Chinese Bureaucracy Represses Young Marxists

https://www.npr.org/2018/11/21/669509554/in-china-the-communist-partys-latest-unlikely-target-young-marxists

Actually it's not at all unlikely, coming from a bureaucracy that's spent the past few decades busily trying to convert itself into a bourgeoisie.

And, as a survivor of a political cult myself, I object to Zhang Lifan's misuse of the term "brainwashing," which originated in China and properly refers to coercive persuasion or "thought reform." Its victims are rendered dependent on the cult leader for interpretation of the doctrine. Clearly these young Chinese Marxists aren't brainwashed -- they're thinking for themselves!

City Hall Sam Needs to Read His Constitution

In the latest edition of the Philadelphia Public Record, the columnist using the pen name "City Hall Sam" mentions the calls for the dismissal of Temple Professor Marc Lamont Hill over his  recent remarks at the UN, claiming, "Hate speech is not constitutionally protected nor is speech that can invoke [sic] violence, so it's difficult to understand how the anti-Semitic anti-Israel remarks of this professor are constitutionally protected."

CHS gets it wrong on both counts. As I've written the Record,

In his comments on the attempts to penalize Professor Marc Lamont Hill for recent remarks at the United Nations, City Hall Sam misrepresents both what Hill said, as well as what the First Amendment says. As the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has noted, “Hill’s speech is political expression afforded the most robust protection under the First Amendment. Because Hill spoke as a private citizen on a matter of public concern, the question turns to whether the content of his speech is protected by the First Amendment. Hill’s speech falls far short of any of the recognized categorical exceptions to the First Amendment, including incitement, and [Temple board chair] O’Connor’s invocation of a ‘hate speech’ exception is at odds with every American court to confront the question, including the Supreme Court of the United States.” (FIRE Letter to Temple University, December 3, 2018 - FIRE) Further, they note, “Federal courts have consistently protected public university faculty expression targeted for censorship or punishment due to subjective offense.”

FIRE Letter to Temple University, December 3, 2018 - FIRE

Subjective is the operative word here, as Hill didn't say what CHS attributes to him anyway. As he has made clear,

"I do not support anti-Semitism, killing Jewish people, or any of the other things attributed to my speech. I have spent my life fighting these things... My reference to ‘river to the sea’ was not a call to destroy anything or anyone. It was a call for justice, both in Israel and in the West Bank/Gaza. The speech very clearly and specifically said those things. No amount of debate will change what I actually said or what I meant.”

It's pretty embarrassing that a Philadelphian who actually calls himself "City Hall Sam" would be so ignorant about the document that got its start here. Oh, well -- I guess it would be even worse if he called himself Constitution Hall Sam.

The Patreon problem

Here, Diana Davison addresses the problem of censorship on creator platforms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0DUxPI70Cw

Actually porn is fundamentally just as fuzzy a category as hate speech. Alfred Kinsey found that the single most reliable predictor of whether a subject categorized an image as pornographic wasn't any objective characteristic, but whether it induced in that particular viewer a response he dubbed "visceral clutch," in which certain muscles contracted involuntarily. And of course which images had this effect varied from subject to subject.

And, while Patreon may currently have the legal right to censor users, it doesn't have to stay that way. I agree with John Stuart Mill that not only censorship by the government, but also that by powerful private interests or mobs (often, in practice, it's the latter operating through the former through pressure groups like WAM), is inimical to maintaining freedom of discourse. The ultimate solution is making such platforms, like other essential public utilities, public property so that the First Amendment applies to them.

ERA Campaigners Need to Improve Their Game

The other day I received an update about the effort to get the Equal Rights amendment added to the US Constitution. It linked to a video which, it was promised, would explain the legal strategy planned.

The good news is that it does so. The bad news is that the campaigners are doing a piss-poor job of educating the public about this, which I believe hampers their efforts. Here's what I wrote to my Less Wrong meetup group about it.

I mentioned at a recent meetup that I had yet to see an explanation of how ERA campaigners expected to overcome the deadline attached by Congress to the version of the amendment it passed in 1972.

