Monthly Archives: April 2017

Quite Contrary: I am wrong about everything – The Post

Posted: April 19, 2017 at 9:52 am

When I started this column umpteen months ago, I asked you a question derived from one of my favorite Peanuts strips: Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?

Well, it occurs to me that I might be wrong.

Now, this isnt necessarily a new revelation. There have been hints and allegations all along the way. When I wrote my column on fashion, one of my co-workers told me her friend read it and didnt think Iwas very well informed.

There are a lot of things Im not very well informed about. After several months of making up things to be angry about,I've begun to realize that this world might be a better place if people like me would shut up every once in a while about things they dont understand.

If theres one thing I hoped to have conveyed through this column, its that our society can be pretty silly, and sometimes its worth mocking the things everyone loves not for the sake of being contrary, but just to avoid taking things too seriously.When it comes right down to it, none of us really know much of anything.

But still, I think its about time I cleared the air about a few things:

When I wrote about hot dogs and sandwiches, I completely made up the Earl of Club, the Earl of Reuben and the Earl of Panini. There were no such historical figures, and I should have known better than to deceive my readers, especially now in the world of fake news and alternative facts.

After I wrote my column on figurative language, one of my mentors a man who is no stranger to the craft of opinion writing warned me to be careful when writing about language, because such columns can often come across as snobbish. (Snobbish? Me?) He added that my column pulled it off OK, but I sense he was just trying to spare my feelings.

In response to my Halloween column, my co-editors roommate sent me a lengthy email setting me straight on the subject: Halloween is when we embrace parts of ourselves that we cannot always demonstrate: our intrinsic, altruistic desire to save the galaxy from a tyrannical government, or our celebration of a new age of strong female characters who can do s--- like flip vans with their freakin minds. Fair enough.

Also, I have to admit that Ive never read The Lottery. I just know about the plot through cultural osmosis and my parents memories from high school English.

Myspace column was a pretty rancid pile of drek, and one reader justifiably called me out on it: The prosperity and power of America in the latter third of the 20th century owes a lot directly and indirectly to the Apollo program. It wasn't cheap, but those dollars were not blasted into space as some people imagine. They were spent here on earth, in America, and spent wisely.

And my column on love was pretty hypocritical, considering the fact that I was a month into a pretty good relationship.

One criticism I still take umbrage with was a Facebook commenter who said my column on Why you dont matter was written by a college kid who probably just learned the definition of nihilism. I have known the definition of nihilism for at least a couple of years, thank you very much.

While Im here, I have some people to thank. The first is my mother, my most dedicated reader, who texted me every time my column was published to tell me how good it was. Im sorry for all the references to drinking and uses of the word crap and heck.

The second is British comedian David Mitchell. The entire tone of this column was directly lifted from his brand of droll sardonicism. If he ever happens to read this, I know I said in one of my columns that I detested celebrity wedding crashers, but you have an open invitation to my wedding, sir.

Also, I guess it's worth thanking my editors, Kaitlyn and Chuck, for thinking it was a good idea to give this crotchety young man a platform.

Well, thats about it for me.While Im being self-indulgent, heres a complete list of my 19 Quite Contrary theses:

1.Partying and barhopping is exhausting and vastly overrated

2.Fashion doesnt matter. Except when it does. Dress only well enough that no one notices you.

3. Theres nothing inherently good aboutDisney.

4. Ahot dog is a sandwich.

5.Criticizing the internet is cliche and hypocritical. Stop worrying and hail our new robot overlords.

6. Toe the line andstop misusing expressions. Unless it's "literally," in which case I could care less (but I could care more).

7.Halloween doesn't mean anything.

8. Stop trying toget me to dance.

9.I don't care about your pet, and pigs get a bum rap.

10. Keep your kids offsocial media.

11. You are atiny, microscopic speck in a universe that doesnt care about you, and that should be a source of relief.

12.People who have everything together are secretly falling apart.

13. Celebrities whocrash weddings are rude.

14.Going to space won't solve our problems here on earth.

15. Other people'srelationships are not that special. Don't trust people who love love.

16."W" is a silly letter.

17. Surprises arent fun.Surprises are stressful and impractical and they ruin friendships.

18. Yourchildhood was boring.

19. I am wrong about everything. (Disregard items 1-18.)

Cheers.

William T. Perkins is a senior studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Is William wrong about everything? Let him know by emailing him at wp198712@ohio.edu.

