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Daily Archives: June 25, 2017
Progress seen in Stonington rat-removal efforts in Millan Terrace area – The Westerly Sun
Posted: June 25, 2017 at 2:04 pm
PAWCATUCK The rat population has decreased dramatically at a home found to be infested a few weeks ago, health officials said Friday.
Ryan McCammon, supervisor of environmental health for the Ledge Light Health District, which replaced the towns health department in late April, said the town was working with Terrance Holbrook, who co-owns the house at 1 Milan Terrace with Ronald Kutz. Holbrooks sister, Rebecca Holbrook, also resides at the home. In April, police received complaints about rats on the property, McCammon said. About June 1, Ledge Light issued a public health order for a licensed exterminator to assess the home, take steps to eradicate the rats, and eliminate items that attract rats, such as debris, bird feeders and standing water.
Griggs & Browne, a licensed exterminator from Waterford, was hired for abatement work and had removed about 50 dead rats from the property as of June 9, McCammon said.
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On June 9, McCammon and First Selectman Rob Simmons held a public meeting for area residents at the police station to go over preventive and abatement measures since the rats were spreading into surrounding neighborhoods.
On June 12, McCammon said he went door to door in the surrounding neighborhoods, including Frank Street, homes nearby on Broad Street, and Swan Street, to pass out information.
We canvassed the entire neighborhood so everyone has my card, he said.
McCammon reported Wednesday that Griggs & Browne has been visiting the home every three or four days to check the traps.
Last week, they went out to check the bait stations and there were no rats, so the population of rats over the last couple of weeks has been coming down, McCammon said.
Rats can breed quickly and the decrease could be simply an indication of a gestation period before the next round of rats, he cautioned.
To help with the removal of debris at the home, the Town of Stonington has provided a dumpster, which McCammon said has been filled and emptied at least once and possibly twice.
The town is committed to keep sending the dumpsters out there until we get the debris picked up, he said.
On Friday afternoon, McCammon reported he had met with Terrance Holbrook that morning and observed progress in the cleanup of the property.
I was happy to see that the carport area, which is just outside the house, had been cleared of all debris and one of the rooms inside the house had been cleared out and they were in the process of working on the rest of the areas, he said.
Fridays report from Griggs & Brown showed no rat activity inside the house and moderate activity outside the house, he said.
They didnt see any rats this time but they did see that some of the bait had been eaten and theres also the possibility that chipmunks or other things got into it, he said. Im glad to see were not getting as much activity at the property.
McCammon also said he hadnt received any reports of rat sightings from neighbors in the last week.
I talked to two people in the last week who both said they had seen rats in previous weeks but hadnt seen any in the last week, he said. Thats good but it doesnt necessarily mean theyre completely eliminated.
The town will continue to work with the property owner to expedite the clearing of debris, especially in the homes interior, he said.
I think weve turned a corner with this and weve been able to get a lot of the debris, McCammon said. Were not done yet, but its a really good first step.
For more information, contact McCammon at 860-535-5010 or go to http://www.ledgelighthd.org.
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Progress seen in Stonington rat-removal efforts in Millan Terrace area - The Westerly Sun
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Watch: Paul Mason turns on the Blairites at Progress event ‘form your own party and get on with it!’ – Spectator.co.uk (blog)
Posted: at 2:04 pm
Well, that didnt last long. The uneasy peace between the Blairites and the Corbynites since the snap election has come to an abrupt end. At todays Progress conference, Paul Mason sat on a panel chaired by Progresss Richard Angell, alongside fellow Corbynite Emily Thornberry and centrist MPs Wes Streeting and Liz Kendall. The guestsattempted to discuss in a comradely manner how best to build on Labours snap election result and win the next election.
However, things soon struck a sour note when an audience member challenged Mason over a tweet he had sent claiming Labour could have won if it wasnt for the moderates running a defensive campaign. Its fair to say that his comments went down like a lead balloon with guests at the Blairite think tank event:
The question for people in this room is: it is now a left-wing Labour party. It is a Labour party led by a man vilified in the Daily Mail and the Sun as a terrorist sympathiser and we got 13million votes. Do you want to be part of it or not?
Because there is an alternative. There could be a British Macron.
At which point, the crowd started to boo Mason.
PM: Yeah, go on, keep going. There could be a British Macron, you could have a British end Brexit second referendum party run with it. It could do much better than the Lib Dems did. Nows the time.
RA: But when you did your politics outside the Labour party, you got very small numbers of people voting for you. You did it by entering the Labour party and doing it behind Jeremy Corbyn.
PM: Why do you accuse me of entering the Labour party. I joined it at age 19, my grandfather was that generation which founded the Labour party. Im not a Marxist, but real Marxists have a place inside Labour and always did have.
RA: But so does everyone else in this room.
PM: Good. So, do you want to be part of this party or not?
Mason finished by telling the audience they should look elsewhere if they are intent of being a part of a party thats in favour of illegal war:
If you want a centrist party this is not going to be it for the next ten years. if its really important to you to have a pro-Remain party thats in favour of illegal war, in favour of privatisation, form your own party and get on with it!
So much for offering an olive branch to moderates
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Human Geography Master’s celebrates 25 years – University of Bristol
Posted: at 2:03 pm
2017 marks a quarter century for one of the UKs leading Masters programs in Human Geography at the University of Bristol.
To celebrate, the School is launching a newly designed information booklet that features the art and images from past and present staff and postgraduate students.
Well known and respected within the field, the Masters in Human Geography: Society and Space programme in the School of Geographical Sciences has been at the forefront of contemporary human geographical postgraduate research and education since its inception in 1992.
The programme began as a collaboration between the Department of Geography (as it was called then) and the then School of Advanced Urban Studies (now part of the School of Policy Studies). It was started under the leadership of Professor Sir Nigel Thrift, then a professor of Human Geography at Bristol, and today an Honorary Doctorate and Emeritus Professor with the School of Geographical Studies.
Under Sir Nigel, the Society and Space program rapidly became a world leader in delivering innovative and cutting edge theoretical and critical research in contemporary human geography. The programme aimed to provide then, and continues to do so today, a thorough understanding of the theoretical debates around issues of society and space, and how these translate into practical research agendas and the formation of critical politics and policy. Teaching continues to be based around topic specific modules, seminars, and research dissertations, some of which, every year, go on to be published in leading academic journals.
