Category Archives: Rationalism

Are you looking to buy an IPO? With Sofi Active Invest you can participate in upcoming IPOs before they trade on an exchange.

Following the 9/11 terror attack, transportation security at our airports underwent a dramatic paradigm shift. No longer was public trust a given. Instead, the federal government implemented multiple protective measures to shore up prior vulnerabilities and to prevent another catastrophic assault. From this dire circumstance, CLEAR Secure, Inc. made its debut to deliver both safety and convenience to the security infrastructure.

However, only an extremely small minority of people have ill intent. To help move the line along, CLEAR uses a proprietary frictionless system for trusted travelers, drawing much intrigue for the companys initial public offering (IPO).

Peruse the IPO calendar and youll see that analysts anticipate CLEAR Secure to make its public market debut on Wednesday, June 30, 2021. Shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol YOU.

Under the terms of the IPO, CLEAR Secure will offer 13.2 million shares of its Class A common stock. Experts observing the proceedings expect YOU stock to price between $27 and $30 per share. At the high end of the pricing spectrum, the market debut will raise $396 million. At that level, the valuation will reach approximately $4.34 billion.

Acting as lead bookrunners for the IPO are Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and privately held Allen & Company.

One notable factor that makes the YOU stock debut distinct from other IPOs is that select Robinhood users can buy shares of CLEAR Secure at the initial offering price, just before trading begins on the secondary market (in this case, the NYSE).

In a program called IPO Access, Robinhood partners with investment banks, acting as an institutional client on behalf of regular retail investors. Upon acquiring pre-IPO shares, Robinhood later distributes these equity units to its own customers.

Though the end purpose is critical to transportation security, very few people, if any, enjoy the hassle of going through airport security procedures. Even in locations that feature quick wait times such as Salt Lake City International Airport with an average wait time of just over 9 minutes the inconvenience of removing (and then quickly wearing) articles of clothing can be stressful, to say the least.

But at airports where the wait times are longer for instance, Newark Liberty International and its 23.1-minute average wait the annoyance can compound quickly, resulting in diminished traveling experiences for consumers. Unsurprisingly, then, CLEAR Secure garnered much support from frequent flyers over the years, commanding 5.6 million members and over 100 unique locations and partners across the North American market.

In 2020, CLEAR generated revenue of $230.8 million, which is up 20% from 2019s result of $192.3 million. Just as notable, the companys pro forma net loss last year was $10.8 million, representing a substantial improvement over the loss of $54.2 million in 2019. Most impressively, the security management solutions provider delivered top-to-bottom progress in 2020 despite the initially catastrophic impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

At the worst of the crisis, air travel volume fell to single-digit percentages of pre-pandemic norms. According to International Civil Aviation Organization estimates, the airline industry lost more than $370 billion in 2020, a truly staggering amount of red ink. Therefore, the expectation was for travel-related industries to crumble in 2020, not move in a positive trajectory. Yet CLEARs subscription-based service continued to bring in the numbers, boding well for its IPO.

Multiple factors point to the upside potential of CLEAR Secure, beginning with its favorable positioning relative to the competition. As mentioned above, CLEAR Secure operates as a subscription-based service, charging $179 annually. In return, subscribers dont have to deal with the dignity of temporarily going shoeless. Yet the Transportation Security Administrations PreCheck service only costs $85. Youd think that consumers would opt for the cheaper option, but millions prefer CLEAR Secure.

And this preference segues into the second bullish argument supporting the YOU stock IPO. For starters, CLEARs system incorporates a touchless biometric scan, which is a massive advantage in the age of COVID-19. Also, the company isnt just an airport security platform. Rather, its clients identification is tied to a security network that is connected with multiple partners. Therefore, CLEAR subscribers can enjoy hassle-free admission to sports and entertainment facilities again, a huge benefit in the new normal.

Third, YOU stock could rise in value in the secondary market due to the retail revenge phenomenon. For a one-year period or longer, the pandemic denied consumers the ability to travel wherever they wanted and advantage the products and services they typically enjoy. With funds saved up, along with receiving federal stimulus checks, consumers have more money than ever and they want to spend it.

Finally, the dramatic rise of consumer sentiment may clog up transportation security infrastructures as they ramp up to meet demand. Even before the pandemic, security wait times cost the U.S. economy over $4 billion. As society normalizes, many frequent flyers will be unwilling to individually contribute to this cost, which will indirectly support the narrative for YOU stock.

Though the CLEAR Secure debut is distinct in that it allows retail investors to participate in the public offering via Robinhood, theres a lesson here that everyone should learn regarding traditional IPOs: Underwriters only have a limited number of shares to sell and therefore are incentivized to sell them to their choicest clients. Therefore, this economic rationalism prevents retail investors from participating in IPOs.

However, Robinhood also has a limited pre-IPO share count offering. Chances are, if you want to acquire YOU stock, you must do so at the open. While you likely wont receive the best price with this method, its the easiest approach. If you know how to buy stocks, you can jump right in. If not, follow the simple steps below.

Prior to the advent of connectivity technologies, investors had to spend significant time deciphering which brokerage to use. In the analog days, certain platforms would vary widely in price. But with the mass proliferation of mobile investing apps, most of the key financial incentives to join, such as commission-free trading, are now standard.

This dynamic allows you to pick a platform that best suits your needs and preferences. Below is a list of best brokers to help guide your research.

Why state the obvious? Your share count is actually critical because it determines your risk-reward profile. The more shares you own, the more profits you accrue should the underlying stock rise in value. Conversely, the opposite is true. Therefore, only ramp up your share count for your highest-conviction ideas.

Familiarize yourself with the below concepts before placing your first trade:

To execute a market order, follow these steps:

Follow the same steps for market orders, except that you must also enter your desired execution price.

Before jumping on an IPO opportunity, you should review the Financial Industry Regulatory Authoritys guidance on restricted persons, which prevents people with access to insider information from unfairly profiting from the market debut.

While the Robinhood access to pre-IPO shares is distinct for YOU stock, other companies such as ClickIPO offer similar services. In this case, ClickIPO buys blocks of select pre-IPO stocks and offers them to interested retail investors.

Post 9/11, the security paradigm for the U.S. transportation network changed dramatically to address asymmetric threats. While everybody travelers appreciate the underlying purpose of screening protocols, they are both cumbersome and economically draining.

Fortunately, CLEAR Secure provides an innovative solution, offering accurate and touchless biometric scans to its subscribers for easy access across multiple airports and entertainment facilities. Better yet, as the COVID-19 crisis fades, travel volume will return in earnest, boosting demand for YOU stock.

0 Commissions and no deposit minimums. Everyone gets smart tools for smart investing. Webull supports full extended hours trading, which includes full pre-market (4:00 AM - 9:30 AM ET) and after hours (4:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET) sessions. Webull Financial LLC is registered with and regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).It is also a member of the SIPC, which protects (up to $500,000, which includes a $250,000 limit for cash) against the loss of cash and securities held by a customer at a financially-troubled SIPC-member brokerage firm.

Go here to read the rest:

How to Buy CLEAR Secure IPO (YOU) Stock on the Open Benzinga - Benzinga

In death, as in life, the renowned Kannada poet Siddalingaiah faced travails that we assume are the lot of ordinary folks. He battled the coronavirus for a little over a month, and his fragile health gave way on June 11. He was 67.

The pandemic has been especially devastating in Bengaluru, with rampant black-marketing of everything from beds to oxygen to medicines.

Siddalingaiah, who had served two terms as Member of the Legislative Council, lived without ostentation, and was often mistaken for just another man on the street. On at least two occasions, he was not allowed to enter the Vidhana Soudha, Karnatakas grand secretariat, because he did not look important enough in his faded shirt and worn-out chappals.

This anonymity is something he revelled in: it becomes a recurring theme in his autobiography Ooru Keri (A Word With You), published in three volumes in Kannada. The first volume appeared in 1996, the second in 2006, and the last in 2018. I have translated the first two.

In Volume 3, he wrote about a hospital visit for a knee problem. The staff put him on a bed and kept him waiting for a long time. His friends were livid, and started shouting that he was an MLC, and should be attended to immediately. The staff ignored them, saying they were waiting for the police. It turned out the doctors assumed it was a medico-legal case MLC in hospital lingo and that he had come for treatment after a fight with someone.

Siddalingaiah was the only Kannada writer, and perhaps the only writer in India, to use self-deprecating humour as a vehicle for political activism. He basked in the sunshine generated by his irreverence. D R Nagaraj, the well-known literary critic, sees in his writing the power of poor peoples laughter. Nagaraj wrote an insightful afterword to Ooru Keri and published it in the Akshara Chintane collection of books he was editing in the 1990s.

Their friendship goes back a long way:

Two debaters had to be selected and sent to an inter-collegiate debate. Our college organised a debate to decide who would represent our college. I took part in it. I quoted portions of my own poem and attributed it to our national poet Kuvempu. The lines were: Temples are houses of black magic / Religious leaders are magicians / Pilgrim centres are places of disease / Innocents, idiots, these pilgrims. Impressed, the judges had selected me. The speech of a lean, tall student was wonderful. I had observed him with interest. After the debate, he came over, congratulated me, and introduced himself. Nowhere has Kuvempu written the lines you attributed to him. Tell me the truth, whose lines are they? he said. I was disconcerted. I said so only to fool the judges. Those are my lines, I confessed.

The very first chapter Siddalingaiah wrote for his autobiography convinced Nagaraj it was an important book in the making. That chapter has been anthologised widely, and talks about Siddalingaiahs childhood in Manchanabele, just 40 km from Bengaluru, but a different, non-urban world altogether.

His father Dyavanna was a farm labourer and often in debt, and the family faced humiliation and pain, but Siddalingaiahs narrative focuses on the joys of mimicking his school inspector, watching with hidden glee a teacher-couple squabble, and bunking school to take long swims in the river.