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Carpe Diem! How the philosophy of ‘seize the day’ was hijacked and what the phrase should mean – iNews

Posted: at 9:51 am

Carpe diem, meaningseize the day, is one of the most powerful philosophical ideals. Now its used to sell trainers, T-shirts and a carefree lifestyle (#YOLO). But Roman Krznaric wonders if were getting the message

On a summers morning in 2014, 89-year-old Bernard Jordan decided to escape. The former British naval officer was determined to go to Normandy to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings with other veterans. But there was a problem: he was trapped in a care home in Hove, without permission to travel. What could he do?

Bernard came up with a cunning plan. He got up early and put on his best suit, making sure to pin on his wartime medals, then covered his outfit with a grey raincoat and sneaked out of the home. Now free, he tottered down to the railway station nearly a mile away, and took the train to Portsmouth. Once there, he boarded the ferry to France and joined a party of war veterans who took him under their wing.

As soon as the care staff realised he was missing, a frantic police search began. But it was too late. Bernard was already across the Channel, surrounded by marching bands and dancing girls. I loved every minute of it and would do it again tomorrow it was such an exciting experience, he said on his return. I expect I will be in some trouble with the care home, but it was worth it.

The story of Bernards great escape took the British media by storm, knocking the sober anniversary speeches by world leaders off the front pages. The ferry company even offered him free travel to Normandy for the rest of his life. But Bernard was never able to take up that offer: six months later, he died.

Why did Bernards adventure capture so much public attention? It was not just nostalgia for the wartime spirit or his venerable age. People also admired his courage to seize a window of opportunity. The chance was there, and he took it. As one person commented in an online forum just after his death: RIP, am doubly glad he escaped and got to go to the anniversary carpe diem.

Carpe diem seize the day is one of the most powerful philosophical ideals to have emerged in Western history. First uttered by the Roman poet Horace over 2,000 years ago, it retains an extraordinary resonance in popular culture.

The heavy metal band Metallica have rocked audiences around the world with their song Carpe Diem Baby, while the actress Dame Judi Dench had CARPE DIEM tattooed on her wrist for her 81st birthday. Its a message found in films such as Dead Poets Society, in one of the most successful brand campaigns of the last century (Just Do It), and in social media #yolo (you only live once).

You can even get T-shirts with the slogan CARPE THAT F****NGDIEM.

The message of carpe diem matters more than ever today. We live in an age of distraction, where we are checking our phones, on average, 110 times a day, and are more interested in being spectators of life on the screen than living it for ourselves. Immersed in the second-hand pleasures offered by our electronic gadgets, we need to reconnect with the wisdom of carpe diem, a philosophy which calls on us to taste the wonders of experiential living in the short time we have before death.

The challenge, however, is that many of us are losing touch with the deep carpe diem drive that has motivated people such as Bernard Jordan. The possibilities of radical aliveness are slipping away from us. The reason? Carpe diem has been hijacked. Its the existential crime of the century and one that we have barely noticed. Who, or what, are the hijackers?

First, the spirit of seize the day has been surreptitiously hijacked by consumer culture, which has recast it as Black Friday shopping sprees and the instant hit of one-click online buying Just Do It has come to mean just buy it.

Alongside this is the growing cult of efficiency and time management that has driven us toward hyper-scheduled living, turning the spontaneity of Just Do It into a culture of just plan it.

Finally and though it might seem counter-intuitive carpe diem has been hijacked by the booming mindfulness movement. While practising mindfulness has many proven benefits, from reducing stress to helping with depression, one of its unintended consequences has been to encourage the narrow idea that seizing the day is primarily about living in the here and now. Just Do It has become just breathe. The popularity of present moment awareness which is so attractive in an age where we are busy doing rather than being is crowding out the variety of ways that human beings have discovered over the centuries to seize the day.

Confronted by these hijackers, we need to rediscover five approaches to seizing the day that have emerged since the days of Horace as an antidote to our awareness often fleeting that our time is running out.

The most popular form of seizing the day I call opportunity its about following Bernard Jordans example and taking windows of opportunity that may never be repeated, whether its the career break of a lifetime or the chance to rescue a crumblingrelationship.

Its worth knowing that the word opportunity comes from the Latin ob portum veniens, meaning coming toward a port. It originally referred to a favourable wind that would blow a ship into harbour. So the question is whether were going to hoist our sails and catch this propitious wind, or whether we are so worried about hitting the rocks that we keep the sails down.

A second strategy is hedonism, where we seize the day through sensory pleasures, from free love to gastronomic exploration. Hedonism has an admittedly bad reputation, being associated with binge drinking and Trainspotting-style heroin overdoses. But dont forget that hedonism in healthy doses has been a route to human wellbeing for millennia: when the conquistadors arrived in the Americas, they discovered the Aztecs tripping on magic mushrooms. Downing a few tequila slammers or smoking a joint under the stars can sometimes help us with our troubles just as much as a trip to a therapist.