Famously, the Society and Space programme, as it is known throughout the discipline of human geography, became associated with the development of non-representational theory. Non-representational theory (NRT) has transformed, sometimes controversially, many conceptual and empirical landscapes within cultural and political human geography, and is now almost indelibly associated with human geography research at Bristol. So strong has been the legacy of the course with NRT that the programme will also be the subject of analysis in a forthcoming book on non-representational theory (with Routledges Key Ideas in Geography series) by 2006 graduate of the program, Paul Simpson.
Given its history, the MSc programme is known for training a very high number of students who go on to study PhDs at Bristol and elsewhere. Early graduates of the course, and critical exponents of NRT, have made their names and careers from research inaugurated on the program. Leaders in the field of Human Geography like John Wylie, Beth Greenough, Emma Roe, James Ash, and Nick Gill are all alumni of the MSc.
Owain Jones, an early graduate, and now Professor of Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa, commented on his experience with Society and Space: I can say without any exaggeration that doing the course was a life transforming and enhancing experience (as university postgraduate education should be). I did not do an academic degree [prior to Society and Space] but an arts practice based degree, so the MSc really marked my conversion to academia and to geography.
Today, the focus on non-representational theory has morphed and matured into a demanding, deep curriculum that encompasses topics ranging from affect, technology, and biopolitics, to posthumanism and experimental methodologies, to decolonial and postcolonial geographies, to post-development, political ecology, and hermeneutics. ESRC accredited, the course offers qualitative and quantitative training, and is also a regular contributor to the SWDTP and the University of Bristols Doctoral College. Every year we are pleased to welcome ESRC funded 1+3 students keen to study contemporary issues of society and space as they translate into practical research agendas and critical, innovative analyses of the present.
2016 saw the launch of a course blog which features articles written by current students and staff. As part of their course, all students contribute accessible synopses of their research dissertation ideas to the blog.
If you would like to learn more about Society and Space, please do visit our blog, download the web ready booklet, send enquiries to geog-pgadmis@bristol.ac.uk or feel free to contact the course director, Naomi Millner, herself a graduate of the program.
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Human Geography Master's celebrates 25 years - University of Bristol
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Are you ready when disaster strikes? These Minnesota doomsday preppers are – Arkansas News
Posted: at 2:02 pm
By Richard ChinMinneapolis Star Tribune
COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, Minn. The tiny house that Bryan Korbel is building in his Columbia Heights, Minn., driveway will have all the comforts of a 260-square-foot home.
There'll be a shower with an on-demand water heater, a microwave oven, stove, composting toilet, satellite dish and power provided by solar panels. It's being built on a trailer, so it can be towed anywhere.
Korbel's self-sufficient micro-cottage isn't being built out of a Thoreau-esque desire to simplify or to achieve a chic Dwell magazine minimalist aesthetic.
He's building it for the end of the world.
When all hell breaks loose war, natural disaster, a breakdown in civil society Korbel will hitch his house on wheels to a 1972 Ford F100 pickup. (That's before the advent of computerized car systems, which Korbel says will be fried by the electromagnetic pulse created by a nuclear blast.)
He'll haul the structure and his family to a patch of land he has north of Hinckley, Minn., stopping to get supplies he's cached along the way in PVC tubes buried underground. He's prepared, he believes, to ride out anything that man or nature might throw at him.
Korbel, 53, is a prepper, of course, that breed of person who stockpiles food, toilet paper and ammunition to last not days, but months just in case.
Preppers see themselves as prudent, sensible ants in a world of feckless grasshoppers, even while they recognize that others consider them paranoid conspiracy theorists and doomsday prophets.
"My wife gave me the nickname Mad Max," Korbel said. "My brother, he thinks it's nuts. He's lazy. I already know he's going to be knocking on my door."
Predictions that the end is near are as old as Noah. More modern manifestations have included people who felt the need to build home fallout shelters during the Cold War and pessimists who feared the worst from a Y2K collapse. Events such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina have continued to fuel fears.
The latest bad news: This year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decided to reset its famous Doomsday Clock "a universally recognized indicator of the world's vulnerability to catastrophe " from three minutes to only two-and-a-half minutes before midnight.
The scientific worrywarts cited tensions between the U.S. and Russia, North Korean nuclear tests, climate change, a rise in "strident nationalism" and "intemperate statements" from President Donald Trump and even "lethal autonomous weapons systems" yeah, killer robots among the looming existential threats to humanity.
According to the Bulletin scientists, in the 70-year history of the Doomsday Clock, the last time things have been this bad for the planet was 1953, just after the U.S. and the Soviet Union developed the first hydrogen bombs. At that time, the scientists deemed we were only two minutes to apocalypse.
Selling peace of mind
No wonder Costco is selling $3,399.99 packages of freeze-dried and dehydrated emergency foods that promise 31,500 total servings, enough to feed four people for a year, with a shelf life of up to 25 years. The food shipment arrives on a pallet that is "black-wrapped for security and privacy."
Or you could buy end-of-the-world supplies from a specialty retailer such as Safecastle.com.
Safecastle was started by Prior Lake resident Vic Rantala after 9/11 because he saw a niche for an online source of affordable, quality, long-term stored food.
The company has since branched out to sell surveillance robots, radiation detectors, folding "bug-out" bicycles intended for paratroopers and a 35-piece pet survival kit designed for a "CATastrophe."
"We sell stuff nobody else sells," Rantala said.
You can even buy an underground fallout shelter that costs more than $100,000.
"We early on developed a relationship with a steel plate shelter builder in Louisiana," Rantala said. "Our builder has done seven-figure bunkers for people."
He said his best-seller is something homier: canned, cooked bacon with a shelf life of more than 10 years.
Rantala, 59, said his background has included service in the Army, intelligence work for the government and communications and consulting for corporations. But selling prepping gear has become "kind of like a life's mission."
The shelters he's sold have saved lives in tornadoes, he said. Some of the food he's sold to preppers ended up being eaten when the disaster turned out to be a job loss.
"We sell peace of mind to people," Rantala said.
Even though he sold the company a couple of years ago, he continues to work for it. He said sales are close to $50 million a year.
He estimates that as many as "10 percent of the population are into prepping these days," although he admits figures can be fuzzy because preppers are notoriously secretive about their preparations.
"Sometimes you don't even tell your family members," he said. "It can be a little bit of an obsession, I have to admit."
Nuts or narrative
"It's good to have something stored away," said Peter Behrens, a psychologist who recently retired as a professor at Penn State University in Lehigh Valley, Pa. "Some 72 hours' worth of food is great."
But he said prepping can turn into a "non-substance pathology," similar to hoarding and excessive gambling, when taken to the extreme.
