Wings Over Scotland

Brian Doonthetoon,

Hi Brian, Thanks’. A big hello from me and Mrs Smallaxe. I hope all is well with you and yours, my friend.

The John Dummer Blues Band: “When You Got A Good Friend”
link to youtube.com

Anyway, enough of the science, what about getting on with the day job?
link to youtube.com

So what’s the hold-up?
link to youtube.com

William Wallace,

Hi Wull, we can all get pissed off and frustrated at times and it’s only natural to feel that way but don’t let it get you down, take a break if you need to, most of us have had to do that at times.

Fighting to get us out of this accursed union plays havoc on the spirit and can drain you. I’ve emailed my phone number to you in case you feel like you want to talk, don’t worry it’s not compulsory, take as much time as you like.

You’re not alone.
link to youtube.com

DMH cheers mate was getting confused with Argyl FM which can be heard on steam radios on the west coast of Arran but not the East. I tried listening the other night but gave up with cutting out, will listen again, you only on once a week? Need ti find you on my internet radio’s , was using my ipad the other night so quality no so good either.
Just thinking about Brexit whilst I was typing this, there will be international agreements for Internet hosting, domain name servers and other services, wonder if that has been agreed at a EU or UK level, anybody know?

Cheers, Lenny. Yes, we have the “engineers” in tomorrow. Something wrong with the broadband connection or our broadband service. I do two shows on Friday. One at 7 where I rant on between bits of music and an hour of rock’n’roll to follow at 8. Other guys on some evenings . Trying to build it up. Not a “nat” station but most of us are nats. Amazing potential.I have friends in Nigeria listening to me and folk from US

Good morning, Cameron.

Bob Marley: “Get up, stand up”
link to youtube.com
🙂

Smallaxe
Morning mate.

Violent Femmes – Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
link to youtube.com

Sorry peeps, I am being conscious but I’m also aware there will be folk who didn’t understand what I meant by “Opening the sex class to all comers undermines the semiotic significance of “women” and unsettles and weakens the normative foundations of human rights.” The thing is, it’s rather difficult to navigate life when meaning is arbitrary. As I might have mentioned, it all boils down to semiotics, mk.

The Semiotic Hierarchy: Life, consciousness, signs and language

This article outlines a general theory of meaning, The Semiotic Hierarchy, which distinguishes between four major levels in the organization of meaning: life, consciousness, sign function and language, where each of these, in this order, both rests on the previous level, and makes possible the attainment of the next. This is shown to be one possible instantiation of the Cognitive Semiotics program, with influences from phenomenology, Popper’s tripartite ontology, semiotics, linguistics, enactive cognitive science and evolutionary biology. Key concepts such as “language” and “sign” are defined, as well as the four levels of The Semiotic Hierarchy, on the basis of the type of (a) subject, (b) value-system and (c) world in which the subject is embedded. Finally, it is suggested how the levels can be united in an evolutionary framework, assuming a strong form of emergence giving rise to “ontologically” new properties: consciousness, signs and languages, on the basis of a semiotic, though not standardly biosemiotic, understanding of life.

link to kognitywistyka.umcs.lublin.pl

TWO SEMIOTIC SHIFTS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF NORMS: MEANING
SHIFT AND REFERENT SHIFT
link to fupress.net

Basic Tasks of Cultural Semiotics
link to faculty.georgetown.edu

Here’s one for Kristina Harrison. Thank you times a gazilion, for your solidarity in fighting against an emergent gender dystopia.

Faithless – We Come 1
link to youtube.com

Here’s a bit of social science in the hope of informing the gender ideology debate.

Sociological Enlightenments and the Sociology of Political Philosophy

….This analysis brings into relief the paradox underlying the formation of modern social-scientific endeavor. If viewed against contemporary criteria, the Enlightenment comprised a mass of proto-sociological theoretical movements. Despite this, sociology constructed itself as the adversary of the Enlightenment. In retrospect, in fact sociology first defined itself by proposing a highly simplified account of the Enlightenment: the real Enlightenment, to a large degree, was always, not the antithesis, but the precursor of sociology.?14 The facts/norms dichotomy that progressively separated sociology and political philosophy through the nineteenth century was the result, not of any original irreconcilable methodological division, but of the inner self-comprehension and distinction of each of these disciplinary fields.