The philosophical implications of this autobiography are profound, says Chandan Gowda, Ramakrishna Hegde Chair professor, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru. In a relation where one does not recognise the other as equal, are the dominated locked in struggle with the dominant? Frantz Fanon, the famous Algerian psychiatrist, thought so and argued that only a violent engagement would set the dominated free. Siddalingaiah offers a powerful, alternative perspective. He affirms his selfhood without a trace of resentment towards vicious social games, while also doubting the value of the very things prized in those games. A philosophy for a liberation of the self without violence is present in the book in unarticulated form; it requires careful excavation.

Gowda sees the autobiography as a tacit consideration of the ethics and aesthetics of memory. In his words: It silently engages with two big questions: Why must we remember painful incidents? How should we remember them? A struggle for social justice is not complete if the hearts of the hardhearted are not changed.

In poetry, Siddalingaiah is regarded as a pioneer, but he underplays his significance, saying his poetic journey gained momentum with a limerick-like poem about the bad food in his college hostel. One of his early published poems Ikrala vadeerala (Sock it to them, kick them) rages against discrimination with a raw power that shocked readers.

The poem wrote itself, he said, after he heard first-hand accounts of the atrocities Dalits in Tamil Nadu had faced in their villages. Siddalingaiahs rousing songs are sung at protests and demonstrations. In later years, at the insistence of his director-friend T N Seetharam, he wrote a couple of film songs for the legendary director Puttanna Kanagal.

Siddalingaiah said he tried to write film songs on the sly, as he feared the wrath of activist-poets who would accuse him of giving in to the lure of commerce. He wrote his film songs under the pseudonym of Aditya. As it turns out, one of the songs became a smash hit and won a state award, and his game was up when he went up to receive it!

With B Krishnappa and Devanur Mahadeva, Siddalingaiah was a founding member of the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti, which mobilised Dalits against caste atrocities, and created awareness about their political rights.

This is how he talked about its early days:

I toured several places in Karnataka, making speeches and reading out my poems. On many occasions, I reached a place in the middle of the night and slept on the street till it was morning. When I got off the bus at Aldur near Chikmagalur, it was midnight. I had to walk a long way to the Dalit Sangharsha Samiti camp. It was cold, and five or six people were sleeping at a bus stop. I went and rested by their side for reassurance. They were beggars. He is a thief. Be careful, one of them whispered. The group started discussing me under its breath, and so I had to introduce myself. They wouldnt admit to being beggars. They claimed they were rich landlords on a pilgrimage to Dharmasthala, disguised as beggars only to test peoples sense of charity. They gave me a friendly farewell in the morning.

Ooru Keri is full of such incidents, and the humour is disarming and delightful. Siddalingiahs book sometimes takes the form of the picaresque novel, with a mischievous hero who valiantly battles enemies way too big for him. At other times, it is Chaplinesque, looking at all the suffering through the lens of comedy.

However, Gowda sees an essential difference between Siddalingaiah and Chaplin: It is possible to watch Chaplin as just fun, the way children usually do, and as a political text, the way critics do, he said. But the dual option isnt available with Siddalingaiah.

The stories Siddalingaiah told from his life are wild, and definitely not the sort you would read in autobiographies whose authors dream of being immortalised in school textbooks:

Some hostel students had managed to win the friendship of a cabaret dancer. She would come to the hostel to look them up. She even gave them money. An army of students would gather to look at this charming girl. They walked behind her to see her off, making up a procession of lovers. This dancer ruled the hearts of hundreds of hostel students.

An oleander tree stood near our hostel. If one climbed on it, one could look into the bedroom of a house nearby. As soon as it was ten in the night, the couple there would take off their clothes and begin making love. Sitting on the tree, we could get a good view. Some would climb the tree as soon as it was ten. Others would hang their towels on the branches to book their places in advance. The couple were oblivious to all this. They were experts and made love in a variety of postures. For the boys on the tree, watching was pleasure enough. Word got around, and more people than the tree could bear started climbing it. One day, as lots of people sat watching the love sport, the tree came crashing down. The spectators fell to the ground. Their wailing reached the couples ears too. With no tree the next day, the students were helpless. The couple got curtains for their windows.

The young Siddalingaiah saw himself as a rationalist and atheist, and at a debate with Does god exist? as the subject, he scandalised a conservative college crowd by blowing out the traditional lamp that other debaters were pointing to as proof of gods existence. In Siddalingaiahs college days in the 1970s, rationalism was a big movement, with Abraham Kovoor writing a book against godmen, and in Bengaluru, H Narasimhaiah challenging Sathya Sai Baba to produce a pumpkin out of thin air instead of the customary watch.

Siddalingaiah was in many ways a product of the Bengaluru of that era, with its love of leftist ideology, rationalism, protest poetry and arthouse cinema. He wrote of an incident from around this time:

I saw an intriguing advertisement in the paper. It said those who did not believe in god could meet a holy man who would show god to them. My friend Devarajappa and I went to the given address. We met the holy man and paid our respects. I appealed to him to show us god. He said all sorts of things. Not satisfied, we rained more questions on him. Shaken, he said, Why are you trying so hard? I am god myself. I then said, Swami, there are millions of gods. Which of them are you? He replied, I am Shiva. With a serious face, I said, Sir, in that case you have committed a murder. He was rattled. What murder? I havent murdered anyone, he shot back. Didnt you burn Manmatha to death with your third eye because he ruined your penance? I asked. The holy man gathered his wits and said, Oh? That fellow was acting smart with me. Thats why I burnt him to ashes. Swami, where do you live? He said, Kailasa. I persisted, Swami, you shot an arrow of flowers and killed Manmatha. But in 1962 the Chinese bombed your Kailasa and entered India. What were you doing then? Not in the least ruffled, he replied, The Indians werent showing enough devotion towards me. That is why I set the Chinese on them. By then, devotees who had gathered around him were planning to beat us up. We escaped.

Vijeta Kumar, who teaches at St Josephs College in Bengaluru, has her students read the autobiography in her undergraduate and postgraduate classes. Many of them are from the northern states, and fluent only in English they are astonished to read about Siddalingaiahs experiences. For one, she says, they discover a totally new way of being political. His writing has a therapeutic effect, she observes, on students from less affluent backgrounds: they are no longer ashamed of their childhood and growing-up experiences. She teaches a paper titled Resisting caste, and Siddalingaiahs writing provides the basis for animated debates.

Siddalingaiah got into the thick of political action when B Basavalingappa, a controversial minister in the Devaraj Urs cabinet, banked on his support in his anti-caste campaigns. He wrote:

He (Basavalingappa) once said Gandhiji didnt know the meaning of truth. On another occasion, he told the Dalits to fling gods pictures into the gutter. This shocked the traditionalists. He said much of Kannada literature was boosa, cattle feed. His remark sparked what came to be known as the boosa agitation, with students demanding his resignation. The protests raged even after he clarified his position... A car arrived at our hostel. Basavalingappa had sent for me. I met him The responsibility of rallying Dalit students and taking out a procession fell mostly on me. After our procession, our opponents were to take out theirs. Twenty thousand had lined up on that side. We had about three thousand on our side. A clash was imminent. Lets see what happens, Basavalingappa had said.

That idea of a street battle did not appeal to me. I quickly ended the public meeting and told the students to leave for their hostels. Ashwathnarayan, a student leader, rescued me from those waiting to assault me. The early ending of our meeting displeased Basavalingappa. He took me to task. I told him in humility that we only wanted to express support for him, and not take part in a street fight.

Basavalingappas aim was to shake up a stagnant society. At times, he would say scalding things in a soft, natural voice. He aspired to become the president of India. He wanted to play the role of Rama, but society pushed him to play Hanuman. He did not like Hanumans role. Being a rebel, he chose the role of Ravana.

Given this background, many of Siddalingaiahs admirers were upset at his latter-day friendship with political leaders from the ruling BJP in Karnataka. Amit Shah visited his house, and Siddalingaiah saw chief minister Yediyurappa as a personal friend. Defending himself, he had said he saw his friendships as lying outside of ideology. Many politicians, from across the spectrum, make cameo appearances in his books, and he counted Ramakrishna Hegde and Siddaramaiah among the leaders he admired.

What is Siddalingaiahs place in the larger scheme of things? Nagaraj put it in context: This age has celebrated, through many ideologies, the rebellious and revolutionary nature of the poor. Socialism and communism are perhaps names given to the aspirations of the poor. But the more this age contemplated the poor, the more it diminished them. The more hunger was made the centre of human life, the more the other dimensions of the poor shrank

Nagaraj believes Siddalingaiah redefined the Dalit experience by changing the tone and tenor of the storytelling: Sidddalingaiahs autobiography contains several elements that we may expect in a Dalit writers work: poverty, rage, and humiliation, he said. But we also find something fresh and unexpected throughout the work: the absence of any fear in relation to poverty and violence. The theme of this work comes naturally and is common to all Dalit works. But the voice that shapes this theme is different and invigorating. A Dalit story without poverty and caste humiliation would be false. But that the writer triumphs over them in his imagination is equally true. By slightly distorting the hunger and humiliation in his life, poet Siddalingaiah points to ways in which they can be overcome.

Transcribed by K V Murugesh.

This series of articles on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on publishing is curated by Kanishka Gupta.

Read this article:

Siddalingaiah (1954-2021): The Dalit poet who broke the rules and challenged the norms - Scroll.in

What a milestone, to reach a century, when so many pundits predicted in 1921 that it would not survive as a country for more than a few years.

It is easy, sitting in 2021, to take Northern Ireland for granted, and not to realise how it came into being or why.

At the Francis Hutcheson Institute, we try to use the writings and thinking of the Saintfield-born philosopher Hutcheson to frame events, and to explain the influence of Ulster Protestants in the development of western civilisation, but also closer to home.

Northern Ireland came into existence for good reason, and for much of the last 100 years it was the beacon of science and industry and modern values on this island.

That existence and history of Northern Ireland over its century has been undermined in part because unionists are only perceived as saying no.

Consequently, the defenders of Northern Ireland become the negative ones, the problem, allowingthose who want Northern Ireland to fail to set all the agendas.

They imply that they are the progressive ones, the unifiers,and that Northern Irelands very existence is the problem.

Defenders of the status quorarely offersolutions to Northern Irelandsundoubtedproblems, hence everyone ends up following and responding to an Irish nationalist or republic agenda.