"A lot of people get into this as a pastime," he said. But he said, "It's a slippery slope to becoming irrational and aggressive."
Behrens said prepping is cause for concern if a person starts hoarding firearms and ammunition and if more than 10 percent of a person's income is devoted to prepping. And he warns that prepping can be similar to being in a cult if a person gives up long-standing relationships with friends and family members to associate only with other preppers.
"This is a situation that revolves around anxiety," he said. "It doesn't match with rational behavior."
But Richard G. Mitchell, who studied survivalists as a sociology professor at Oregon State University, said preppers are people who may just want to resist a humdrum life of comfort and consumption. They want to create a personal narrative of themselves as the rugged individual who's going to survive disaster.
"They want a place where they feel meaningful," he said. "Survivalism is a storytelling process. There's a certain satisfaction to that."
He added, "These are people who are hobbyists. They're amused by the process. They're entertained by it. They're proud of it. They're nuts in the sense that they've not accepted the status quo."
Knowing he'll survive
Korbel has stored enough beans, lentils, rice, pasta and soup to feed his wife and their two sons still living at home for a year and a half. He's prepared to grow his own vegetables, mill his own grain and vacuum-seal the foods he's preserving.
"These are good for 50 years," Korbel said, showing off the homemade pemmican balls he's made of beef, peanut butter and nuts.
He stores a couple hundred gallons of water and enough gasoline to fill his truck tank three times. He's got gas masks that he bought at Fleet Farm, and suits to protect against a chemical attack that he bought online. There are weather radios, two-way radios and first aid kits on every level of his house. The upper floor has escape ladders.
He lives about 4.5 miles from the center of Minneapolis, a little too close in case a nuclear bomb goes off in the city center. Ten miles would be better, he said. But his wife is happy living in Columbia Heights, and the mortgage is almost paid off.
"Yeah, there'd be severe burns, structures coming down. But still survivable," he said.
Among the things that worry him are tornadoes, civil unrest, racial tensions, terrorists, conflict with Russia, a government that "goes rogue."
"I wouldn't consider myself a conspiracy theorist. But I do think about it a lot," he said. "If a comet lands on me, I'm not going to worry about it.
"My worst fear would be a financial breakdown" and a collapse of the monetary system, he said. "You've got people bartering in gold, silver, jewels." Or ammunition.
Korbel has set aside some of that as well, along with handguns, rifles and shotguns.
"I also have compound bows. My boys, they've trained in compound bows. My wife is trained in that," he said.
"You need to defend your property and yourself," he said. But he said, "I'm not prepping for a war. I'm not trying to hide anything. I'm not trying to overthrow the government. I don't want to get shot. I don't want to shoot anyone."
Korbel is a Metro Transit driver and an Army veteran who used to work as a carpenter, a contractor and a semitrailer truck driver. He's been married 25 years, and his wife is a nurse.
"He likes to be our protector," Betsy Korbel said. "There's a lot worse things to be doing."
Korbel said he's been a prepper about 12 years. Last year, he estimates, he spent about $7,000 on the activity.
"When I turn 80, I might turn around and look at this stuff and I might say, 'OK, maybe I bought too much,'" he said.
But he said he pays for prepping with side income he gets from recycling metals from old laptops and wires and driving for a food delivery service.
"I love it," Korbel said of his preoccupation with preparing. "It's something I enjoy."
"I know I'm going to be able to survive," he said.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.
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Are you ready when disaster strikes? These Minnesota doomsday preppers are - Arkansas News
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Orwell vs Huxley vs Zamyatin: Who would win a dystopian fiction contest? – Scroll.in
Posted: at 2:01 pm
In a city of glass, where people who are just Numbers living in glass-brick houses, and everyones daily routine is determined by the Tables of the Hours set down by the Well-Doer, one particular Number, D-503, is developing a dangerous affliction. He is nurturing a soul. This could put his life and that of his loved ones in mortal danger, because in this future One State, where logic rules, sex is rationed and love banned, a budding soul is an indication of developing individuality and separateness. But the state believes: nobody is one, but one of. We are so alike...
We, Yevgeny Zamyatins chilling account of a future world state ruled by Reason is arguably one of the granddads of dystopia. Initially available as secret samizdat editions (1921) in the erstwhile Soviet Union, the book was smuggled out of USSR and first appeared in English in 1924 published by EP Dutton, New York. The novel was an immediate hit in western intellectual circles though its author, under attack from Soviet authorities, had to seek exile in France where he died in poverty. Here perhaps for the first time, fiction had engaged head on with the imagined workings of a totalitarian dictatorship in a manner never attempted before.
But did dystopian fiction really hit the road with Zamyatins We? Leaving aside the academic argument that any fictional work about a utopia has the elements of a dystopia embedded in it and that such writing about a utopia takes us back all the way to Platos Republic and Thomas Mores Utopia, let us look at this snippet from a short story written in 1891 by the well-known humorist author Jerome Klapka Jerome. A man has woken up from 1000-year-long sleep, and finds himself in London where he needs a bath:
No; we are not allowed to wash ourselves. You must wait until half-past four, and then you will be washed for tea. Be washed! I cried. Who by?
The State. He said that they had found they could not maintain their equality when people were allowed to wash themselves. Some people washed three or four times a day, while others never touched soap and water from one years end to the other, and in consequence there got to be two distinct classes, the Clean and the Dirty.
This story about London, 1,000 years after a socialist revolution, is a snapshot introduction to dystopia, where the best laid plans for a state of equality have resulted in completely undesirable consequences. Jeromes story seems to have influenced and inspired the anti-utopian fiction that followed.
A running theme and essentially what lies at the heart of all dystopian writing is the conflict of freedom and happiness. In Zamyatins book, the government of the One State (United State in Zilboorgs translation) has curtailed all freedoms. A poet talking about paradise tells the character D-503 how Adam and Eve were offered a choice between happiness without freedom, and freedom without happiness, and how they stupidly chose the latter. The government of the One State claims to have restored this lost happiness to its subjects.
Its a pity that this mighty little book is hardly ever discussed in this country. Our introduction to dystopian fiction has been through the works of two British authors Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. Some would of course mention here Jack Londons The Iron Heel, popular in the last century and of which a Bengali translation also exists. But for most others, it is the prophetic vision of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four which between them, introduced us to the dystopian tradition a kind of writing, increasingly popular in our present times, when we always seem to be a step away from the scary possibilities of an anti-utopia.
