Posts Tagged ‘debate’
Danger of dogma
Following our protracted discussion on conservatism and liberalism (for want of better labels)— and differing levels of willingness by adherents to validate the values of ‘The Other’ … by coincidence, here’s William F Buckley on what Andrew Sullivan calls ‘the Danger of Political Dogma’. From a brilliant article What William F. Buckley Would Think of […]
Loyalty, engagement and criticism
Andrew Sullivan is a writer I respect. And that’s for a lot of reasons, whether I agree with everything he says or not. Elements of his ‘The Daily Dish‘ blog have been widely copied by the less imaginative* (Mental Health Break, Face of the Day, Quote of the Day, Tweet of the Week, blog ‘awards’) […]
Debunking science with ideology
Following up on our conversation about differing measures of openness to ideas, depending on self-identification as ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ … Study tracks how conservatives lost their faith in science How do liberals and conservatives differ in their attitudes toward science? Statistics indicate that conservatives’ confidence in science as an institution has declined dramatically since 1974. […]
What you see depends on where you stand
Some respectful discussion today here about open-mindedness and degrees of perception. And so, this — flicked into my tweetstream this afternoon — seems appropriate …
On narrow social focus and moral taste buds
A wonderful book review in the NY Times ‘Why Won’t They Listen?’ sheds some light on the ‘my tribe is better than yours’ bias we discuss here from time to time. Reviewing The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, William Saletan describes how we acquire preferences for social values (liberal v conservative) over time, based on […]
Denounced
I’m writing a post about denunciation and related matters … and look what popped up in my twitter stream: Ha! -P
Stalker Cameron Slater: new year, same bullsh*t
Before last November’s election I posted a comment about National Party proxy Cameron Slater’s intense and apparently undying hatred of Winston Peters in National’s desperados get perfervid about Peters. Of course, that was when it looked like the John Key/John Banks ‘cup of tea’ — plus Peters’ own campaigning ability and talent for capitalising on […]
Governor Chris Christie
Gay marriage vote in NJ faces sure veto from Gov. Chris Christie, who prefers the issue be settled by the voters via pie eating contests Pure genius from whoever runs the parody Twitter account for New York Times public editor. I laughed.
Ellen DeGeneres and ‘traditional values’. Nice.
Watch this. It’s brilliant. From Ellen DeGeneres, facing a boycott threat against JC Penney from people offended she’s gay … “I usually don’t talk about stuff like this on my show, but I really want to thank everyone who is supporting me. … Here are the values I stand for: I stand for honesty, equality, […]
Full of sound and fury
Some who fancy themselves as ‘political players’ put me in mind of this from Macbeth: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a […]
Study: Right-wingers are dumber. Preposterous!
From the RadioLIVE website: A paper, published in Psychological Science, claims that people with ring-wing views tend to be less intelligent than those on the left. It claims that people of lower-intelligence tend towards right-wing views as they make them feel ‘safe’. …. Children on the study were assessed for innate intelligence aged 10 or […]
Hollaback girl Fran O’Sullivan
I generally like business writer Fran O’Sullivan’s work, which can be wide-ranging and interesting and often evinces a robust, seen-it-all-before, how-stupid-do-they-think-we-are? tone. Fran doesn’t often mince words (except for when she does) and she gets points in my book for taking a position, and saying what she thinks — or how the landscape looks from […]
Justifying the dodgy
Mitt Romney seems to be indulging in the “I hit him first but it wuz self defence because I could see he was gunna hit me” justification I expect of a six year old. After reportedly outspending Gingrich five-to-one with ads that were overwhelmingly negative, and explaining his philosophy as “when you’re attacked you’ve got […]
Matthew Hooton and the exquisite agony of being a paid shill
I’ve referred to spin doctor Matthew Hooton before — I positively delight in the shabby transparency of his gums-for-hire faux agitprop and the way he marshals an argument. He’s almost always accessible, usually very much in control of himself, except when overtaken by passion or appetite of some sort, and well, I find him just […]
Media neutrality vs being truthful
We’ve talked before about my distinction (not just mine!) between being ‘impartial‘ (or big O objective) versus being FAIR — which I (naively?) primarily define as telling the truth. Some partisans (who shall remain charitably nameless lest we upset their finely-balanced narcotic calm) seem to me to frequently stoop to spinning half-truths or outright lies […]
