Daily Archives: June 1, 2017

‘Alien: Covenant’ and the Nature of Horror – Film School Rejects

Posted: June 1, 2017 at 10:28 pm

A look at where Covenant is similar to the original Alien, and where it differs.

Much has changed in the 38 years since Ridley Scotts Alien was first released or, more precisely, unleashed. The claustrophobia and primality of that first film have given way, in Alien: Covenant, to expansive planets, lost civilizations, and ponderous mythologies. This is not to say that the franchise has been drained of all its thrills; Covenants pallid neomorphs would give even Ellen Ripley a real shiver. But the prevailing impression left by Scotts latest installment is less of horror than of existential gloom. The threats it conveys feel at once larger and more diffuse than any one creature.

To get to the bottom of what makes Covenant so different from the original Alien, it may be useful to define the genre that the latter so thoroughly exemplifies. Horror, the philosopher Nol Carroll explains, is a compound of at least two other emotions: fear and disgust. These emotions are often evoked, in horror films and literature, by the presence of a monster and what a monster the xenomorph is. Rapacious and vile, its an amalgam of all the qualities natural selection made most salient and repulsive to human beings. This is, of course, true of all monsters: they are more real than real, more predatory than any natural predator. But they are not threatening in the way that a nuclear bomb is threatening. Rather, they are designed and here we can use the word design unselfconsciously to push our evolutionary buttons, to shake us all the way to the bottom of the brain stem.

The original Alien is, in some ways, explicitly Darwinian: it is about one species struggling to survive the predation of another more well-adapted one. The xenomorphs acidic blood and retractable jaw are not meant to be supernatural powers but survival adaptations. As Ash puts it to Ripley, its a survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. As viewers, we respond to the xenomorph on a primal level. Few of us have ever encountered slimy beasts intent on eating us, but we nevertheless bear deeply programmed instincts about malice and contagion that horror films powerfully exploit. In his book, The Anatomy of Disgust, the writer William Ian Miller provides a precise summary of the type of circumstance for which the emotion of horror evolved. It would be difficult to conceive of a better description of the Xenomorph:

Because the threatening thing is disgusting, one does not want to strike it, touch it, or grapple with it. Because it is frequently something that has already gotten inside of you or takes you over and possesses you, there is often no distinct other to fight anyway. Thus the nightmarish quality of no way out, no exit, no way to save oneself except by destroying oneself in the process. Horrifying things stick, like glue, like slime. Horror is horror because it is perceived as denying all strategy, all option. It seems that horror is a subset of disgust, being specifically that disgust for which no distancing or evasive strategies exist that are not in themselves utterly contaminating. Not all disgust evokes horror; there are routine petty loathings and gorge raisings which do not horrify. Disgust admits of ranges of intensity from relatively mild to major. But horror makes no sense except as an intense experience. Mild horror is no longer horror.

How does this description map onto Alien: Covenant? To be sure, the film has its share of creepy contagions working their way into various orifices. Its in these moments that the movie feels most fun, most like an Alien film. But the emotional timbre changes when the crew meets David, and when he is gradually revealed to be the films primary villain. The cat and mouse game between alien and human turns into something far weightier, if somewhat less affecting. Of course, Scott had already dispensed with Darwinian trappings when, in Prometheus, he revealed that the Alien universe is characterized by design, not natural selection. Ripleys rugged survivalism was replaced with Elizabeth Shaws blind faith. By the time we get to Covenant, Shaws faith in God has in turn been replaced by Davids singular belief in creation.

As I recently wrote in my piece on AI and human nature, reflecting artificial intelligence on screen presents a problem for our emotional machinery. Unlike the xenomorph, whose every feature evokes an ingrained fear response, AI poses a threat that our genes have not prepared us to encounter. Where the xenomorph is hostile, AI is merely indifferent; where the xenomorph is slimy, AI is fastidiously clean. Covenant exploits this fact: the humans in the film are lulled into complacency by Davids unthreatening appearance and do not realize the threat he poses until it is too late. But as his plan begins to unfurl, the emotions we feel as an audience are not the primitive fear and disgust that constitute horror.

A further distinction is useful here: Carroll draws a line between art-horror, of which monster films are a subset, and natural horror, which might describe the Holocaust or some other real-life atrocity. This distinction gets to the heart of the paradox of horror itself; namely, why do we pay to experience an emotion that in many ways seem negative? Art-horror, built as it is on the excitation of certain emotions, can be pleasant in much the same way that a rollercoaster is pleasant. It provides the thrill and novelty of danger without its actual consequences. Natural horror, by contrast, is all consequences. It is the sort of event for which the phrase the banality of evil was coined.

It is precisely this mechanistic, banal sort of horror that David evokes in Covenant. This wasnt always the case: in Prometheus, Davids stiltedness made him an embodiment of the uncanny, which evokes a type of art-horror rooted in eerie curiosity. When, at the end of that film, he is reduced to a severed head (like Ash in Alien), he becomes a reminder of the frailty and vulnerability of the human body. This, too, can be called uncanny, and thereby an extension of art-horror. But in Covenant, David has transcended these limitations; he is, as Walter tells him, too human. Thus, his evil stops feeling like that of a monsterand begins to feel merely monstrous.