Huxleys novel, published in 1932, which ended up in some of the top reading lists of our times, presents us with a nightmarish vision of a distant future where genetic modification, hypnopaedia and Pavlovian conditioning have created a caste-system based on intelligence and aptitude. The uncanny clairvoyance of this work and its literary brilliance have ensured its place in the pantheon of dystopia before which all practitioners of this form pay obeisance or offer a hat tip.
Numerous works come to mind and it could be a literary detectives favourite pastime to spot traces of Brave New World in the works of Margaret Atwood, to hear its echo in a scene from David Mitchell or perhaps to remember, while reading Doris Lessings Mara and Dann, how those bands of men in post ice age Ifrik (Africa) who all looked the same, resemble Huxleys Bokanovsky groups of individuals created from single embryos.
True to the dystopian school, the question of freedom versus happiness is also central to Huxleys plot. There we find a primitive world of freedom and instincts existing within the ordered dystopia of the World State, in an electric-fenced New Mexican reservation from which we get John or The Savage, one of the principal characters of the book. Again, in one of many poignant scenes of this novel, the sleep-learning specialist, Bernard Marx and the foetus technician, Lenina Crowne, hover over the dark frothing waves of the English channel in their helicopter, and Lenina says:
I dont know what you mean. I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybodys happy nowadays.
He laughed.
Yes, Everybodys happy nowadays. We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldnt you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody elses way.
Quite obviously the similarities between We and Brave New World are not hard to find and in fact, while reviewing Zamyatins book, George Orwell went so far as to say Huxleys novel might have been partly derived from We, which Huxley later denied.
In fact this equally applies to Nineteen Eighty-Four, which seems to have drawn quite a bit of inspiration from the Russian novelist. Charringtons antique shop and the shabby little room upstairs which has preserved an old world charm seems to echo the Antique House in Zamyatins We, just as the character OBrien, who pretends to be a member of the secret Brotherhood working against Big Brother in Nineteen Eighty-Four reminds us of the character S-4711, one of the Guardians in We. But the DNA of dystopian fiction has many common sources and certain foundational themes, so it is nothing out of the ordinary to discover traits of one work in the storyline or characters of another.
Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, a book stamped for ever in the psyche of all freedom-loving individuals, was set in the dehumanised totalitarian state of Oceania ruled by Big Brother. Here the protagonist Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for propaganda. Similarly the Ministry of Peace is responsible for War while the Ministry of Love conducts torture and maintains law and order.
Surveillance, the cruelty of the state and the Partys quest for absolute power are the running themes of Orwells novel, which brings it closer to Zamyatins We, while the dystopia of Brave New World, milder on the surface but with an ending equally dehumanising, is managed through genetic engineering, mental conditioning, fostering of consumerism and the use of the magic drug soma.
Like the other two books, Nineteen Eighty-four also delves into the freedom-versus-happiness question. As the protagonist Winston Smith is incarcerated and tortured in the chambers of the Ministry of Love by the large and burly OBrien, who is an Inner Party member, many thoughts pass through his mind:
He knew in advance what OBrien would say. That the Party did not seek power for its own ends, but only for the good of the majority. That it sought power because men in the mass were frail cowardly creatures who could not endure liberty or face the truth, and must be ruled over and systematically deceived by others who were stronger than themselves. That the choice for mankind lay between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness was better.
Greater good and happiness have almost always been the guiding principle for utopias which have often morphed into dystopias depending on what we are looking for. In her essay about Brave New World, Margaret Atwood lucidly illustrates this point when she writes:
Brave New World is either a perfect-world utopia or its nasty opposite, a dystopia, depending on your point of view: its inhabitants are beautiful, secure and free from diseases and worries, though in a way we like to think we would find unacceptable.
In our present times when the assaults on freedom by despots, increased surveillance from the humble CCTVs to the Five Eyes Alliance, climate change and its looming dangers, new gene technologies and the frankenfood threat and above all runaway consumerism have pushed us closer to dystopian scenarios, we find Huxley and Orwell drawing hordes of readers. Let us take a little time to look back at these three foundational works of a robust literary tradition.
A few weeks ago a certain method of ante-natal care with its roots in ayurveda, championed by the Garbh Vigyan Sanskar project of Arogya Bharati, was in the news for promising the best babies in the world. This drew the criticism it deserves. Critics cited ethical issues and lack of scientific knowledge but the fact remains that genetic engineering has reached a stage where we are only a few decades away from creating so-called designer babies using methods like Easy PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis). Brave New World naturally comes to mind as does Margaret Atwoods works.
It is the year 632 AF (After Ford), Henry Ford having acquired a god-like stature, we are in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre where humans are produced in bottles, and, using various techniques right from the embryonic stage, are predesigned to be intelligent, stupid, morons, hard workers and so on.
The opening chapter sets the tone with powerful descriptions that blend scientific language with evocative use of words. The Director of the London Hatchery, Thomas, is showing some students the facilities for storing bottled embryos which are subjected to various shocks, chemical stimulations and processes that will slot them into lives of Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas or Epsilons the lowest in the caste rank:
And in effect the sultry darkness into which the students now followed him was visible and crimson, like the darkness of closed eyes on a summers afternoon. The bulging flanks of row on receding row and tier above tier of bottles glinted with innumerable rubies, and among the rubies moved the dim red spectres of men and women with purple eyes and all the symptoms of lupus. The hum and rattle of machinery faintly stirred the air.
The story is plotted at one level around the conflicts between the Alpha-plus sleep-learning specialist Bernard Marx and Thomas, the Director. Everyone feels that there is something wrong with Bernards conditioning because he is not reconciled to his destiny of a super-intelligent Alpha like the others. He doesnt enjoy wasteful games like Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy, is averse to promiscuous sex which is the norm, and is not happy with his condition, unlike other citizens of the World State. The Director has warned him a few times, threatening to send him off on exile to Iceland but things havent changed.
At this juncture Bernard and the foetus technician Lenina go on a holiday to the New Mexican reservation of Malpais where, they come across the ageing Linda and her son, the yellow haired John (the Savage), among the villagers. It turns out that John the Savage is the Director Thomas naturally born child. Thomas had abandoned Linda after he lost her in a storm while on a visit to the reservation.
The hard contours of a dystopian society do not yield easily to the literary approach but Brave New World is a master class in how it should be done. With its carefully etched characters, the scintillating wit, a brilliant mix of irony and laughter, and the well-oiled engine of a plot centred on the tensions between Thomas, Bernard and Lenina, this book easily surpasses the other two in literary qualities if not also in the diamond-edge of its satire.
