carolina-based indie imprint led by members of Superchunk.

Arcade Fire, which remains loved for its energetic live shows, ahead of the album put on an elaborate set at Barcelonas Primavera Sound festival and on Thursday night played an intimate show to preview the new material at an ornate hall in Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn show, livestreamed on Apple Music, caused an online stir when tickets recommended a dress code described awkwardly (and redundantly) as hip and trendy.

Was the guidance a sign that the rockers have finally become part of a ham-handed mainstream? Or maybe it was an elaborate and very indie joke. Arcade Fire denied the fashion advice, quipping on social media that the band members themselves wouldnt be admitted if the code were enforced. AFP

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What the gods drank – The Indian Express

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Written by D.N. Jha | Published:July 29, 2017 12:34 am There was a ruckus in the Rajya Sabha over the alleged association of Hindu deities with alcohol. (Express Photo/Ravi Kanojia, File)

I was amused to read in the media that there was a ruckus in the Rajya Sabha over the alleged association of Hindu deities with alcohol. Since the objectionable remarks were expunged, I am not able to refer specifically to the god or to the MP who mentioned him. Our politicians may not be well versed in all our ancient lore specially because and knowledge of the past is not their strong point; but it is not too much to expect that they should have the basic idea of the qualities and activities of the divinities whom they worship and defend. For constraints of space it is not possible to discuss here the traits of all those gods and goddesses who used alcohol, but I would like to draw the attention of readers to only few of them who binged on intoxicating drinks.

In the Vedic texts soma was the name of a god as well as of a plant from which a heady drink of that name was derived and was offered to gods in most of the sacrifices; according to one opinion it was different from another intoxicating drink, sura, which was meant for the common people. Soma was a favourite beverage of the Vedic deities and was offered in most of the sacrifices performed to please gods like Indra, Agni, Varun, Maruts and so on, whose names occur frequently in the Rig Veda. Of them Indra, who is known by 45 epithets and to whom the largest number of Rig Vedic hymns 250 out of more than a thousand are dedicated, was the most important. A god of war and wielder of thunderbolt, rowdy and adulterous, potbellied from excessive drinking, he is described in Vedic passages as a great boozer and dipsomaniac; he is said to have drunk three lakes of soma before slaying the dragon Vritra. Like Indra, many other Vedic gods were soma drinkers but they do not seem to have been tipplers. Agni, for example, may have drunk moderately though a detailed analysis will show that teetotalism was unknown to the Vedic gods and drinking was an essential feature of sacrifices performed in their honour. In a ritual performed at the beginning of the Vajapeya sacrifice, a collective drinking took place in which a sacrificer offered five cups to Indra as well as 17 cups of soma and 17 cups of sura to 34 gods.

Like the Vedic texts, the epics provide evidence of the use of intoxicating drinks by those who enjoy godly status in Hindu religion. In the Mahabharata, for example, Sanjay describes Krishna (an incarnation of the god Vishnu) and Arjuna in the company of Draupadi and Satyabhama (wife of Krishna and an incarnation of Bhudevi), exhilarated by Bassia wine. In the Harivamsa, which is an appendix to the Mahabharata, Balarama, an avatara of Vishnu, is described as inflamed by plentiful libations of kadamba liquor dancing with his wife. And in the Ramayana, Rama, an avatara of Vishnu, is described as embracing Sita and making her drink pure maireya wine. Sita, incidentally, seems to have a great fascination for wine: While crossing the river Ganga, she promises to offer her rice cooked with meat (shall we call it biryani!) and thousands of jars of wine, and while being ferried across the Yamuna, she says that she will worship the river with a thousand cows and 100 jars of wine when her husband accomplishes his vow. The use of alcohol by the gods is not confined to the Vedic and epic traditions. In the Puranic mythology, Varuni, who emerged from the samudramanthana (churning of the ocean), is the Indian goddess of wine; Varuni was also the name of a variety of strong liquor.

The Tantric religion is characterised by the use of five makaras madya (wine), mamsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudra (gesture) and maithuna (sexual intercourse) and these were offered to gods, though only the followers of Vamachara were entitled to the use of panchamakara (five Ms). Much can be said about the Tantric affiliation of the goddess Kali and her various manifestations but it should suffice to refer to a goddess called Chandamari, a form of Kali and described in an 11th century text as using human skulls as drinking vessels. In the Kularnavatantra, an early medieval text, it is stated that wine and meat are the symbols of Shakti and Shiva respectively and their consumer is Bhairava. Not surprisingly, liquor was offered to Bhairava in early India. The practice has continued in our own times and one can see this at Bhairava temple in Delhi and at Kala Bhairava temple in Ujjain. According to a practice current in Birbhum, a gigantic vessel of wine is brought in front of the deity called Dharma who is carried in a procession to the house of a Sundi, who belongs to the wine-making caste. In both Tantric and tribal religions, the divinities are often associated with alcohol in various ways. These few examples cited here clearly show that some gods and goddesses were fond of alcohol and their worship would remain incomplete without it.

It may be pointed out that there were a large variety of intoxicating drinks, nearly 50 types of them, available in ancient India. The use of alcohol by men was quite common, despite occasional dharmashatric objections in the case of Brahmins; and instances of drinking among women were not rare. Buddhist Jataka literature mentions many instances of drunkenness. Sanskrit literature is replete with references to intoxicating drinks. The works of Kalidasa and other poets speak frequently of alcoholic drinks. Ancient Indians were bon vivant in a sense. If their gods were fond of good things of life, our politicians need not be offended by the divine hedonism. Prohibitionists should be considerate: Dont forget, gods are watching!

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‘Atomic Blonde’ proves a gritty and glamorous but garbled Cold War spy thriller – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
'Atomic Blonde' proves a gritty and glamorous but garbled Cold War spy thriller
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Welcome to the world of David Leitch's Atomic Blonde, where the raw brutality of East Berlin crashes into the neon hedonism of the West with punk, sex and sleaze. The film cuts between Berlin and London as Lorraine acts as narrator and protagonist, ...

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'Atomic Blonde' proves a gritty and glamorous but garbled Cold War spy thriller - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Penn’s Netter Center Expands Global Impact and Outreach – Penn: Office of University Communications

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Penn: Office of University Communications
Penn's Netter Center Expands Global Impact and Outreach
Penn: Office of University Communications
In the aftermath of the economic crisis, we face the emergence of populist politics and a rising tide of non-rationalism in which debate based on evidence and consideration is being displaced by arguments centered on emotion, which are then amplified ...

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Nitish Kumar quits Mahagathbandhan: Sacrificing secularism for clean governance is just myopic – Firstpost

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Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumars decision to switch from the Grand Alliance to the NDAhas come to signify to many the primacy of anti-corruption over secularism in Indian polity. It has inspired them to conclude that in the India of 2017, secularism is seen to have lesser importance, even to the point of becoming irrelevant, than what it was, say, even three decades ago. This stream of thought is evident in the responses of readers to my article.

Against the backdrop of Bihar, it is pertinent to ask:

What kind of political consciousness demands we choose between clean governance and secularism or, for that matter, between communalism and corruption? Is this a justifiable choice? If yes, who are the people who assign infinitely greater importance to one over the other, and why?

The Indian version of secularism, unlike the European one, demands the Indian state must pay equal respect to all religions. It has triggered competition among groups to pressure the Indian state to accord greater respect to their religion.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar (right) with BJP leader Sushil Modi. PTI

However, this competition has certainly degenerated over the last three years, evident in a series of mob lynchings over the cow and consumption of beef. People sporting markers of religious identity are targeted. Inter-faith courtship is looked askance at, even inviting intimidation. In fact, the issue is now more about humanism than secularism.

