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Anthropology Psychodrama Religion

Embrace Bonkersness

June 11, 2014 44 Comments

This Scientology promo video – complete with “floating tone arms” and wildly upbeat mad people – may not be online for long, so watch it while you can. 

Via MeFi, via Anna. 

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Written by: David
Anthropology Not Often Seen Religion Travel

Quiet in the Back

May 11, 2014 11 Comments

The mighty headwear of Nihang Sikhs, Punjab, photographed by Mark Hartman.  

He laughs at your puny Western hats.

Via Mick Hartley.  

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Written by: David
Anthropology Department of Irony Modern Savagery Religion

A Helpline for the Modern Savage

March 23, 2014 13 Comments

Tim Blair quotes Mark Steyn: 

The gentleman had called the Female Genital Mutilation Helpline thinking it was a helpline set up by Her Majesty’s Government to help you find someone to genitally mutilate your daughters. 

And no, he’s not joking.

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Academia History Politics Religion

Elsewhere (111)

February 15, 2014 32 Comments

Via TDK, Theodore Dalrymple on rhetorical leverage and ‘progressive’ self-flattery: 

Professor Lakoff uses the term ‘progressive’ freely. Now there is a framing metaphor if ever there was one. What person of goodwill could possibly be against progress, that is to say betterment of the human condition? So if you are a person in favour of progress – in short, a progressive – only the malevolent could disagree with you.

However, there is a rather large question begged here, namely ‘What is progress?’ There is rarely gain without loss, and loss can easily exceed gain. Human action has unintended and unforeseen consequences, sometimes beneficial, often not. Progress in society is not the same as progress in internet speeds… It is possible for reasonable people to disagree… Yet Professor Lakoff seems to use the term ‘progressive’ as if those he calls progressives brought about progress ex officio, as it were, merely by virtue of their self-designation. This is a form of magical thinking.

I’m reminded of the modesty of Mr George Monbiot, a man who also deploys the word ‘progressive’ as if it were a talisman, and who dismisses his political opponents as dullards struggling with “low intelligence” and racial phobias. 

BenSix on learning to be mute and befuddled: 

These posters and drawing hardly seem to be the stuff of Voltairian pamphlets. They do not renew the liberal flames in me. What should inspire one, though, is the response to them. It is alarming that our national media feels that it cannot publish a drawing of a cartoon man for fear of violent reprisals. If people are scared to show innocuous cartoons, how might they react to a novel that may provoke controversy, or to academic research that might inspire outrage? …If, indeed, Rory Bremner is scared to joke, or Grayson Perry to make art, how many commentators, novelists and scholars have allowed their thoughts to be repressed?

And Jonah Goldberg on hammers, sickles and not saying certain things: 

In its opening video for the Olympic Games, NBC’s producers drained the thesaurus of flattering terms devoid of moral content: “The empire that ascended to affirm a colossal footprint; the revolution that birthed one of modern history’s pivotal experiments. But if politics has long shaped our sense of who they are, it’s passion that endures.” To parse this infomercial treacle is to miss the point, for the whole idea is to luge by the truth on the frictionless skids of euphemism.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments.

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Written by: David
Academia Food and Drink Politics Psychodrama Religion

Elsewhere (95)

June 13, 2013 38 Comments

Chris Snowdon on booze, sponsorship and publicly subsidised temperance zealots: 

With tiresome predictability, Alcohol Concern says this must all be done for the sake of “children.” There is, it seems, no interference into adult pastimes that cannot be justified in the name of those who are prohibited from engaging in them. For the moral busybody, all the world is a crèche.

Peter Wood ponders the bean-counting world of campus gender equity: 

To be “representative of the student body,” approximately 55% of the 52 Title IX Coordinator positions should have been held by women. But in our sample, 83% are held by women. Likewise, women appear overrepresented in the staff positions of the relevant campus offices, but the level of overrepresentation was less than for the top positions (73.1 percent of the positions are held by women). Considering that the overwhelming preponderance of sexual harassment allegations are directed by women at men, the disproportion of women to men in the positions charged with interpreting and enforcing the sexual harassment rules is a legitimate concern. Are male students who are accused of sexual harassment likely to receive fair-minded treatment in these offices? 

Mark Bauerlein* on do as I say not as I do:

When white male President Mills pledges to press for race-based affirmative action, the right reply is this: “Well, then, sir, you must resign your post immediately and call for Bowdoin to hire a racial or ethnic minority in your place.” Keep it simple and direct. Every white male board member of the ACE should receive a message to step down. Let’s ask white male campus leaders to stand up for their own principles and do the thing they want everybody else to do. When white women acquire a disproportionate number of jobs in campus leadership, yet still call for more diversity, they, too, should be asked to withdraw. This is the logic of affirmative action, and if diversity proponents who are white follow it to its conclusion, they should relinquish their positions as soon as possible. 

Jennifer Kabbany notes the difficulties of gendered nouns:

The University of Leipzig has voted to adopt the feminine version of the word for ‘professor’ as its default. In German, professorin refers to a female professor while professor is the male equivalent. Under the new measures, written documents will use the term Professorinnen when referring to professors in general. A footnote is to explain that male professors are also included in the description. Physics professor Dr Josef Käs suggested the change as a joke because he was becoming weary of extended discussions about gendered language. To his surprise, the university board voted in favour of the idea.

And Theodore Dalrymple on jihad, entitlement and Michael Adebolajo:

It is not true that the society in which he lived offered him no opportunity for personal betterment. Adebolajo was for a time a student at Greenwich University, graduation from which, whatever the real value of the education it offered him, would have improved his chances in the job market, especially in the public sector. But it was at the university that he encountered radical Islam, that ideology that simultaneously succours people with an existential grudge against the world and flatters their inflated and inflamed self-importance. It also successfully squares the adolescent circle: the need both to conform to a peer group and to rebel against society.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. [ *Added, via Rafi in the comments. ]

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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.