Yesterday I received an email from Equal Means Equal, linking to the video below, in which it was stated that the legal strategy is explained therein. So I started watching the video with some hope, but also with a wait-and-see attitude, since the text of the email went on to remind the reader of the centuries-long delay between Congress' proposal of the Madison amendment proscribing them from raising their pay during their own term, and its ultimate addition to the Constitution.

I expect any critically thinking reader would immediately think, as I did, "Why are you telling me this about the Madison amendment? Isn't the reason it could be adopted after such a long delay simply that it had no deadline attached to it, whereas the ERA did?" And, as a natural follow-up, "Is the reason you're mentioning this that you don't actually have a better, more relevant argument?"

Well, it turns out the first speaker at the event which this video records does mention the same fact about the Madison amendment -- but she also goes on to explain the actual legal argument they intend to use. That argument is that the purported deadline appears in the preamble Congress attached to the ERA when they  passed it, but not in the text that the states actually ratified.

Assuming this is factually true, and reviewing the language of Article V, it does indeed appear the "deadline" in the Congressional preamble has no legal force, and therefore the campaigners' strategy is a sound one.

Which prompts the question: why the heck wasn't this explained in the email in the first place? Why, instead, does it tell me something completely irrelevant about the Madison amendment?

In fact, in all the many months I've been receiving information from EME, not once has the legal strategy been explained, leaving me, until now, skeptical that, once the thirty-eighth ratification actually happens, it will have any Constitutional effect or be more than a symbolic victory.

Why don't EME and other groups involved in this campaign seem to understand that, if they want to build the maximum public engagement to put pressure on politicians, they need to explain as clearly and prominently as possible why this is constitutionally doable and won't turn out to be waste of effort? It makes me scratch my head.

https://www.facebook.com/WNDCLUB/videos/2192582534288386/

Manipulative Group Makes Another Appearance at Penn

The group calling itself the Christian Union is at 37th Street and Locust Walk again today, the first time I've seen them since March. In a previous post, I described my abusive though brief experience with them, in which they made evident that their method is to disingenuously use relativist arguments to try to undermine someone's sense of objective reality, merely so they can insert their own dogma in its place -- the old cultic "break down to build up" strategy.

I didn't engage them when I saw them again today. Once was more than enough.

"I Accidentally Joined a Cult"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVDZOeFVTxQ

There's a saying in the cult awareness movement: no one ever joins a cult. People join a group of friendly people who seem to be doing interesting, important things, and only later find that they're in a cult. The way I like to put it is that saying there's something wrong with someone because they joined a cult is like saying there's something wrong with someone because they stepped in quicksand. 

I definitely second the notion of some of the commenters that he shouldn't go back to that group -- for any reason.

Langston Hughes described a similar experience in this essay: http://www.spiritwatch.org/firelangsave.htm.

Quote of the Day

"The only time I'm offended by a comedian is when they apologise." -- Ricky Gervais

Credo

The Universe that began as a moral nullity has, by evolving us, given itself meaning and purpose. That's the miracle of reality.

And it will complete its redemption through us as we fulfill our potential as a species-being.

Genital Integrity for All

This week's Philadelphia Public Record is calling for a ban on infant genital mutilation -- but only for those born female. I've submitted the following letter:

There are a couple blind spots in your editorial about genital mutilation.

You write that female genital mutilation "is sometimes euphemistically called female circumcision." What this overlooks is that the word circumcision is also routinely employed as a euphemism for male genital mutilation.

Medical organizations around the world have rejected non-therapeutic infant circumcision as not medically indicated (http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/ ). From ancient Egypt to as recently as the Victorian era, it has been stated quite openly that its purpose is to reduce "excessive" sexual pleasure -- much the same as with female genital mutilation ( http://empathygap.uk/?p=519 ). There is scientific evidence that it does have adverse effects on sexual function, as well as increasing propensities for aggression.

The vast majority of this mutilation in Anglophone countries is not done for religious reasons, poor excuse as those are in any case. It's simply a customary, and lucrative, practice of many doctors.

