Category Archives: Transhuman News

In 2020, the Orwell Foundation awarded its book prize in political writing to Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me by former teacher Kate Clanchy. According to the judges, "Clanchy's reflections on teaching and the stories of her students are moving, funny, full of love and offer sparkling insights into modern British society."

On Tuesday, the foundation had second thoughts. With the book facing criticism of ostensibly demeaning descriptions of minority, immigrant, and autistic students, the foundation issued a statement acknowledging "concerns and hurt" about the book and distancing itself from "individual judging panel decisions."

The Orwell Foundation statement wasn't the worst response to the controversy, which provoked a torrent of online abuse. The author herself issued a groveling apology before tweeting that "I am not a good person...You are right to blame me, and I blame myself." She announced that she will rewrite future editions of the book to avoid offense. The book's publisher also declared itself "profoundly" sorry for the episode.

While its actual content is less egregious than those remarks, the foundation's response is symbolically more damaging. Orwell is best remembered as the creator of a dystopia in which totalitarian ideology, pervasive surveillance, and constant editing of the past to meet the political requirements of the present make individuality impossible. By refusing to defend the book it once honored and the judges who selected it, the Orwell Foundation is confirming its namesake's fears.

Continued here:
The Orwell Foundation gives in to cancel culture - The Week Magazine

Get ready for a new round of "white replacement" tirades from Tucker Carlson.

The Washington Post reports that when the first demographic breakdowns from the 2020 census are officially unveiled later this week, they'll show that the number of white people in the country isshrinking. White people will still command a majority, but by thinning margins making up less than 60 percent of the population, and composing less than half of the under-18 population. By 2045, it's expected that whites will lose their majority status altogether.

The news is likely to have terrible effects on our politics.

It's not a new observation that the dwindling power of white Americans has driven the anti-democratic radicalization of the Republican Party. Conservatives' recent fascination with Viktor Orbn's rule in Hungary can be explained, in part, by that country's ethnic homogeneity, as well as Orbn's fierce efforts to maintain it by crusading against immigrants from Asia and Africa. Donald Trump's rise was enabled by right-wing intellectuals who lamented that "the ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners" made the country "less traditionally American with every cycle."

"Every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter," Carlson grumbled on his Fox News show in April.

But immigration doesn't explain why the number of white people isgetting smaller. One demographer told the Post the phenomenon has been accelerated both by the opioid epidemic and lower-than-expected birth rates among millennials following the Great Recession. The latter development, of course, has also sparked angry culture war posturing by Republican politicians.

To the extent that these developments are rooted in despair and economic hopelessness and not, say, the predictable effects of affluence Democrats and Republicans both should be prepared to offer solutions. (Democrats are already arguably doing their part, with tax credit payments to parents, and by driving the new infrastructure bill that should create a ton of newjobs for workers of all races.) If recent history tells us anything, though, it's that the census news will create a fresh wave of right-wing anger, and that much of it will be directed against America's minority populations. Our ugly politics are probably going to get uglier.

Read the original:
The census is about to set our politics on fire - The Week Magazine

What is humor? What makes us smile, what tickles our funny bones? Humor is a very serious subject for some, mostly those involved in therapy and counseling where humor has been found to be an indicator of ones emotional and mental state. But for most of us humor is what we seek, consciously or unconsciously, as escape from the mundanities of life, as small detours in times when either stress or boredom beg for respite.

In fact, humor has been separated into five basic categories: Topical, Anecdotal, Parody, Traditional and the One Liner. As a member of the Television Generation, I have laughed at the humor represented by all five categories; some of you will no doubt recognize some of the names of those who brought laughter into our homes and lives and some are people in my life who consistently made me laugh over the years.

As the television set found its way into more and more homes, those who were instrumental in both its scientific and cultural development were goaled with providing the public with reports on weather, crops marketing and government actions, what they got were game shows, soap operas, variety shows and product advertisements and only 15 minutes of news daily. It was the earlier variety shows and then later the late-night talk shows that brought laughter to our living rooms, and those most responsible for that laughter in the late 1950s through the mid-1970s were Jewish comedians.