Political unionists, for example, often seem to have nothing else to say than no (even louder).

This is disastrous politics.

There are very good reasons to say no to attempts to dismantle Northern Ireland.

But the defence of NI should not just be left to a narrow unionism, or what is sometimes now seen as a form of Ulster nationalism.

Unionists must seriously grapple with Irish nationalism, and its underpinnings, and why Ireland (and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) was partitioned.

To be fair, this is a problem the UK as a whole has failed to address, as Welsh and Scottish nationalism indicates, and it is an area in which unionists could begin contributing (positively) to UK national debates.

And the aim of this and subsequent articles is to begin this process,explaining why Northern Ireland exists and should be proud on its centenary.

Unionists have a genuinely good, and progressive, case but their terrible anti-intellectualism has caused them not to make it over 100 years.

First, nationalist claims of Irish unity assume Ireland was always a single political unit and that partition was an artificial British imposition.

This is far from the truth.

Before the Norman-Welsh invasions (12thcentury) Ireland was simply a geographic unit with 12-13 petty Kingdoms constantly warring. Meanwhile the Northern Kingdom of Dalriada comprised large parts ofUlster and Scotland.

Dunluce Castle, for example, represents the ancient ties predating the plantation between Ulster and Scotland, where the head of an Highland Clan (MacDonald) also had his castle in Dunluce as part of his Antrim Lands as a McDonnell.

The Norman-Welsh invasion had been blessed by the Pope to impose discipline and order on the Irish Church, it was so undisciplined.

Anything national about Ireland was totally lacking, especially since the idea of nationalism was an 18thcentury political philosophy construction.Previously, the world consisted of states which were polyglots of different ethnic, linguistic, cultural groups sometimes united or divided by religion.

In pre-1870s France less than 50% of the population spoke French (the other languages were Breton, Basque, German, Flemish, Italian and Occident). Meanwhile, pre-unification Italy (1860s) consisted of 12 independent states, frequently warring, and speaking local dialects often incomprehensible to each other.Germany contained over 300 independent states, some not speaking German, who often loathed each other, especially over religion.

They were just like the British Isles, yet became unified nations in the 19thcentury.

Their unity was forged by progressive, modernising elitespursuing enlightened, progressive political philosophies, just like the unionists in Ireland.

They saw the Union of 1801 as a highly progressive moment, and they had good reason to see this.

Unionists saw the past as unenlightened, backward and ignorant, full of superstition and bigotry.

Like America, they wanted to create a new world, liberal and democratic, using science and rationalism to break down old barriers of prejudice.

Unionists advocated equality, freedom of thought, inquiry, civil and religious liberty and pursuit of happiness, whilst not infringing their neighbours rights: the ideals of Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746).

This ideal was of enlightened, United Kingdom, i.e. breaking down the old internal national and religious barriers and divisions, and freeing the individual from old bigotries.

Like the Germans and French they sought a larger united nation speaking a single language, making mobility, freedom and trade easier.

They sought the separation of church and state, making religion a private matter, and replacing it in the public sphere with the universal laws of science, reason and commerce, which brought men together.

Far from being anti Catholic, many of the most influential supporters of the Union saw the removal of the last barriers to Catholic representation as essential (Catholics had already been granted the vote in the late 1700s).

They did not get the right to be Westminster representatives until the 1820s, in part because there was still a lingering fear of Catholic rebellions of the 1600s and mid 1700s.

Such enlightened ideals (also copied by Italy and Germany) were inspired by the Ulster philosopher Hutcheson, were embraced by Irish unionists and help explain why the UK emerged as a major and wealthy state, including Ireland.

These ideals had also been shared by the United Irishmen (1798), but were neglected by more modern Irish nationalists, who had a more dogmatic and clerical outlook.

Rejection of these ideals by nationalists became the major issue behind unionists objections of Home Rule, and the 1912 Ulster Covenant, but such ideals are very much the embodiment of the UK.

The region that became Northern Ireland was part of a broader Enlightenment trend across Europe against the old order of established churches, including Roman Catholicism, autocratic nobility and absolutist monarchs who opposed modernity.

Indeed, even Roman Catholicism was often divided over Romes opposition to modernity and progress (the Pope was both a spiritual and temporal absolute monarch).

However, the forces of reaction (a 19th century movement known as Romanticism, which directly influenced Irish nationalism) praised the old order that enlightened opinion rejected, and praised peasant society.

The traditional peasant worldbecame venerated, whilst science and industry was rejected as artificial and stifling.

Eamon de Valera illustrated this Romantic thinking as late as 1943, in his radio speech (venerating rural life, ascetic living and comely country maidens).

Irish nationalism was thus in fact backward looking in some of its core perspectives, not progressive, opposed modern liberal freedoms and needs to be challenged, but rarely is.

It was British values that ensured liberal freedoms.

Irish independence in its early decades illustrates these points.

It enacted very reactionary social legislation banning divorce, contraception and abortion, introduced some of the most repressive censorship in Europe, whilst replacing technical subjects in schools with Gaelic (that few wanted to learn).

In these essays, we will try to explain the positive reasons for partition and why Ulster, Irelands centre of the Enlightenment, separated from nationalisms reactionary vision of Ireland.

Ulster possessed the most cosmopolitan, industrial, scientific and liberal culture in Ireland both before and after 1921.

Northern Ireland thus rejected an Irish nationalism that,since the Young Ireland Movement (1840s), hadbeen areaction against liberal modernity and progress.

This is reflected in southern Irelandsstillunrealistic andunsuccessfulidea to revive Gaelic, its submission to Roman Catholic theology on social and moral issues and its insistence on sectarian education.

Irish nationalism rejected modern industry and economics, was indifferent to science and hostile to liberal values.

Thus in comparison to Northern Ireland Southern Ireland became reactionary, isolationist and anti-modern in its economic and social policies. This would have been thus harmful to Northern Irelands international industrial needs. This ethos persists today in Sinn Fein, ourselves alone.

Northern Ireland on its centenary has few outside defenders and appears isolated and unfairly maligned. But from the perspective of Ulster Unionism Irish Nationalism still appears regressive when compared to the benefits of being within the UK.

Here the UK dissolves barriers for a genuinely multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society, despite fundamentalist fringe groups. Meanwhile the Republic of Ireland became intensely mono-cultural (although is less so now after modern waves of immigration).

Romantic versions of history rarely observe that itis Irish nationalism thatwasdivisive and reactionary, dividing the people of these islands.

A large section of unionism was also tribal and conservative and reactionary and narrowly religious. In much of the 20th century, this was seized on by critics of Northern Ireland to depict the society overall as bible thumping and repressive.

But defenders of Northern Ireland with a deeper understanding of its origins and history, indeed the Northern Irish, should have no fears about their national identity.

Northern Ireland has a rich, industrial and cultural history within a highly regarded global trading nation and can punch well above its weight as part of the fifth largest economy in the world.

Dr James Dingley is chair of the Francis Hutcheson Institute chairman. The board members are Johnny Andrews; Bryan Johnston; Bill McKendry; Robert Perceval-Price; and Aaron Rankin. There are five other essays by the institute in the coming pages of this supplement [print edition only an essay by Johnny Andrews is also online]

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers and consequently the revenue we receive we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Continue reading here:

Northern Ireland centenary: James Dingley on how the Northern Irish should have no fears about their identity - Belfast News Letter

In philosophy,rationalismis theepistemologicalview that regardsreasonas the chief source and test of knowledge[1]or any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification.[2]More formally, rationalism is defined as amethodologyor atheoryin which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual anddeductive.[3]

In an old controversy, rationalism was opposed toempiricism, where the rationalists believed that reality has an intrinsically logical structure. Because of this, the rationalists argued that certain truths exist and that the intellect can directly grasp these truths. That is to say, rationalists asserted that certain rational principles exist inlogic,mathematics,ethics, andmetaphysicsthat are so fundamentally true that denying them causes one to fall into contradiction. The rationalists had such a high confidence in reason that empirical proof and physical evidence were regarded as unnecessary to ascertain certain truths in other words, there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience.[4]

Different degrees of emphasis on this method or theory lead to a range of rationalist standpoints, from the moderate position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge to the more extreme position that reason is the unique path to knowledge.[5]Given a pre-modern understanding of reason, rationalism is identical tophilosophy, theSocraticlife of inquiry, or the zetetic (skeptical) clear interpretation of authority (open to the underlying or essential cause of things as they appear to our sense of certainty). In recent decades,Leo Strausssought to revive Classical Political Rationalism as a discipline that understands the task of reasoning, not as foundational, but asmaieutic.In the 17th-century Dutch Republic, the rise of early modern-period rationalismas a highly systematic school of philosophy in its own right for the first time in historyexerted an immense and profound influence on modern Western thought in general,[6][7]with the birth of two influential rationalisticphilosophical systemsofDescartes[8][9] (who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic in the period 16281649 and despite frequent moves, he wrote all his major work during his 20-plus years in theUnited Provinces) andSpinozanamely CartesianismandSpinozism. It was the 17th-century arch-rationalistslike Descartes, Spinoza andLeibnizwho have given the Age of Reason its name and place in history.[30]

In politics, rationalism, since the Enlightenment, historically emphasized a politics of reason centered upon rational choice, utilitarianism, secularism, and irreligion[31] the latter aspectsantitheismwas later softened by the adoption of pluralistic methods practicable regardless of religious or irreligious ideology.[32]In this regard, the philosopherJohn Cottingham[33]noted how rationalism, amethodology, became socially conflated withatheism, aworldview:

In the past, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries, the term rationalist was often used to refer to free thinkers of an anti-clerical and anti-religious outlook, and for a time the word acquired a distinctly pejorative force (thus in 1670 Sanderson spoke disparagingly of a mere rationalist, that is to say in plain English an atheist of the late edition). The use of the label rationalist to characterize a world outlook which has no place for the supernatural is becoming less popular today; terms like humanist or materialist seem largely to have taken its place. But the old usage still survives.