In addition, thousands of infants born with "ambiguous" genitalia are likewise subject to genital surgery in which they have no choice and which is in no way medically necessary, simply to appease cultural expectations. These procedures, too, create great anguish. ( https://aeon.co/essays/people-born-intersex-have-a-right-to-genital-integrity )

There is no legitimate reason for you to be calling for an end only to female genital mutilation. All infants -- male, female, and intersex -- have a right to genital integrity.

I might add that the adverse effects on sexual function not only reduce men's satisfaction, but also that of their partners.

You can contact the Public Record at:

Philadelphia Public Record
21 S. 11th Street, Suite 205, Philadelphia, PA 19107
Tel: 215-755-2000
Fax: 215-525-2818
E-mail: editor@phillyrecord.com

NPR Promotes Internet Censorship Advocates

Yesterday's edition of All Things Considered featured an interview with representatives of several authoritarian groups with names like Data & Society Institute, Counter Extremism Project, and (most ironically) New Knowledge, all of whom want social media platforms to suppress "extreme" content. Of course, they want to decide for the rest of us what's "extreme." No one arguing the opposite case was given a platform, so I've submitted this comment:

In re: "Critics Say YouTube Hasn't Done Enough To Crack Down On Extremist Content": No, we are not comfortable with a paternalistic approach, and we shouldn't be. As John Stuart Mill explained a long time ago:

"He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them... he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.” (On Liberty)

Social media platforms must justify their oligopoly by acting in the public interest, and that means not censoring content that is legal. What they can do is help keep us out of the "filter bubble" by showing us things we're likely to disagree, as well as agree, with on the subjects that interest us. This doesn't and shouldn't mean targeting any particular content; rather, it means using both people's "likes" and "dislikes" in the algorithm that decides what to show them next.

But we don't have to wait for the platforms to act. Any individual who wants to put in the time and energy can engage in their own freelance "cognitive infiltration" by finding people who may be getting dangerously "bubbled" and exposing them to contrary information.

Review: Two Souls of Socialism

Two Souls Of Socialism by Hal Draper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is an interesting work in that it puts the idea of socialism in a much broader context than usual, tracing it back almost to the beginning of recorded history. It's thought-provoking to realize that some of the questions that have divided the modern socialist movement have much older antecedents.

My only complaint, as someone schooled in historical materialism, is that the contrast between socialism-from-above and socialism-from-below is almost too abstract; attempting a generalization across such a broad stretch of time seems to come at the expense of really situating the individual examples in their historical contexts.



View all my reviews

I Am Now on Gab

 I'll continue to also be on Facebook and Twitter for the foreseeable future.

https://www.gab.com/stripey7

Gene Editing, Food Insecurity, Voter Disenfranchisement, and More!

The new issue of One Step Away, Philadelphia's street paper, has articles on all these topics as well as contributions by several of the vendors, including my piece "'Identitarian Realism,'" previously published here. If you're in the area, please buy a copy from your favorite vendor and check it out!

Joke of the Month

Why is there no customer service on a ghost ship? Because it only has a skeleton crew.

#MeToo: Children Following the Bad Example Set by Adults

Children are now imitating the adults they see on TV in the destruction-by-accusation craze.

https://fundly.com/defense-fund-for-keith-bailey-1

 

Additional information about the case:

 

https://gazette.com/education/colorado-springs-area-eighth-grader-arrested-in-what-father-claims/article_e3fa3ec8-cc0e-11e8-bebe-67ec51720a6f.html

 

https://www.dangerous.com/49605/boy-13-arrested-cuffed-and-dragged-from-school-over-metoo-allegations/

 

 

We Only Have the White

Yesterday I asked someone serving me coffee for Splenda. She apologized, saying, "We only have the white." I resisted making a joke about the Jem'Hadar.

Disneyville

The other day I finished reading 2010: Odyssey 2. It suggested this commercial:

"David Bowman, you've just travelled thousands of times further from Earth than any human being before you and returned as a being of pure energy! What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to Disneyville!"

Being Heard About Abortion

Yesterday I got to participate in a "deliberative forum" co-sponsored by Temple and Carnegie Mellon Universities, to which I was invited by BeHeardPhilly.com. It was an exercise in listening and exchanging views on a controversial topic in a civil fashion based on the principles of conflict resolution, where the objective is primarily to understand others' perspective and not necessarily to come to agreement.