Bernard sees an opportunity to teach the Director a lesson. He brings John and Linda back to London with him where, in a hilarious scene, the Savage, runs and falls on his knees before the Director and a roomful of Hatchery workers:
...John! she called. John!
He came in at once, paused for a moment just inside the door, looked round, then soft on his moccasined feet strode quickly across the room, fell on his knees in front of the Director, and said in a clear voice: My father!
The word (for father was not so much obscene as with its connotation of something at one remove from the loathsomeness and moral obliquity of child-bearing merely gross, a scatological rather than a pornographic impropriety); the comically smutty word relieved what had become a quite intolerable tension. Laughter broke out, enormous, almost hysterical, peal after peal, as though it would never stop. My father and it was the Director! My father! Oh Ford, oh Ford!
John The Savage, who has read only one book in his life The Complete Works of William Shakespeare becomes somewhat of a celebrity; an oddity in fact for his language is peppered with the quotes from the Bard, in Londons elite circles. But he finds the life of this brave new world, quoting from Shakespeares The Tempest, hard to digest, falls in love with Lenina, openly incites rebellion by throwing away soma rations, and finally meets a sad end.
In his Foreword to a new edition of the book written in 1946, Huxley wrote that if he would write the book again he would give the Savage a third option between the primitive Indian reservation of New Mexico and the utopian London. This would be in a place of decentralised economics, human-centric science, cooperation and the pursuit of mans Final End. Such a society he did attempt to portray in his last book, Island, which never climbed the heights of Brave New World.
Orwells novel, unlike Huxleys, foregrounds the harshness of totalitarian rule and the political philosophy that begets such a monster. While the Huxleian dystopia is a sort of soma-infused, predestination-soaked, pseudo-paradise, in Orwells Oceania and Airstrip One (England) deadly torture and surveillance by the Thought Police (which is always on the lookout for thoughtcrime) helps to maintain public order.
There is continuous war among the three world powers, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, and rocket bombs fall now and then on London. Big Brother, whose picture is everywhere, rules Oceania with an iron hand where, at the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith works at revising historical facts.
The ruling political ideology is Ingsoc (English Socialism) and power belongs to Inner Party members (with Big Brother at the top) followed by Outer Party and finally the hapless proles who dont count for much.
Winston begins to keep a diary in his room, away from the gaze of the two way telescreen, where he records the internal restless monologue running through his head, his observations and innermost thoughts. He knows that if this is discovered he will be put to death. Yet he writes on the beautiful creamy paper, DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.
The story develops slowly and the beginning drags a bit where the way of life in Airstrip One lived through the characters, the iron hand of the Party, the worship of Hate and the workings of the various ministries are drilled into the readers mind in a mechanical fashion. Perhaps this treatment suits the subject and is meant to echo the heartlessness of the ruling powers and the emptiness of lives, giving the reader a sense of all that is lost in this Orwellian anti-utopia.
Winston falls in love with Julia who works in the Fiction Department, churning out novels and finds a refuge for both of them in a little room above Mr Charringtons antiques shop. In this little shop and the room above it, the old world of beautiful objects seems to be preserved in a time capsule.
It was a heavy lump of glass, curved on one side, flat on the other, making almost a hemisphere. There was a peculiar softness, as of rainwater, in both the colour and the texture of the glass. At the heart of it, magnified by the curved surface, there was a strange, pink, convoluted object that recalled a rose or a sea anemone.
What is it? said Winston, fascinated.
Thats coral, that is, said the old man. It must have come from the Indian Ocean. They used to kind of embed it in the glass. That wasnt made less than a hundred years ago. More, by the look of it.
Its a beautiful thing, said Winston.
It is a beautiful thing, said the other appreciatively. But theres not many thatd say so nowadays.
But soon Winston and Julia are snared by OBrien, an Inner Party member who pretends to belong to the secret Brotherhood conspiring the downfall of the Party. OBrien arranges to send him a forbidden book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein, which he reads in the apparent safety of the room above Charringtons shop. But soon enough they are arrested.
Torture follows, Winston confesses to real and imaginary crimes and the final defeat comes next when he and Julia betray each other. With this defeat of love it seems there is nothing left to defend anymore. And surely enough, we find a changed Winston in the final pages.
The enduring quality of Orwells novel flows from the lengths he goes to in describing the propaganda machinery, the degree of surveillance, the means of torture, and the dehumanising effects of totalitarianism which includes among other things, children spying on and reporting against their parents and the development of a precise official language called Newspeak, much of which, in various degrees, are to be found in the world today. And once again, all these powers lording over these dystopias concur on one singular aspect they are enemies of freedom. Freedom is Slavery is one of the party slogans of Big Brothers Oceania.
Zamyatins We, like Nineteen Eighty-Four begins with a somewhat flat narration and almost one-dimensional characters which we soon realise is a way to portray how human beings have been reduced to cogs in a wheel and. in this case, just numbers. But here we do have a slightly curious plot to draw our attention.
The narrator, D-503, is the builder of the spaceship Integral, which will carry the message of happiness from the One State to other worlds with the hope of subjugating their inhabitants to the rule of Reason. The book is a collection of records kept by the narrator and is marked by mannerisms and a curious mathematical vocabulary which is an echo of the rule of logic and mathematics that guides the life of the numbers inhabiting the earth and which also establishes the fact that D-503 is a mathematician. This is from a report in the State newspaper and as we have seen in the other works it begins with an attack on freedom and an emphasis on the desirability of happiness:
One thousand years ago, your heroic ancestors subjected the whole earth to the power of the One State. A still more glorious task is before you: the integration of the indefinite equation of the Cosmos by the use of glass, electric, fire-breathing Integral. Your mission is to subjugate to the grateful yoke of reason the unknown beings who live on other planets and who are perhaps still in the primitive state of freedom. If they will not understand that we are bringing them a mathematically-faultless happiness, our duty will be to force them to be happy. But before we take up arms, we shall try the power of words.
In this future state, Guardians, who are the secret police, keep tabs on everyone and crime is punished with torture and execution by The Machine. Sex is rationed with a system of pink slips and, as the story progresses, a female number, O-90 with lovely blue eyes is assigned to D-503. People are allowed to lower the curtains of their transparent apartments only for these assigned hours of physical intimacy.
But soon enough our narrator meets another woman, I-330, whip-like with dazzling white teeth, and gets strongly attracted to her. They have a tryst in his flat where, breaking the rules, they smoke and imbibe a greenish alcoholic drink, probably absinthe.