Rationalism is often contrasted withempiricism. Taken very broadly, these views are not mutually exclusive, since a philosopher can be both rationalist and empiricist.[2]Taken to extremes, the empiricist view holds that all ideas come to usa posteriori, that is to say, through experience; either through the external senses or through such inner sensations as pain and gratification. The empiricist essentially believes that knowledge is based on or derived directly from experience. The rationalist believes we come to knowledgea priori through the use of logic and is thus independent of sensory experience. In other words, asGalen Strawsononce wrote, you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You dont have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You dont have to do any science.[34]Between both philosophies, the issue at hand is the fundamental source of human knowledge and the proper techniques for verifying what we think we know. Whereas both philosophies are under the umbrella ofepistemology, their argument lies in the understanding of the warrant, which is under the wider epistemic umbrella of thetheory of justification.

The theory of justification is the part ofepistemologythat attempts to understand the justification ofpropositionsandbeliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas ofjustification, warrant,rationality, andprobability. Of these four terms, the term that has been most widely used and discussed by the early 21st century is warrant. Loosely speaking, justification is the reason that someone (probably) holds a belief.

If A makes a claim, and B then casts doubt on it, As next move would normally be to provide justification. The precise method one uses to provide justification is where the lines are drawn between rationalism and empiricism (among other philosophical views). Much of the debate in these fields are focused onanalyzingthe nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such astruth,belief, andjustification.

At its core, rationalism consists of three basic claims. For one to consider themselves a rationalist, they must adopt at least one of these three claims: the intuition/deduction thesis, the innate knowledge thesis, or the innate concept thesis. In addition, rationalists can choose to adopt the claims of Indispensability of Reason and or the Superiority of Reason although one can be a rationalist without adopting either thesis.

Rationale:

Some propositions in a particular subject area, S, are knowable by us by intuition alone; still others are knowable by being deduced from intuited propositions.[35]

Generally speaking, intuition isa prioriknowledge or experiential belief characterized by its immediacy; a form of rational insight. We simply see something in such a way as to give us a warranted belief. Beyond that, the nature of intuition is hotly debated.

In the same way, generally speaking, deduction is the process ofreasoningfrom one or more generalpremisesto reach a logically certain conclusion. Using validarguments, we can deduce from intuited premises.

For example, when we combine both concepts, we can intuit that the number three is prime and that it is greater than two. We then deduce from this knowledge that there is a prime number greater than two. Thus, it can be said that intuition and deduction combined to provide us witha prioriknowledge we gained this knowledge independently of sense experience.

Empiricists such asDavid Humehave been willing to accept this thesis for describing the relationships among our own concepts.[35]In this sense, empiricists argue that we are allowed to intuit and deduce truths from knowledge that has been obtaineda posteriori.

By injecting different subjects into the Intuition/Deduction thesis, we are able to generate different arguments. Most rationalists agree mathematics is knowable by applying the intuition and deduction. Some go further to include ethical truths into the category of things knowable by intuition and deduction. Furthermore, some rationalists also claim metaphysics is knowable in this thesis.

In addition to different subjects, rationalists sometimes vary the strength of their claims by adjusting their understanding of the warrant. Some rationalists understand warranted beliefs to be beyond even the slightest doubt; others are more conservative and understand the warrant to be belief beyond a reasonable doubt.

Rationalists also have different understanding and claims involving the connection between intuition and truth. Some rationalists claim that intuition is infallible and that anything we intuit to be true is as such. More contemporary rationalists accept that intuition is not always a source of certain knowledge thus allowing for the possibility of a deceiver who might cause the rationalist to intuit a false proposition in the same way a third party could cause the rationalist to have perceptions of nonexistent objects.

Naturally, the more subjects the rationalists claim to be knowable by the Intuition/Deduction thesis, the more certain they are of their warranted beliefs, and the more strictly they adhere to the infallibility of intuition, the more controversial their truths or claims and the more radical their rationalism.[35]

To argue in favor of this thesis,Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a prominent German philosopher, says, The senses, although they are necessary for all our actual knowledge, are not sufficient to give us the whole of it, since the senses never give anything but instances, that is to say particular or individual truths. Now all the instances which confirm a general truth, however numerous they may be, are not sufficient to establish the universal necessity of this same truth, for it does not follow that what happened before will happen in the same way again. From which it appears that necessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics, and particularly in arithmetic and geometry, must have principles whose proof does not depend on instances, nor consequently on the testimony of the senses, although without the senses it would never have occurred to us to think of them[36]

Rationale:

We have knowledge of some truths in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature.[37]

The Innate Knowledge thesis is similar to the Intuition/Deduction thesis in the regard that both theses claimknowledgeis gaineda priori. The two theses go their separate ways when describing how that knowledge is gained. As the name, and the rationale, suggests, the Innate Knowledge thesis claims knowledge is simply part of our rational nature. Experiences can trigger a process that allows this knowledge to come into our consciousness, but the experiences dont provide us with the knowledge itself. The knowledge has been with us since the beginning and the experience simply brought into focus, in the same way a photographer can bring the background of a picture into focus by changing the aperture of the lens. The background was always there, just not in focus.

This thesis targets a problem with the nature of inquiry originally postulated byPlatoinMeno. Here, Plato asks about inquiry; how do we gain knowledge of a theorem in geometry? We inquire into the matter. Yet, knowledge by inquiry seems impossible.[38]In other words, If we already have the knowledge, there is no place for inquiry. If we lack the knowledge, we dont know what we are seeking and cannot recognize it when we find it. Either way we cannot gain knowledge of the theorem by inquiry. Yet, we do know some theorems.[37]The Innate Knowledge thesis offers a solution to thisparadox. By claiming that knowledge is already with us, eitherconsciouslyorunconsciously, a rationalist claims we dont really learn things in the traditional usage of the word, but rather that we simply bring to light what we already know.

Rationale:

We have some of the concepts we employ in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature.[39]

Similar to the Innate Knowledge thesis, the Innate Concept thesis suggests that some concepts are simply part of our rational nature. These concepts area prioriin nature and sense experience is irrelevant to determining the nature of these concepts (though, sense experience can help bring the concepts to ourconscious mind).

Some philosophers, such asJohn Locke(who is considered one of the most influential thinkers of theEnlightenmentand anempiricist) argue that the Innate Knowledge thesis and the Innate Concept thesis are the same.[40]Other philosophers, such asPeter Carruthers, argue that the two theses are distinct from one another. As with the other theses covered under the umbrella of rationalism, the more types and greater number of concepts a philosopher claims to be innate, the more controversial and radical their position; the more a concept seems removed from experience and the mental operations we can perform on experience the more plausibly it may be claimed to be innate. Since we do not experience perfect triangles but do experience pains, our concept of the former is a more promising candidate for being innate than our concept of the latter.[39]

In his book,Meditations on First Philosophy,[41] Ren Descartes postulates three classifications for our ideas when he says, Among my ideas, some appear to be innate, some to be adventitious, and others to have been invented by me. My understanding of what a thing is, what truth is, and what thought is, seems to derive simply from my own nature. But my hearing a noise, as I do now, or seeing the sun, or feeling the fire, comes from things which are located outside me, or so I have hitherto judged. Lastly, sirens, hippogriffs and the like are my own invention.[42]

Adventitious ideas are those concepts that we gain through sense experiences, ideas such as the sensation of heat, because they originate from outside sources; transmitting their own likeness rather than something else and something you simply cannotwillaway. Ideas invented by us, such as those found inmythology,legends, andfairy talesare created by us from other ideas we possess. Lastly, innate ideas, such as our ideas ofperfection, are those ideas we have as a result of mental processes that are beyond what experience can directly or indirectly provide.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizdefends the idea of innate concepts by suggesting the mind plays a role in determining the nature of concepts, to explain this, he likens the mind to a block of marble in theNew Essays on Human Understanding, This is why I have taken as an illustration a block of veined marble, rather than a wholly uniform block or blank tablets, that is to say what is called tabula rasa in the language of the philosophers. For if the soul were like those blank tablets, truths would be in us in the same way as the figure of Hercules is in a block of marble, when the marble is completely indifferent whether it receives this or some other figure. But if there were veins in the stone which marked out the figure of Hercules rather than other figures, this stone would be more determined thereto, and Hercules would be as it were in some manner innate in it, although labour would be needed to uncover the veins, and to clear them by polishing, and by cutting away what prevents them from appearing. It is in this way that ideas and truths are innate in us, like natural inclinations and dispositions, natural habits or potentialities, and not like activities, although these potentialities are always accompanied by some activities which correspond to them, though they are often imperceptible.[43]

The three aforementioned theses of Intuition/Deduction, Innate Knowledge, and Innate Concept are the cornerstones of rationalism. To be considered a rationalist, one must adopt at least one of those three claims. The following two theses are traditionally adopted by rationalists, but they arent essential to the rationalists position.

The indispensability of reason thesishas the following rationale, The knowledge we gain in subject area,S, by intuition and deduction, as well as the ideas and instances of knowledge inSthat are innate to us, could not have been gained by us through sense experience.[1]In short, this thesis claims that experience cannot provide what we gain from reason.

The superiority of reason thesishas the following rationale, The knowledge we gain in subject areaSby intuition and deduction or have innately is superior to any knowledge gained by sense experience.[1]In other words, this thesis claims reason is superior to experience as a source for knowledge.

In addition to the following claims, rationalists often adopt similar stances on other aspects of philosophy. Most rationalists reject skepticism for the areas of knowledge they claim are knowablea priori. Naturally, when you claim some truths are innately known to us, one must reject skepticism in relation to those truths. Especially for rationalists who adopt the Intuition/Deduction thesis, the idea of epistemic foundationalism tends to crop up. This is the view that we know some truths without basing our belief in them on any others and that we then use thisfoundational knowledgeto know more truths.[1]

Rationalism as an appeal to human reason as a way of obtaining knowledge has a philosophical history dating from antiquity. Theanalyticalnature of much of philosophical enquiry, the awareness of apparentlya prioridomains of knowledge such as mathematics, combined with the emphasis of obtaining knowledge through the use of rational faculties (commonly rejecting, for example, directrevelation) have made rationalist themes very prevalent in the history of philosophy.

Since the Enlightenment, rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods into philosophy as seen in the works ofDescartes,Leibniz, andSpinoza.[3]This is commonly calledcontinental rationalism, because it was predominant in the continental schools of Europe, whereas in Britainempiricismdominated.