In this case the topic was the regulation of abortion clinics. Since it soon became apparent that all the participants at my table were pro-choice but also saw it as desirable to minimize the number of people who feel compelled to choose abortion, much of the discussion focused on ways to provide alternatives to abortion and to prevent unwanted pregnancies. This gave me the opportunity to advocate for single-payer health insurance as well as a constitutional amendment to turn all large companies into public enterprises which any citizen could join at will -- both measures that would reduce financial motives for choosing abortion.

The question my table put to the panelists -- "What are the most effective methods of social influence for persuading morally conservative people to refrain from trying to impose their morality on others through law?" -- unfortunately didn't get a good answer because none of the panelists was a psychologist or behavioral scientist. But I wrote the title of my recent blog post where I attempted a partial answer to this question on the back of a card with this blog's address on it and gave it to the two panelists who'd attempted a response, as well as a couple of the people at my table.

On the whole it was a rewarding experience. I'd encourage others in this area to sign up with BeHeardPhilly.

Breaking the Silence Comes to Penn

Flyers posted around Penn's campus announce that a talk on "Breaking the Silence: An Israeli Soldier on the Israeli Occupation" will be given 4pm Monday, 8 October, at the Perry World House Global Policy Lab (3803 Locust Walk), by a member of that group, which consists of Israeli soldiers speaking out about the realities of the occupation.

Strangely, I can't find anything about this event on PWH's website; perhaps they're trying to avoid interference from Zionist trolls. But here's an article about Breaking the Silence:

http://aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2010/February/14%20o/Breaking%20the%20Silence%20Women%20Israeli%20Occupation%20Soldiers%20Speak%20Out%20By%20Stephen%20Lendman.htm 

And here's the group's Website: https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

 

Exciting Discussions at Mythcon V

https://quillette.com/2018/09/24/amidst-the-youtube-junkies-of-mythcon-i-witnessed-a-new-kind-of-radical-centrism

This sounds like a fascinating meeting and I wish I could have been there. My only quibble with the article would be that, while perhaps the label "centrist" fits most of those who attended, it's perfectly possible to be far from the political center and still be for liberal intellectual values and against ideological tribalism. That is my own position as a libertarian Marxist and I know I'm not alone in it.

A New Surge of Support for My Petition to Amnesty!

In just the past few days we've got 12 new signatures, bringing the total to 34. Thanks to everyone who's making this happen, and please keep it up!

When we reach the 100 milestone, that would be a good time to bring it to Amnesty's attention. Let's get them back to the concept of universal human rights, not gender ideology!

https://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-usa-end-or-reform-amnesty-international-s-sexist-troll-patrol-program

When Confronting Media Illiteracy, It's Important Not to Replace It with Indoctrination

The July/August issue of The Pennsylvania Gazette contains an article about Penn alumna Erin McNeill's advocacy group Media Literacy Now. Properly construed, media literacy is an important issue, but I see reason to doubt whether her group's approach to it is truly evidence-based and free of ideology. I've submitted this letter to the Gazette:

Erin McNeill says, "Media literacy is about understanding the messages that we see and consume." But who decides what those messages actually are?

A repeated point of contention for several decades has been disagreement about what ideas various media -- from comic books, to sexually suggestive ads, to pornography, to video games and now comics again -- actually are conveying to their consumers.

In the 1950s, for instance, Fredric Wertham promoted a threat narrative about comic books which led to congressional hearings but is now largely discredited. Similarly, in the '80s one-sided hearings were held to promote a threat narrative about pornography which has little basis in science.

It troubles me that McNeill combines uncontroversial points like teaching young children about the decision-making structures and commercial interests behind what they see on television, with talk about identifying "bias, sexism, and racism in media," as if the question of what sorts of media content are actually promoting these and other kinds of bias were not, in fact, hotly disputed to this day.

Instead of a special subject of "media literacy" into which educators could inject their own ideological biases, it would be better simply to make the skills of critical thinking itself a core, ongoing part of the curriculum.