Otherwise too, the pathology of communalism is reflected in the spree of rewriting textbooks, often taken by earlier regimes too, to promote their own ideologies. Nevertheless, it does not behove India to discard the principles of rationality and evidence in the endeavour of tailoring the production of knowledge.

Our credulity is indeed tested when it is claimed that Maharana Pratapvanquished Akbar in the battle of Haldighati. It is certainly a one-dimensional approach to history that ignores Aurangzeb supporting temples through land grants even as he destroyed some. It is undeniably ahistorical to claim that the discriminatory caste system emerged under Muslim rule, as so many Sangh ideologues insist.

Corruption in India has as long a history as the sharp contestation over secularism. Corruption mars governance, reduces state resources to waste, harasses people, thwarts competition for jobs, and impedes delivery of goods and services to the people. It skews, even subverts, anti-poverty programmes.

The menace of corruption makes us Indians praise any politician perceived to be clean or who takes a high moral ground on the issue of corruption, which has also become the symbol of degeneration of Indian polity.

But India can be cleansed through systemic changes, not through the intervention of an occasional politician who is billed as a paragon of moral rectitude.

This is because democracy in India has become a prohibitively expensive business. The sheer magnitude of finance required to fight, let alone win elections in India, has the political class taking recourse to black money. You have to be politically nave or duplicitous to believe that the treasure-chest of any of the political parties is completely legit. This includes the national parties the BJP and the Congress and all state-based outfits, including the JD(U).

Given the erosion of our public life because of communalism and corruption, what makes people categorise one of the two as a bigger evil? The answer will vary from individual to individual, depending on the threat corruption and communalism pose to each personally.

For sure, the majoritarian violence, as seen in the spate of mob lynching, worries innumerable Hindus. But it is not hard to imagine why it should pose a greater existential threat to the religious minorities, particularly Muslims.

In India, there is no escaping your name. You may shave off your beard or stop wearing the skull cap or the scarf over your head, but a Muslim name is a giveaway to the persons religious identity.

No wonder, the mushrooming of vigilante groups has fanned the anxieties and fears of the religious minorities.

By contrast, the majoritarian violence has not yet grown to render Hindus vulnerable. Their names and religious markers are their protection, although a few Hindus holding an opinion or acting in contradiction to Hindutva have been lampooned, trolled and attacked. For a good many Hindus, therefore, corruption poses a greater problem than communalism, in the firing line of which they are largely not present.

No doubt, corruption affects Muslims as well, at times in combination with communalism. But corruption does not pose as acute an existential problem as communalism does. This is why a substantial percentage of Muslims will rally behind those who appear tainted as long as they are thought to be their saviour.

Having to pay bribe under a corrupt regime is preferable to feeling anxious whether you might be beaten by fellow passengers in a train only because you happen to be Muslim.

Likewise, a large segment of Hindus will tend to support a leader who appears clean or has no documented evidence of corruption against him or her. For them, Hindu communalism has little salience, but Muslim communalism does. It is seen as a threat to Hindus, to the nation. Beginning the Gujarat Assembly elections of 2002, a concerted attempt has been made to turn democratic battles into one between Hindus and Muslims. Of this, the most recent example is the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.

Muslims bear the brunt of Hindu communalism, but they also bear the burden of Muslim communalism, at times exaggerated, at times very true.

Obviously, both clean governance and secularism become slogans for consolidating vote-banks, as instruments of mobilisation. Many write-ups have pointed out that if Lalu is corrupt, then what about the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh? This week, the 44th accused in the scam committed suicide. Others have died in what is called 'mysterious circumstances'. What about the land that BJP-ruled states gave to Baba Ramdev on hefty discounts that run into crores and crores of rupees, as Reuters pointed out recently?

These do not become headlines because the voters of the BJP, in an example of myopia, do not see it as threatening to their lives. They did not find it objectionable that Adityanath should become chief minister despite having made virulent, menacing remarks against Muslims, who, by contrast, take it as a dire symbol of the future awaiting them.

This is precisely why Nitish Kumar could so easily subvert the principle of secularism to his slogan of combating corruption. He knows that Hindus who support the BJP and even those who support the RJD and the Congress will not take to the streets against him for betraying the 2015 mandate. There will be protests here and there, but it will peter out. But the same Hindu supporters of the RJD and perhaps in the changed circumstances, those of the Congress too will vent fury should Kumar, say, seek to roll back reservations.

Sadly then, secularism and clean governance are political conveniences and tactics to win majorities it all depends on which of the two is more politically advantageous at a given point in time.

This is the calculation that Kumar, rather cynically, made before switching from the Grand Alliance to the BJP.

(Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist in Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, has as its backdrop the demolition of the Babri Masjid.)

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Planetary narratives and local politics – HuffPost

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One problem with American society is that many of the successful, intelligent and otherwise kind people are far too busy pursuing success, so that they fail to put their skills in service to political and social transformation. As I see it, this is one of the major blind spots of common sense attitudes of libertarian, liberal and conservative citizens alike. Too many of us remain practically indifferent to the astounding magnitude of political corruption, violence and economic upheaval in America and the world over. Here the actual drivers and machines of political speeches, free markets and promises of progress are dominated by globalizing market trajectories, corporate party interests, and relentless profiteering couched in the language of liberty and the good life.

Meanwhile at home, the life of success, family and profit seems harmless and even well deserved (hard work!). But outside the bubble of nostalgic patriotism and the complex lie of greatness that masks a tremendous disparity between 1st and 3rd world countries and a "secular aristocracy" in America that hordes over 90% of its wealth and resources, a sober look at the international landscape reveals crises that would make even the most mediocre moralist commit to politics and real change.

And yet most of us remain complacent and perpetually default to a benefit-of-the-doubt attitude, which is ultimately nothing more than a form of wishful, even magical thinking - opium of the masses as Marx once put it. What to do? How to come together and act without merely waiting for mass-scale catastrophes and the exposure of unbearable crimes to prompt urgent civic responses and leadership from the ground up?

Brilliant political theorist and ecologist William Connolly illuminates this problem from a global perspective in his new book: Facing the Planetary: Entangled Humanism and the Politics of Swarming. Here's a passage that captures some of his aims and orientation. Notice his use of the phrase 'passive nihilism' which speaks to the concerns just articulated:

"The challenges of today solicit both an embrace of this unruly world and pursuit of new political assemblages to counter its dangers. Today the urgency of time calls for a new pluralist assemblage organized by multiple minorities drawn from different regions, classes, creeds, age cohorts, sexualities, and states. This is so in part because the effects of the Anthropocene often hit the racialized urban poor, indigenous peoples, and low-lying areas hard, while its historical sources emanate from privileged places that must be challenged from inside and outside simultaneously. Militant citizen alliances across regions are needed to challenge the priorities of investment capital, state hegemony, local cronyisms, international organizations, and frontier mentalities. Some adventurers I will consult already record and pursue such countermovements.