Even then, the distinction between rationalists and empiricists was drawn at a later period and would not have been recognized by the philosophers involved. Also, the distinction between the two philosophies is not as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested; for example, Descartes and Locke have similar views about the nature of human ideas.[4]

Proponents of some varieties of rationalism argue that, starting with foundational basic principles, like the axioms ofgeometry, one coulddeductivelyderive the rest of all possible knowledge. The philosophers who held this view most clearly wereBaruch SpinozaandGottfried Leibniz, whose attempts to grapple with the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development of the fundamental approach of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that,in principle, all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was not possiblein practicefor human beings except in specific areas such asmathematics. On the other hand, Leibniz admitted in his bookMonadologythat we are all mereEmpiricsin three fourths of our actions.[5]

Detail of Pythagoras with a tablet of ratios, numbers sacred to the Pythagoreans, fromThe School of AthensbyRaphael.Vatican Palace,Vatican City,

Although rationalism in its modern form post-dates antiquity, philosophers from this time laid down the foundations of rationalism. In particular, the understanding that we may be aware of knowledge available only through the use of rational thought.

Pythagoras was one of the first Western philosophers to stress rationalist insight.[44]He is often revered as a greatmathematician,mysticandscientist, but he is best known for thePythagorean theorem, which bears his name, and for discovering the mathematical relationship between the length of strings on lute and the pitches of the notes. Pythagoras believed these harmonies reflected the ultimate nature of reality. He summed up the implied metaphysical rationalism in the words All is number. It is probable that he had caught the rationalists vision, later seen byGalileo(15641642), of a world governed throughout by mathematically formulable laws.[44]It has been said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom.[45]

Plato held rational insight to a very high standard, as is seen in his works such asMenoandThe Republic. He taught on theTheory of Forms(or the Theory of Ideas)[46][47][48]which asserts that the highest and most fundamental kind of reality is not the material world of changeknown to us through sensation, but rather the abstract, non-material (butsubstantial) world of forms (or ideas).[49]For Plato, these forms were accessible only to reason and not to sense.[44]In fact, it is said that Plato admired reason, especially ingeometry, so highly that he had the phrase Let no one ignorant of geometry enter inscribed over the door to his academy.[50]

Aristotles main contribution to rationalist thinking was the use ofsyllogisticlogic and its use in argument. Aristotle defines syllogism as a discourse in which certain (specific) things having been supposed, something different from the things supposed results of necessity because these things are so.[51]Despite this very general definition, Aristotle limits himself to categorical syllogisms which consist of threecategorical propositionsin his workPrior Analytics.[52]These included categoricalmodalsyllogisms.[53]

Although the three great Greek philosophers disagreed with one another on specific points, they all agreed that rational thought could bring to light knowledge that was self-evident information that humans otherwise couldnt know without the use of reason. After Aristotles death, Western rationalistic thought was generally characterized by its application to theology, such as in the works ofAugustine, the Islamic philosopherAvicennaand Jewish philosopher and theologianMaimonides. One notable event in the Western timeline was the philosophy ofThomas Aquinaswho attempted to merge Greek rationalism and Christian revelation in the thirteenth-century.[44]

Early modern rationalism has its roots in the 17th-centuryDutch Republic,[54]with some notable intellectual representatives likeHugo Grotius,[55]Ren Descartes, andBaruch Spinoza.

French thinker Ren Descartes proposed several arguments that could be termed ontological.

Descartes was the first of the modern rationalists and has been dubbed the Father of Modern Philosophy. Much subsequentWestern philosophyis a response to his writings,[56][57][58]which are studied closely to this day.

Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths including the truths of mathematics, and the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the sciences could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge, the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by thescientific method. He also argued that althoughdreamsappear as real assense experience, these dreams cannot provide persons with knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief about sensory reality. He elaborated these beliefs in such works asDiscourse on Method,Meditations on First Philosophy, andPrinciples of Philosophy. Descartes developed a method to attain truths according to which nothing that cannot be recognised by the intellect (orreason) can be classified as knowledge. These truths are gained without any sensory experience, according to Descartes. Truths that are attained by reason are broken down into elements that intuition can grasp, which, through a purely deductive process, will result in clear truths about reality.

Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum,cogito ergo sumor I think, therefore I am, is a conclusion reacheda priorii.e., prior to any kind of experience on the matter. The simple meaning is that doubting ones existence, in and of itself, proves that an I exists to do the thinking. In other words, doubting ones own doubting is absurd.[59]This was, for Descartes, an irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge. Descartes posited a metaphysicaldualism, distinguishing between the substances of the human body (res extensa) and themindor soul (res cogitans). This crucial distinction would be left unresolved and lead to what is known as themind-body problem, since the two substances in the Cartesian system are independent of each other and irreducible.

In spite of his early death, Spinoza exerted a profound influence onphilosophy in the Age of Reason.[60][61][62]He is often considered one of three most remarkable rationalists of modern Western thought, along with Descartes and Leibniz.

The philosophy ofBaruch Spinozais a systematic, logical, rational philosophy developed in seventeenth-centuryEurope.[63][64][65]Spinozas philosophy is a system of ideas constructed upon basic building blocks with an internal consistency with which he tried to answer lifes major questions and in which he proposed that God exists only philosophically.[65][66]He was heavily influenced byDescartes,[67]Euclid[66]andThomas Hobbes,[67]as well as theologians in the Jewish philosophical tradition such asMaimonides.[67]But his work was in many respects a departure from theJudeo-Christiantradition. Many of Spinozas ideas continue to vex thinkers today and many of his principles, particularly regarding theemotions, have implications for modern approaches topsychology. To this day, many important thinkers have found Spinozas geometrical method[65]difficult to comprehend:Goetheadmitted that he found this concept confusing. Hismagnum opus,Ethics, contains unresolved obscurities and has a forbidding mathematical structure modeled on Euclids geometry.[66]Spinozas philosophy attracted believers such asAlbert Einstein[68]and much intellectual attention.[69][70][71][72][73]

Main article:Gottfried Leibniz

Leibniz was the last major figure of seventeenth-century rationalism who contributed heavily to other fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, logic, mathematics, physics, jurisprudence, and the philosophy of religion; he is also considered to be one of the last universal geniuses.[74]He did not develop his system, however, independently of these advances. Leibniz rejected Cartesian dualism and denied the existence of a material world. In Leibnizs view there are infinitely many simple substances, which he called monads (which he derived directly fromProclus).

Leibniz developed his theory of monads in response to both Descartes andSpinoza, because the rejection of their visions forced him to arrive at his own solution. Monads are the fundamental unit of reality, according to Leibniz, constituting both inanimate and animate objects. These units of reality represent the universe, though they are not subject to the laws of causality or space (which he called well-founded phenomena). Leibniz, therefore, introduced his principle ofpre-established harmonyto account for apparent causality in the world.

Kant is one of the central figures of modernphilosophy, and set the terms by which all subsequent thinkers have had to grapple. He argued that human perception structures natural laws, and that reason is the source of morality. His thought continues to hold a major influence in contemporary thought, especially in fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.[75]

Kant named his brand of epistemology Transcendental Idealism, and he first laid out these views in his famous workThe Critique of Pure Reason. In it he argued that there were fundamental problems with both rationalist and empiricist dogma. To the rationalists he argued, broadly, that pure reason is flawed when it goes beyond its limits and claims to know those things that are necessarily beyond the realm of all possible experience: theexistence of God, free will, and the immortality of the human soul. Kant referred to these objects as The Thing in Itself and goes on to argue that their status as objects beyond all possible experience by definition means we cannot know them. To the empiricist he argued that while it is correct that experience is fundamentally necessary for human knowledge, reason is necessary for processing that experience into coherent thought. He therefore concludes that both reason and experience are necessary for human knowledge. In the same way, Kant also argued that it was wrong to regard thought as mere analysis. In Kants views,a prioriconcepts do exist, but if they are to lead to the amplification of knowledge, they must be brought into relation with empirical data.[76]

Rationalism has become a rarer labeltout courtof philosophers today; rather many different kinds of specialised rationalisms are identified. For example,Robert Brandomhas appropriated the terms rationalist expressivism and rationalist pragmatism as labels for aspects of his programme inArticulating Reasons, and identified linguistic rationalism, the claim that the contents of propositions are essentially what can serve as both premises and conclusions of inferences, as a key thesis ofWilfred Sellars.[77]

Rationalism was criticized by William Jamesfor being out of touch with reality. James also criticized rationalism for representing the universe as a closed system, which contrasts to his view that the universe is an open system.[78]

Read the original:

What Is Rationalism? - The Spiritual Life

Someone told me that a Georgian woman recently compared the COVID-19 public health safety measures to the Holocaust. This seemed too ignorant and hateful to be true -- although no, someone did make that comparison.

Upon examination, it is certainly unsurprising that someone who builds their brand on white nationalism, conspiracy theories, anti-religious pluralism, and transphobia would use her white privilege to equate annoying public health safety measures to the systematic intentional mass execution of around 6 million Jewish people, as well as other groups (e.g., members of the LGBTQ community, individuals living with disabilities and many others).

Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.

kA 5:ClQ=ECQmx?E6C6DE:?8 E92E E9:D D6=7AC@4=2:>65 r9C:DE:2?[ H9@ E2<6D AC:56 :? E96:C 72:E9[ ?68=64E65 |2EE96H fi`aPk^Am

kA 5:ClQ=ECQm|2J36 E96C6D D@>6E9:?8 😕 E96 H2E6C 3642FD6 2 v6@C8:2? >2? 4=2:>65 E92E E96 D65:E:@FD 6G6?E @? y2?] e[ a_a`[ 2E E96 r2A:E@= H2D 2<:? E@ 2 E@FC:DE G:D:E[ J6E 5FC:?8 E96 2EE6>AE65 :?DFCC64E:@?[ 96 H2D 32CC:?8 E96 5@@C E@ <66A E96 E@FC:DED 7C@> 8C66E:?8 9:> H:E9 E96:C 7C6?KJ] x> DFC6 E92E ~77:46C qC:2? $:4:=J H@F=5 ?@E 56D4C:36 y2?] e 2D 2 E@FC:DE G:D:E]k^Am

kA 5:ClQ=ECQmxD E96 286 @7 C62=:EJ @G6Cn xD 2FE96?E:4:EJ @G6Cn xD E96 q=24< |:CC@C }@D65:G6 6A:D@56 2? 244FC2E6 C67=64E:@? @7 @FC K6:E86:DEn xE D66>D E92E A@AF=2C:EJ 😀 >@C6 :>A@CE2?E E92? 244FC24J]k^Am

kA 5:ClQ=ECQm!6C92AD }:4< q@DEC@> H2D 4@CC64E[ 2?5 2== @7 E9:D 😀 D:>A=J 2 D:>F=2E:@?]k^Am

kA 5:ClQ=ECQmp7E6C 2==[ :7 6G6CJE9:?8 😀 ;FDE 2 D:>F=2E:@?[ :ED 2 8C62E H2J E@ 2G@:5 E2<:?8 C6DA@?D:3:=:EJ 7@C @?6D :8?@C2?46 2?5 D@4:6EJ E@ 2G@:5 9@=5:?8 AF3=:4 7:8FC6D 244@F?E23=6]k^Am

Link:

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Is the Age of Rationalism over? - The Shippensburg News-Chronicle

For 2021, Bulgari has introduced three new versions within its Octo Finissimo range, the highly anticipated Chronograph GMT in stainless steel (S), the Octo Finissimo S in a new monochrome style with a silvered dial, and the Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT Titanium with a new black dial and rubber strap.

Bulgaris Octo Finissimo immediately had a huge impact when it made its entrance in 2014. The minimalistic design not only represented a bold approach to watchmaking in general, but Bulgari also proved successfully that an ultra-thin case design could be as contemporary as the materials used. Or in other words, the Italian brand had almost instantly created a haute horlogerie icon without looking for inspiration in the companys past.

Even more impressive, Bulgari has set six world records in six years with the Octo Finissimo, including the worlds thinnest tourbillon (Ref. 102138 in 2014), the thinnest minute repeater (Ref. 102559 in 2016), the thinnest (serially produced) automatic watch (Ref. 102713 in 2017), the thinnest automatic tourbillon (Ref. 102937 in 2018), the thinnest automatic chronograph (Ref. 103068 in 2019) and the thinnest tourbillon chronograph (Ref. 103295 in 2020). Unsurprisingly, the Finissimo has not only won critical acclaim worldwide; three of these record breakers have already been awarded at the Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Genve (GPHG).

Bulgaris award-winning design has long been influenced by the Estetica della Meccanica, or the aesthetic of mechanics, and has been staying close to a quintessential Italian understanding of rationalism and functionality. The Octo is not making an exception from this approach: it is set apart by its eight-sided (Octo) ultra-thin (Finissimo) case, representing the intersection of circle and square inspired by Romes architectural wonders, rendered throughout the line in a minimalist, mainly monochrome aesthetic. But the Octo has also become a rare example of a Grald Genta design that got even better after having been carefully modernized (it was originally produced under Gentas own name before the legendary watch designer sold his company to Bulgari in 2000).

The man who made this possible is Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Product Creation Executive Director at Bulgari Horlogerie SA. Buonamassa immediately understood how to respect and preserve the Octos initial design essence, while making it more modern and unmistakably Bulgari at the same time. In the 20 years the Naples-born designer has been working on watches for Bulgari, the Octo Finissimo might very well be his chef-doeuvre. But he not only has a different way of seeing things, he also knows very well how to apply the principle of progressive reduction in his designs. This is perhaps best reflected in the minimalistic executions used for the dials, but also in how altruistically he looks at design in general. His approach to the role of design, treating it almost like a canvas, has allowed for a couple of interesting collaborations. Buonamassa worked, for example, on special editions of the Octo with Ando Tadao, a Japanese architect and winner of the 1995 Pritzker Prize, and Senju Hiroshi, a Japanese Nihonga painter.

In 2020, Octo again disrupted the immensely popular luxury sports watch segment with the introduction of the Octo Finissimo S (Ref. 103297), a highly anticipated stainless-steel execution of the Octo (mounted on an integrated steel bracelet with a recessed clasp), powered by the thinnest automatic movement, and offering an increased water resistance of 100 meters (instead of 30 meters), made possible by increasing the case thickness just slightly from 5.15 mm to 6.40 mm and adding a screw-down crown.

This watch is now also available in a new monochrome execution (Ref. 103464). It features a 40-mm steel satin-polished case with a new silver vertical-brushed monochromatic dial, and is powered by Bulgaris BVL138 caliber with micro-rotor.

Bulgari has also expanded its Octo Finissimo S line with the new Finissimo S Chronograph GMT (Ref. 103467), equipped with the automatic in-house chronograph and GMT ultra-thin Caliber BVL318 with peripheral rotor (3.30 mm thick). Initially launched only with a titanium case, this watch is now finally available in (satin-polished) steel with a new blue sunray dial, paired with silver counters for what Bulgari calls a more sport chic look. Its mechanical movement allows the display of a second time zone on the sub-counter at 3 oclock. The octagonal case (8.75 mm thick) also features an integrated vertical brushed steel bracelet with polished parts. Like the automatic version in stainless steel, the Octo Finissimo S features a larger screw-down crown than the former sandblasted titanium models to ensure an increased water resistance of up to 100 meters.

The third Finissimo novelty for 2021 is a new version of the Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT Titanium (Ref. 103371), which is now available with a new black dial and a rubber strap for a sportier look. The worlds thinnest automatic chronograph also features the automatic inhouse chronograph and GMT ultra-thin Caliber BVL318 with peripheral rotor (3.30 mm), and has an overall thinness of 6.9 mm. As its counterpart in stainless steel, it has a combined chronograph and GMT function that allows it to show two time zones at once (the 24-hour GMT display can be operated independently thanks to the button at 9 oclock). Moving ahead from its original matte titanium monochrome aesthetic, the Octa Finissimo Chronograph GMT Titanium is equipped with a titanium case, black opaline dial and a texturized rubber strap with titanium pin buckle.

SPECS Bulgari Octo Finissimo S Chronograph GMT TitaniumReference number: 103371Functions: Hours, minutes, running seconds, GMT, chronograph with 30-minute totalizerMovement: Self-winding mechanical Caliber BVL318 (3.3 mm thick) with peripheral oscillating weight, 28,800 vph (4Hz), 55-hour power reserveCase: Sandblasted titanium case with transpar-ent caseback, crown set with a ceramic inlay, black dial, water resistant to 30 mBracelet and clasp: Black rubber strap with pin buckle (titanium)Dimensions: Diameter = 42.0 mm, height = 6.9 mmPrice: $16,500

SPECS Bulgari Octo Finissimo S Chronograph GMT SteelReference number: 103467Functions: Hours, minutes, running seconds, GMT, chronograph with 30-minute totalizerMovement: Self-winding mechanical Caliber BVL318 (3.3 mm thick) with peripheral oscillating weight, 28,800 vph (4Hz), 55-hour power reserveCase: Satin-polished steel case with transpar-ent caseback, screw-down crown set with a ceramic inlay, blue dial, water resistant to 100 mBracelet and clasp: Integrated brushed steel bracelet with folding claspDimensions: Diameter = 43.0 mm, height = 8.75 mmPrice: $16,500

Read this article:

Edge of Tomorrow: Building the Bulgari Octo Finnissimo Collection - Watchtime.com

Kierk Suren, the protagonist in Erik Hoels new novel, The Revelations, is hellbent on coming up with an all-encompassing theory of consciousness, and its nearly his undoing.

Hoel, a research assistant professor working in the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts, knows the territory; he got his Ph.D. in neuroscience studying the integrated information theory of consciousness, and recently proposed a new theory for why humans dream.

As the book opens, Kierk is living out of his car in San Diego, having abruptly dropped out of a Ph.D. program in neuroscience in the Midwest. He spends his days scribbling theories in a notebook, muttering to himself, easy to mistake for someone who is losing his mind.

But a chance fellowship at New York University turns up, and jolts him into action. He travels across country, and is soon back on the hunt for that grand scientific theory of consciousness that has eluded himand everyone else. His days are focused on the small group of young researchers he has joined and their work in neuroscience, including experiments done to primates in the name of science. Soon, one of the researchers dieswas it an accident, or murder?

I like writing in settings that Im familiar with, particularly because what Im writing about is generally quite complex, says Hoel, whose book was published by The Overlook Press in April. I have a real need to get all the little details rightof scientific experimentation, how academia works, everything. So I draw from my own background to flesh out various characters, but its always filtered through some fictional lens.

Listen to a conversation with Erik Hoel about what books influenced him growing up and in writing his first novel The Revelations.

Tufts Now: Youre a scientisthow did you come to write a novel?

Erik Hoel: I grew up in an independent bookstore that was owned by my mother, and I worked there as a teenager. I knew then that I wanted to be a writer.

I liked the old idea of going out and gaining some sort of real-world knowledge, and then writing through the lens of that. It was then that I discovered the world of science. I realized that what I hadnt readand what I wanted to readwas kind of the great scientific novel.

One of the reasons I went into science was precisely to research this novel. And the reason I went into consciousness research was because consciousness is the one realm in which literature and science are on an equal footing. Also, novels represent peoples consciousnesses, and they do it very well. So consciousness is the natural medium for the writer.

Are there parts of yourself in the any of the characters in The Revelations?

Theres definitely a part of me in all of the characters. I feel attached to pretty much all the characters who show up in the book at various points, with all their flaws and their humanness, many of which are my flaws and my humanness.

Why did you begin each chapter with a character waking up, usually Kierk wakes up?

Its funny, when you write a novel, for some reason you have the urge to impose constraints on yourself. If you kind of hate yourself, then youll do things like write a novel without the letter e.

When a writer sits down and looks at the page, it is formless, endless, and empty. And so when you give yourself constraints, youre beginning to construct a structure within that space. Suddenly things seem much more buildable and doable.