McCarthyite Scare Campaign Attacks Alternative Media

Mainstream media are attacking their competitor YouTube by pushing a McCarthyite report on "alternative influencers" that implies letting people hear a variety of ideas and interact with their presenters "radicalizes" them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHaN1DS0KWU&feature=share

PGN Perpetuates Negative Nerd Stereotypes

This week's edition of the Philadelphia Gay News carries an editorial cartoon continuing the false stereotypes of nerds, and gamers in particular, as being misogynistic. I've submitted this letter to the editor:

I'm disgusted by the false stereotype of nerds in this week's editorial cartoon.

"Those nerds might appreciate a girl -- any girl -- joining their class!" Oh, really? In fact there are lots of women and girls in gaming and other parts of nerd culture.

Here's a video of three women actively involved in speaking out against being "invisibilized" by the false stereotype that all gamers are cishet white guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzrUsi6Y1s&t=1s

And here are thirty more gamers who don't fit that stereotype -- 22 of them women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzwGIHUCtjU&t=2s

For ongoing coverage and discussion of nerd culture anchored by three women, check out this website/podcast: www.honeybadgerbrigade.com.

If any girls are discouraged from getting involved with nerd culture, it's usually not the boy nerds who are doing it. It's all the people outside of the culture who perpetuate the false stereotype. PGN shouldn't be part of that.

P.S. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that it's inherently derogatory to suggest that only members of a particular demographic group are interested in a particular kind of hobby. The only problem with that is its potential to discourage members of other groups to pursue the same interests. What was inherently derogatory was in the following panel, where it was implied that male nerds had been uniformly opposed to a female Doctor Who and that the reason for this was misogyny. There actually was no such uniform opposition, while it's not hard to think other possible reasons for such opposition as there was. For one thing, inasmuch as the Doctor is supposed to have continuity of personality from one incarnation to the next, doesn't regeneration as a woman pose the potential for gender dysphoria? (We see the reverse of this process depicted in Dreadnought, a novel about a transgender superhero who's finally freed of gender dysphoria when the cape she inherits gives her a perfect body, including one of the right sex for the first time.)

I just called Senator Hirono's office to express my outrage that someone sworn to uphold the US Constitution has, in just a few sentences, attacked both the freedom of speech and the presumption of innocence, as well as promoting the false stereotype that men and only men are responsible for sexual violence, something for which women actually show a comparable propensity (see attachment). SAVE's message about this, slightly edited, is below.

Hello Eric,

Most Americans believe free speech and the presumption of innocence are cornerstones of democracy. But not Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawii.

In a recent interview about the sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, Hirono remarked,

"Not only do women, like Dr. Ford, who bravely comes forward, need to be heard, but they need to be believed. Guess who's perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? It's the men in this country. And I just want to say to the men in this country, 'Just shut up and step up. Do the right thing for a change.'"

Are we going to acquiesce to Hirono's call to end free speech and the presumption of innocence? If not, please call her office now: (202) 224-6361.

Sincerely,

The SAVE Team

New Visions, Old Acquaintance

I spent a few hours last week at Elwyn Institute, where my friend Rey Williams, who's developmentally disabled, had invited me to the New Visions program's Annual Recognition and Awards Ceremony. He was one of those who received a certificate.

An interesting part of the experience was seeing again the director of the program, Sharon Amill (nee Potts), for the first time since we'd attended many of the same classes from the fourth through the eighth grade at H. C. Lea School.

AE-35

The first science fiction I ever read was 2001: A Space Odyssey, when I was ten. This morning I just finished re-reading it.

While, unsurprisingly, I got more of the symbolism this time, I'm a bit puzzled by the blurbs describing the story itself as an allegory. But I did just get an idea while reading this article about the AE-35 unit: https://www.shmoop.com/2001-a-space-odyssey/AE-35-unit-symbol.html

It says, "The most human part of the ship, then, is in some sense this little gadget." And this reminds me of something I heard a few years ago at a filk circle. There was a song called "Lab 35," and it was an allegory about the creation of humanity by God. It was explained to me that the title refers to the fact that the Hebrew numerals for 35 also form the word meaning "human." Perhaps the designation Clarke gave this unit wasn't random.