What follows is a series of attempts to face the planetary. Not only to face down denialism about climate change but also to define and counter the passive nihilism that readily falls into place aft er people reject denialism. By passive nihilism I mean, roughly, formal acceptance of the fact of rapid climate change accompanied by a residual, nagging sense that the world ought not to be organized so that capitalism is a destructive geologic force. The ought not to be represents the lingering effects of theological and secular doctrines against the idea of culture shaping nature in such a massive way. These doctrines may have been expunged on the refi ned registers of thought, but their remainders persist in ways that make a difference. Passive nihilism folds into other encumbrances already in place when people are laden with pressures to make ends meet, pay a mortgage, send kids to school, pay off debts, struggle with racism and gender in equality, and take care of elderly relatives. Or, similarly, they may eke out a living in the forest and try to figure how to respond when a logging company rumbles into it. Or, on another register, they may teach students who both want to believe in the future they are preparing to enter and worry whether that lure has itself become a fantasy. The sources of passive nihilism are multiple. Under its sway, as we shall see, many refute climate denialism but slide away from stronger action. That is the contemporary dilemma. Few of us surmount it completely. But perhaps it is both necessary and possible to negotiate its balances better" (2017, p. 9).

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Cinema & censorship – The Hindu

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In a system that sets much store by retaining the power to censor films in the name of certifying them, random attempts by petitioners seeking cuts or even a ban often add to the pre-release anxieties of filmmakers. While rejecting the petition filed by a person claiming to be the daughter of the late Sanjay Gandhi to set aside the certificate granted to Indu Sarkar, a film directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, the Supreme Court has rightly banked on a well-established principle that freedom of expression cannot be curtailed without a valid reason. It has reiterated that the film is nothing but artistic expression within the parameters of law and that there is no warrant or justification to curtail it. Earlier, the Central Board of Film Certification, which under its present director, Pahlaj Nihalani, has not exactly distinguished itself, had granted a certificate to the film after suggesting 14 cuts. The Revision Committee had reduced the number of cuts, leaving nothing to be adjudicated as far as the suitability of the film for exhibition is concerned. Yet, a single individual managed to create some uncertainty over the release of the film by approaching the courts. The film relates to events set during the 1975-77 Emergency and, going by the directors disclaimer, its factual content is limited to 30%. Apart from the expression of concern by some Congress functionaries, there was little to suggest that anyone would take seriously the claim that the partys leaders may be convincingly shown in a bad light.

Recent experience suggests that the CBFC does not always see itself as a certifying authority, but rather plays the censor quite merrily. In the case ofUdta Punjablast year, it was seeking to be the guardian of Punjabs honour against the depiction of the high prevalence of drug addiction in the State. The Bombay High Court had to remind the CBFC that certification, and not censorship, is its primary role and that its power to order changes and cuts must be exercised in accordance with constitutional principles. More recently, the CBFC sought to play the moral censor with regard to Lipstick Under My Burkha, a film it thought was too lady-oriented to be given a certificate, presumably because it depicts their fantasies. The Film Certification Appellate Tribunal had to intervene to secure the release of the film, with an A certificate. These instances demonstrate that challenges to freedom come from both within the systemic framework and outside. It is a matter of satisfaction that the courts prefer to protect the right to free expression rather than entertain excuses such as maintenance of law and order and public tranquillity, or someones sense of hurt or the fear of someone being portrayed in a bad light. It is disconcerting, nonetheless, that the battle for free expression is having to be fought so often these days.

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Cinema & censorship - The Hindu

Free speech or college crackdown? – Los Angeles Times

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To the editor: As the father of two 2017 graduates of both Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School this past May, I was heartened to read that College President Hiram Chodosh followed through with his commitment to discipline the hooligans who disrupted the appearance of speaker Heather MacDonald. ( Re College suspends 5 over protest, July 24)

The intent of a liberal arts education is to present all views to its students so they may acquire the ability to process diverse opinions and formulate their own conclusions. When divergent viewpoints and those who deliver them are shouted down, denied a forum or threatened with physical violence the entire system breaks down.

Incidents at UC Berkeley and other institutions formally known as bastions of free speech have demonstrated the need for swift discipline to preserve our 1st Amendment rights. I applaud Chodosh and his team and hope this restores to our higher education system some measure of balance.

Rick Wilson, Pasadena

To the editor: Hooray for Chodosh for teaching students that might makes right.

Heather MacDonalds support of police actions shooting unarmed citizens of color absolutely needs protection.

Ignore students free speech rights because students are considered the bottom of the stack, without rights of any kind.

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President Chodoshs fearless brave actions in suspending outraged students and doling out stiff disciplinary actions should be applauded. Incendiary speakers invited to a campus setting are expected to raise protests. Wasnt that why Chodosh allowed MacDonald to speak in the first place?

Most college presidents handle these situations differently.

Marcy Bregman, Agoura Hills

To the editor: It's about time that finally the president of Claremont McKenna College stood up for our basic right of free speech.

Hopefully, more universities will remember that it is they who are in control of enforcing school regulations, not the students. Too many situations arise when it is the students who seem to make the rules as to what "they" consider is free speech.

Prohibiting speakers they disagree with by shouting them down, inhibiting free access, and causing property damage and violence are the direct opposite of free individual thought. Colleges and universities are places where all aspects of ideas should be expressed.

Kudos to the Claremont McKenna president for standing up for the majority of the student body.

John Golden, Thousand Oaks

To the editor: The actions seem disproportionately harsh, and are resulting in a devastating disruption of the educations and job quests of the students being disciplined.

At a time when media professionals and the rest of us in the community are struggling to formulate an articulate response to the Trump administration and its complete lack of veracity, moral discipline and intellectual integrity, these actions are only causing more confusion for students trying to discern how to stand up for their convictions and for the rights of their brothers and sisters to be free of rhetorical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, legal and physical violence against them.

Any laws broken by the students during their protest could not possibly be proportionate to the violence suffered by members of our community when ignorant, morally repugnant, and bigoted viewpoints are given disproportionate space in the public commons at the Claremont Colleges and elsewhere.

Brian Prestwich, Los Angeles

To the editor: I was at Claremont McKenna College when a number of students, displaying a great deal of artificial bravery, blocked my visibly elderly and visibly handicapped person from entering the building at which Heather Mac Donald was to speak.

As a child of the 1960s, when protests took place about much more important things, I wondered whether any of them had ever even bothered to vote. Shouting their almost-unintelligible slogans in my face, these wannabe revolutionaries refused to hear my explanations that I was there to attend a special event which was completely unrelated to their blockade.

By their anti-democratic behavior, the protesters made MacDonald, whom I frankly despise, look better than she deserves.

Don Fisher, Claremont

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Free speech or college crackdown? - Los Angeles Times

Popular UCLA Prof Who Taught Free Speech Says He Was Fired … – Fox News Insider

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That's 'Dumb Propaganda': Tucker Battles NY Dem on Transgender Military Ban

Former UCLA professorKeith Fink, who taught a class on free speech opened up about his firing from the school, saying there is "no doubt" he would still have a job if his views were liberal.

Fink, who filed a formal complaint with his unionpointed to the new Chair of the Department of Communication Studies, Kerri Johnson, whom he says has "great disdain for conservative views"as the driving force behind his ousting.

It was "preordained from the day she came in that the school was intent on getting rid of me," he told "Fox & Friends" on Friday.

"Mr. Keith Fink's teaching does not meet that standard of excellence," the school said in a statement, which Fink called a "french farce."

After the school slashed his class enrollment, students protested Fink's treatment saying they were prevented from enrolling in his classes.

Fink, who is also an attorney was known at UCLA for defending students if the school tried to "steamroll" their rights. In the last couple of years he acted as an advisor in cases involving Title lX for students who had done "absolutely nothing" but whose futures were threatened by school disciplinary action.