None of this amounts to a critique of Alien: Covenant; on the contrary, the film illuminates the boundaries of horror in a way that Alien, in its lean efficiency, could not. But in clarifying these boundaries, Covenant also shows us the many ways in which our emotional equipment leaves us ill-prepared for the challenges of the 21st Century. Violence allures and excites us until it doesnt. We are easily animated against individual villains but find it difficult to counter impersonal systems. And if, as some have argued, our unconcern about AI and global warming constitutes a failure of intuition, perhaps horror is a poor guide for what to be afraid of.

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'Alien: Covenant' and the Nature of Horror - Film School Rejects

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Free ethical relativism Essays and Papers – 123helpme

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Title Length Color Rating Ethical Relativism and Cultural Relativism - In explaining Cultural Relativism, it is useful to compare and contrast it with Ethical Relativism. Cultural Relativism is a theory about morality focused on the concept that matters of custom and ethics are not universal in nature but rather are culture specific. Each culture evolves its own unique moral code, separate and apart from any other. Ethical Relativism is also a theory of morality with a view of ethics similarly engaged in understanding how morality comes to be culturally defined. However, the formulation is quite different in that from a wide range of human habits, individual opinions drive the culture toward distinguishing normal good habits from abnormal bad habits.... 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Why Is It Difficult to Live Together in Differences? (A Reflection) – Netralnews

Posted: at 10:27 pm

Illustration: Living together in differences. (Special)

JAKARTA, NETRALNEWS.COM - Diversity on this planet Earth is already a necessity. Diversity is also actually the most beautiful gift of the Creator. So denying diversity is silliness.

The diversity is not only in humans with all the aspects that surround it, such as social, economic, political, cultural, religious and so on, but also in biodiversity: the flora and fauna.

For humans, in particular, there are not only men and women, but there are also thousands of tribes, languages, skin colors, and so on. And all of it was created by the divine greatness, not because we asked for it.

Reconstruction of Differences

The presence of a person or something can only be accepted with gratitude. Behind the gratitude, there is also a sense of responsibility to maintain it. Different religions as well as different tribes must be accepted and cared for, mutually nurturing and mutually developing them.

It is strange that the pluralist reality is not accepted for mutual enrichment, but instead serves as a source of prejudice that leads to the birth of various kinds of conflict. Tragically, the conflict often runs at a fairly high frequency and gets some sort of justification as a necessity. In fact, the conflict is actually due to a conflict of interest due to personal egoism.

Then, what must be done is to reconstruct diversity or pluralism in a more appropriate framework of understanding. It needs to be continuously conscious with theological or religious approaches, that diversity must be accepted for mutual care, mutual respect and mutual growth.

By mutual acceptance and mutual respect, everything in that difference can progress toward a better stage of life.

That is the moral and ethical foundation in living life on this planet earth. It is actually a common commitment in our being Indonesians, when it is liberated and established. The ideals with the fighters against the invaders are to build a just and prosperous life together.

Learning to Live in a Difference

There is, therefore, no other smoother path and a more beautiful way of life, in addition to continuing to learn to accept the differences and to unceasingly bring togetherness in the distinction. We learn tolerance, mutual respect and mutual respect, aka accept each other deficiencies and advantages.

Likewise the right hand should receive the left hand, although the left hand feels less functioning because it cannot write, or because of rheumatic attack or stroke. Or, the left eye is smaller than the right eye, but they must accept each other and help each other to more clearly see the desired object.

That is, as great as any medical science and sophisticated whatever medical technology, under the microscope we still cannot distinguish blood from which tribe, what religion, sex and so forth, because all of it is God's creation.

The rest, cultural or ethnic prowess and any proud superiority of religiosity of any ethnic or religious entity will be useless if there is no sincerity and desire of each entity to learn to behave appropriately in difference.

This means what is needed is the seriousness and sincerity to continue learning to be a pluralist or diverse citizens. That's where intelligence in living together. Or, says a pluralist Chung Hyung, that pluralism is the most enlightened position when dealing with other entities in difference.

But, above all, there is one thing in the author's mind, about why we are at odds with each other, or why we are still difficult to live together in differences? Below is a snippet of phrase from Gus Mus (KH.A. Mustofa Bisri) that can be a common musing.

Atheist is despised for being godless

Theist is despised because of different gods

Same god is despised because of different prophets

Same prophet is despised because of different religious schools

Same religious schools are despised because of different party

Same party is despised because of different opinions.

Do you want to live alone on the Earth to satisfy the lust of greed?

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Why Is It Difficult to Live Together in Differences? (A Reflection) - Netralnews

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Florence Welch: ‘Hedonism was a disguise from shyness’ – Bismarck Tribune

Posted: at 10:25 pm

Florence Welch used to think she needed a hangover to write music.