I think the image below was the cover of the copy I read when I was ten, or something very much like it.

"Identitarian Realism"

It struck me today that the ongoing campaign of "left" identitarian authoritarians (sometimes called "social justice warriors" or SJWs) to infiltrate and take over various geek subcultures and then try to drive out anyone who doesn't conform to their agenda, is analogous to the "socialist realist" school promoted as the only valid form of art and literature in Stalinist Russia.

Socialist realism insisted that art had to portray class struggle along the lines of a simplistic, vulgarized kind of Marxism. While this was ostensibly supposed to advance the interests of the workers, its real function was to allow the Stalinist bureaucracy to maintain an iron grip on thought within the USSR and prevent the appearance of any independent working-class politics.

Similarly, SJWdom is ostensibly about advancing the interests of various "marginalized" groups as defined by postmodernism-inspired identity politics, but its actual function is to help a section of the Western intelligentsia maintain its grip on a section of the academy and to further extend it by taking over one area after another. This campaign isn't limited to geek subcultures, but a lot of the effort has gone there first, probably because these are seen as smaller and easier targets than some other aspects of society.

It should be noted that there's an intellectual confusion, promoted by the Right, that tries to conflate this sort of identity politics with Marxism, often by calling it "cultural Marxism." This is quite inaccurate, since IDpol is neither class-centered nor, in the last analysis, even materialist -- both essential features of Marxism. To be sure, identitarians will occasionally reference class -- usually as part of the stock phrase "race, class, and gender." But it's interesting that, of all the categories of "marginality," this is the one that they most often omit to mention -- probably because the working class is the only such group to which none of the core SJWs belong, a fact to which it wouldn't serve their interest (or self-image) to draw attention.

The implicit rationale for calling IDpol "Marxist" would seem to be nothing more than its totalistic character -- combined with a false of equation of Stalinism to Marxism -- but by that reasoning one might just as well call Christian fundamentalist politics "Marxist," which would be manifestly ridiculous.

In fact, as others have argued, postmodernism and its political offshoots are better seen as a stratagem whereby capital, expressing itself through corporatized universities, has seduced many intellectuals who like to see themselves as radical to abandon any effective kind of radicalism by replacing the materialist focus on class, and the concrete institutions that maintain class, with a semantics-obsessed preoccupation with the abstraction of "marginality." This leads to a politics that is more interested in symbolism than substance and, to the extent it has a practical effect, is about advancing a layer of "marginal" people within the structures of the academy and other institutions. Or, as Chris Hedges has put it, "It was always about patronage, not revolution."

Far from undermining capitalism, this performs the function of reinvigorating it by co-opting "the best and brightest" from various demographic groups, giving them a stake in the present system, while splintering the working class.

P.S. On Twitter, where I've posted a link to this piece, Hannah Wallen (@oneiorosgrip) suggests the focus on geek subcultures is because this is where the most creative activity occurs, and totalitarians can't allow creativity.

Troubling Anomalies in the Honey Badgers Case

Disturbing anomalies in Alison Tieman's case against Calgary Expo and The Mary Sue: after the pretrial settlement conference but before the trial  itself, a Justice of the Alberta Supreme Court stepped in and tried to pressure her to settle, in the process making aspersions about her motivations, calling her "stubborn," etc. And now, weeks out from the judgement against her, the court still hasn't published it nor sent her the copy she ordered. (Very long interview.)

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DWc6kTWeo1k#

Today I saw someone in a T-shirt bearing the image of a "Toynbee tile" -- a very inside way of saying, I'm from Philly.

Twenty Have Now Signed!

There are now 20 signatures on my petition calling on Amnesty USA to "mend or end" its sexist "Troll Patrol" program, which departs from their founding commitment to the ideal of universal human rights by treating only online harassment of women as being of any consequence, even though harassment of men is more common.

Please let your friends know about the growing support for this effort. Thank you!

https://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-usa-end-or-reform-amnesty-international-s-sexist-troll-patrol-program