Fink added that he is the most vocal conservative there, and could count the outwardly conservative professors on one hand.

The professor concluded saying that he is saddest because he loves teaching.

"There's no amount of money that equals the joy I get out of steering someone in the right direction or teaching them a new thought or exposing them to a Bob Dylan song."

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That's 'Dumb Propaganda': Tucker Battles NY Dem on Transgender Military Ban

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Popular UCLA Prof Who Taught Free Speech Says He Was Fired ... - Fox News Insider

Judge: Politicians Blocking Followers Violates Free Speech – NYMag – New York Magazine

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While there is no set precedent for the issue, more and more courts are encountering a new type of lawsuit related to social-media blocking. The Knight Foundation, for instance, is suing the U.S. government on behalf of Twitter users blocked by President Donald Trump, whose Twitter account has become alarmingly vital when it comes to understanding his presidency.

This week, a federal court in Virginia tackled the issue when it ruled on behalf of a plaintiff blocked by a local county politician. According to The Wall Street Journal, Brian Davison sued the chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, who temporarily banned him from her Facebook page after he posted criticism of local officials last year. Judge James Cacheris found that she had violated Davisons First Amendment rights by blocking him from leaving comment, because, in his judgment, the chairwoman, Phyllis Randall, was using her Facebook page in a public capacity. Though it was a personal account, she used it to solicit comments from constituents.

The suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards, the judge stated in his ruling. Cacheris did emphasize that his ruling should not prohibit officials from moderating comments to protect against harassment. Davison was only banned for 12 hours, and Randall faces no penalties. Still, the ruling is one of the first in a growing, thorny legal issue surrounding social media that has already reached the White house.

Donald Trump might want to reconsider.

Video editors are on the lookout.

Amazon casts a long shadow.

Be careful what you hashtag.

The anonymous blog post was traced back to Brandon Katayama Hills home IP address.

It took Canadian police three months to find her.

With Apple discontinuing the iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano, the day is soon approaching when the iPod will disappear altogether.

The draw? Drama. Drama. And more drama.

Jeff Bezos has become the worlds richest man, as well as the worlds richest person who looks like a jacked J.K. Simmons.

BuzzFeeds Tasty, creator of insanely shareable recipe videos, is rolling out a $150 inductive cooktop. Will its fans flock to it?

A nine-minute gap in tweets put the Pentagon on edge.

One of the webs biggest and most beloved repositories of Flash games and animations prepares for the death of the plug-in.

Because Twitter wasnt unbearable enough already.

After a tweet about how nobody attended a young womans shower went viral, money and gifts started pouring in.

Nathan Myhrvold said he was making just that in 2010. Were still waiting.

Zo Quinn spent much of her life playing and designing games. Then she found herself inside one a vicious, multiplayer real-time harassment bonanza.

The star was recently let go from his role on the Disney Channel after news broke that hes terrorizing his L.A. neighborhood.

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Judge: Politicians Blocking Followers Violates Free Speech - NYMag - New York Magazine

There’s Nothing Funny About Campuses Chilling Free Speech – Daily Beast

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You know our country is in serious trouble when the voice of reason is a comedian known for making prank calls with puppets. But, alas, here we are. Congratulations, Americayouve made me, Adam Carolla, the sane one in the room.

Ive been asked to testify before Congress Thursday morning on the topic of free speech on college campuses. I talk for a living. Words matter to me. I earn my paycheck from making people laugh, but whats going on across the country at many of our nations universities is anything but funny. (See what I did there!)

I realize my brief stint in a San Fernando Valley community college doesnt necessarily qualify me as the most distinguished, academic spokesperson on the subject. But as someone who has made a career by challenging ideas through humor, social commentary, and if warranted, ridicule; I represent someone on the front line.

Ive been in the talk game for more than three decades and I host the worlds most downloaded podcast. This constantly brings me in close contact with guests who disagree with me on many subjects. Challenging their ideas and points of views while they do the same to me is an important part of public discourse. When we enter into robust debate the best ideas will often rise. Its when ideas and points of view are censored that our country loses, because we may miss new ideas.

Right now a terrible fog of censorship is seeping into our college campuses in an effort to restrict free speech. Its like a fart in an elevatoreveryone smells it but no one will own it.

When did college move away from being the place where ideas, including the ones we may disagree with, were taught, discussed, and explored? It makes no sense unless the goal is to create people who dont think about ideas but simply follow them.

What kind of preparation is being provided if we are avoiding discussions on tough subjects? Are true facts and best research being sidelined because its taboo to someones feelings? Do you really want an engineer who designed the plane youre flying in to feel that the reality of gravity is a Caucasian micro-aggression because it was discovered by Newton?

Instead of fostering the development of young adults, colleges are providing coloring books, play-doh, puppies, and stuffed animals. Its basically your four-year-old daughters bedroom where one can shut out the challenges and facts of the outside world. Providing this bubble-wrapped type of education does not prepare the next generation for the challenges of life. It prepares them for failure.

But the real blame doesnt lie with the students. Campus administrators and teachers have promoted these ideas and then retreated to the sidelines when it became violent. How can there be accountability if there is no adult in the room? Why arent administrators of public universities accountable to us, the taxpayers, as we continue to fund a Social Justice Neverland, disconnected from the real world of working and regular people.

Ultimately this movement against challenging ideas is a disservice to students as theyre not being prepared for the world outside their safe spaces. Instead, their diplomassome of which cost in the mid six figuresmay actually set them back.

America has been the actual safe space where truth can be spoken to power. Where We the People can challenge a king and a corrupt idea like a monarchy. This right has been re-affirmed through our history. Its been fought for and people have died for it.

We must understand that we have the right to free expression, not the right to not be offended. This fundamental difference is being lost on todays college campuses. We should not be teaching students to retreat from debate, but to charge intellectually into it. Im not joking when I say that this is one of the most valuable and profound gifts given to us in America.

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There's Nothing Funny About Campuses Chilling Free Speech - Daily Beast

Who should police free speech on college campuses? Congress wants to know – USA TODAY

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Does Congress have a place in the free speech campus debate? The House of Representatives subcommittee on intergovernmental affairs sought to find out in their hearing on the Challenges to Freedom of Speech on College Campuses.

The committee is concerned about the state of free speech on college campuses amid the protests in the past year against controversial speakers such as alt-right advocate Milo Yiannopoulos and conservative pundit Ann Coulter, bothat the University of California-Berkeley, where protests ensued.

The key issue is whether, in an effort to preserve free speech, college campuses could fall into an area where their actions would inhibit it.

The House hearing comes on the heels of a similar hearing in the Senate last month.

The House hearing focused on a recent law in Wisconsin which seeks to allow for the suspension or expulsion of any University of Wisconsin student who engages in indecent, profane, boisterous, obscene, unreasonably loud or other disorderly conduct that interferes with the free expression of others, and committee members were especially concerned with how conservative speakers could be silenced by those who disagree with their opinions.

The experts agreed that the government should not have a role in policing free speech on campuses or deliberating what is considered to be a breech of free speech though disagreed on who should.

Michael Zimmerman, the former provost and vice president for academic affairs at the Evergreen State College which has recently grappled with protests and free speech issues on its campus advocated for putting the control in the hands of the school administrators.

This is wrong and it must stop, but what we dont need is additional legislation, he said. We currently have all the tools we need to fix the problem if we have the courage to use them. College administrators need to have the courage to stand for what is right, to stand for principles rather than expediency, and to risk alienating some in the same of those principles.