The 30-year-old Florence and the Machine star admitted she is quite reserved and shy in real life and used alcohol as a crutch when she first found fame.

She explained to the Daily Telegraph: "Hedonism was like a disguise. I was a shy kid and I had to alter my personality. At first it's freeing but then it becomes a prison of its own making. I thought you needed a hangover to write."

Florence also revealed she has always found it easier to pour out her feelings in songs rather than express them by talking to people.

She said: "I find it easier to explain myself in music than in person. Songs are like protective talismans. In daily life, I'm much more unsure and shy.

"It's like hiding in plain sight... If I tell you that I'm struggling or in pain but dress it up and make the loudest noise ever, I can get it out. I can tell the truth but still hide behind the noise I'm making.

"On stage, something takes over. When I sing there is a huge sense of release. I am very in love with the world and quite afraid of it as well; my feelings come on really strong. In real life I have to find a way to shut that down. Stage is a place where it all makes sense and people aren't going to think I'm crazy."

Florence is currently working on her fourth album, which will explore the "black hole" she fell into with alcohol and upheaval in her personal life, including a split from event planner boyfriend James Nesbitt in 2014.

She said: "I'm happier now, I'm content, but I'm never going to be fixed, ever. I don't think that's how it works. A lot of things almost worked for me: partying almost worked, being famous and successful almost worked, the relationship almost worked... but it won't sustain you. These are transient things. It's working out how to be OK regardless."

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Florence Welch: 'Hedonism was a disguise from shyness' - Bismarck Tribune

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COLUMN: The statistical fallacy – The Auburn Plainsman

Posted: at 10:25 pm

By Weston Sims | Opinions Editor | 05/31/17 11:10am

Theres a difference between understanding a statistical probability about someone and using that probability to make an assumption about that person.

The former merely involves knowing how to comprehend a statistic, while the latter consists of misusing that statistic to imprison a person inside a generalization or in other words, committing a logical lapse. It denies them their full humanity, their individual autonomy. This assault on personhood is the mechanism by which racism, sexism, xenophobia and a million other degrading modes of thought operate. And its incredibly easy to get caught up in it; humans have a propensity to do so.

By nature, we categorize and simplify to make sense of the complicated world we live in and truth is likely to get lost in translation. We become seekers of simplicity rather than seekers of truth, and oftentimes, others who share this world with us bear the cost.

This cost takes many forms, some more malicious than others. A woman is denied a promotion because of an employers unconscious inclination that women are too emotional to lead. A black man is denied a job because the name on his application has ethnic connotations, and thus all of the baggage that carries in America. A homosexual man is assumed to be more promiscuous than his straight counterpart.

But all are connected through a singular defect: Its a cage crafted from the often unconscious attempts by human beings to categorize other human beings.

Many stereotypes are the result of social conditioning oftentimes through exposure to Hollywood, the news media or society in general and sometimes stereotypes are created and sustained in the cesspool of overt racism. For example, racists will come across a statistic about other human beings like how African Americans in the U.S. have a higher incarceration rate than other races and use that statistic to assume the character of the demographic represented by it. Without caring much for how such statistics come to be, such as through systemic oppression, these statistics give racists a foundational sense of rationalism for their misguided and immoral beliefs. Under the guise of this rationalism, they proceed to strip away room for doubt, that precious space that buffers people from the worst of dogmas. Doing so provides fertile grounds for racist movements.

Once racist movements capture this misguided sense of rationalism, they open themselves to broader appeal, an effect compounded by Western cultures enlightenment influences. One doesnt need to look too deeply into history to see this effect, though the early 20th century provides a stark example; you only have to look at America today with the rise of the Alt-right, a movement whose leader paints himself as an intellectual racist.

Its important we dont fall into the trap of letting a statistic, especially those taken out of context, lead us toward allowing negative stereotypes to shape our minds.

Making an assumption about which horse will win the Kentucky Derby based off statistics must be distinguished from making an assumption about a human being based off statistics. The crucial distinction is that the consequences between the two assumptions are in no way equal.

There are different consequences for betting on the horse race the worst material outcome is you lose money. The worst immaterial outcome may be a loss of pride.

Betting on human beings is a completely different game. Imposing assumptions about human beings, which are often negative, can have terrible, life-changing effects for the victims. In a material sense, people are denied jobs, promotions, housing, and the list goes on. As for immaterial outcomes, people are denied respect, friendship and basic humanity. These negative outcomes often provide a feedback loop with marginalized people being more likely to be pushed into a position of committing actions that lend toward their social exclusion.

Because of the difference in consequences, our decision calculus must adjust accordingly.

We must keep our unconscious biases in check. The trouble is that, while the effects of stereotyping are completely manifest for the victims, the causes are often hidden from the perpetrator under years of social conditioning. Moreover, many perpetrators are under the false assumption that they completely understand their own minds.

If they think they arent a racist, they believe it follows they arent a racist. They believe unconscious biases dont exist, despite the vast amount of research that points to the contrary.

