Ferrofluid, that is. Here’s Sachiko Kodama & Yasushi Miyajima having fun with helical iron shapes, an electromagnet and a pool of ferrofluid. 

More here. And some military applications.

In a piece titled The Tyranny of Moderation, Oliver Kamm offers a sturdy and unforgiving defence of free speech, while taking a swipe at the evasion, dishonesty and spinelessness that increasingly surrounds the issue. Kamm points out that free speech is not, and cannot be, a matter of “balance”, “sensitivity” or fatuous moral equivalence, and that the open testing of ideas is not, as some suggest, an “ethnocentric imposition.”

“It is inevitable that those who find their deepest convictions mocked will be offended, and it is possible (though not mandatory, and is incidentally not felt by me) to extend sympathy and compassion to them. But they are not entitled to protection, still less restitution, in the public sphere, even for crass and gross sentiments. A free society does not legislate in the realm of beliefs; by extension, it must not concern itself either with the state of its citizens’ sensibilities. If it did, there would in principle be no limit to the powers of the state, even into the private realm of thought and feeling.

The debate has not been aided – it has indeed been severely clouded – by an imprecise use of the term ‘respect’. If this is merely a metaphor for the free exercise of religious and political liberty, then it is an unexceptionable principle, but also an unclear and redundant usage. Respect for ideas and those who hold them is a different matter altogether. Ideas have no claim on our respect; they earn respect to the extent that they are able to withstand criticism… It is not, in fact, a fine sentiment to require respect. Respect is not an entitlement. It is, at most, a quality that is earned by the intellectual resilience of one’s ideas in the public square… 

If those with deeply held convictions find they receive compensation for injured feelings, then mental hurt is what they will seek out. As one group succeeds, then others will perceive the incentive to fashion comparable demands… Respecting the beliefs and feelings of others is a lethal affectation in public policy. It is easy to depict freedom of speech as liable to cause hurt, precisely because it is true. The policy that follows from that is counterintuitive but essential: do nothing. The defence of a free society involves not taking a stand on its output, but insisting on the integrity of its procedures.”

Amen, brother. Related: this, this, this and this.

Further to recent posts on PC bigotry and the redefinition of racism, La Shawn Barber has highlighted another example of students being steered towards approved kinds of prejudice.

Seattle high school students have at public expense been sent to the annual White Privilege Conference, the stated aim of which is to provide “a yearly opportunity to examine and explore difficult issues related to white privilege, white supremacy and oppression.” Topics headlined for ‘exploration’ include “white man’s pornography”, “multiple systems of oppression” and “transforming whiteness in the classroom.” Given such tendentious subject matter, readers may be forgiven for questioning the extent to which realistic discussion will actually be encouraged, or indeed permitted, and for questioning whether the White Privilege Conference does in fact provide “a challenging, empowering and educational experience.”

Visitors are, however, assured that the WPC is “not about beating up on white folks,” but is instead about “working to dismantle systems of power, prejudice, privilege and oppression.” Whether those two statements prove compatible in practice is, alas, not entirely clear. Dr Peggy McIntosh, a “highly sought-after speaker” on multicultural teaching methods, describes white privilege as “an invisible package of unearned assets… like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.” If that explanation isn’t sufficiently clear or convincing, Dr McIntosh also provides a White Privilege Checklist, which defines white privilege as the ability to “be in the company of people of my race most of the time” and to “avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.” The ability to go shopping without being followed or harassed is, Dr McIntosh asserts, another indicator of heinous racial advantage, as is the ability to find publishers for articles on the “invisible, weightless” phenomenon upon which she happens to opine.

La Shawn Barber notes that racially-fixated ideology isn’t exactly unknown in Seattle’s educational system. Dr Caprice Hollins, the Director of Equity, Race & Learning Support for Seattle’s public schools, has previously criticised individualism, long-term planning (or “future time orientation”) and the speaking of grammatical English as “white values.” The expectation among teachers that all students should be responsible individuals and meet certain linguistic and organisational standards is, according to Dr Hollins, a form of “cultural racism.”