I wanted the wake-up scene to suck people into the daily life of this character, and make them feel like theyre traveling along closely with his consciousness.

Kierk Surens name cant help but remind me of Sren Kierkegaard. Intentional?

Oh, absolutely. I generally have some sort of abstract theme and then I find characters that personify those themes. With Kierk, I needed a romantic force to combat rationalism.

The existential philosopher Sren Kierkegaard is a perfect example of kind of a poetic romanticism that lies behind a lot of human behavior. I think many of the very best scientists are definitely not rational in their behavior, so I wanted this character to have some of those traits.

Kierkegaard famously has a quote, I need to find an idea for which I can live and die. Hes talking about this monomania and the importance of ideas, which very much influenced this particular character. Kierk is almost a reincarnation of Kierkegaard.

What books influenced you as you wrote The Revelations?

Moby Dick, more than anything else. Melvilles language is utterly gorgeous. I read Moby Dick maybe five times during the writing of this book, just kept going back to it. I first read it when I was in my 20swhich is the appropriate time to read it, not when youre in high school.

There are parallels. For Melville, its kind of a mad quest for a white whale, the search for meaning. And in The Revelations, its the search for this impossible theory of consciousness. In Moby Dick, there are huge swaths devoted to the details of whaling, how things are done. In The Revelations, theres a lot about how science is done, how animal experimentation occurs, behind-the-scenes things.

A more direct relationship to something that I read growing up would be Umberto Ecos The Name of the Rose. It contained a huge amount of nonfiction, and that was fascinating to me. And I thought, why dont people write more books like this?

This is what I want, this level of detail and the expertise that lies behind it. I dont think The Revelations would have anything like the structure that it does, including a murder or a possible murder, without my having read The Name of the Rose.

What are you reading now? Do you mostly read fiction or nonfiction?

I read both. Right now, Im on the third of 11 volumes of Will and Ariel Durants The Story of Civilization. Its an entire history of the world, and its been my goal to get through it before I die. Its absolutely gorgeous. People just dont write like that anymore.

For fiction, Im reading Gone So Long, which is Andre Dubus IIIs new novel. Hes just such a masterhe builds books so well. He was my first and only writing teacher, when I was 13.

How did that happen?

He lived in the same town as I did. My mother ran the local bookstore, and knew him. He did a program for young writers at my mothers urgingthere were maybe eight or 10 of us in the class. It was basically a workshop, with him talking about writing and reading. Hes just an incredible teacher.

When you were growing up, were there writers who you admired and who inspired you?

I had writers that I loved and wanted to write as well as themlike Dow Mossman, who wrote The Stones of Summer. Another out-of-this-world, absolutely gorgeous writer is David Foster Wallace; I think his facility with pure on-the-page language remains unrivaled. Joan Didion also influenced me a great deal, particularly her essays.

I would also say Dan Simmons does not get enough credit for how good of a writer he is, and the different genres he wrote in. He wrote the sci-fi book Hyperion, which won the Hugo. He also wrote Summer of Night, a great horror novel, and Drood, which is about Charles Dickens unfinished novel; its better than the vast majority of historical fiction.

Whats next for you?

Im working on a nonfiction bookits about consciousness. I have a contract, so I have a deadline. This is the first time Ive ever written anything under a deadline.

Taylor McNeil can be reached at taylor.mcneil@tufts.edu.

More:

Bookish: Mixing Science and Fiction in a Literary Novel - Tufts Now

Fascism is not just sepia images of yesteryear but a contemporary threat. A liberal-left alliance is needed to counter it.

If you search the database of white-supremacist Discord channels, leaked by the monitoring group UnicornRiot since 2018, the word genocide appears more than 10,000 times. Often it is in the context of white genocidethe core concept of the Great Replacement theory, which claims that migration into the advanced world is a form of genocide against white people.

Sometimes, however, there are lists of modern genocidesRwanda, Myanmarsuggesting more to come. Sometimes the usersthere are 158,000 anonymous identities in the databasesimply exclaim GENOCIDE! Whichever way you want to interpret these memetic and subtextual conversations, it is safe to conclude that the modern far right is obsessed with the mass murder of ethnic groups.

This, in itself, should be a measure of the risk we are taking if we refuse to defeat modern fascism through militant, democratic means.

The genocidal logic of the volkisch anti-Semitism prevalent in Germany in the 1920s is clear in retrospect but it was rarely spelled out in advance. Few on the left, even as they confronted the horror of fascist totalitarianism in the interwar period, understood its inevitably genocidal conclusions. And, even after the event, the first journalists to encounter the liberated Majdanek concentration camp could not process what they had discovered.

Since the rise of the populist right, political science has comforted mainstream policy-makers with the suggestion thatnoxious though they aremen like Donald Trump, Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orbn and Nigel Farage could act as a firewall against the return of the real thing.

"Social Europe publishes thought-provoking articles on the big political and economic issues of our time analysed from a European viewpoint. Indispensable reading!"

Columnist for The Guardian

Thank you very much for your interest! Now please check your email to confirm your subscription.

But the firewall is on fire. The modus operandi of right-wing populism is now to gain power and eviscerate democracy, creating space on the streets, the media and online for the fascists to operate. It is evenin the case of Trumpto turn official conservative parties into the willing hosts of fascism.

In turn, the far right does not yet seek power. It wants to operate in the space provided between a fragile judicial system and a mercurial presidential leader. Even when it is massed on the streets of Charlottesville, or protecting the statue of Winston Churchill in London, its main activity remains metapoliticsthe creation and propagation of a coherent myth.

But in their minds the fascists believe their Day X will come. On that day they will brush aside todays populists, just as easily as Adolf Hitler swept away Alfred Hugenberg and Benito Mussolini Gabriele dAnnunzio.

Faced with this rising threat we must all becomeand proudlyanti-fascists. Five hundred prisoners escaped from Majdanek. None would escape a facility built for the same use today. It would be Guantanamo with death chambers, equipped with autonomous lethal weapons, biosurveillance and impassable fences.

As you may know, Social Europe is an independent publisher. We aren't backed by a large publishing house or big advertising partners. For the longevity of Social Europe we depend on our loyal readers - we depend on you. You can support us by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month.

Thank you very much for your support!

Combating modern fascism effectively means understanding it better. This is not the tribute band to Nazism we were dealing with up to around 1990. Its project is no longer formed around violent national rebirth.

It is an international movement, highly adapted to the conditions of a networked, non-hierarchical and globalised society. It is fascism regrown from its pre-1914 philosophical root-stock: from Nietzschean anti-rationalism, scientific racism and the power-worship embodied in the writings of the now-fashionable Carl Schmitt.

Everything fascists do is designed to propagate a myth: a global ethnic civil war is coming, from which will emerge ethnically pure continental powers; to prevent white genocide, western societies must be rid of ethnic and religious diversity; all forms of liberalism and democracy arein realityMarxism, and western society will endure a cataclysmic end, from which a pre-enlightement society will emerge.

Over the past ten years I have watched this new thought-architecture of fascism colonise the minds of people who were once only motivated by racism, ignorance and xenophobia. They have backfilled their prejudices with theory. And thats why the danger has increased.

To defeat the new fascism there are three lines of action. The first is obviousactive anti-fascism. Whether it be through monitoring, infiltration or outright opposition on the streets, there is no substitute for mobilising progressives, trade unionists and members of minority communities to deny fascism an active space in civil society. Since civil society has moved online, that also has to mean forcing the social media monopolies to remove, suppress and deter fascist content. The price, unfortunately, will be limits to anonymity.

Secondly, we need an overt political alliance of the centre and the left. Liberalism and socialism have been at war, for justifiable reasons, throughout the 21st century. Now we face a bigger mutual enemy. The lessons of both Italian socialism and German communism, faced with the interwar fascist threat, are that not even a strong, politically educated proletariat could defeat fascism alone.

Hannah Arendt described fascism as the temporary alliance of the elite and the mob. Only twicein the Popular Front electoral coalitions of Spain and France in 1936was it stopped in its tracks, by a temporary alliance of the centre and the left. Today, every left-wing activist is taught that the Popular Fronts were a disaster. They fell apart, for sure, but without them there would have been no left governments.

More importantly, the Popular Fronts created a strong, anti-fascist cultural ethos in the back half of the 1930s, which became the default ideology of the resistance movements of the 1940s. It was created in the movies of Jean Renoir, the plays of Clifford Odets, Bertolt Brecht and Federico Garca Lorca, and the journalism of George Orwell, Martha Gellhorn and Robert Capa. And it lived in peoples minds as an unspoken premise long after 1945.

Karl Loewenstein understood that fascist movements manipulate the weaknesses built into democracy. Democrats, in response, must exploit the weaknesses built into fascismwhich are that you cannot stage a torchlit march if you are in jail, you cannot receive money from a crowdfunding site if you have no bank account and you cannot anonymously advocate genocide if anonymity is engineered out of social media platforms.

Countries where the rule of law is strong, protected by a depoliticised judiciary and explicitly anti-fascist laws, begin this task from a strong basis. The country that begins from the weakest basis is the one most at riskthe United States, the first and second amendments to whose constitution are a licence for fascist activism and violence, and whose separation of power, and federal system, allowed a fascist mob to storm its legislature.

This three-point programmeanti-fascist activism, a new Popular Front and, following Loewenstein, Militant Democracy 2.0will find ready opponents within both liberalism and the left. I understand their reservations.

Its just that, having peered into the innocuous brick outhouse that still stands at Majdanekthe turquoise stains from Zyklon B still on its plaster wallsI dont want to take the chance.

Paul Mason is a journalist, writer and filmmaker. His forthcoming book is How To Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance (Allen Lane). His most recent films include R is For Rosa, with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. He writes weekly for New Statesman and contributes to der Freitag and Le Monde Diplomatique.

Read more from the original source:

Democracy, activism and the rule of lawkey weapons against fascism Paul Mason - Social Europe

Shortly after signing House Bill 1775, Governor Kevin Stitt released this video on Twitter explaining why he signed the bill into law. Oklahoman

Rejecting Martin Luther King Jr.'s ideas, advocates of this way of looking at the world stoke divisiveness and discrimination.

