At LSE next week

A panel discussion on freedom to offend.

Freedom to Offend: Academia, Human Rights and Social Progress

LSE SU Atheist, Secularist, and Humanist Society discussion panel discussion

Date: Tuesday 4 March 2014
Time: 6-8pm
Venue: TW1 G.01, Tower 1
Speakers: Professor Timothy Garton Ash, Dr Rumy Hasan, Professor Paul Kelly, Professor Brian Winston
Chair: Professor Chandran Kukathas

The panel attempts to provide a platform to discuss the nature of the right to offend. Is there a right to offend? Does free expression necessarily entails such right? If so, to what extent should the right to offend be granted?

Timothy Garton Ash is professor of European studies at Oxford University.

Rumy Hasan is senior lecturer of science and technology policy research at the University of Sussex.

Paul Kelly is pro-director for Teaching and Learning at LSE.

Brian Winston is Lincoln Chair of Communications at the University of Lincoln.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For any queries contact Bo Liao, email b.liao1@lse.ac.uk or call 07522158370.

From time to time there are changes to event details so we strongly recommend that if you plan to attend this event you check back on this listing on the day of the event.

She decided not to leave him alone

A story I missed a couple of weeks ago – that Whole Foods fired a worker because she stayed home with her kid during a snow emergency.

Rhiannon Broschat, a single mother in Chicago, decided to stay home from work on the freezing cold day of Jan. 28 because school was canceled. Broschat says she looked for someone to take care of her special-needs son, couldn’t find help, and decided not to leave him alone. [Read more…]

Guest post: So much for a “god gene”

Originally a comment by Blanche Quizno on Differences.

This is fascinating research, and it reminds me of a parallel I became aware of a few years ago. Some in the West insist there is a “god gene” and that believing in supernatural deities is instinctual among human beings, essentially.

Daniel Everett went into Brazil as an Evangelical Christian missionary, intent on converting the Pirahã people, a “stone age” tribe that had thus far proven immune to Christian missionary efforts. Everett was certain that HE could, with the help of God, succeed. [Read more…]

Differences

A fascinating article with many implications to explore: We Aren’t the World.

In 1995 a young anthropologist tried to do a popular social science experiment with the Machiguenga, an indigenous people who live north of Machu Picchu in the Amazon basin.

When he began to run the game it became immediately clear that Machiguengan behavior was dramatically different from that of the average North American.

…

The potential implications of the unexpected results were quickly apparent to Henrich. He knew that a vast amount of scholarly literature in the social sciences—particularly in economics and psychology—relied on the ultimatum game and similar experiments. At the heart of most of that research was the implicit assumption that the results revealed evolved psychological traits common to all humans, never mind that the test subjects were nearly always from the industrialized West. Henrich realized that if the Machiguenga results stood up, and if similar differences could be measured across other populations, this assumption of universality would have to be challenged. [Read more…]

What’s a little “not” between friends?

Jacques Rousseau points out how far Ugandan MPs will go in their efforts to persecute gay people.

the ministerial task team advising the President on the bill “falsified the information contained in the report given by medical and psychological experts, twisting it to show that homosexuality should indeed be further criminalised“.

Let’s follow that link, to Shaun De Waal’s article in the Mail & Guardian. [Read more…]

What is even more bone-chilling

Kausik Datta wrote a post on the Philadelphia parents who let not one but two of their children die while they prayed over them instead of seeking medical care.

Not one, but two, of the sons (aged 2 years and 8 months at death) of this über-religious Pennsylvania couple died, in 2009 and in 2013 respectively, of entirely preventable and treatable bacterial pneumonia, because they would not vaccinate or seek medical help when required, instead choosing to pray over the sick child. After the first child’s death, they were convicted of involuntary manslaughter, receiving probation and a mandate to seek proper professional medical help in case of illness of their children. They did not. [Read more…]

Her intention is bad

For more insight into the horrible mind of Dinanath Batra, president of Shiksha Bachao Andola and the plaintiff in the ridiculous yet successful lawsuit against Penguin and Wendy Doniger, there’s a little interview he did for Time.

TIME: What are your objections to Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus?

Batra: Her intention is bad, the content is anti-national and the language is abusive. Her agenda is to malign Hinduism and hurt the feelings of Hindus. [Read more…]

YOU NOTICEE

So about that lawsuit – check it out.

It starts with “Yo, my client is an educationist, and he happened on your book, and he knows you’ve written other books, yo.”

4.       That my client has read the book authored by you namely the Hindus: An Alternative History. That after reading the book my client found it to be a shallow, distorted and non serious presentation of Hinduism. That it is a haphazard presentation riddled with heresies and factual inaccuracies.

AND THAT IS AGAINST THE LAW HOW DARE YOU.

5.       That after reading the said book my client is of the opinion my client states that the aforesaid book is written with a Christian Missionary Zeal and hidden agenda to denigrate Hindus and show their religion in poor light.

6.       That the entire list of the books authored by YOU NOTICEE shows that YOU NOTICEE concentrate, focus and write on the negative aspects and evil practices prevalent in Hinduism. That the words used by YOU NOTICEE for referring to various Hindu Gods are highly objectionable. [Read more…]