Falsehoods about the Holocaust can be combated in both speech and writing without any need to speak face to face.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Study Alleges ‘Honour’ Killings Conspiracy
Feb 3rd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonInformal networks of taxi drivers, councillors, and cops track down and return women who try to escape.… Read the rest
Deafening Silence From the Government
Feb 3rd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe brutal coercion of women has been aided and abetted by Government policy.… Read the rest
Teenager’s In-laws Invited Men to Rape Her
Feb 3rd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGirl’s ‘marriage’ was not recognised by the Home Office but was approved by the Islamic Sharia Council.… Read the rest
Some Cops Block Crackdown on ‘Honour’ Killing
Feb 3rd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonVictims who seek help are being tracked down by a network of Asian men working in social services.… Read the rest
A Clever New Wheeze
Feb 3rd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonExplosives strapped to two women with Down’s syndrome were remotely detonated in crowded pet markets.… Read the rest
Don’t encourage it
Feb 2nd, 2008 4:53 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh, lordy, lordy, lordy, children – I’ve spent too much of today arguing with a ‘Holocaust denier,’ or perhaps just a brainless troll pretending to be a Holocaust denier. I knew I shouldn’t, I knew it was as futile an enterprise as cooking rice one grain at a time or shoveling snow with a teaspoon, but I couldn’t stop myself. The troll kept answering and answering and answering, and I just couldn’t leave it alone. I’m such a fool!
But, I don’t know, perhaps it was inevitable. It kept saying ‘there’s no evidence’ so how could I not go fetch some evidence to show it that there is? It would be expecting too much. Or maybe it wouldn’t, but anyway, … Read the rest
Debating Holocaust Denial and David Irving
Feb 2nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMention one or both and out come the deniers.… Read the rest
Brandeis Faculty Senate Expressed Concern
Feb 2nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe dispute has turned into a showdown over autonomy, academic freedom and governance procedures.… Read the rest
This University Is Named Brandeis, Remember?
Feb 2nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBrandeis University is named for Justice Louis Brandeis, who was famed for his defense of free speech.… Read the rest
Brandeis Professor Describes Racial Epithet
Feb 2nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonStudent complains, administration orders sensitivity training, professor refuses.… Read the rest
Scientists Duke it Out With Catholic Church
Feb 2nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonScience Media Centre says Catholic Bishops’ statement on hybrids ‘is a radical violation of the truth.’… Read the rest
Colin McGinn on Point of Inquiry
Feb 2nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMcGinn explores skepticism and concerns about radical fallibilism and post-modern critiques of knowledge.… Read the rest
What am I missing here…
Feb 2nd, 2008 11:52 am | By Ophelia BensonDid you read this article at Dissent by Nadia Urbinati? I find it a little baffling…because she’s a professor of political theory at Columbia, but the article seems to me to be just startlingly bad. It reminds me of several I read the other day at Comment is Free. It goes like this: first a lot of straw man stuff, then a lot of pointing out the obvious, then mixing the straw man stuff with the obvious stuff, then it winds up with a resounding contradiction.
Am I missing something?
(Probably not, actually, because Michael Walzer in his reply says much the same thing except far more politely, but then Urbinati is a friend of his.)
… Read the rest[O]n the one
The pope sets us straight
Feb 1st, 2008 4:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonNow it’s the pope’s turn to tell us what’s what. He met with some ‘academics’ at the Vatican and told them “that science is not capable of fully understanding the mystery of human beings.” No doubt implying that the Vatican by contrast is.
[It is important not to ignore anthropological, philosophical and theological research, which highlight and maintain the mystery of human beings, because no science can say who they are, where they come from and where they go.
Theological research? Into…what? And what does it tell us about the mystery of human beings? Well, other than the fact that they believe in peculiar and usually nasty gods.
… Read the restMan, said the Pope is “characterized by his otherness. He is a
Besides
Feb 1st, 2008 4:09 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnother thing about the archbishop. He suggests, you remember, that we should ‘exercise a little imagination’ about the Muslims in West Yorkshire who were angry about Salman Rushdie’s book – who “know only that one of their most overpoweringly significant sources of identity is being held up to public scorn.” Well I think it’s the archbishop who needs to exercise some imagination here, or perhaps rather some rational thought along with some knowledge. He phrases that as if all West Yorks Muslims or at least West Yorks Muslims in general knew only that, but in fact 1) he doesn’t know that and 2) in fact it isn’t true, because the anger was political: it was Islamist anger, not Muslim … Read the rest
Daniel Dennett on Blasphemy and Kambakhsh
Feb 1st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBlasphemy is not a capital crime in any society worthy of respect.… Read the rest
Jesus Must Have Heard the Archbishop’s Speech
Feb 1st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhen those beliefs are held deeply and sincerely they become a part of you.… Read the rest
Cardinal Desmond Connell Went to Court
Feb 1st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTo prevent an Irish state inquiry from examining files concerned with clerical child abuse.… Read the rest
A More Admiring View of the Pope
Feb 1st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Human beings always stand beyond what can be scientifically seen or perceived.’ Pope can see it though.… Read the rest