Behold your tax dollars at work, shaping young minds for a brighter tomorrow.

More here and here.

Norman Geras highlights Professor Zygmunt Bauman’s definition of the basis of a leftist worldview:

“The first assumption is that it is the duty of the community to insure its individual members against individual misfortune. And the second is that, just as the carrying capacity of a bridge is measured by the strength of its weakest support, so the quality of a society should be measured by the quality of life of its weakest members. These two constant and non-negotiable assumptions set the left on a perpetual collision course with the realities of the human condition under the rule of capitalism; they necessarily lead to charges against the capitalist order, with its twin sins of wastefulness and immorality, manifested in social injustice.”

However “constant and non-negotiable” Bauman’s assumptions are, they remain wide open to question, not least because his comparison of society with a bridge is so obviously flawed. The components of a bridge do not, I’m assured, have volition. Bricks, cables and metal beams do not make choices that determine their strength. Human beings do make choices that in large part determine their quality of life, however one chooses to measure it.

I doubt anyone here disapproves of social safety nets of some kind, or resents help being offered to people in distress and positions of severe misfortune. The question is how much help is to be offered and on what basis. But given the role of individual judgment in how a person’s life plays out, questions necessarily follow. Lots of questions. Why is a society to be measured by how the least able fare, irrespective of why that inability, or dysfunction, arises and persists? How, one wonders, does a community “insure” its individual members against all manner of “misfortune”? How are people to be insulated from, and compensated for, what are often consequences of their own choices and priorities? How much control is to be exerted and how many freedoms curtailed – including the freedoms of those suffering misfortune? What, exactly, are the intimate practicalities of this vision?

“One has to wonder what kind of ‘awareness’ Islamic Awareness Week was intended to cultivate. Evidently, a free and frank discussion wasn’t – and isn’t – a welcome outcome. And one has to wonder exactly when students became so delicate and so allergic to dissent, even to matters of historical fact.”

Further to this post and this one, Lepton has steered my attention to another example of censorship in the name of religious ‘sensitivity’. From an article by Greg Lukianoff, president of the campus free speech campaign group, Fire:

“Today, Fire announced the decision by a disciplinary panel at Tufts [University] to find the conservative student newspaper, The Primary Source, guilty of ‘harassment’ for, among other things, publishing a satirical ad that listed less-than-flattering facts about Islam during Tufts’ Islamic Awareness Week.”

The advert, available here, suggests a week of alternative discussion topics to “supplement the educational experience.” Topics include slavery in Islamic history, intolerance of criticism, the treatment of gay people and the role of women under Islamic law.

Readers will be relieved to hear that a green think tank, the Optimum Population Trust, has identified a solution to a new and pressing environmental menace, namely human reproduction. An OPT briefing paper, A Population-Based Climate Strategy, argues that couples having two children instead of three would reduce that family’s carbon dioxide output by the “equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.” The OPT regards population growth as a “failure of courage and leadership” and mulls, albeit hesitantly, on the need for “intervention by the state… in individual freedoms for the foreseeable future.” OPT co-chairman, Professor John Guillebaud, claims:

“The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet… The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account… The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.”

It’s easy, of course, to dismiss Professor Guillebaud’s suggestions as a kind of whimsical fascism and not entirely convincing. But regular readers will note how the Professor’s moral calculus is more or less in keeping with that of fellow environmental crusader, Dr John Reid (mentioned here), whose plan to save the world from human beings entails putting “something in the water” – specifically, “a virus that would… make a substantial proportion of the population infertile.” And while the good doctor is happy to share his view of all human life as an extraneous infestation of an otherwise pristine Earth, he’s also insistent that “affluent populations should be targeted first.” Cynics among us might wonder, with some justification, whether Dr Reid and Professor Guillebaud are motivated by an urge to save the planet or by a dislike of human beings.