He affirmed his commitment to freedom of speech on campus: When we shut out voices, we shut out ideas, and serious consequences ensue.

Though Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of conservative news and opinion site the Daily Wire, highlighted instances where he felt the administrations decisions infringed on his own right to free speech, such as at the University of Wisconsin where he gave a speech last year which was interrupted by protesters. He said he asked the police to intervene, but they told him the administration advised them not to.

What Im seeing is a hecklers veto thats taking place on campuses, Shapiro said. What Im seeing is people engaging in free speech that is not made to enrich the debate, but in order to shut down the debate, and there have to be some sort of ramifications for people who are actually committing trespass.

At a minimum, the clearest way experts see to protect free speech is to encourage more dialogue overall, especially on controversial topics.

The appropriate answer, as the Supreme Court has said, is more speech, counter speech, said New York Law School professor Nadine Strossen, and interestingly enough, evidence indicates that it is far more effective than censorship in robustly effectively countering ideas that we disagree with.

Zimmerman echoed Strossens point as well.

The more we talk with one another and the more we listen to one another, the easier it is to understand one another, Zimmerman said. When we look at others as other, we can demonize them, we can ignore their ideas and know their ideas are wrong. When we understand who these people are and what they believe, its so much easier to share what we have in common, instead of looking for our differences.

Emma Kinery is a University of Michigan student and a USA TODAY intern.

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Who should police free speech on college campuses? Congress wants to know - USA TODAY

Ben Shapiro and Adam Carolla Tell Congress the Truth About Free Speech – National Review

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On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the Challenges to Freedom of Speech on College Campuses.

Several witnesses were called to testify, including Ben Shapiro, editor of The Daily Wire and contributor to National Review. Watch him deconstruct and dismantle the ideology of the campus Left in less than five minutes.

Shapiro ended his opening statement by emphasizing what should be our core values:

Shielding college students from opposing viewpoints makes them simultaneously weaker and more dangerous. We must fight that process at every step. And that begins by acknowledging that whatever we think about America and where we stand, we must agree on this fundamental principle: All of our views should be judged on their merits, not on the color, or sex, or sexual orientation of the speaker, and those views should never be banned on the grounds that they offend someone.

Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), the chairmanof the committee, joked that left-wing college professors would probably find that very statement to be a microaggression.

The House Oversight Committee also invited Adam Carolla, the conservative-minded comedian, to share his insights. He did not disappoint, arguing that we need the adults to start acting like adults.

If we want to protect free speech on campus, we need to follow Carollas advice and establish order. This means enforcing the laws and college regulations that already exist, and punishing campus radicals when they suppress free speech. They are free to protest, of course, but they cross a line when they prevent others from speaking.

Claremont McKenna did just that when it suspended students who shut down a speech by Heather Mac Donald. More schools should follow Claremonts example, listen to Shapiro and Carolla, and defend the idea of the university.

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Ben Shapiro and Adam Carolla Tell Congress the Truth About Free Speech - National Review

‘Controversy, not artistry’: How the media covers Arab art – Deutsche Welle

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Maan Abu Taleb is the co-founder and editor of the online Arab-language music magazine Ma3azef.comand a radio showwith the same name featuring contemporary Arab music. His debut novel "All The Battles" was published in Arabic in Februaryand the English edition will be published in September.

DW: What does freedom of speech mean to you?

Abu Taleb: For me, it means that we can address what we want to address without having to think about freedom of speech. The problem is that you end up having to talk about things because you are not allowed to talk about them or you sort of self-censor and you don't end up talking about something because you are worried about freespeech.

What gets lost in those two scenarios is writing about something just for the sake of the topic itself. For example, at ma3azef.com, we do not want to address something just to break some boundaries. We do not write about a band just because they are controversial. We write about bands because they are good, because they make good music. We shouldn't have to think about whether this falls into our (idea of)freedom of speech or not.

A screenshot of the Arab art magazine ma3azef.com

But there is another aspect to free speech that many do not think about and that is logistics. Some regimes limit access to online tools of communication so we have trouble talking to our writers. We are even having trouble paying our writers because sometimes sending money to them would get them into trouble, like in Egypt. If they cannot be compensated for their hard work, it is difficult for them to write for us.

Is it true that media from outside the Arab-speaking world solely covers art that goes against the government orsocietal norms?

What's happening now is that whether it is the Arab press or the Western press, all of the focus is on the political side and no attention whatsoever is given to the artistic side of a work. You find that books, novels, music andtheater do not get covered for the quality of the art in them but for the topic they are addressing. I think this is a disaster in the realm of arts and aesthetics. My interest in arts and music is purely the artistry. Great art is often not black and white but nuanced and complicated.

A lot of people find this reactionary and old-schoolbut we want to write about the aesthetic value of the work. Often you find that both the people who traditionally repress freedom of speech, like censors or governments, and the people who claim to be pro-freedom of speech are wary of this approach.

For our magazine, I want to say that an album is good because it contributes to this genre:it's interesting, it's engaging, it's pleasingor it's a beautiful work.

On the other side, we are not going to ignore a piece of art because we may disagree with the politics of it. This is what I mean about nuance.

But isn't art intrinsically political?

Of course. If you're from our part of the world, then everything is intrinsically political. We are not battling that. We don't want to get rid of that at all. What we do want to emphasize is that you can be political but at the same time you can also do work that is great art.

The Arab world is a very troubled place right now so artistic thinking does reflect that - Abu Taleb

This view of art -that art is OK because it is sensationally political -is a patronizing view of culture that comes from the Arab world. We do not accept that. Subtlety is being lost for easy-to-understand headlines.

That said, the Arab world is a very troubled place right now so artistic thinking does reflect that.

So what type of art is being missed?

What's interesting is what people are doing in different parts of the Arab world, where they are trying to converse with their own surroundings. We are muchmore interested in local scenes in Cairo, where they are writing music that they know their neighbors, their friends and their community will enjoy.

This is one of the reasons our magazine is only in Arabic. We find that there is a lot of value in having a discussion in the Arab world about the Arab world.

Interview: Ole Tangen Jr

This commentary is a part of DW'sFreedom of Speech Project which aims to highlight voices from around the world on the topics of freedom of expression and press freedom. You can also follow the project on Facebook.

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'Controversy, not artistry': How the media covers Arab art - Deutsche Welle

Why Aren’t More Women Openly Skeptical of Faith? – Big Think

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In 2006 Wired contributing editor Gary Wolf wrote a story on emerging trends in atheism. In his skeptical piece Wolf coined new atheism, a term later applied to the four horsemen: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens.

These men had varying responses to the term. Harris, for one, pointed out that atheist never appears in the book that kicked off this movement, The End of Faith. Alas, the four horsemen are the usual go-to thinkers when considering atheism in the 21st century, which begs one important question: What about women?

sam-harris-considers-a-creator

In general there are more male than female atheists. One 2010 survey found that males outnumber females in confessed atheism. In the United States that equates to 6 percent of men compared to 1.2 percent of women. (The not religious category is closer, as it is in most nations.) In Russia the number was 6.1 to 3 percent, whereas Switzerland it was 9 to 7 percent.

Numbers become confusing with examples like this 2012 poll, which reports that while women make up 52 percent of the US population they count for only 36 percent of atheists and agnostics. The problem with this differentiation is that everyone is agnostic, in that no one knows whether a god exists. Youre either theistically or atheistically agnostic. Many choose to not think much about it. Thats qualitatively different than pronouncing your atheism.