To mitigate this self-deception, we must all confront ourselves with the acknowledgment that we arent completely aware of some of our own beliefs. It will require humility and a great deal of internal debate.

We must leave room for doubt; its the only assurance youre looking for Truth and not a crutch for your world view.

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‘Don’t shoot! You’re all getting A’s!’ – Baptist News Global

Posted: at 10:25 pm

In 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson, part Plato, part Ichabod Crane, attacked the corpse cold rationalism of conservative and liberal alike in his classic Harvard Divinity School address, declaring, as any good Transcendentalist would, that: Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find true in me, or reject; and on his word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing. For Emerson, truth was not true until perceived from deep within.

Not instruction, but provocation, is a phrase that lies at the heart of genuine education. After some 42 years of making a run at that, I still believe that the classroom is sacred space where opinions collide, interpretations vary, and, pray God, learning prevails. From Socrates holding forth in the Agora to todays Power-Point-assisted seminars, when such intellectual provocation prevails, there is nothing like it, nothing in this world.

Unless, of course, students and/or faculty are packing a piece, utilizing campus carry laws that bring guns to class, concealed in pockets, purses, briefcases or backpacks. When guns show up for class, provocation takes on a whole new meaning. Learning itself is dangerous and transformative, but it should never be life-threatening. Campus carry scares the Holy Socrates out of me; it really does.

When this century began (the year of our Lord 2000), there were no laws that permitted firearms on university/college campuses. As of spring 2017, 11 states now offer such legal possibilities, including Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Ohio and Wisconsin. Tennessee lets faculty, but not students, arm themselves. (Hopefully faculty meetings are firearm free!)

Sixteen states ban concealed weapons at universities: California, Florida,Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota,South Carolina and Wyoming. (The North Carolina legislature is working hard to arm college students, but they cant get beyond court-rejected, racial-discriminating voting and gerrymandering laws.) Twenty-two states leave the decision of on-campus weapons to the discretion of specific educational institutions.

The increase in campus carry options were significantly impacted by the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre in which a senior student gunned down 32 students and wounded 17 in a horrendous killing spree. Many insisted that the gunman might have been stopped had students and faculty been sufficiently armed. The shooting prompted schools to tighten lockdown policies, increasing campus police, and expanding electronic alert warnings. Campus lockdowns are no longer uncommon in schools across the country. Better safe than sorry.

In spite of cloistered quads and ivy-covered surroundings, American schools of higher education have never been immune from the social realities of their national and regional cultures. Alcohol excesses and burgeoning opioid epidemics continue to wreak havoc, often with violent implications. Sexual abuses take heavy tolls on state, private and, yes, Christian schools alike. Hostile ideological and political divides all too often lead to physical threats and attacks against faculty or students at institutions left and right of center. Will concealed weapons save us or merely deepen the danger to life and limb? Is our society itself so broken, so brutal, and intellectual provocation so volatile, that firearms are a necessary defense?

Advocates insist that the society is indeed so violence-laden that citizens must arm themselves in every setting. Some suggest that increasing sexual violence is sufficient reason for females to take up arms. Others demand that Second Amendment rights be applied in every segment of society, colleges included. I fret over implied threats and symbolic implications. Does the syllabus declare: Dont shoot! Youre all getting As?

What if campus carry is simply the most dangerous of an unceasing set of classroom distractions, existing alongside tweets, texts, Google, Wikipedia and Facebook, diversions that thwart both instruction and provocation, disengaging students from ideas that might form or re-form them? Whatever else the vulnerability of learning means perhaps it is this: try as we might to protect ourselves externally and internally, we can never insulate ourselves enough to escape the insolent idea, the banal diatribe, the suicidal bomber, or the AK-47 crazy.

For years, Ive thought (but never said aloud) that teaching means getting intellectually naked in front of a group of people for the sake of ideas, and hoping they gasp at the ideas and not the teachers conceptual vulnerability. Firearms that protect may also become weapons that sidetrack from what learning can and should be the great mystery of vulnerability to ideas and each other.

In Telling the Truth, the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, & Fairy Tale, Frederick Buechner tells about a high school class that had gone better than usual the day they studied King Lear. Buechner concludes: The word out of the play strips them for a moment naked and strips their teacher with them and to that extent Shakespeare turns preacher because stripping us naked is part of what preaching is all about, the tragic part. In my academic experience, provocation and spirituality are intricately related.

So please dont come to my classes, lectures or workshops armed for anything but learning. Leave your guns outside, please. Go ahead, make my day.

OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.

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Fighting Words: A Battle in Berkeley Over Free Speech – TIME

Posted: at 10:24 pm

In the city known for launching the Free Speech Movement, protesters on the right and the left have clashed on the streetsPaul KurodaZuma Press

Julia, a writer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, talks about the street-protest scene in Berkeley, Calif., this spring as if she had entered a war zone. "There are explosions happening everywhere. People are fighting. You're not entirely sure who is an ally, who isn't," she says.