Meanwhile, Carnal Reason ponders the prospect of “child offset opportunities” and suggests, dryly, that we might pursue this line of eco-logic to its obvious and challenging conclusion:

“We need to consider root causes here. Take the bull by the horn, as it were. If one less child is good, then two less is better, and no children at all is best. But there are obstacles. We will have a problem living the dream, a world devoid of humans, as long as screwing is more popular than dying. What we need is a radical change of thought and lifestyle. A new ethic, a new way of life. A new sexual revolution. You know what I’m talking about. Just think of it as Getting Gay for Gaia. It takes a real man to take one for the home world. You know what you have to do.”

Update: In related news (via Jawa), unhinged ‘conservationist’ Paul Watson describes humanity as a cancer. Vegan diets are good, we’re told, but “curing the biosphere of the human virus will require a radical and invasive approach.”

I recently pointed out how the Guardian’s deputy comment editor, Joseph Harker, has realised that if the meaning of certain words doesn’t support his argument or broad political stance then he can simply change what those words mean until they do support that argument, at least in dim light. Thus, Mr Harker can argue that “all white people are racist” while claiming that he can’t be a racist for saying so, on the basis that racism is, apparently, an exclusively Caucasian vice. Clearly, if one can redefine words to suit an existing argument, rather than rethink one’s argument to fit the meaning of words – or indeed reality – then this affords enormous opportunity, at least rhetorically.

It’s pretty clear from this unilateral definition that Harker isn’t against racism per se. Attentive readers will notice he’s not arguing for a reciprocal moral principle – i.e. that people shouldn’t be prejudged on the basis of their colour or country of origin. Instead, what we see is an expression of PC bigotry and contorted righteousness. It’s not too difficult to see how this linguistic contortion fits with certain kinds of role-play – pretentious victimhood on the one hand and narcissistic guilt fantasies on the other. Perpetuating this outlook might be politically useful to some leftist ideologues and opportunist pressure groups, but it isn’t clear how believing “all white people are racist” helps anyone see further than the colour of a person’s skin.

In response to this article, one of our regulars, Clazy, highlighted the words of Lee Jasper, the “Director for Equalities” for London’s Islamist-hugging mayor, Ken Livingstone. Jasper has argued that “you have to treat people differently to treat them equally.” Clazy regards this as “pure Orwell.” Rightly so, I think.

It doesn’t seem to occur to Jasper or Livingstone that the multicultural ‘identity politics’ of which they’re such enthusiasts can actually exacerbate suspicion and resentment. If some notional “communities” are being treated differently and being encouraged to cultivate difference for social or political leverage, then getting past a person’s skin colour or place or origin seems more difficult, not less. One is continually being reminded of how different a person is, or thinks he ought to be. A cynic might point out that the racial grievance industry – and the various commentators and lobbyists who benefit from it – depends on people being preoccupied by the colour of a person’s skin. And therefore, one might suppose, there’s an incentive to make sure lots of people are.

Scott Burgess has pointed out that some commentators can apparently detect racism in “homeopathic concentrations.” This paranormal sensitivity is, I think, pretty much inevitable among some race industry professionals. The threshold of grievance has to be lowered continually in order to justify further crusading – and, of course, to justify status, funding, media attention, etc. Eventually, left unchecked, this hypersensitivity can reach the level of paranoia, perpetuating the attitudes it claims to oppose.

Carnal Reason points out some neglected merits of courtesy. 

“My nine year old daughter asked why she should be polite to someone who has been rude to her. Courtesy is not a tip handed out to people who deserve it. Courtesy is not about being nice; it is not even about other people. Courtesy is a discipline with the goal of mental clarity under emotional stress. As long as anger is not allowed to displace manners, the mind remains in control. The polite man remains rational. The man who rages becomes unthinking, and thereby stupid.”

Yes, I rather like that.

Oh my. According to DaimlerChrysler, the Smart ForFun2 “awakens the inner child in everyone who sees it.”

Yes, I’m getting that. The feeling, I mean. Not the car. More here.