Another form of carpe diem is presence, which is about stepping into the now. Mindfulness meditation is one way of doing this, but there are other options such as what psychologists call flow experience. This is where you engage in a challenging and often vigorous activity that completely absorbs you in the present moment, like a high-speed basketball game. Youre utterly in the zone. Entering the now through the intense rush of sports is quite different from doing so by practising breathing techniques.

Fourth is spontaneity, which involves throwing plans and routines to the wind and becoming more experimental in the way we live. We need to liberate ourselves from our electronic calendars and booking up our weekends weeks in advance, and recover a more unplanned approach to the art of living which existed before the Industrial Revolution, when we werent constantly checking the time and obsessed with being efficient and productive.

Finally, we need to rediscover political carpe diem. This is about taking the four other forms of seizing the day opportunity, hedonism, presence and spontaneity and ratcheting them up from the individual to the collective level through mass political action. Think of the carpe diem demonstrations that brought down the Berlin Wall in 1989, which were full of spontaneous and hedonistic spirit. We need more of this today to challenge the big issues of our time, from climate change to the rise of far-right extremism.

Look at your own life and you may see an abundance of these five approaches to seizing the day. But you might also notice a deficit in one or more of them. Now is the moment to look away from the screen and embrace a life inspired by those two words: carpe diem.

Roman Krznarics new book, Carpe Diem Regained: The Vanishing Art of Seizing the Day(20, Unbound)

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The human race have reached a critical turning point – News24

Posted: at 9:51 am

We have reached a critical point in our society where the fundamental tenets of humanism and rationalism are under siege by both left- and right-wing fundamentalists who seek to enforce their views on others through emotion laden rhetoric that serves no other purpose other than to distract from factual evidence which nullifies their twisted view on the world.

The very paradigm of humanistic rationalism seeks to establish neutrality and unbiased views but is threatened by nonsensical reasoning motivated by fearmongering. To divide the populous of a nation is the very first step in establishing a people who are so blinded by fear of the other side that they will blindly follow irrational and dangerous rhetoric; dangerous because if one looks at history all major conflicts in the history of humanity started with a divide between people on the concepts by which society should function. The idea that we arent one with each other, that ethnical and racial superiority is a viable fact, this is what is leading to the demise of humanity as a whole.

Authors such as Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky have committed themselves to educating the populous on the dangers of dehumanising other groups of people based on whatever irrational fear. Karl Marlantes, in his brilliant book What It Is Like To Go To War perfectly illustrates the dangers of this dehumanisation of people and what it will ultimately lead to: senseless killing and destruction. Marlantes is particularly good at articulating his viewpoint due to the fact that he himself fought in Vietnam and experienced the devastating psychological aftermath of war.

Humans are the most loving yet the most hateful species in the history of what is now a disastrous world. We love to the point where our fear tells us it isnt safe which in turn causes us to turn to hatred as a sort of defence mechanism against our perceived threats. Humans hate what they dont understand. We love what we think we understand. We view the world through a very narrow prism that leads us to believe that our view and only ours is the default setting according to which the world functions and should function. We fail to comprehend or even attempt to comprehend perspectives that threaten our own comfort zone; perspectives that lead us to believe that our bubble is under siege.

It is a critical and indeed a non-negotiable prerequisite that, to view the world through an open-minded prism which is built on the foundations of rationality and neutrality, we need to embrace different perspectives. It is through this embracement that we as the human race develop new ways of thinking which, if utilised correctly by way of a humanitarian mindset, we moved forward unto greener pastures. But we can only move forward if all of humanity moves forward.

It is no myth that deeply embedded structural inequalities that favour the bourgeoisie and show contempt to the proletariat (excuse the pinch of Marxism) have lead us to the point where only a small minority of humans are moving forward and leaving the rest behind. The elite view those left behind as an anchor that is keeping humanity from moving forward and instead of raising the anchor, they are simply trying to cut it loose and leave it in the dark depths of poverty and despair. The other 99% is essentially dehumanised by the 1%; the former is seen as subhuman and not worth saving.

Unfortunately, those who criticise unregulated capitalism and corporate greed which are the very foundations on which the 1%/99% divide is built on are deemed Marxists by default. It is this black and white thinking which perfectly illustrates the need to embrace alternative perspectives in order to keep humanity from stagnating. We have been indoctrinated by to think that we are immune to failure. We have been taught to believe that we as humans have total control over our destiny and that Mother Nature and the rest of our world is but mere pawns in our game of seize and control. It is only when we are shocked beyond comprehension by disaster that we realise we are not as immune to failure and destruction as we have been led to believe. Embracing alternative views as viable prisms through which the world can be viewed will naturally lead to us being able to foresee the inevitable failure of our very narrow-minded worldviews.