That's part of the reason she won't give her last name, since she fears that she will be targeted, harassed or doxxed like so many others who have had their identities attached to the blowups here. For a few days, the city's mayor, Jesse Arreguin, even had to get himself security because of the threats he was receiving. "Our city is not going to be turned into a fight club," he says defiantly, though no one is quite sure in this city of 121,000 long known as a test bed for the First Amendment.

As the far right and far left have clashed here over what kind of speech is permissible, Julia has tried to stake out new space created by the recurring violence. She helped found a group called Pastel Bloc, whose members wear disarming pinks in the streets as they provide water and support to other "antifascist" activists who might be engaged in more disruptive actions. Think of it as sort of a medic crew with fairy-dust slogans like "Resistance is Magic." Anything to fight the growing sense of dread. "It's getting scarier to protest," she says.

The mosh pit started months ago at the city's famous university campus, where militant left-wing activists "shut down" conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in February, setting fires, breaking windows, causing a campus-wide "shelter in place" order. Invited to speak by the Berkeley College Republicans--who have since filed a lawsuit against the school--the professional troll and self-described "dangerous faggot" never made it onto the stage. And as the story became national news, Berkeley again became a theater where a bigger battle over the rights and limits on free speech, dissent and respect all played out.

At their worst, the scrums have been belittling and violent, as grown men and women shout, punch and taunt one another or destroy property. But the questions many are fighting over cut to the core of the American democratic system. In a time when politics have turned toxic, are there ideas so repugnant and dangerous that they shouldn't be allowed to be uttered in public? Do certain words amount to attacks and therefore justify violence in return? Or must all communities endure the speech they hate most, even when the point of the speech is to make others angry?

These are centuries-old debates, and freethinking Berkeley has seen countless protests over the decades. Yet city and university officials also say there is something unprecedented happening now. While some locals have shown up with the standard placards and megaphones, others have traveled from afar, bringing smoke bombs and sticks, seemingly spoiling for a fight. In three big clashes this spring, dozens have been arrested and others have been sent to the hospital. "This level of political violence is something we have not seen before," says Arreguin. "This is a new situation."

And there are signs of it elsewhere. On May 29, the mayor of Portland, Ore., asked federal authorities to halt upcoming "alt-right demonstrations" after two men were stabbed and killed while trying to protect young women from a man yelling anti-Muslim slurs on a commuter train. The suspect in the stabbings entered the courtroom for his arraignment on May 30, casting himself as a champion of the Constitution. "Get out if you don't like free speech," he declared. The mayor had another message. "There is never a place for bigotry or hatred in our community," said Ted Wheeler, "and especially not now."

Many on the left say the words free speech are now being used as a cover for spreading hate in America. Many on the right say the left has been reacting violently to mere words. And in an era when Americans feel tense and divided, some groups have zeroed in on Berkeley as "a stage for open melee," as one conservative organizer put it, treating the town like a shrine to be captured or defended in a religious war.

Yiannopoulos, for his part, has promised to return to Berkeley for a "huge multiday" event later this year. "Free speech belongs to everyone, not just the spoilt brats of the academy," he wrote on Facebook, promising to dedicate each day of the event to a different "enemy of free speech, including feminism, Black Lives Matter and Islam."

There was a time when it appeared the spring confrontation could be avoided. Weeks before Yiannopoulos' planned appearance, scores of professors begged the university to cancel it, saying in a letter that he espouses views they find deplorable--"white supremacy, transphobia and misogyny"--and that he crosses a line by "actively inciting" his audience to harass people. At a previous stop on his campus tour, in Wisconsin, Yiannopoulos mocked a transgender woman who had once attended the school, while projecting her photo as she sat in the audience. And there were swirling fears that he would publicly target undocumented students at Berkeley, having promised to use the event to launch a campaign against "sanctuary campuses." (Yiannopoulos, who has said he'll "never stop making jokes about taboo subjects," says he was never going to single out students and describes the characterizations in the letter as "lies.") University officials criticized his "odious behavior" but said none of the concerns justified denying his right to speak.

Others in the community, however, disagreed. As dusk fell on Feb. 1, hundreds of protesters gathered peacefully on Sproul Plaza, where students launched a movement for free speech in 1964. Then things got hostile. "All of that changed, radically, when into the middle of the crowd marched--and I mean literally marched--100 to 150 individuals dressed in black from head to toe," says UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof, who was in the crowd.

It's not clear how many of them might have actually been students, but some marchers did identify as "antifa"--short for antifascist--activists known to use "black bloc" techniques to hide their identities as they protest en masse. With bandannas wrapped around their faces, the group tore down barricades, shot projectiles at police and lit a light stand on fire, causing more than $100,000 worth of damage. After the decision was made to cancel Yiannopoulos' event for safety reasons, some protesters spilled into nearby streets, crushing the front windows of bank chains, while other protesters cleaned up after them. Mogulof describes the black blockers as "highly disciplined," and says the display is "something we had simply never seen here."