This followed from the influence of Yiddish translated to English by Vaudeville performers from Europe, and quite often this humor was born of hardship, like this one from Manhattans Lower East Side in the 1920s:

Lady shopper to street fruit vendor: How much for the grapefruit?

Vendor: Two for a nickel.

Lady: How much for one?

Vendor: Three cents.

Lady: Ill take the other one.

Or like the once well-known story of the man taking his son along for the first time on a business trip and looking out the coach window of the train to the platform where the whole family is gathered to wish him off when the father tells the boy to Throw Mama from the train a kiss.

Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin were once a famous comedy team. Lewis was Jewish and when something would go wrong in a comedy sketch he was known to utter Up the street the soldiers are marching down; this typical of the grammatical structure one gets with Yiddish-infused English.

And, as mentioned before, many of the early television comedians were Jewish: Jack Benny, George Burns, Milton Berle, Jackie Mason, Allen King and scores of others who worked small clubs in the East and resorts in the Catskill Mountains of upper New York state, The Borscht Belt. It was in these venues comedians mastered the One-Liner; many people know Take my wife, please, the Methuselah of one-liners from Henny Youngman; later we knew Rodney Dangerfields My wife and I were happy for 20 years . . . then we met.

For most of us, our earliest introduction to humor comes in the form of the Knock-Knock joke; silly most of them, but to the young, silly is funny. My favorite knock-knock I heard for the first time only about six months ago: Knock, knock. Whos there? Interrupting bird. Interrupting bir. . . Gaaawwwk!! Got a granddaughter who thought that was very funny and Im sure has passed it along. Another favorite humor theme for the younger set is Why did the chicken cross the road jokes, of which there are as many answers as there are imaginations.

Other humor is funny, but not silly. There are times when we need a dark humor just to overcome the dark times and so we resort to what is known as Graveyard Humor; a light look at a serious situation. Examples of this type of humor go back as far as the founding of the country: in meeting of the Continental Congress it was remarked that the endeavor to separate from the English Crown would require all members participation, we must all hang together. Whereupon Benjamin Franklin dryly responded, Or most assuredly we will all hang separately.

George Gobel on Johnny Carsons The Tonight Show once lamented that his uncle was always annoyed that he never received any respect for his wartime duty, and when Carson asked, What did your uncle do in the war? Gobel replied, He was a look-out at Pearl Harbor. Thats funny even though thousands lost their lives that day; I have never heard such a joke about Sept. 11, 2001. A lesser cousin to graveyard humor is the edgy, almost politically incorrect humor found in older sketch comedy routines; and example goes something like this:

Tell me, Mr. Bones, how do I keep my dog from biting me on Monday? The answer is simple, Mr. Tambo, you shoot the dog on Sunday! A version of this joke appeared in the musical White Christmas.

But for modern comedians, and audiences, the telling of jokes doesnt work near as well as the anecdotal humorous story, the telling of personal events in ones life. Often, or always, in such re-tellings expand those aspects, which strikes a humorous tone. Such humor is found in the writings of Mark Twain, James Thurber and other early American writers; today all stand-up comedians, TV and film/video writers and cartoonists rely almost entirely upon this type of humor.

In my own life, I have written in this publication and in a couple of short stories for writing classes over the years about the time, as a bag boy at Safeway here in town, I ended up inside an upside-down shopping cart; painful for me but funny for others.

I said I would mention some people in my life who over the years made me laugh as joke tellers, not just their material but their delivery being of equal standing. Well, Im out of space so let me just say, Thanks for memories, Jimmy Jones and Stephen Bruce Scettrini.

Take care. Peace.