Throughout history countries such as the US of A have been on a global rampage with the sole objective of control over our precious globe. They have twisted the concepts of globalism and internationalism as something which entails war and oppression by default. This is one of the key reasons why so many people are against any societal structure that seeks to give all humans social mobility. They see it as a means of control over their lives since this is what mainstream media and regimes like the US and Israel need people to believe. Divide and conquer is no mere expression.

It is reality. A handful divide and millions if not billions are conquered. A perfect example of the aforementioned would be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The two-state solution which was put to vote in the UN Security Council won by a margin of 165-26. However, the resolution did not pass since one of the six states not in favour of it, the US, has the massively unfair privilege of a veto right.

One country decides the fate of the Palestinian people. A fate so abhorrent in nature that it is almost impossible to conceive how a country could be able to oppress another country like they do. Once again it all comes down to dehumanisation. The people of Vietnam were dehumanised. The people of Iraq were dehumanised. Everyone who is deemed a threat by the largest oil company/military-industrial complex in the world (the US and cos empire) is dehumanised and viewed as disposable liabilities. Since when does "helping" other nations give a nation more control over those nations in need of help? Since when does the guilty party that put a nation in dire straits have the privilege of deciding latters fate? The US likes to parade themselves as the saviour of the globe. They fail to realise that true heroes lend a helping hand without expecting anything in return.

We as the human race have reached a critical turning point: will we allow the elitists to exercise their unfair privilege to the detriment of us all or will we stand up and speak for those who have been driven to the depths of despair, unable to be heard? Will we fight for the visions of those such as Einstein, Chomsky and Kennedy or will we allow the destruction of humanity to continue rolling on? These are the uncomfortable questions that need to be asked and the answer given should be in favour of all of humanity, otherwise we are doomed to rot under the oppressive regime of the 1%.

Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.

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Fideism R Us – Patheos (blog)

Posted: at 9:51 am

There is a funny sort of fideismaround which is a popular form of a philosophical error.

Fideism holds that faith is superior to reason and special knowledge can be had by faith alone which is superior and maybe even contradictory to that knowledge arrived at by reason.

Pope St John Paul II knocked fideism and rationalism on the head with his brilliant encyclicalFides et Ratio.Nevertheless, the kind of popular fideism we see today is linked with a sort of dreamy sentimentalism.

The way it is expressed is you have your truth and I have mine. Along with this goes the relativism that says, We cant really know the truth, but we believe certain things to be true.

In other words, Believing makes it so. This is what I have described elsewhere as Tinkerbell Catholicism.

Something is not true because you believe it. You believe it because it is true.

This twisted form of fideism is what stops many people from pursuing the truth of the Catholic faith. What they believe is what they think is true and they think it must be true simply because they believe it.

I have come across this same problem expressed in a different way, I could not become a Catholic because I have different theological beliefs.

Yes. Fine. But are those beliefs true? They are not necessarily true just because you believe them. Protestantism with its faith alone dogma is especially prone to fideism. When it is combined with anti-intellectualism it is especially noxious. Thus some Protestant fundamentalists and Calvinists will hold to beliefs that any childwith some common sense can show are simply untrue, but they hold to their beliefs thinking that believing makes it so.

Catholicism, on the other hand, is based on reality. Catholicism may confound common sense, but it never contradicts common sense.

We believe that a thing is true because it is true not because we happen to believe it to be true.

The sun is warm and yellow. This wine is red and good. I am alive and this is good and this is real.

This is the glory of Catholicism and it is why I believe my faith more strongly and more deeply than ever.

Because it is true and its truth doesnt depend on me.

I depend on it.

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When "Free Speech" By Special Interests Tramples On The Rights … – Daily Caller

Posted: at 9:50 am

5599391

The Constitution protects the rights of every American, including free speech, with the understanding that some limits can be placed on your conduct if it infringes on the rights of another American.

Your right to free speech cannot include yelling fire in a crowded theater to start a deadly stampede. Freedom of expression does not mean you have a right to give a KKK speech while burning a KKK cross on the property of a black family.

The First Amendment does not give you the right to follow a campaign volunteer into private homes, and use a powerful blow horn to shout over them when they try to speak in support of their political candidate.

And yet, thats what is happening. Special interests with lots of money have been using their free speech to shout over and drown out the speech of other Americans. They have been using the 1976 Buckley v Valeo decision to virtually eliminate your free speech, arguing that the Constitution guarantees the unlimited use of money as speech even when it overrides the free speech of individual citizens.