Antifascist protesters have been showing up elsewhere. A woman allegedly shot one in Seattle while he was protesting another Yiannopoulos speech, and others hammered out limousine windows in Washington, D.C., on Donald Trump's Inauguration Day. While voices from all over the spectrum criticize the destructive methods that some of them use, antifascist groups also say that they've seen upticks in interest since the alt right has gained momentum, and people feel that "you have to take a side," says Shanta Driver, the national chair of the antifascist organization By Any Means Necessary.

Some antifascists who have been protesting in Berkeley--including many who embrace anarchist ideals of fighting government, capitalism and any form of hierarchy--say they have been unfairly labeled as agitators by the media. Many also defend methods like property damage as a lesser evil, justifiable in the face of "dehumanizing" speech. They contend that the "real violence" is spreading hateful ideologies and that shattered glass is "visual" protest. "That form of protest is not meant to look good. It's not meant to be diplomatic," says Louise Rosealma, an antifascist and anarchist who got clocked by a white nationalist protester, an incident that was recorded in a video that went viral. "It is meant to physically disrupt and shut down things that need to be shut down immediately."

Even for those who believe that broken windows or censorship can be justified, it's hard to decide which expressions can be reasonably called attacks and who deserves to be silenced. Some draw the line at advocating genocide or ethnic cleansing. Some draw the line at burning a cross on a front lawn. Some draw it at telling college students how to report their undocumented peers. Some simply say, "Free speech does not mean hate speech."

Others believe that the line drawing has gotten out of control, especially when people are demanding that a public university censor some speakers but not others. Naweed Tahmas, a Berkeley College Republican, says one of his liberal peers told him that the phrase build a wall is offensive hate speech. Another told him that hate speech should be banned from Berkeley. "Of course there's some courtesy you should take in speaking, but what they're trying to say is the government should restrict certain types of speech," Tahmas says, "and that's a slippery slope."

While many protesters on the left saw forcing Yiannopoulos from campus as a success, many on the right saw it as a call to action. Among them was Rich Black, a libertarian grant writer from the Los Angeles area who decided to organize a "comeback" in Berkeley, an event where right-wingers could "come and speak, from start to finish, without being physically shut down. That was the whole goal," he says. Then, at least in some ways, things spun out of his control.

Black helped organize rallies in Berkeley's city center to defend free speech in March and April. And the optics of the setting--a deep blue town where the city council has, for example, called for Trump's impeachment and decided to boycott any companies that help build his proposed border wall--proved to be catnip. Groups spread the news on 4chan, Reddit and alt-right forums. While some conservatives came just to show support for Trump or to hear speeches, Black says, others showed up to provoke the left in real life.

"That's what's sad about these events. They really attract the worst of the worst," Black says. "There is a huge faction of the right that is just like the left. They deal in absolutes. They're outrageously angry. They need an excuse to relieve a lot of that pent up aggression."

At one rally in April, an anonymous donor paid to fly a sign behind a plane in the sky: "Don't take the bait! Rise above the hate!" And at least one assembly this spring ended with no one hurt. But multiple meet-ups turned ugly. Police confiscated knives and bats and pipes. Some were bloodied, some were trampled.

Mayor Arreguin insists that any people who came to fight were not from his town and feels the city has been unfairly tarred as a place where people can speak their minds only if they're liberal. He doesn't have kind words for the "extreme" groups on either side. "Words are different from fists and bats and large wooden sticks that are bloodying people," he says, "and I certainly understand that people think certain words are objectionable and abhorrent and should not be tolerated, but we live in a free society."

Such principles are often cast aside online, where disagreeable ideas are routinely met with anonymous blowback. Mayor Arreguin had to take on the security detail after he criticized Yiannopoulos on Twitter and received violent threats via social media, email and phone. Black, the right-wing organizer, says he's gotten so many promises of physical harm from the people at either end of the spectrum that his new advocacy group, Liberty Revival Alliance, has considered hosting events "against the alt right." After the video of her being punched went viral, Rosealma says not only her address but also the addresses of her parents have been spread on the web, along with pictures of her as a child. Threats of rape have poured in.

Back on campus, the Berkeley College Republicans tried to host other conservatives this spring--David Horowitz and Ann Coulter--but both events were canceled.

The club says there were too many administrative roadblocks and filed a lawsuit alleging that the university effectively acted "to restrict and stifle the speech of conservative students whose voices fall beyond the campus political orthodoxy." The university has responded that cancellations have been related not to political views but to safety concerns that arose in the wake of the Yiannopoulos event--leading to more complicated logistics. A spokesperson says the school will keep pursuing the "delicate balance" between keeping people safe and upholding the First Amendment. The suit remains ongoing.

The university does not deny that the College Republicans have been having a hard time on campus. Tahmas, a 20-year-old rising senior studying political science and a member of the club, says when he and other members have set up their tables to attract new recruits, students have repeatedly torn up their signs or spit on them. On one occasion, he says, students poured drinks down on them from a building above. "We're constantly harassed," he says. "They are projecting stereotypes onto us, which are not true, and they're also projecting their worst fears upon us. They believe we're oppressors."