I-330 invites him to the Ancient House which is at the edge of the Green Wall that surrounds the city of glass. Meanwhile the whip-like woman, who is a secret revolutionary belonging to the MEPHI, impresses upon him to take command of the trial launch of the Integral and land it outside the Green Wall. The plan succeeds but the Guardians have infiltrated their ranks and so they have to return.
The Wall, border, fence, etcetera constitute a standard trope of dystopia, separating the realm of civilisation and happiness from the areas inhabited by primitives, where reason still doesnt have a foothold. Where, often, independence, driven out from dystopia, has found a somewhat comfortable refuge.
Family is another structure that those in power in these anti-utopias hate because it represents what Bertrand Russell in The Scientific Outlook a book which some say might have had an influence on Huxley describes as a loyalty which competes with loyalty to the State. Sure enough, family bonds are tenuous in Nineteen Eighty-Four, where it has become an extension of the Thought Police while in Brave New World and We, the family unit no longer exists.
The rule of logic and mathematics in every sphere of life in Zamyatins novel is echoed in D-503s descriptions I noticed her brows that rose to the temples in an acute angle like the sharp corners of an X, while the growing irrationality within himself is thus recorded, Now I no longer live in our clear, rational world; I live in the ancient nightmare world, the world of square roots of minus one. The square root of minus one as all students of high school maths know is the imaginary number i which in this context would stand for individuality and separateness to be contrasted with the faceless collective We of Zamyatins world.
On the Great day of Unanimity each year, when a farcical election is held to return power to the Well-Doer (Benefactor in future translations), it is suddenly found that many have risen in dissent, refusing to vote for the leader. The MEPHI has spread its roots and a ruthless counter-offensive begins. Large sections of the population, including D-503, are subject to The Operation to remove the centre of fancy from their brains which will turn them into human tractors. In the end, the narrators fate is somewhat similar to Winstons in Nineteen Eighty-Four, while I-330 and others are tortured and sentenced to death.
Zamyatins We is a book that grows upon you as you read it for the first, second or third time. With its mathematical similes, the cold antiseptic settings through which faceless numbers, robbed of imagination and independence, go about fulfilling their duties to the state, always under the shadow of the Well-Doer and his murderous Machine, the book reminds us about all that is precious in our lives, all that is worth fighting for till the last of our breath.
There have been many debates as to who was right about the future Orwell or Huxley? It has been pointed out that with the fall of the Soviet Union the Orwellian world of a totalitarian dictatorship collapsed for ever. But still in corners of the world like North Korea, we find situations that seem to be taken straight out of Nineteen Eighty-Four, just as in Trump-era United States, we find echoes of censorship and control over facts imagined by Orwell.
However, in predicting the course science might take, and in imagining the possibility that humanity would squander away freedom at the altar of desire and consumerism, Huxleys Brave New World stands out as a book more conscious of the pulse of rulers and ruled alike.
In his 1958 book Brave New World Revisited which among other things predicts how thw population explosion will become a strain on the worlds resources, Huxley, comparing his dystopia to Orwells, wrote:
The society described in Nineteen Eighty-Four is a society controlled almost exclusively by punishment and the fear of punishment. In the imaginary world of my own fable, punishment is infrequent and generally mild. The nearly perfect control exercised by the government is achieved by systematic reinforcement of desirable behaviour, by many kinds of nearly non-violent manipulation, both physical and psychological, and by genetic standardisation.
Huxleys insights that non-violent manipulation works far better than terror and that the trivial pleasures of a consumer culture will steal freedom from us are an apt characterisation of our times. Neil Postman beautifully summarises the work of these two authors, when he writes:
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture.
Reading these three books and reflecting on the above words, it wouldnt be a thoughtcrime to believe that we are already swimming breathlessly in the choppy waters of a dystopian present.
Rajat Chaudhuri is a Charles Wallace Trust, Korean Arts Council-InKo and Hawthornden Castle fellow. He has advocated on climate change issues at the United Nations and has recently finished writing his fourth work of fiction about environmental disaster.
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Orwell vs Huxley vs Zamyatin: Who would win a dystopian fiction contest? - Scroll.in
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The three myths of populism – Kathimerini
Posted: at 1:59 pm
We still need time for the dust to settle before the outcome of the fight between populism and its opponents becomes apparent.
The tsunami of populism appears to have ebbed after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, but there is still a long road ahead. The unseating of established political forces came fast and lasted a long time.
I recently listened to an excellent American thinker explaining what populism is and how it can be overcome. He was right in saying that its not enough for it to be defeated electorally.
Its imperative that the fight be won with reason, to convince the public that there truly is another way.
The power of populism is based on three myths:
-The myth of the people as victims. This has held since the first moments of the Greek crisis.
-The myth of the enemies of the masses. And there were convenient enemies right from the early days of the crisis as well, both foreign and domestic.
-The myth of the leader taking on the powerful as if they were some kind of monster to blame for the plight of the people. Alexis Tsipras responded to this sentiment by using them as scapegoats and its amazing that to this day you hear the phrase Hes trying but hes faced with beasts.
Populism is based on blaming the other for all the suffering a beleaguered society is experiencing. We Greeks have this entrenched in our DNA. We remember and always want to believe that were the ones being attacked but then we easily forget whos helped us.
For the fight to be won, three things are needed: Someone who can be the face of anti-populism who can convince people that they are not a relic of the past and who can tap not only into the mind but also the desires of every voter.
Anti-populist politicians must be reborn to have a shot in an unequal fight. Its also important to take full advantage of technology and means of communication.
Until recently, the advance of communication technology clearly favored populists. French President Emmanuel Macron has shown that with a little thought, the same tools, particularly social media, can be used as the weapons of responsible forces.
The American thinker ended on an excellent point, saying those who believe in liberal principals and rationalism must keep a clear mind and a stiff upper lip. There is really no other way to deal with the forces of populism.
As weve said, its not defeat at the polls thats important. What is important is that the battle of arguments is won and that there can be an ideological shift in Greek society.
In Greece, populism exists not just in places youd expect but also in political parties that supposedly represent the liberal, pro-European direction of the country.
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10 Living Philosophers and Why You Should Know Them – Big Think
Posted: at 1:59 pm
It can be easy to think that all the good ideas have already been thought; after all, philosophy have been going on for more than 2500 years. But that isn't true! There are still some genius philosophers out there, of course. Here, we give you ten living people with ideas worth learning about.