If 57 billionaires and the biggest corporations, unions and special interests choose the only candidates the rest of us are allowed to consider for high office just as the British Empire told Americans who our King and State Governors were prior to the Revolution then the free speech of those special interests is quashing the true free speech of hundreds of millions of Americans.

We need to rescue the First Amendment rights of Americans from a growing Oligarchy. The nations Founders based our Republic on the balance of interests to be argued for through competing free speech. Allowing unlimited and secret or veiled campaign contributions to be used as a giant blow horn actually destroys the free speech of individuals that our Constitution should protect. Likewise, intimidation and ostracization of anyone who disagrees with a powerful group shuts down free speech.

Even if we accept the idea that money is somehow speech, free speech is not unlimited. You cant shout fire in a crowded theater. Therefore money sent to or spent by shady third-party groups for political attack ads can certainly be limited, because they infringe on the free speech rights of individual American citizens.

As a conservative who wants to drain the swamp of secret political money being traded for our tax dollars, Ive wrestled with the best approach for fixing this crisis.

At Take Back Our Republic, we encourage the discussion of conservative approaches to campaign finance reform that fall within current Constitutional decisions; but powerful lobbyists trading secret contributions for our tax dollars can only be dislodged via: 1) a Supreme Court decision, 2) an Article V Convention, or 3) a 28th Amendment to the Constitution.

Id love to see the Supreme Court or an Article V Convention address these issues, but I do worry that either could bring along many unintended consequences (e.g. groups with a broad liberal agenda tried to stop Judge Neil Gorsuch for other reasons, and Ive seen some of my 21 political conventions go in unintended directions).

After much soul-searching over the past year, that leads me to believe a 28th Amendment is the cleanest way to address a specific clarification to one of the greatest documents ever created by man the US Constitution.

To date, 18 of our United States have asked Congress for a Constitutional amendment that would allow limits on political spending where appropriate and let us take our government back from those who give big transaction money in other words, trading millions in contributions for billions of your taxpayer dollars.

Hundreds of local governments, all across the country, have voted to do the same. Large and small, conservative and liberal the governments closest to the people have endorsed changing the federal Constitution to balance the funding of elections. Homer, Alaska; Tucson, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; Dubuque, Iowa; Missoula, Montana; Derry, New Hampshire; Austin, Texas the list goes on and on and on. At last count, more than 700 different municipalities have voted in favor of amending the Constitution.

Our campaign last year focused in South Dakota, where a majority of voters approved the Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act after it was added to the ballot by initiative petition. The Act would have balanced the system by encouraging small donations by average voters, and also requiring those groups giving politicians unlimited secret gifts to disclose their gifts, so voters would at least know who was trying to trade political gifts for millions in state taxpayer funded contracts. No one was shocked when, almost immediately after voters approved the Act, Legislators called an emergency session to throw out the will of the people and keep their secret and unlimited gifts coming.

When I ran a nationwide faith-based vote turnout for Bush 2000, reaching out to 14 million conservative Christians and Catholics, anyone who was motivated by ideology and willing to make phone calls, knock on doors or pass out literature at events knew they were exercising their free speech to actually elect a President. Certainly grassroots progressives were turning out voters in similar ways, but we all felt part of a vibrant Democracy and most Americans liked at least one if not both candidates.

Since then, I have watched grassroots activists replaced by gambling and entertainment money that shares none of their values, and anonymous attack ads drown out the average citizen.

We need a solution that restores the balance of speech needed for our Republic to exist. We need reasonable limits and disclosure to prevent the political-industrial complex from reinventing the Oligarchy or Monarchy of old. I am all for a Supreme Court case or Article V convention, if either of those avenues could restore the free speech rights of American citizens, but the appeal for the 28th Amendment seems the most direct path to victory.

Take Back Our Republic is leading the conservative movement for campaign finance reform. We are a growing, grassroots group made up of people from all around the nation, from a wide variety of backgrounds and economic circumstances. We are united by the belief that our political system has been corrupted by special interest spending and restoring citizens rights to be heard by their elected officials is the first step toward returning our government to the people.

John Pudner is a former conservative political consultant, best known for helping Dave Brat unseat US House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014 using grassroots action rather than campaign money. He is also the former editor of Breitbart Sports.Take Back Our Republic now has chapters in 37 states.

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NC lawmakers to take up GOP-championed campus free speech bill – The Progressive Pulse

Posted: at 9:50 am

A conservative-championed campus free speech bill will get its first substantial debate in the N.C. General Assembly this week.