On top of that these are self-reported polls, and there might be reasons women do not claim their atheism. In a 2015 discussion, secular scholars Susan Jacoby and Rebecca Goldstein explore the question of why more women dont profess critical skepticism of faith. They point first to social reasons: children of women who admit their atheism are more likely to be bullied at school, for example.

penn-jillette-on-muslim-refugees-and-atheists

Personal beliefs are one thing, but social circles tend to be tight-knit. If your circle is comprised of devout followers, expressing atheism might ostracize you from this network, which could lead to larger problems for the entire household. Jacoby believes this is a driving factor of why some women stay in the closet regarding atheism.

Jacoby also points to an education gap. She says there is an enormous deficit in math and science education between women and men. The more educated one is in the sciences, she says, the more likely you are to be skeptical regarding divinity. While medical schools are seeing roughly equivalent numbers in terms of men and women, Jacoby reminds listeners there are very few female surgeons. Her preference appears to be for the more rigorous degrees.

There are other reasons. Humans are generally more reactive than proactive, and stringent religious dictatesPresident Trump announcing transgender people will not be allowed to serve in the military appeals to specific Christian sensibilities, for exampleturn people off of religion and its questionable metaphysics. Sociology professor Phil Zuckerman believes this is turning many young people, specifically women, away from religion, as Kyle Fitzpatrick reports:

Zuckerman believes this has to do with traditional organized religions' male-centrism: teaching women that they're second class, must remain virginal, and must stay out of leadership positions. Pair this with the amount of women in the workplace rivaling men, and the group doesnt need to turn to a church for social or financial support that churches typically offer.

This is an important about-face for women willing to declare their unbelief. In the Los Angeles Review of Books Zuckerman writes about Elmina Drake Slenker, the mid-19th century ex-Quaker atheist who scandalized the nation when she publicly declared her atheism in 1856. She was prosecuted shortly thereafter. Zuckerman points out her actual crime, which led to months in prison because she refused to swear heavenly allegiance on a bible:

Writing leaflets and personal letters to various people about human sexuality, marital relations, birth control, and bestiality. She was put on trial, and it only took the jury 10 minutes to find her guilty.

How things have changed. Instead of submitting to public pressure and governmental interference women have, thankfully, fought back, especially when theyve been personally affected by religious mandates. Ayaan Hirsi Ali still remains a contentious figure in Islam, where shes constantly harassed by dogmatic followers, but her secular foundation, dedicated to combating the ravages of archaic religious displays of power, such as female genital mutilation and honor violence, is flourishing.

ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-islamophobia-in-the-west

Technology has helped aid such movements. Jacoby believes many female freethinkers existed in the past, but their voices were never heard since publishing was a male game. Women who broke through often had to assume male monikers just to do so. With easy access to social media this has changed dramatically.

Jacoby believes the next step in inviting more women into the fold requires educating people that morals are not dependent on religion. She expresses disdain for those who feel that moral decisions depend on religion or what she finds to be an innocuous term, spirituality.

The statement Im spiritual but not religious makes me want to throw up. What this sentence means is Im not religious, I dont go to church, but I am a good person. And this word spiritual comes to stand for being a good person, just as people were talking about religion as a transcendent experience, as if its different from what people experience when they listen to great music.

She admits women appear to be more religious than men thanks to biology and a penchant for spirituality. During their talk Goldstein points to social psychologist Jonathan Haidts work on purity as one possible motivation for religion: women tend to associate more with the concept of being pure in part due to its long history of patriarchic power structures. Both women agree that a link between spirituality and sexuality also align more women than men with religion.

And both women agree that intellectual equality and freedom will even the gender playing field regarding atheism. Jacoby states that comforting people in the face of tragedyshe cites Newtown as an exampleis possible without an allegiance to a metaphysical figure or a prophet. Reason, she says, is more likely to foster relationships based on equality and sharing, as the pretensions of right and wrong promoted by religious ideology dissolve. What you are left with is our human nature, fallible and beautiful, imperfect though empathetic, no deity required.

--

Derek's is the author ofWhole Motion: Training Your Brain and Body For Optimal Health. Based in Los Angeles he is working on a new book about spiritual consumerism. Stay in touch onFacebookandTwitter.

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Why Aren't More Women Openly Skeptical of Faith? - Big Think

New Atheists & American Left Fall Out over Islam | National Review – National Review

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On Friday, it became official: The New Atheists are no longer welcome on the left. Battered, condemned, and disinvited, these godless and once-favored public intellectuals are now homeless, spurned by their erstwhile progressive allies.

Richard Dawkins, the famously skeptical evolutionary biologist, was the last shoe to drop. He was disinvited from a speaking engagement at Berkeley because his comments about Islam had offended and hurt...so many people, according to the events organizers.

Dawkins is in good company. His New Atheist compatriots, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, had already been expelled from the party. In both cases, insufficient deference to Islam was the proximate cause. Hitchens was denounced as a neocon for his support of the Iraq War. This was nonsense; he remained a committed socialist, but felt a war on Islamic terror and autocracy was needed. Harris is a liberal, straight and true, but drew the ire of Reza Aslan for refusing to except Islam from his broad critique of religion. Islam is not a religion of peace, Harris often says. In fact, he thinks its just the opposite. For that, everyone from Glen Greenwald to Ben Affleck has cast him as an Islamophobe and a bigot.

That means that three of the much-acclaimed Four Horsemen of New Atheism have been turfed from the left for extending their critique of religion to Islam. The fourth is Daniel Dennett, who also criticizes Islam. The only actual philosopher of the bunch, he is far too boring and ponderous to be noticed, let alone denounced, by anyone. In his place, one can add Bill Maher, a popularizer of New Atheism who has also been barred from Berkeley over criticism of Islam. One by one, these men have been excommunicated from the Left.

What has happened? Why did the Left delight in seeing these men ignorantly mock and vilify Christians, but denounce them when they treated Islam the exact same way?

Confirmation bias deserves at least a part of the blame. The New Atheists have long harbored an irrational fear of Christianity, but Christophobia doesnt worry the Left. Combatting Islamophobia, however, is a progressive priority, and so it is noticed and addressed when it strikes.

The argument that the liberal obsession with Islamophobia stems from a healthy regard for the status of minorities only goes so far. As Michael Walzer, the socialist intellectual, has written in Dissent, I frequently come across leftists who are more concerned with avoiding accusations of Islamophobia than they are with condemning Islamist zealotry. There is a reason, after all, why many Democrats stubbornly and proudly refuse to say the words Islamic terrorism, preferring to speak of generalized extremism.

But these same people who insist that evil men have perverted Islam are usually the first to falsely bring up Timothy McVeigh as an example of a Christian terrorist. Christianity is presented as a reflection of the actions of its evildoers (and even those who disclaim the faith), while Islam is not. The actions of orthodox Islamic believers, the Left suddenly maintains, are no reflection on the tenets of the peaceful Islamic faith.

Farther left, the defense of Islam becomes a defense of Islamic radicalism and intolerance. Slavoj iek sees in Islamism the rage of the victims of capitalist globalization. Judith Butler insists that understanding Hamas [and] Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of a global left, is extremely important.

These voices cannot just be dismissed as aberrant: They are prominent, fiercely secular left-wing intellectuals who find common cause with Hamas which pushes gays off of buildings and stabs children in their sleep and with Hezbollah, the Party of God.