Noam Chomsky
One of the most cited philosophers of the modern age, Chomsky has written extensively on linguistics, cognitive science, politics, and history. His work has had an effect on everything from developmental psychology to the debates between rationalism and empiricism, and led to a decline of support for behaviorism. He remains an active social critic and public intellectual, including here on Big Think.
noam-chomskys-trick-for-avoiding-political-letdown-low-expectations
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
Slavoj Zizek
Zizek is a modern Marxist who has commented extensively on culture, society, theology, psychology, and our tendency to view the world through the lens of Ideology. He has devoted a great deal of time to updating the idea of Dialectic Materialism. He is also a frequent Big Think contributor.
why-be-happy-when-you-could-be-interesting
Humanity is OK, but 99% of people are boring idiots.
Cornel West
Cornel is an American philosopher who focuses on politics, religion, race, and ethics. Hardly shy for the camera, West is often seen on television talk shows and even had a cameo in the Matrix films. His work has expanded on the ideas of W.E.B. Du Bois on more than one occasion, and continues to focus on the issues of being an Other in modern society. His Big Think videos can be found here.
cornel-west-love-and-justice-are-indivisible
The Enlightenment worldview held by Bu Bois is ultimately inadequate, and, in many ways, antiquated, for our time.
Martha Nussbaum
An American philosopher at the University of Chicago, Martha has written about subjects as diverse as ancient Greek philosophy, ethics, feminism, political philosophy, and animal rights. Along with Amartya Sen,she alsodeveloped the Capability Approach which inspired the United Nations Human Development Index.
Now the fact that Aristotle believes something does not make it true. (Though I have sometimes been accused of holding that position!)
Alasdair Macintyre
Alasdair Macintyre is a Scottish Philosopher who has written on ethics and morality, political philosophy, theology, and the history of philosophy. His most popular book, After Virtue, helped to fuel a resurgence in Virtue Ethics. His thought shifted from a Marxist view in his early work to one that combines his former Marxism with his new Catholicism and Neo-Aristotelian insights.
We are waiting not for Godot, but for anotherdoubtless very differentSt. Benedict.
Daniel Dennett
An American philosopher, cognitive scientist, and one of the so-called Four Horsemen of New Atheism. He has written on free will for decades, and supports the compatibilist view. He has also written on how philosophers think, explaining how the idea of the Intuition pump can both mislead and enlighten us. He also has very many interesting interviews with BigThink.
daniel-dennett-on-the-nefarious-neurosurgeon
The Darwinian Revolution is both a scientific and a philosophical revolution, and neither revolution could have occurred without the other.
Philip Kitcher
An analytic philosopher working at Columbia University, Dr. Kitcher has done extensive work on the philosophy of science itself. His work has focused recently on the criteria for good science, and the philosophy of climate change.
philip-kitcher-climate-science-is-there-any-room-for-skepticism
"A great scientific theory, like Newton's, opens up new areas of research... Because a theory presents a new way of looking at the world, it can lead us to ask new questions, and so to embark on new and fruitful lines of inquiry."
Peter Singer
A modern Consequentialist who puts his money where his ideas are. Author of The Life You Can Save, a book on how utilitarianism demands altruism from you right now, he went on to create an organization dedicated to the idea. He has also written on animal rights, and is a vegetarian. His stances on euthanasia and quality of life have been the cause of a great many protests over the years, often preventing him from speaking. His BigThink videos help explain his philosophy.
exploring-morality-and-selfishness-in-modern-times
We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented.
Amartya Sen
An Indian Philosopher and Nobel Prize Laureate who was worked for decades in welfare economics, capability theory, and on the questions of justice. He often writes on the need to view the implementation of philosophical ideals in degrees of success, rather than as existent or non-existent. His work went on to inspire Martha Nussbaum, and they continue to compliment each others work.
Democracy has to be judged not just by the institutions that formally exist but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections of the people can actually be heard
Judith Butler
An American Philosopher who has written on gender, politics, ethics, the self, and cultural pressures. She developed the theory of Gender performativity, arguing that no gender exists beyond actions used to express a gender role. Her BigThink work can be found here.
your-behavior-creates-your-gender
There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results.
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Jonah Goldberg: Free speech isn’t always a tool of virtue | Ap … – Arizona Daily Star
Posted: at 1:58 pm
Theres a tension so deep in how we think about free expression, it should rightly be called a paradox.
On the one hand, regardless of ideology, artists and writers almost unanimously insist that they do what they do to change minds. But the same artistes, auteurs and opiners recoil in horror when anyone suggests that they might be responsible for inspiring bad deeds.
Hollywood, the music industry, journalism, political ideologies, even the Confederate flag: Each takes its turn in the dock when some madman or fool does something terrible.
The arguments against free speech are stacked and waiting for these moments like weapons in a gladiatorial armory.
Hollywood activists blame the toxic rhetoric of right-wing talk radio or the tea party for this crime, the National Rifle Association blames Hollywood for that atrocity. Liberals decry the toxic rhetoric of the right, conservatives blame the toxic rhetoric of the left.
When attacked again heedless of ideology or consistency the gladiators instantly trade weapons. The finger-pointers of five minutes ago suddenly wax righteous in their indignation that mere expression rather, their expression should be blamed. Many of the same liberals who pounded soapboxes into pulp at the very thought of labeling record albums with violent-lyrics warnings instantly insisted that Sarah Palin had Rep. Gabrielle Giffords blood on her hands. Many of the conservatives who spewed hot fire at the suggestion that they had any culpability in an abortion clinic bombing, gleefully insisted that Sen. Bernie Sanders is partially to blame for Rep. Steve Scalises fight with death.
And this is where the paradox starts to come into view: Everyone has a point.
The blame for violent acts lies with the people who commit them, and with those who explicitly and seriously call for violence, Dan McLaughlin, my National Review colleague, wrote in the Los Angeles Times last week. People who just use overheated political rhetoric, or who happen to share the gunmans opinions, should be nowhere on the list.
As a matter of law, I agree with this entirely. But as a matter of culture, its more complicated.
I have always thought it absurd to claim that expression cannot lead people to do bad things, precisely because it is so obvious that expression can lead people to do good things. According to legend, Abraham Lincoln told Harriet Beecher Stowe, So youre the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war. Should we mock Lincoln for saying something ridiculous?
As Irving Kristol once put it, If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book. You have to believe, in other words, that art is morally trivial and that education is morally irrelevant.