Members of a House education committee are scheduled to consider House Bill 527 Wednesday afternoon, draft legislation pushed by Republicans in recent years to curtail demonstrations against conservative speeches on college campuses.

The bill requires neutrality from UNC universities and, notably, prohibits campus protests that, according to the draft,infringe upon the rights of others to engage in or listen to expressive activity.

The GOP-sponsored bill comes at the behest of Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who announced his intentions to urge such reforms this February.Such legislation has the backing of right-wing pundits who say conservative speakers have been harassed on generally left-leaning college campus, but its likely to earn the scrutiny of groups like the ACLU.

Anyone who feels as if their rights are violated would have the right to sue the university for damages and court costs under the GOP bill.

The GOP legislation also creates a so-called Committee on Free Expression, which would include 11 members of the Republican-controlled UNC Board of Governors. That committee would prepare annual reports detailing:

A description of any barriers to or disruptions of free expression within the constituent institutions.

A description of the administrative handling and discipline relating to these disruptions or barriers.

A description of substantial difficulties, controversies, or successes in maintaining a posture of administrative and institutional neutrality with regard to political or social issues.

Any assessments, criticisms, commendations, or recommendations the Committee sees fit to include.

Furthermore, campus orientation would be required to include a lesson on campus free speech as well.

Officials with the ACLU of N.C. told Policy Watch they are tracking the legislation closely.

The constitutional right to free expression and assembly is fundamental to our democracy, ACLU-N.C. Policy Director Sarah Gillooly said in a statement Wednesday. Proposals to enshrine those rights into state law must be clear and precise. We look forward to discussing the bill with lawmakers in the days to come.

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My experience with free speech – Duke Chronicle

Posted: at 9:50 am

Opinion | Column

the voice of dissent

When I started writing for The Chronicle eleven months ago, roughly a year had passed since a group that named itself Concerned and Conscious Duke Students had created the following petition on change.org: We are demanding the immediate removal of Jonathan Zhao as editor of the Duke Chronicle's editorial page. The petition argued that Zhaos column the plight of black America, [proliferated] racist stereotypes and misinformation about an entire group of people. In addition, the petition argued, Jonathan Zhao should be removed from his position because he also [had] a history of publishing inflammatory and ill-conceived pieces in the newspaper, which [indicated] his inability to moderate the Chronicles opinion section fairly and well in this upcoming school year.

The event proper to Dukes campus did not occur in a vacuum but rather in the context of increasing restrictions on freedom of speech on college campuses. Two factors have fueled this trend. First, Title IX initially aimed to cancel federal funding to institutions that do not properly tackle discriminations based on gender. However, in the last six years, the federal government broadened the definition of sexual assault to any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature and eliminated a protection that such conduct had to be offensive to a reasonable person.

According to Will Creeley, vice president of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the amended Title IX invites censorship by educational institutions that are frightened to lose funding. The second factor that has led to the roll-back of free speech on campuses is the culture of millennials. Greg Lukianoff, president of FIRE, and Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, argued in The Atlantic that parents raised millennials in an overprotective environment. Now that they are in college, they demand to be protected from any kind of speech that could make them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome, and thus advocate for restrictions on free speech.

It is in this environmentin the past year throughout which speakers were disinvited across the country, trigger warnings and safe spaces proliferated and a growing number of students became vocal about their hostility to certain conservative viewsthat I started writing for The Chronicle. As a person who holds many conservative and nationalistic views that run counter to the liberal consensus on college campuses, I was prepared to face backlash, controversy and even intimidation from those who disagreed with my views. Nonetheless, I cannot describe my joy and excitement when The Chronicle communicated its official policy to us columnists: you are free to write whatever you want as long as it is properly articulated and backed by evidence.

This is exactly the standard I have set for myself when thinking and writing about political issues. I do not try to shock people or spark controversy; I strive to be as objective and scientific as possible, putting my ego and my emotions aside. I do so not because I strive to be politically correct and to avoid offending people, but because embarking on that path would take me and the people around me further away from truth. Indeed, although I hold my own views, which I have addressed in my column, I believe that truth is complex and multifaceted. In an argument, every side holds one part of the truth, as tiny as it may be. Otherwise, respective sides would not feel the urge to speak up and make claims they deem legitimate. The problem is that most people start their arguments from a legitimate concern and take it to the extreme, using words that they do not properly define which bear negative connotations. They end up advocating for radical solutions that do not account for the other side of the debate.

For example, one of the views I hold dear is the cultural assimilation of immigrants in the United States. To make the case for assimilation, I once cited an article in The American Interest by Jonathan Haidt, where he argued that Having a shared sense of identity, norms, and history generally promotes trust Societies with high trust, or high social capital, produce many beneficial outcomes for their citizens: lower crime rates, lower transaction costs for businesses, higher levels of prosperity, and a propensity toward generosity, among others.