In fact, they join a long line of left-wing apologists for murderous anti-Western regimes. Eric Hobsbawm, the renowned historian, refused to abandon the Soviet Union, even after the tanks rolled through Prague. Professors Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman spent years dismissing and minimizing reports of a genocide in Cambodia as Western propaganda. Michel Foucault, the postmodern philosopher, defended the indefensible cruelty of the Iranian Revolution by claiming that Iran doesnt have the same regime of truth as ours.

Clearly, the Lefts problem is bigger than Islam. Any foreign leader who can be seen as opposing Western, capitalist domination will find some praise or at least rationalizations from progressives. As Alan Johnson, the social-democratic political theorist, has written:

The left is vulnerable...because it takes its cue from what it is against rather than what it is for. In conversation with the Polish anti-Stalinist dissident Adam Michnik in 1993, the liberal philosopher Jurgen Habermas admitted he had avoided any fundamental confrontation with Stalinism. Why, asked Michnik? He did not want applause from the wrong side replied Habermas. You have to read that twice, and then think about the enormities of Stalinism, to realise just how appalling it is. But Habermas was only expressing a piece of liberal-left common sense.

In short, the New Atheists have won applause from the wrong side: the anti-Muslim, crusading Right. Christopher Hitchens, an endlessly entertaining writer who could give it to Saddam Hussein as good as anyone, was every right-wingers favorite radical. Sam Harris started finding agreement with the likes of Douglas Murray and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Rich Lowrys defense of Harris from Ben Affleck appeared in the New York Post. Bill Maher now delights the Right as much as he infuriates it. And the Left, smelling traitors in its midst, simply cannot tolerate this sort of transgression.

But more attention is needed to the specific nature of the Lefts double standard when it comes to Islam. Why must ardent secularists from the Islamic world like Ayaan Hirsi Ali the type of people the Left looks to for inspiration in the history of Western secularism be deemed bigots, while Sharia-supporting conspiracy theorists like Linda Sarsour are cherished? Why has criticizing Islam caused the New Atheists to cross a red line in the progressive imagination?

These positions make no sense if one thinks of the Left as seriously secular, convinced of the need to end the reign of superstition. But American liberals profess neither the passionate skepticism of David Hume nor the honest, urgent atheism of Nietzsche. They prefer to embrace a shallow, culture-war atheism instead.

This culture-war atheism provides evidence, quick and easy, to support the proposition that America is split into two camps: the intelligent, sophisticated, urbane, righteous liberals and the idiotic, gullible, backward, bigoted conservatives. The former are atheists and the latter are believers, flattering one side and bludgeoning the other. In fact, it is this type of thinking that made progressives fall in love with the New Atheists in the first place.

New Atheism pleased the Left as long as it stuck to criticizing God, who was associated with the beliefs of President George W. Bush and his supporters. It was thus fun, rather than offensive, for Bill Maher to call religion ridiculous, because he was assumed to be talking about Christianity. Christopher Hitchens could call God a dictator and Heaven a celestial North Korea, and the Left would laugh. Berkeley students would not think to disinvite Richard Dawkins when he was saying Bush and bin Laden are really on the same side: the side of faith and violence against the side of reason and discussion.

Truth be told, New Atheism was always fundamentally unserious. It does not even try to address the theistic arguments for the existence of God. Indeed, philosopher A.C. Grayling insists that atheists should not even bother with theology because they reject the premise. Our new rationalists, it turns out, will not even evaluate arguments that do not conform to their prejudices.

Battering a fundamentalist straw-man with an equally fundamentalist materialism, New Atheism is one big category error. Over and over, its progenitors demand material proof for the existence of God, as if He were just another type of thing a teacup, or perhaps an especially powerful computer.

This confusion leads the New Atheists to favor the rather elementary infinite-regress argument: If God created everything, then who created God? But as the theologian David Bentley Hart replies:

[God is] not a supreme being, not another thing within or alongside the universe, but the infinite act of being itself, the one eternal and transcendent source of all existence and knowledge, in which all finite being participates....Only a complete failure to grasp the most basic philosophical terms of the conversation could prompt this strange inversion of logic, by which the argument from infinite regresstraditionally and correctly regarded as the most powerful objection to pure materialismis now treated as an irrefutable argument against belief in God.

The rest of the New Atheists arguments can be handled even more quickly. Dawkins sees God as a complex superbeing subject to natural evolution and then deems him to be statistically improbable. He may be right, but why he thinks he has in the process critiqued anything resembling religion is beyond me. Dennett, who endeavors mainly to show that religion is a natural phenomenon, seems to confuse his validation of a religious claim with its refutation. Hitchens offers no real argument and plenty of historical inaccuracies. He is generally content to list the bad deeds of believers, explain away or ignore the good deeds of other believers, and then pretend that he has somehow disproven Christianity. Harris, to quote David Bentley Hart once more, declares all dogma pernicious, except his own thoroughly dogmatic attachment to nondualistic contemplative mysticism, of a sort which he mistakenly imagines he has discovered in one school of Tibetan Buddhism, and which (naturally) he characterizes as purely rational and scientific.

None of this New Atheist silliness bothered the Left so long as it flattered the right tribes and battered the wrong ones. It was only once the New Atheists extended their critique of religion to Islam that progressives began to turn on them. Muslims, though largely right-wing before the War on Terror, had become a marginalized group. Seen as the victims of Western colonialism, neoconservative aggression, and day-to-day discrimination, they became a part of the coalition of the oppressed, which is to say, they became virtuous. Islam, consequently, became a faith and tradition deserving of respect, not a mind virus like Christiniaty, busy infecting fools.

As such, attacks on Muslims or their faith not only appeared to be punching down at the innocent, but also became attacks on the left itself. The New Atheists, merely by being consistent and focusing on the most-egregious religious intolerance, in effect surrendered their sophistication and, in the Lefts eyes, joined the ranks of the bigoted, reactionary Right.

There is just one problem: We dont want them either.

Elliot Kaufman is an editorial intern at National Review.

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New Atheists & American Left Fall Out over Islam | National Review - National Review

Human Genetic Engineering Cons

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Many Human Genetic Engineering Cons are there that can stop a person from getting through the entire gene therapy. It is a process in which there is a modification or change in the genes of a human. The aim or objective of using Human Genetic Engineering is to choose newborn phenotype or to change or alter the existing phenotype of an adult or an already grown child. Human Genetic Engineering has shown a lot of promise for curing cystic fibrosis. It is a kind of genetic disease that exist in humans. It will increase the level of immunity in people. Increased immunity will make them resistant to several severe diseases.

There is also a speculation that Human Genetic Engineering can be used in other area of work. It can be used for making changes in the physical appearances. Metabolism may notice some improvements. Human Genetic Engineering Cons can be seen on the mental abilities of a human.

However, it can make certain improvements in the intelligence level. Human Genetic Engineering has made a lot of contributions in the field of advanced medical sciences. There is not much data about Human Genetic Engineering Cons . One can easily think of it as a successful invention in the field of medical science.

Gene therapy can be used for curing several deadly diseases. Many diseases are there that have no cure, so this is a helpful invention in this field. It can lead to various health benefits. Genetic engineering can also lead to population free from any diseases. However, some Human Genetic Engineering Cons are also there that can trouble human beings.

This is because of the complications involved in human genes. A person has multiple physical attributes that differ from each other, so chances are there that these attributes get controlled by only one gene sequence. This helps the scientists to make changes or alteration in only one gene at a time and the remaining multiple sequences of genes will automatically be altered.