Ironically, free speech was born in an attempt to stop killing. It has its roots in freedom of conscience. Before the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the common practice was that the rulers religion determined their subjects faith too. Religious dissent was not only heresy but a kind of treason. After Westphalia, exhaustion with religion-motivated bloodshed created space for toleration. As the historian C.V. Wedgwood put it, the West had begun to understand the essential futility of putting the beliefs of the mind to the judgment of the sword.
This didnt mean that Protestants instantly stopped hating Catholics or vice versa. Nor did it mean that the more ecumenical hatred of Jews vanished. What it did mean is that it was no longer acceptable to kill people simply for what they believed or said.
But words still mattered. Art still moved people. And the law is not the full and final measure of morality. Hence the paradox: In a free society, people have a moral responsibility for what they say, while at the same time a free society requires legal responsibility only for what they actually do.
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Wisconsin Dems complain free speech bill targets UW-Madison – Campus Reform
Posted: at 1:58 pm
Wisconsin Democrats accused their Republican counterparts of hypocrisy Thursday in a desperate bid to halt the progress of a bill to protect free speech on college campuses.
According to The Journal Times, Democratic state lawmakers leveled the charges in an unsuccessful effort to prevent passage of the Campus Free Speech Act by the State Assembly, contending that GOP legislators have shown hostility to free speech in other contexts, and are merely attempting to silence liberal students at the states public colleges and universities.
"If you man-terrupt me in feminism class, I can sue you?"
The bill, which would require schools to penalize students who disrupt free speech on campus, nonetheless passed in a 61-36 vote, and now heads to the Senate.
[RELATED: Four more states join fight to protect free speech on campus]
Those who run the show have shown hostility to free speech and hostility to the university, declared Democratic state Rep. Jonathan Brostoff, citing recent GOP actions to cut funding for the University of Wisconsin system and prohibit protesters from holding signs in the Capitol rotunda.
Democratic Rep. Chris Taylor also condemned conservative colleagues as hypocrites for having previously criticized liberal hegemony at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, saying legislative rebukes related to the content of courses and political affiliations of guest speakers could influence how professors present material.
In December, Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the UW-Madison administration calling for the cancellation of a class on The Problem of Whiteness, and the following month they denounced an anti-masculinity program that they said declares war on men.
[RELATED: UW program explores dangers of masculinity]
The author of the Campus Free Speech Act, Republican Rep. Jesse Kremer, dismissed objections that the bill is intended to shut down liberal speech, asserting that the legislation was developed in response to requests for action from students and regents in the UW System.
In a press release provided toCampus Reform,Kremer pushed back even more forcefully, describing a "mob mentality" that leads to "conservative groups being shouted down by their liberal counterparts" at UW-Madison.
Repeatedly, weve seen students shouted down and silenced by those in disagreement and unconstitutional policies that violate the First Amendment on the books at the UW," Kremer said. "The Campus Free Speech Act will end the unconstitutional 'hecklers veto' and create a behavioral shift on campus."
Taylor also claimed that she has personally experienced Republican restrictions on speech, accusing her colleagues of mansplaining for suggesting that she ask fewer questions in committee hearings, as well as violating the First Amendment by refusing to provide state funding for her to attend a conference on reproductive rights.
[RELATED:Liberals mock UW free speech center as 'GOP safe space']
Democratic Rep. Katrina Shankland concurred that female legislators are constantly interrupted, and sought to provoke discomfort among the bills supporters by suggesting that mansplaining on campus could constitute a violation of its provisions.
Under this bill, if two people get really tired of this person in political science speaking up every day, and asking good questions, could they decide to report them? Shankland asked. If you man-terrupt me in feminism class, I can sue you?
The bill does require that administrators investigate any incident in which two or more people accuse someone of disrupting free expression, but also includes caveats allowing professors to maintain order in the classroom and guaranteeing that those who stand accused of disruptive activity are entitled to a full disciplinary hearing, complete with the ability to retain legal representation, confront and call witnesses, and even appeal the results.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @MrDanJackson
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Why Germany wages war on free speech – Washington Examiner
Posted: at 1:58 pm
This week, Germany launched a major crackdown on free expression. In 36 simultaneous raids across multiple states, German authorities sought evidence for speech-related criminal offenses based on things people posted on the Internet.
Most of these offenses come under incitement to racial hatred laws. That might sound good to some, but it isn't.
There's a major difference between U.S. and German incitement laws. U.S. law at federal and state levels criminalizes only incitement that is designed to foster imminent unlawful violence. The incitement must also be likely to lead to unlawful violence. This three-prong test means that saying "I [expletive] hate [racial/religious/social group] and think they should all burn," for example, is not illegal in America.
And Americans take that for granted. But such postings would be illegal in Germany and in much of Europe.
In the U.K., the Public Order Act mandates that, "A person is guilty of an offense if he uses threatening [or abusive] words or behavior ... within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby." Importantly, proven intention and actual harm are not necessary for conviction. It is enough that the speech possibly alarmed someone nearby.
Consider what impact that law might have on the willingness of individuals to discuss sensitive issues like immigration, or abortion, or terrorism? It is a recipe for chilled speech.
Amazingly, however, Germany takes things further, proactively punishing speech that might feasibly upset someone on the Internet. Which, if you've ever been on the Internet, could be said of almost everything on it.
The head of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, Holger Mnch, explained the government's position. "Our free society must not allow a climate of fear, threat, criminal violence and violence either on the street or on the Internet." Again, think carefully on those words. Germany seeks not simply to punish offending speech, but to "not allow a climate" of offense.
To accomplish this objective, Germany isn't simply arresting speakers, it is punishing the platforms of speech. As Germany's Justice Minister, Heiko Mass, put it, "We need to increase the pressure on social media companies." Mass is referring to a draft law that would impose $56 million fines on Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies, if they fail to remove offending speech within a short period. As I've noted, similar legislation is also being considered in Britain.
There's an immensely pathetic quality to this authoritarianism. Such coordinated efficiency and absent restraint raises troubling parallels with another era in German history.
Regardless, Americans should be grateful that the founding fathers chose a different approach. First, our deference to the freedom of individuals is the best moral, social, and political approach to offensive speech. By allowing those with grievances to articulate their beliefs, however unpleasant those views might be, we trust in the debate of different ideas. We know that ultimately, the best ideas will triumph. Moreover, by refusing to ban viewpoints that are perceivably upsetting or intolerant, we ensure that our policy debate is checked by an insidious chilling of speech.
What are Twitter and Facebook to do? I would suggest they threaten to withdraw from Germany. When German voters see that, they might be more offended by their government's policy than by what's said on social media.
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Why Germany wages war on free speech - Washington Examiner
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