However, many people favoring multiculturalism as an alternative integration model would caution against the bigotry and hate that such such nationalistic thinking could fuel. And indeed, a study conducted by Vasiliki Fouka, assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, shows that people who think like me would need to listen to the other side of the debate in their quest for truth. After World War I, several US states barred the German language from their schools. Fouka found that the German-Americans affected by that policy were less likely to volunteer in WWII and more likely to marry within their ethnic group and to choose decidedly German names for their offspring. Rather than facilitating the assimilation of immigrant children, the policy instigated a backlash, heightening the sense of cultural identity among the minority.

Certainly not all people hold themselves accountable to such high standards of intellectual openness and moderation. Some people hold radical and extremist viewsthe kinds of views that many people deem offensive. Nonetheless, the government should not interfere to restrict their freedom of expression. Indeed, instead of bringing about moderation in debate, a restrictive policy would have the exact opposite effect. For example, media personality Milo Yiannopoulos, who has made many well-known outrageous statements, sees himself not as a bigot but as a crusader of free speech in the age of political correctness.

As this is last article I am writing in The Chronicle for the foreseeable future, I would like to dedicate it to The Chronicle, Duke University and the Duke community as a sign of my gratefulness for their commitment to freedom of speech and intellectual excellence.

Throughout this past year, The Chronicle never censored any of my articles, even those that run most counter to the dominant liberal narrative on campus. The only time one editor called me to ask if I could modify some part of an article, he did so because one of my arguments was not well-articulated and backed by evidenceand he promptly offered advice on how to better it. The argument was minor to my overall thesis, so although it was also extremely controversial, this person effectively told me, If you want to, you could pursue your research and write about it in a separate column. The Duke community also was surprisingly open-minded. I expected my columns to be met with outrage; instead, people who disagreed with my views simply invited me to have conversations around them. Finally, I could clearly sense that Duke University remains committed to free speech.

Striving for the truth in a spirit of freedom: this is exactly the mission of a university.Keep up the good work, Duke.

Emile Riachi is a Trinity sophomore. His column, the voice of dissent, usually runs on alternate Wednesdays.

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My experience with free speech - Duke Chronicle

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Tim Cook accepts Free Expression Award, talks value of free speech … – 9 to 5 Mac

Posted: at 9:50 am

As expected, Apple CEO Tim Cook accepted the Free Expression Award at the Newseum in Washington D.C. tonight. At the event, Cook was presented the award and made brief comments on what it means to him and Apple, as well as touching on the importance of companies taking a stance

Cook was chosen forthe award because of how he has used his spotlight to take a public stand on major societal issues such as racial equality, privacy, climate change, education, and LGBT rights. Prior to the presentation of the award itself, a brief video was played highlighting some of Cooks values, including clips for Cooks George Washington University commencement speech, his comments on the FBIs request to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone, and more.

Upon accepting the Free Expression award, Cook thankedWashington Post CEO and publisher Fred Ryan for the honor, explaining that hes accepting it on behalf of everyone at Apple. Cook went on to address the idea of the freedom of speech.

As noted by AppleInsider, Cook explained that times now are very different fromwhat they were when the Founding Fathers established the idea of free speech. There were no app developers, modern content creators, and other new forms of speech.

We know that these freedoms require protection, Cook said of First Amendment rights. Not just the forms of speech that entertain us, but the ones that challenge us. The ones that unnerve and even displease us. Theyre the ones that need protection the most. Its no accident that these freedoms are enshrined and protected in the First Amendment. They are the foundation to so many of our rights.

Cook went on to talk on the fact that Apple takes protection of the First Amendment very seriously, working to give everyone an opportunity to speak up and speaking up itself:

This is a responsibility that Apple takes very seriously, Cook said. First we defend, we work to defend these freedoms by enabling people around the world to speak up. And second, we do it by speaking up ourselves. Because companies can, and should have values.

At Apple we are not just enabling others to speak up, we are doing so ourselves.

Furthermore, Cook spoke on the importance of listening in a time when many people have conflicting opinions:

Free speech isnt only about speaking, its about listening, whether or not we agree. It demands we stay informed.

Cook also seemingly took a swipe at the Trump Administrations idea of alternative facts, something first set forth byU.S. Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway. We must be open to alternative points of view, not alternative facts, Cook said.

Tim Cook has given Apple a voice on many social issues. He has been honored withtheNational Visibility Award from the Human Rights Campaign after becoming the first CEO of a major company to come out as openly gay. Furthermore, Cook has spoken on a variety of hot-button issues including diversity, immigration, and much more.