Read more:
Funny Papers Again Column | Did You Hear the One About - King City Rustler

Chennai:

The debate, for the most part, was uncontentious, and all MPs in both the Houses were keen on demonstrating their support for the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh Amendment) Bill. A cynical way of looking at this unusual consensus is that nothing unites the political class as much as electoral opportunity. The principle thrust of the amendment Bill, after all, is to pave the way for States and Union Territories to make their own Other Backward Class (OBC) list.

Essentially, the Bill was required to side-step the Supreme Court verdict, which held that only the Centre had the authority to prepare an OBC list, a power that flowed from the Constitution (102nd Amendment Act). The latter was passed by the Narendra Modi government to confer constitutional status on the National Commission for Backward Castes. While the Centre argued that its intent was never to strip the States and the UTs of their right to draw up OBC lists, the Opposition had a point in saying that by introducing another Amendment Bill, the Centre was only trying to clean up a mess of its own making.

But exactly what social purpose will the Bill serve? It is possible that this will give a fillip to demands for a caste census to determine the percentage of OBCs in States and UTs. It is likely that demands by one community or another to be placed in the OBC category will grow louder. What such legislations do not ensure, and this in many ways is the nub, is a greater share of reservation for the backward classes. This remains capped at less than 50 per cent by the so-called Mandal judgment of the Supreme Court in 1992 (Indira Sawhney v. Others).

In the interim, the significance of the decision lies more in the airy realm of political signalling. With a number of States going to the polls next year most critically, Uttar Pradesh the BJP probably believes that this move will increase its traction with the OBCs. This is our decision and we will see to it that the community gets justice, thundered Amit Shah at a rally. There is no doubt that the OBC community is a major constituent and is critical to determining electoral outcomes in a number of States. The BJP has made considerable headway in winning its support in recent years, as clearly revealed by the election results from the northern States.

Whether such Bills make a tangible difference in the electoral arena is unclear. But at the very least, it does not hurt and provides a talking point. In the Lok Sabha, Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP of misleading the OBCs, by providing them token representation. The SP leader is not incorrect in suggesting that the real power is elsewhere in the BJP, which is something of an anomaly as an upper caste party with a lower caste electoral base. Such arguments will play out strongly as Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls in February 2022, quite easily the most significant electoral contest until the 2024 general election.

See more here:
Opportunity and the OBC Bill - DTNext

Ismail Lagardien

Ismail Lagardien is a writer, columnist and political economist with extensive exposure and experience in global political economic affairs. He was educated at the London School of Economics, and holds a PhD in International Political Economy.

Much as one tries to accept and promote free speech as part of democracy, it is difficult to keep a lid on the most wilfully expedient and their pitiful attempts at intellectual occlusion. We tend to look to EFF leader Julius Malema to say tortured things out of context or make claims that are intellectually superficial, which do no more than whip up the emotions of his followers. The DAs Dianne Kohler Barnard is not above such lowbrow manipulation. Just for the record, the ANCs Maite Nkoana-Mashabane has given us a few gems.

Anyway, Kohler Barnard sent out a tweet at 10.04am on 9 August in response to a tweet, by one Hans-Erik Iken, which celebrated the medal haul of the Netherlands at the Tokyo Olympics: Not bad for a tiny country with about 17 million people in it

In a mild case of bile rising, Kohler Barnard tweeted: And we brought home how many? The subtext being that a country of close to 60 million people (South Africa) ought to have achieved much more at the Olympics and brought back a few more medals.

Whether or not you agree with them, understand them (which can be impossibly difficult), or you have generally signed up to their intellect and ideas, most rhetoricians (from Cicero to Roland Barthes or Jacques Derrida) have made statements that startle and inspire. Politicians, especially those who simply seek attention by asking rhetorical questions, and especially those who ask questions but dont hang around for answers, should be held accountable and require greater scrutiny than thinkers like Barthes or Cicero. That is probably why we focus on the oration of Malema; because he is as masterful an orator as he is a manipulator of populist sentiments.