Yet while some students may still be furious with the Berkeley College Republicans for inviting controversy to the campus, Tahmas says that their meetings were also better attended by the end of the semester. Newcomers "are not necessarily Republicans either," he says. "They're just interested in hearing us. Because the more you attack or attempt to silence a viewpoint, the more people are interested in it."

That is a truth that the nation's founders understood when they enshrined a protection for minority viewpoints in the Constitution. But there is growing confusion about where that protection now starts and stops. Tahmas says he'll be ready to put out the table again come fall. "We're going to keep going out there every day," he says, "fighting against political correctness." And others will be ready to literally battle over such ideas.

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Fighting Words: A Battle in Berkeley Over Free Speech - TIME

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Batavick: Colleges becoming threats to free speech – Carroll County Times

Posted: at 10:24 pm

There is no room across our broad spectrum of political beliefs for those who stifle discourse and thwart First Amendment rights. The epidemic of outrageous student behavior on college campuses needs to stop. The most recent episode was at the University of Notre Dame where dozens of students walked out of Vice President Mike Pence's commencement speech while others booed him. Pence was in the midst of criticizing campuses for fostering "speech codes, safe spaces, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness all of which amounts to the suppression of free speech." He called these practices "destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge," and he's right.

Earlier in May, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos gave a commencement address at historically black Bethune-Cookman University where she faced jeers, and some students stood and turned their backs to her. It is true that some of this behavior was a reaction to her earlier statement that founders of historically black colleges and universities were "real pioneers" of school choice, betraying an ignorance about a time when black students weren't permitted to attend white colleges in the South and elsewhere. Regardless, a cabinet member didn't deserve this kind of disrespect.

On April 27, the University of California at Berkeley canceled the planned speech of conservative commentator Ann Coulter because of fears of violence. Coulter has been a frequent guest on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," and their exchanges have enlightened political discourse. Maher defended Coulter's right to speak and reminded us that during the 1960s anti-Vietnam War and free speech movement, Berkeley "used to be the cradle of free speech, and now it's just the cradle for (expletive) babies." He then compared the cancellation of Coulter's talk to "the liberals' version of book burning."

Coulter's experience followed the February cancellation of a speech at Berkeley by conservative agitator and then-Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Thugs wearing masks protested Yiannopoulos by breaking windows and setting fire to a propane tank, and officials canceled the event for reasons of public safety.

There is still a great deal of anger in the wake of President Donald Trump's election and the furtherance of his radical agenda, but that is no reason to trample on our tradition of free speech. We have many other avenues available for protest, including the pages of this newspaper, marches, attendance at town halls sponsored by our elected representatives, and letters to Congress. Of course, the ultimate means of protest will take place at polling booths in November 2018 when 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be up for grabs.

Aside from the discontent with Trump's administration, there is a deeper and much more troubling reason for recent campus protests. In 2016, McLaughlin & Associates surveyed 800 students at colleges across the country. The study was sponsored by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale and its subject was attitudes toward free speech on campus. An astounding 51 percent of students favored campus speech codes to regulate speech for students and faculty. Sixty-three percent favored requiring professors to use "trigger warnings" to alert students to material that they might find uncomfortable. This would include references to rape, misogyny and racial prejudice even if found in classic literature.

The study dug deeper and found that one-third of the students polled could not even identify the First Amendment as the part of the Constitution that protected free speech. Thirty-five percent thought the First Amendment does not protect "hate speech," while 30 percent of those who identified as "liberal" said the First Amendment is outdated.

Where did this country go wrong? Are we no longer teaching civics and the principles of American government? Have colleges muzzled the free marketplace of ideas that has always been the cornerstone of academic freedom?

One of the purposes of education is to introduce students to uncomfortable ideas, to challenge their assumptions, and to forge critical thinking skills in the red hot coals of debate. If college administrators disagree with this, then they are anti-intellectual. I urge all educators from high school to college to get back to teaching the basic tenets of our republic. Ironically, an iconic quote from English author Evelyn Beatrice Hall sums up the key rationale behind this issue: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.

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Batavick: Colleges becoming threats to free speech - Carroll County Times

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Portland’s mayor is dangerously wrong about free speech – Washington Post

Posted: at 10:24 pm

OUR CITY is in mourning, our communitys anger is real, and the timing and subject of these events can only exacerbate an already difficult situation. So said Portland, Ore., Mayor Ted Wheeler in explaining why in the aftermath of the deaths of two good Samaritans controversial rallies planned for this month shouldnt be held. Mr. Wheelers concern for the raw feelings of his community is understandable, but he is completely off-base in trying to block the planned rallies and dangerously wrong in his reading of the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. Wheeler unsuccessfully appealed to federal officials to revoke a permit granted to a group to hold a pro-Trump, free-speech rally Sunday at a downtown federal government plaza. His request that a permit not be granted for a June 10 anti-Muslim rally was made moot when organizers opted Wednesday to cancel the rally and encourage participants to attend a similar event in Seattle instead. The mayor characterized the rallies as alt-right and said hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Actually, as was pointed out by legal scholars and free-speech advocates, Mr. Wheeler is wrong about how constitutional protections of free speech have been interpreted by the courts. Speech, no matter how vile or distasteful, is protected in the United States. It can be banned only if it meets the legal threshold of threat or harassment.

