ideology
clock | October 30, 2006Three-in-a-row for Amanda Marcotte, on what liberalism is, totally brilliant (can someone hire her, please, for an editorial page?):
The non-ideological eraLiberalism in ascendanceWho Counts?:
...what conservatives mean when they say they're for "small" government and liberals are for "big" government--those adjectives describe the size of the number of people that count as worthy of government attention, protection, and assistance in their view.
clock | October 27, 2006A follow-up on last week's repost (originally from April 06, 2005)...
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I've been wavering in how to call the Right Wing. When I say "conservatives" I get attacked for equating conservatism with GOP (with implication that conservatism is good but GOP is not conservative any more). When I call them Regressives, I am told I miss the point, because they should be described as conservatives. Should I just call them Republicans? Not damning enough. People, make up your minds!
What follows is a mix of stuff I have already written before on this blog (…
clock | October 25, 2006Publius is on the roll again with two posts, each putting a novel angle to a well-known story:DISTASTEFULLY CORRECTGIMME FICTION
clock | October 24, 2006While we are discussing femiphobia, mysoginy and the "new male anger", you may want to take a break from hundreds and hundreds of comments on all the threads on all the posts (see the links within links on the last link!), and instead read an old, old science fiction story on the topic (is there any ethical dilemma that SF has not covered decades ago?). Gmoke, in a comment on this post on Orcinus links to The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon (aka Jane Sheldon aka James Tiptree Jr). The whole story is online.
Gmoke also cites Wikipedia on the story:
"The story begins with an exchange of…
clock | October 23, 2006NOTE: Bumped to top to draw attention to added links:
Provocative and excellent post by Sara Robinson: There's Something About The Men. Most definitely read the comments as well. Then come back here in half an hour and read an old post of mine that I have scheduled for republishing at 11am.
I know Sara likes Steven Ducat, so she may agree with my position, or perhaps not.
I am expecting responses by Amanda, Melissa, Lindsay, Jill and Echidne among others. This may become an interesting discussion over the next couple of days on feminist blogs and beyond.
Update: Shakespeare's Sister…
clock | October 21, 2006Am I going to link to everyhing Sara Robinson writes? I guess the answer is yes, as long as she keeps churning out posts like this one. It's short - read it twice:
The government cannot harass you or jail you for your associations, your political views, or your religious beliefs. (Or, at least, they couldn't, right up until last Monday.) It does NOT mean that the rest of us non-government types are required to hold our tongues and smile while people say things that are stupid, dangerous, or contrary to fact.
And it is interesting that Mr.WD wrote on the very same topic today:
Tolerance…
clock | October 20, 2006An oldie (March 28, 2005) but goodie, bound to stir up the comment section (why do I post controversial stuff on Fridays when the traffic starts coming down?)
WHAT SHOULD WE CALL THEM?
First, who is "them"? Second, why should they be "called"? Third, who are "we"? Fourth, why "should" we call them anything? Finally, "what" is the appropriate name? These are all interconnected questions, dealing with the current US political environment, and the notion of "framing".
In his book Moral Politics (MP) and later, more explicitely, in "Don't Think Of An Elephant" (DTOAE), George Lakoff…
clock | October 17, 2006Echidne and Amanda found a couple of incredibly stupid wingnut articles attacking Halloween and showing these guys have no idea what feminism is. Lance adds the dimension of fear to this discussion, and Publius moves the fear factor to other areas of life.
clock | October 16, 2006In response to wonderful fisking by Ed of a really silly Creationist screed, Archy comments on the use of the terms "Darwinist" by Creationists, as a marketing tool to paint biologists as dogmatic, while at the same time avoding the term "creationist" in order to paint themselves as scientific:
Their use of the terms "Darwinism" and "Darwinist" aren't the result sheer ignorance; it's a carefully thought out propaganda strategy. An "-ism" implies an ideology or a dogma. It moves evolution out of science and into the land of politics or religion: though which is based on faith or blind…
clock | October 16, 2006Read these two one after another:
This is a new angle and thinking outside the box: Sara's Sunday Rant: The Culture of Planning, Part I
Lance has a nice rant on politics and education: Yahoo culture
clock | October 13, 2006Another one from the post-election 2004 analysis series (November 27, 2004):
My previous post is long, I know. It is quite dense and there are lots of links. Many areas are touched on quite superficially. I have covered some of them in more detail earlier, and intend to cover some others in the near future.
One response to my previous post (on Kos, by "dotpeople", who I believe is Rich Persaud, a brilliant guy who appeared not to have liked me very much in the good old days of the Edwards campaign blog, particularly when I wrote this after Super Tuesday: http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/…
clock | October 10, 2006Absolutely read this: If This Goes On....A Scenario. And read the comments (ignore the trolls, focus on people with insight and information).
Funny, when I wrote this, people said that I was "paranoid" while the point of the post that too many people are not paranoid enough.
I particularly like this comment by someone on digg:
I'd move to another country if I wasn't so terrified of our foreign policy.
On one hand, I do not see the utility of moving from one country to another to another until finally dying on the last Pacific island to feel the influence.
On the other hand, I feel the…
clock | October 10, 2006Since the mere mention of Libertarianism induces so much commenting and traffic, I am assuming people are interested in the topic. That post has a bunch of good old links. Here are three brand new ones - what do you think about each one of them?
by Markos Moulitsasby Bruce Reedby Harold Meyerson
(Hat-tip: Ed)
clock | October 9, 2006As I have written so much about Lakoff before, I feel I should say something - anything - to defend him from the onslaught he's seen lately on Seed's scienceblogs here, here, here, here and here.
What I think is important is to distinguish between several different things that Lakoff does. It appears that the word "Lakoff" triggers different frames in different people!
1. Theory of metaphors. As I stated repeatedly before, I am agnostic about his science. I defer to Chris on that issue. It is possible that Lakoff is wrong on his ideas about mind, language and metaphor. Future research…
clock | October 7, 2006Apparently, there is a big debate between Pinker and Lakoff going on. Both of new Lakoff's books are still on my wish list, i.e., I have not read them yet and I have been out of the Lakoffian loop for a while - too much other stuff is vying for my attention these days.
But I have read the two articles, kindly provided by Razib here and my first impression was: "Pinker's article is one of the most intellectually dishonest pieces of writing I've seen from a cognitive scientist"
Interestingly, Chris had the opposite response:
Lakoff's reply is one of the most intellectually dishonest pieces of…
clock | October 6, 2006David Neiwert: God, evolution, and guns and Naming the enemy
Sara Robinson: The Irony of It All
clock | October 6, 2006
Hmmm, after a whole week of fantastic traffic, it has suddenly gone down through the floor today, so I better act quickly and post something really provocative - an old anti-Libertarian screed that is bound to attract trolls (and traffic)....
Much of the stuff on this blog is based on the bimodal (bipolar?) view of the world: there are Conservatives and there are Liberals, and that's it. Lakoff, Ducat, Frank and the like spend much time explaining the two, or just trying to explain the strange Conservative animals to the Liberals.
But, as I stated before, only about a third of Americans are…
clock | October 4, 2006 Mark Foley and the unmasked Republican Party
Also, welcome to the readers from Leiter Reports (coming here to read this but also hopefully looking around).