I am not drawing ideological parallels between Malema and Kohler Barnard. I do, however, think Malema weaponises all that is generally true about the history of injustice in South Africa and throws down carefully couched threats against non-Africans. Kohler Barnard, in Zille-esque fashion, desituates her claims and observations (removing them from all the contexts that shape states of affairs). And so my response to Kohler Barnards tweet was this: Youre smart, think about history and deep wells of social, cultural, symbolic and economic forms of capital built up over more than 400 years not all of which were benign.

To anyone sceptical or amused by Twitter as a source of news and information, I would refer to the way that the platform entered the political arena when it was used by Donald Trump to political ends, and by South Africans as a firestarter.

Forms of capital

Since (at least) the publication of Robert Putnams Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community about two decades ago, there has been a glut of literature on social capital. It was about two decades ago, while I was at the World Bank, that I co-drafted a paper on social capital for Jo Ritzen, a Dutch Labour Party politician who became a vice-president at the bank. That was one of those moments when you make a contribution to a draft and follow the request of your instructor and hope your name is never mentioned. Alas, he gave me credit on the front page. I returned to academia and put all that behind me.

Anyway, those of us trained in and associated with the Critical Tradition in the social sciences (yes, Helen, including Critical Race Theory), have typically drawn on the work and ideas of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (I should admit my bias immediately). Bourdieu expanded the concept of capital way beyond the elementary conception, which includes forms of capital that stress material exchanges, including immaterial and non-economic and (specifically) cultural and symbolic capital.

Bourdieu explained the way that different types of capital can be acquired, exchanged and converted into other forms to the extent that its structure and distribution reproduce the structure of the social world including those structures, mechanisms and tendencies that we cannot detect with our senses. Once you understand this process, according to Bourdieu (I have also drawn on the ideas of the late Roy Bhaskar), understanding the multiple forms of capital necessarily assists with a more sophisticated understanding of the structure and function of the world around us.

Briefly, types of capital are almost always and in various ways derived from economic capital. In this way, cultural and social capital are fundamentally rooted in economic capital, but we have to be careful to not be too economistic about things. The key is to understand the ways that social, cultural and even symbolic capital retain their power precisely because of their structural relationship to economic capital. So, enough of the academic jibber-jabber.

Kohler Barnards Zille moment

My twitter response to Kohler Barnard is rooted in the idea that it is okay to compare all countries, as cartographic entities, but people are living there. In most cases the people in those countries are amassed within the borders of countries (or expelled) with or without their permission. If, however, you delve beyond the cartographic entities (the way things are) and consider the history and evolution of society (how we got to where and how we are), an infinitely better, more comprehensive picture emerges.

In other words, the Netherlands and South Africa are countries (on a map of the world) that enjoy internal and external sovereignty. But not all of them came to be as powerful or as weak as they are on the surface. The Constitution of the Netherlands dates back to 1814, with important changes in about 1983. South Africas democracy, as enshrined in the Constitution, came into force in 1996.

The Netherlands was a force in the world for much of the period between 1585 and 1740. It was an outstanding power in world trade and shipping which effectively revolutionised the global economic order. It is possible to make the argument that the power and dominance of the Netherlands provided the impetus for European colonial expansion. For instance, Antwerp would supersede what were great economic hubs (like Lisbon, Venice and Genoa), and went on to markets on all continents of the world. Dutch power between 1585 and 1740 was unprecedented in the history of global economic development.

Now, push aside the map of the world which makes South Africa, the US, Israel, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia all equal and consider the abundance and proliferation of forms of capital accumulated by the Netherlands over the past 400 years. Then place that next to South Africas barely 30 years of democracy, with all its flaws

None of this absolves any of us from the corruption, ethical lapses, cronyism, prebendalism and violence in South Africa. What it certainly does not do, and I have to stress this, is explain away the privillege the European settler colonialists enjoyed in the country between 1585 and 1740. DM

Excerpt from:
Kohler Barnards Zille moment: The absurdity of comparing SAs Olympic medal count with that of the Netherlands - Daily Maverick