thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb True multiculturalism—and true human rights, in accordance with original understandings—would involve finding point in common that a variety of cultures could affirm in all integrity. Here’s a splendid example: Islamic Bloc, Christian Right Team Up to Lobby U.N. Oddly, the Washington Post reporter doesn’t seem to approve, but describes the situation using the rhetoric … More ...
Makes sense: if you import the world, then you import the inequalities of the world. The headline says “Census Finds Rising Tide, and Many Who Missed Boat”, but the data suggest it’s less those missing the boat than those getting off the boat who are behind declining incomes in places like LA.
Openness, tolerance and diversity in education: the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has charged a student publication with “disruption” for using photographs of a meeting of a student group, the Movimiento Estudiantil de Chicanos de Aztlan (MEChA). UCSD policy on student publications is rather changeable, it seems. In 1995 they had unequivocally defended MEChA’s … More ...
Talk about “Clinton haters” always seemed misplaced; for obsessions about political leaders left/liberals can’t be beat. Case in point: Drawings Are Still Kicking Nixon Around, from the New York Times “Critic’s Notebook.” Thirty years later and they’re still taken with the idea of Nixon as a phallus. Robert Coover’s The Public Burning would I … More ...
Don’t miss Jason Eubanks’ comment (including links) on spats among Muslims, Jews and homosexuals over who’s the pure victim and who’s aligned with the oppressor.
Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist, provides a textbook example of human rights advocacy: Women’s Rights: Why Not?. He details particular horrendous abuses, claims that’s all “human rights” is about, and attacks people for even raising questions. It annoys him that the Justice Department is examining the legal effect of American adherence … More ...
One example among many of how tolerance works: Baptist Pastor Attacks Islam, Inciting Cries of Intolerance. A past president of the Southern Baptist Convention called Muhammad a “demon-possessed pedophile” (he apparently consummated his 12th and final marriage when the lady was 9 years old), and declared that Muslims worshiped a different God than Christians. … More ...
In America today traditionalist conservatism seems quite radical. It rejects technocracy and egalitarian hedonism—the central tenets of current political and moral discussion—together with ideals like inclusiveness and institutions like the modern managerial state that flow from them. It calls, in fact, for absolutely fundamental changes in the public order and the beliefs that motivate it.… More ...
There’s no reason the logic shouldn’t play out, so I imagine the researcher’s interpretation would be the normal one among social scientists today: Study Examines Homophobia In The Workplace. The “homophobia” was a tendency among both men and women to view an unwanted sexual advance from a man to a man as more serious … More ...
You don’t have to like Thomas Friedman to find something interesting in his account of Iran’s Third Wave. Six hundred years ago Ibn Khaldun noted that ideological governments last 30 years, and there’s no reason modern Iran should be different. Presumably something of the sort will apply to other brands of radical Islam as … More ...