Scientists involved in this alteration process also noticed that whenever a DNA strand gets a new gene, then it becomes difficult for the DNA strand to make a decision about where the new gene will be settled. It is one of the factors that contribute to Human Genetic Engineering Cons. With the help of genetic engineering scientists will find no difficulty at the time of altering a part of DNA in a human. This will keep them resistant or away from any genetic disease or effects. These effects might be there on the reproductive cells of a person.

For an instance, it these reproductive cells are there on parents that their children will automatically acquire the effects of genetics. Such Human Genetic Engineering Cons can cause few genetic diseases on humans. Chances of errors are always there in making use of genetic engineering for human cloning, agriculture, and in any other related field. Entire human generation can lead to mutation if these Human Genetic Engineering Cons do get removed at their earliest.

Human Genetic Engineering Cons

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_productName NSA 6600 NSA 5600 NSA 4600 NSA 3600 NSA 2600 Deep Packet Inspection Firewall TotalSecure Firewall Overview S S S S S Stateful Packet Inspection Firewall TotalSecure Firewall Overview S S S S S Unlimited File Size Protection TotalSecure Firewall Overview S S S S S Protocols Scanned TotalSecure Firewall Overview S S S S S Application Intelligence and Control Threat Prevention Services Available S S S S S Intrusion Prevention Service Threat Prevention Services Available S S S S S Gateway Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Threat Prevention Services Available S S S S S Content & URL Filtering (CFS) Threat Prevention Services Available S S S S S SSL Inspection (DPI SSL) Threat Prevention Services Available S S S S S Content Filtering Client (CFC)1 Threat Prevention Services Available O O O O O Analyzer Reporting1 Threat Prevention Services Available O O O O O Capture Advance Threat Protection1 Threat Prevention Services Available O O O O O Enforced Client Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware (McAfee or Kaspersky) Threat Prevention Services Available O O O O O 24x7 Support Threat Prevention Services Available S S S S S Interfaces Firewall General 4x10GbE SFP+, 8x1GbE SFP, 8x1GbE, 1GbE Management, 1 Console 2x10GbE SFP+, 4x1GbE SFP, 12x1GbE, 1GbE Management, 1 Console 2x10GbE SFP+, 4x1GbE SFP, 12x1GbE, 1GbE Management, 1 Console 2x10GbE SFP+, 4x1GbE SFP, 12x1GbE, 1GbE Management, 1 Console 8x1 GbE, 1GbE Management, 1 Console Management Firewall General CLI, SSH, GUI, GMS CLI, SSH, GUI, GMS CLI, SSH, GUI, GMS CLI, SSH, GUI, GMS CLI, SSH, GUI, GMS Nodes Supported Firewall General Unrestricted Unrestricted Unrestricted Unrestricted Unrestricted RAM Firewall General 4 GB 4 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB Visual Information Display (LCD Display) Firewall General N N N N N Site-to-Site VPN Tunnels Firewall General 6000 4000 1500 1000 75 Global VPN Clients (Maximum) Firewall General 2000 (6000) 2000 (4000) 500 (3000) 50 (1000) 10 (250) SSL VPN NetExtender Clients (Maximum) Firewall General 2 (1500) 2 (1000) 2 (500) 2 (350) 2 (250) VLAN Interfaces Firewall General 500 400 256 256 256 SonicPoints Wireless Controller Firewall General S S S S S WWAN Failover (4G/LTE) Firewall General S S S S S Network Switch Management Firewall General S S S S S Firewall Inspection Throughput2 Firewall/VPN Performance 13 Gbps 9 Gbps 6 Gbps 3.4 Gbps 1.9 Gbps Full DPI Performance (GAV/GAS/IPS) Firewall/VPN Performance 3 Gbps 1.6 Gbps 800 Mbps 500 Mbps 300 Mbps Application Inspection Throughput Firewall/VPN Performance 4.5 Gbps 3 Gbps 2 Gbps 1.1 Gbps 700 Mbps IPS Throughput Firewall/VPN Performance 4.5 Gbps 3 Gbps 2 Gbps 1.1 Gbps 700 Mbps Anti-Malware Inspection Throughput Firewall/VPN Performance 3 Gbps 1.7 Gbps 1.1 Gbps 600 Mbps 400 Mbps IMIX performance Firewall/VPN Performance 3.5 Gbps 2.4 Gbps 1.6 Gbps 900 Mbps 600 Mbps SSL DPI Performance Firewall/VPN Performance 1.3 Gbps 800 Mbps 500 Mbps 300 Mbps 200 Mbps VPN Throughput4 Firewall/VPN Performance 5 Gbps 4.5 Gbps 3 Gbps 1.5 Gbps 1.1 Gbps Latency Firewall/VPN Performance 16 s 24 s 17 s 38 s 45 s Maximum Connections5 Firewall/VPN Performance 750K 750K 400K 325K 225K Maximum DPI Connections Firewall/VPN Performance 500K 500K 200K 175K 125K DPI-SSL Connections Firewall/VPN Performance 6000 4000 3000 2000 1000 New Connections/Sec Firewall/VPN Performance 90000 60000 40000 20000 15000 Logging Features Analyzer, Local Log, Syslog Analyzer, Local Log, Syslog Analyzer, Local Log, Syslog Analyzer, Local Log, Syslog Analyzer, Local Log, Syslog Network Traffic Visualization Features S S S S S Netflow/IPFIX Reporting Features S S S S S SNMP Features S S S S S Authentication Features XAUTH/ RADIUS, Active Directory, SSO, LDAP, Terminal Services6, Citrix6, Internal User Database XAUTH/ RADIUS, Active Directory, SSO, LDAP, Terminal Services6, Citrix6, Internal User Database XAUTH/ RADIUS, Active Directory, SSO, LDAP, Terminal Services6, Citrix6, Internal User Database XAUTH/ RADIUS, Active Directory, SSO, LDAP, Terminal Services6, Citrix6, Internal User Database XAUTH/ RADIUS, Active Directory, SSO, LDAP, Terminal Services6, Citrix6, Internal User Database Dynamic Routing Features BGP, OSPF, RIP BGP, OSPF, RIP BGP, OSPF, RIP BGP, OSPF, RIP BGP, OSPF, RIP Single Sign-on (SSO) Features S S S S S Voice over IP (VoIP) Security Features S S S S S Interface to Interface Scanning Features S S S S S PortShield Security Features S S S S S Port Aggregation Features S S S S S Link Redundancy Features S S S S S Policy-based Routing Features S S S S S Route-based VPN Features S S S S S Dynamic Bandwidth Management Features S S S S S Stateful High Availability Features S S S S S Multi-WAN Features S S S S S Load Balancing Features S S S S S Object-based Management Features S S S S S Policy-based NAT Features S S S S S Inbound Load Balancing Features S S S S S IKEv2 VPN Features S S S S S Active/Active Cluster Features S S S S S Terminal Services Authentication/Citrix Support Features S S S S S TLS/SL/SSH decryption and inspection Features S S S S S SSL Control for IPv6 Features S S S S Easy VPN Features S S S S Biometric Authentication Features S S S S DNS Proxy Features S S S S Hardware Failover Failover Active/Passive with State Sync, Active/Active DPI with State Sync Active/Passive with State Sync, Active/Active DPI with State Sync Multi-WAN Failover Failover S S S S S Automated Failover/Failback Failover S S S S S

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