It would have been far better for Mr. Wheeler to have followed the advice of the Oregon ACLU and reached out to rally organizers to explain why it might be in the communitys best interest to postpone the events. Not only are public passions still aroused about the deaths of two men who tried to protect two young women from anti-Muslim insults, but Portland has become the scene of rising tensions and clashes between extremists from both ends of the political spectrum.

Perhaps it is naive to think that organizers of Sundays rally might have actually listened to the mayor and allowed Portland to mourn the loss of those two fine men without further upset. Sadly, though, decency these days seems to be in short supply in Americas political debate. The most recent example was the stunt by comedian Kathy Griffin, who evidently thought it was humorous to portray the beheading of an American president. It was somewhat comforting that Ms. Griffin was widely condemned (including by some of the most ardent critics of President Trump) and that she responded with an abject apology. If only the provocateurs in Portland could be so moved.

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Former cop emphasizes free speech in congressional campaign – Campus Reform

Posted: at 10:24 pm

Retired police officer Kevin Cavanaugh is making the issue of free speech on college campuses a major focus of his campaign to represent Arizonas 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives.

CD 1 encompasses the City of Flagstaff, home of Northern Arizona University, which has lately become a hotbed of liberal bias. Within just the past year, NAU professors have told students that Trump voters think people of color are whats wrong with America, docked a students grade for using the word mankind in an English paper, and even demanded that another student stop reading his Bible before class.

"We cannot allow ourselves to be hindered by anyone in a black mask, weapons or no."

During a February forum put on by the Political Science Department, moreover, NAU student Melissa Miller claims that she was publicly called out by a professor for her membership in Turning Point USA. Miller had already filmed most of the event, during which professors labeled President Trump a neo-fascist and the rapist-in-chief, but alleges that the professor waited until she temporarily left the room and stopped recording to claim that she had only come to the event in order to film fodder for TPUSAs Professor Watchlist website.

[RELATED: Profs taunt conservative student in faculty-wide email chain]

Students have gotten into the act, as well, posting signs outside of on-campus restrooms calling attention to pee privilege, organizing a trip to the border to leave supplies for illegal immigrants crossing the desert, and indignantly insisting that the schools president resign because she refused to make an open-ended commitment to safe spaces to protect students from hate speech.

Concerned by the widespread hostility toward, or at least ignorance of, First Amendment rights at NAU, Cavanaugh hosted a Freedom Rally at the campus on April 22 to call attention to the issue.

While The Lumberjack reports that the event was lightly attended, the subject matter was apparently deemed sensitive enough to merit precautions against possible protests, with the result that there were as many campus police officers on scene as there were NAU students.

[RELATED: Conservative students ARRESTED for handing out Constitutions]

Campus Reform recently sat down with Cavanaugh to learn more about some of the campus-related issues he plans to address during his campaign, which include campus carry legislation and the emergence of violent antifa protesters.

The first thing [Im campaigning on] is free speech, particularly on college campuses, but even at high schools, Cavanaugh began. Free speech on the part of conservatives, on the part of Christians, [and] on the part of moderates is being oppressed. If you identify yourself as a conservative, if you stand for pro-life, if you read your Bible before class like this young man did at NAU whom we discovered, youll be punished. And its wrong; it is not something that should happen in the United States of America.

[RELATED: NAU prez rejects safe spaces, students demand resignation]

Theres a reason the First Amendment is the first, and it involves free speech; our country was founded on free speech, he continued, noting that he chose to conduct his free speech rally at NAU because outside of Berkeley, its one of the most liberal, speech-suppressing, free thought-oppressing places in the country.

Cavanaugh vowed that, if elected, he will propose legislation that penalizes institutions that receive federal money if they limit free speech on campus, calling it a travesty of justice that so-called anti-fascist protesters were able to use violence to shut down speeches by Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley earlier this year.

Look, this is socialist-Marxist ideology at work, he asserted, recounting that those same people were at our little rally up at NAU, with black masks and black hats and black gloves, but declined the opportunity to speak when he invited them.

[RELATED: Prof arrested for bludgeoning Trump supporters with bike lock]

Cavanaugh also offered enthusiastic support for the campus carry laws that many states have passed recently, which allow individuals with concealed carry permits to exercise their Second Amendment rights on public college and university campuses.

The Second Amendment says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, he explained. My understanding of the Constitution is that it is a right-to-carry permit that extends from New York to California, from sea to shining sea.

Relating the story of a young woman who was going to quit NAU and go somewhere else because of the things that were happening, Cavanaugh said his advice was to stay and fight; stand and fight, an approach that he believes is necessary in order to effect change on any significant issue.

If you realize that good conservatives...are standing together to fight against liberalism, Marxism, [and] socialism on college campuses and throughout this country, he concluded, we can beat this scourge back.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @shannadnelson

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