There was a rare moment of bipartisan agreement recentlyconcerning race in America. In the Republican response to President Joe Bidensaddress to Congress, Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican Black man from South Carolina, avowed that America is not a racist country.Within two days Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris affirmed, I dont think America is a racist country. All three acknowledged the history of racism in our country and that racism still exists.

They differ on critical race theory, also called CRT, and its benefit or harm. An examination of CRT's ideas shows its counterproductive effects.

In our lifetimes, there has been a sea change in race relations.

At the time of my birth, the U.S. Army was integrated by President Harry Truman. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional, and President Dwight Eisenhower enforced it in Little Rock in 1957.Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his I Have a Dream speech in 1963 at the March on Washington; in 1965, civil rights icon John Lewis, as a young Black man, helped lead the Selma-to-Montgomery marches over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 endedvoting discrimination and Jim Crow laws.

RELATED: Iowa legislators pass limits on diversity training

In 1966, Five Smooth Stones, an interracial love story, became a best-seller, and in 1967, the movie of an interracial marriage engagementGuess Whos Coming to Dinner won an Academy Award. In 1976 the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated all race-based restrictions on marriage.A Gallup survey showed acceptance of interracial marriage went from 4% in 1959 to 87% in 2013. In 2017,39% even said interracial marriage was not just acceptable but was good for society, up from 24%in 2010.Today, a number of politicians of both parties are in biracial marriages, including Harris.

In 2008 a Black man, Barack Obama, was elected president of the United States and then re-elected.

Protesters gather in Springfield, Missouri, to protest critical race theory being taught in Springfield schools on Tuesday, May 18, 2021.(Photo: Nathan Papes/Springfield News-Leader)

Can anyone deny that our country has made very significant progress in racial fairness and equality in the past 70 years?

Are there still racists in our country?Absolutely, but they are fewer in number than ever,and people of color have more opportunity in our country than ever.A growing Black middle and professional class is testament to that. America is still consideredthe land of opportunity, which is why so many people around the world want to live here.

So why does it feel like we are going backwardin race relations?

It is not my intent to get into the issue of how one defines systemic racism.However, much is written about critical race theory, and its tenets are now being taught in schools.Many people really don't understand what CRT is, but it is the opinion of many jurists that it will actually set back civil rights and be harmful to race relations.

For in-depth analysis, read a 1999article in the Boston College of Law Review by Jeffrey Pyle, Race Equality and the Rule of Law: Critical Race Theorys Attack on the Promises of Liberalism. For many years CRTwas the province of university, law school and academic journals.Now it's being promoted for public institutions, public schools, teacher training programs, corporate human resource training sessions, and diversity workshops for every type of group.

There is no exact creed for CRT. Terms like equity (not to be confused with equality), social justice, diversity and inclusion, and culturally responsive teaching don't really convey itsscope or meaning.It first bubbled up about half a century agofromMarxist intellectuals with echoes ofthe Black power demands from that era.Rather than accepting a class-based dialectic of Marxists, CRT substitutes race for class in order to create a revolutionary coalition based on racial and ethnic categories.Ibram X. Kendi, who directs the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, says, In order to be truly antiracist, you have to be anti-capitalist.

ANOTHER VIEW: The real danger is in the right to ban ideas

Advocates of such ideas lost out in the 1960sto the nonviolent civil rights movement led byKing and the NAACP,which sought freedom and equality under the law.CRT actually disparages Kings dream of a country where one is judged by the content of one's character, not the color of one's skin.

CRT has two common themes: first, that white supremacy maintains power through the law, and, second, that the relationship between law and racial power must be transformed. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic write in "Critical Race Theory: An Introduction" that CRT's writings would reject our founding liberal principles of rationality, legal equity, constitutional neutrality, and incremental civil rights. The substitute: a race conscious approach to social change targeting mainstays "of liberal jurisprudence such as affirmative action, neutrality, color blindness, role modeling, or the merit principle."

CRT would substitute "naming one's own reality" for rationalanalysis. It teaches that civil rights legislation was passed more for Cold War propaganda purposes than to alleviate racial discrimination, that only members of a minority have the authority and ability to speak about racism, that the racial neutrality of law is false, and that our system can't redress certain types of racial wrongs.It tears down without providing answers.

CRT writings advocate the view that separation and reparations should be a form of foreign aid for black nationalists.Some CRT writerseven say that being white is a form of property that whites alone possess, that the white skin of some Americans is like owning a piece of property making achieving the American Dream more likely than white.

CRTs call for equity doesnt sound threatening because it sounds like equality, but there is a huge difference.Equality of opportunity is very different from "equity." Equality of opportunity means that all have a chance to succeed.CRT equity means that everyone gets equal rewards.Note the Marxist tones.Equality to CRT theorists is mere nondiscrimination and provides cover for white supremacy, patriarchy and oppression. UCLA law professor and CRT theorist Cheryl Harris proposes suspending private property rights, seizing land and wealth and redistributing them along racial lines.

In a speech in Dallas in 1966, King said that separate was never equal and called for integration:Segregation is a cancer in the body politic which must be removed before our moral and democratic health can be realized. CRT theorists advocate a new segregation. At Rice University, students demand designated spaces just for Black groups, white peoplenot appreciated. According to the National Association of Scholars, scoresof colleges and universities allow similar segregated centers, spaces and programs. And forget free speech: if you disagree with the CRT program, it is proof of white fragility, unconscious bias, or internalized white supremacy. If you dissent, you must remain silent and accept your complicity in white supremacy.

King thought that liberalisms goal that race should not matter was the ultimate goal of society.Kendi says in his bookHow to Be an Antiracist: The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to prevent discrimination is future discrimination.

On occasion I would sit on the floor of Congress with John Lewis during votes and he would tell me what it was like to walk withKing.King was Lewis'hero.However, to CRT advocates, Kings color-blind constitutionalism is not just nave but "racist."King saw affirmative action as a means to a more inclusive, integrated nation.CRT criticizes even affirmative action as simply transitional assistance that gets in the way of permanent reparations and is thus racist, too.

CRT advocates ridicule equal opportunity that inspires much liberal political and economic thought.They say that there is no such thing and that merit is a racist construct to keep white peoplein control.Thus, students shouldnt see their academic grades penalized for disrupting class or turning in tardy work or not at all. Traditional measures of merit such as grades or test scores are racist, too, because they dont produce equitable outcomes.

Ultimately, CRT reinforces group stereotypes, shames meaningful dialogue, and worsens race relations.Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals argues CRT turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative and that by repudiating reasoned argumentation it reinforces stereotypes. Jeffrey Pyle in the Boston Law Review summarizes, Critical race theorists attack the very foundations of the liberal legal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

CRT has the opposite effect of achieving racial harmony. It leads us to worse race relations, not better.

Dr. Greg Ganske is a retired surgeon and was a member of Congress from Iowa from 1995 to 2002.

Read or Share this story: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2021/05/22/critical-race-theory-harmful-race-relations/5076052001/

Follow this link:

Opinion: Understanding critical race theory reveals how it's harmful to race relations - Des Moines Register

A raging Covid-19 outbreak in India has not hampered the promotion of some questionable science by the government, drawing the ire of some of the countrys scientists.

One example is the Indian science ministrys funding of an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) trial on whether reciting an ancient Hindu prayer, Gayatri Mantra, along with a set of deep breathing exercises in yoga could improve treatment of Covid-19 patients.

The chanting of the prayer is being evaluated along with pranayama breathing exercises from yoga as a pilot study to assess inflammatory markers in hospitalised Covid-19 patients at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Rishikesh, under the ICMR.

Patients will be given instructions on chanting and breathing exercises through video-conferencing for an hour in the morning and evening in the hospital room or at home after discharge, for up to 14 days. The criticism is mostly aimed at the design of the trial, small sample size and pre-conceived bias.

Breathing exercises are expected to benefit Covid-19 patients, says Partha Majumdar, founding director of National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kolkata. But when they are mixed with chanting of the prayer, it will be impossible to separate the effects of the two on Covid-19 patients, he says. Even if the prayer has no effect, which is the most plausible expectation, the beneficial effect of pranayama will show up as the confounded effect of both, he says.

Scientists have also criticised the small sample size just 20 volunteers. It is too small a number for arriving at any inference, especially because we are still unclear about the rather large variability of Covid-19 symptoms during the disease and during recovery, says Subhash Lakhotia, a cytogeneticist at the Banaras Hindu University. The details available at the clinical trials registry also do not make it clear if the analysis would follow a blind protocol. I am surprised that such an irrationally planned research project, even if claiming to be a pilot study, is approved for funding.

A greater worry [with] such directed research is the pre-existing bias, says Lakhotia. Previous studies undertaken to validate the claimed benefits of chanting Gayatri Mantra too suffered from a similar absence of rational planning. Such improperly planned studies are indeed typical of pseudoscience, he says.

On 7 May, Indias Ayush ministry that deals with alternate systems of medicines, ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homeopathy, announced a nationwide campaign to promote polyherbal drugs for Covid-19 patients undergoing treatment at home. It states that the efficacy of these drugs has been proved through robust multi-centre clinical trials, but does not link to any peer-reviewed evidence for this claim.

In February 2021, Indias science and health minister Harsh Vardhan, himself a doctor and surgeon, was present at the launch of a Coronil kit, containing three herbal medicines, which is claimed to boost immunity. It was formulated by self-styled godman Baba Ramdevs company Patanjali. Ramdev initially claimed Coronil was certified by Indias drug regulator and the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO quickly clarified on Twitter that it has not reviewed or certified any traditional medicine for the treatment [of] #Covid-19.

The Indian Medical Association described the claims that Coronil could be used in prevention, treatment and post-Covid care as a false and fabricated projection of an unscientific medicine.

In recent times we are witnessing a trend where governmental agencies offer funding to scientifically validate personal beliefs, says Soumitro Banerjee, a professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, and general secretary of Breakthrough Science Society (BSS) that promotes scientific rationalism. The BSS condemns financial support for ill-conceived research projects when mainstream science is suffering due to the lack of funding, he adds.

Read more here:

Promotion of Covid-19 pseudoscience by Indian government criticised as pandemic rages - Chemistry World