Video of the awards presentation should be available here soon.

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Students: Free Speech Is for Bigots, College Must Apologize for Hosting ‘Fascist’ Heather Mac Donald – Fox News

Posted: at 9:50 am

By Lukas Mikelionis, Heat Street A group of students at Pomona College in California has published an open letter urging the outgoing college president to retract his commitment to free speech as a way to discover truth because objectivity is a white supremacist myth.

In the letter addressed to outgoing Pomona College President David Oxtoby, three self-identified black students slammed the president for claiming that the college is committed to freedom of speech and urged him to take action against journalists at the Claremont Independent, an on-campus newspaper.

The letter comes in response to April 7 email from President Oxtoby who said the college is committed to the exercise of free speech and academic freedom following the protests against distinguished academic and Black Lives Matter critic Heather Mac Donald at next door Claremont McKenna College (which is part of the same Claremont Colleges system as Pomona) that led to the shutdown of the event.

Protest has a legitimate and celebrated place on college campuses, President Oxtoby wrote in the email. What we cannot support is the act of preventing others from engaging with an invited speaker. Our mission is founded upon the discovery of truth, the collaborative development of knowledge and the betterment of society.

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Students: Free Speech Is for Bigots, College Must Apologize for Hosting 'Fascist' Heather Mac Donald - Fox News

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POINT: Conservatives exaggerate attacks on free speech rights … – Daily Trojan Online

Posted: at 9:50 am

Free speech isnt dead. It is increasingly yielding necessary debate. The creation of an entire student organization at Harvard focused solely on free speech is highly unnecessary and promotes the idea that free speech cannot simply be integrated into everyday conversations.

Earlier this semester, a group of students at Harvard University launched the Open Campus Initiative, the schools first club focused on free speech.

We decided to seek out some method for advocating for the things that we learned and we realized that there was no group at Harvard interested in open dialogue, club president Conor Healy told USA Today.

This sentiment sounds nice, but it begs the question shouldnt every group at Harvard be interested in open dialogue? Im sure there are not many campus organizations openly promoting their commitment to closed dialogue.

This development demonstrates just how ridiculous the discussion surrounding free speech has gotten. People are now quick to throw out phrases like free speech is dead and claim that their right to free speech is being infringed upon, but the fundamental right to free speech hasnt changed. The only thing that has changed is wider accusations against individuals violating free speech, when these individuals are simply practicing free speech for themselves.

The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. As far as I know, Congress hasnt passed any new legislation that reduced the right to free speech, so the right still exists. It is just a matter of exercising it. However, many conservatives claim that their free speech is under attack as soon as liberals push back against what theyre saying.

It is completely understandable that many conservatives feel like they are under attack or that schools are no longer places of open dialogue, especially considering recent incidents of controversial speakers being widely protested by students, such as conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley and National Policy Institute President Richard Spencer at Auburn University. Nevertheless, the First Amendment technically only limits the ability of Congress to legally restrict free speech. It doesnt mean that no entity can ever exercise discretion when allowing a speaker on their property.

Universities currently find themselves in a tricky balancing act between the desire for open discussion and the need to address students who legitimately feel threatened by certain speakers. This balance has plagued free speech since its inception; as Americans, we have the freedom to say whatever we want, until it crosses the line and infringes on the rights of others.

The Open Campus Initiative is an overreaction and negates the very purpose it hopes to achieve. Theres no need to create a club specifically for free speech; it would be more effective for the same students involved in the club to lead by example by contributing to open discussions in every aspect of their lives on campus, not just within a small group of students who chose to be in the Open Campus Initiative.

Those who claim free speech is dying are often the same people who lambast the rise of campuses as a safe space, yet the Open Campus Initiative merely creates a safe space for students to speak openly without fear of someone vehemently arguing with them. If the involved students truly feel like free speech is disappearing on campuses, they should try to open the minds of students who normally would resist their ideas, instead of limiting their open discussions to a student group that is made up of a self-selecting group of individuals that is predisposed to be accepting of open and frank discussions. In this way, the club essentially defeats its very purpose by sectioning off into a club for free speech, instead of maintaining the expectation that free speech be a part of everyday life, and by creating yet another group of inherently like-minded individuals.

Recent support for campus safe spaces have undoubtedly created an environment that is less than friendly to students with unpopular beliefs. However, the proper way to address this is by organically fostering open conversation at any possible time, not by specifically designating one organization as the space for these conversations.

Erin Rode is a junior majoring in print and digital journalism and political science. Point/Counterpoint runs Wednesdays.

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