It needs to be noted here, to be sure, that the strict facts/norms distinction between normative political philosophy and descriptive sociology was not always conclusively upheld through the nineteenth century. Some salient positions in both political philosophy and sociology appreciated the paradoxicality and probed at the falsity of this dichotomy. Much of the most important theoretical research of the nineteenth century sought to build on the insights of the earlier Enlightenment, and to re-fuse the normative claims of philosophy and the descriptive methods of sociology in order to provide a broad analysis of the liberating and legitimating moral residues of modern society. For example, British utilitarianism, although abidingly focused on ought-questions of philosophy rather than why-questions of sociology, crossed the strict divide between political philosophy and sociology. Bentham protested vociferously against the normative principles of the later Enlightenment.15

Perhaps the most dialectically refined response to the normative foundations of the Enlightenment, however, surfaced in the legal- and political-philosophical works of Hegel. Indeed, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right might be interpreted as a direct and strategic attempt to develop a philosophical position able to translate the normative formalism (allegedly) characteristic of concepts of state legitimacy in the Enlightenment into an observation of the state as an emergent part of society’s inherent normative structure. In the strictest sense of the word, Hegel’s philosophy of state proposed a sociological re-comprehension of the politics of the Enlightenment, which was intended to recuperate the singular normativity of the Enlightenment by locating the political institutions prescribed by the Enlightenment within an explanation of society’s inner theoretical intelligence and its inner formative logic.

As such, in Philosophy of Right, Hegel argued that the political norms defined by the Enlightenment as formative of legitimate statehood are produced, not by an external deductive mind, but by plural and contingent practices throughout society: such norms, consequently, possess a high level of social contingency and a high degree of internality to different spheres of social agency. Nonetheless, he also ascribed to these norms a high degree of obligatory force and necessity, and he suggested that the political norms articulated by the Enlightenment, although originating in the internal processes of society’s political formation, stand as relatively constant and rationally defensible preconditions of adaptive and legitimate statehood.?16

Hegel’s perspective, the facts/norms division later characterizing the polarization of philosophical and sociological methods was countervailed by an analysis of society which viewed theoretical norms as operatively reflexive facts within the construction of societal order, yet which also viewed social facts as internally shaped by intelligent theoretical norms and so as possessing an abstracted normative validity. Further, in Hegel’s political philosophy the suggestion became visible, not for the last time in European conceptual history, that the Enlightenment had proposed principles of social formation and institutional legitimacy which its own methodological apparatus was incapable of comprehending: the norms (rights, constitutions, principles of autonomy) ascribed legitimating force in the Enlightenment could, for Hegel, only become explicably valid and binding if they were sociologically reconstructed, and observed as elements of society’s inner form. Implicit in Hegel’s philosophy, is short, was the methodological foundation for a sociological Enlightenment

The late-idealist perception of the artifice of the facts/norms dichotomy resulting from the Enlightenment remains an enduringly valid critique of the analytical distinctions that cast the underlying form of modern theoretical history. The idealist allusion to a renewed synthesis of normative theory and sociological analysis was, however, relatively exceptional and short-lived. In general, political philosophy consolidated itself through the nineteenth century as an heir to (what it constructed as) the Enlightenment. Sociology, moreover, although surely open to intersections with philosophy in its analyses of cultural and aesthetic practice, portrayed itself as the counterpart to (what it observed as) the philosophy of the Enlightenment insofar as it was focused on legal and political norms.?17

link to cairn.info

Equality and Political Philosophy
link to politics.oxfordre.com

Gender & Political Philosophy
link to gendersexuality.northwestern.edu

“Royalty”

If we have to refer to them in Scotland, why are they not given their Scottish titles in the media and not their English ones?

Thought I’d just put this up again.

link to youtube.com

And I enjoyed this comment
“Bravo pour cette belle interprétation ! Toujours émouvant à écouter… Vive L’Ecosse, vive la France et merde aux anglois !”

Reading through main thread ( one with drawing of Davidson & Mundell)….cannae help but think the uncanny similarity in ranting style and content between this character collie and yon Danny that used to post….same person or twins ?

@Clapper57

“same person or twins?”

Would be the fourth name he’s had then, so maybe. Do we really care? An arsehole is an arsehole for ah that lol.

I wish some on the M/T would just…

“Simmer Down”
link to youtube.com

Relax mi gud people, nuh let things mek yuh screw, it bad fi di digestion an yuh mental health.
😎

re. Sir Paul Beresford MP not understanding David Linden MP. I’m afraid to say that Mr. Liden’s diction was at fault, IMHO. He needs to slow his speach down, though I think the Tory could have made more of an effort to understand.

Your Speaking Voice – How Good Diction Helps
link to hobbylark.com

Pat Robertson and right-wing evangelical Christians, really are the spawn of Satan.

The Religious Right in America
link to religion.oxfordre.com

For irreligious evangelicals, Christianity is about politics—not God
link to qz.com

Why I Left the Right: How Studying Religion Made Me a Liberal
link to medium.com

@Owen Jones
Want to stop being a woke prick?

Gender Is the Philosophical Issue of Our Age

Today’s public is engaged in conversations about gender. Facebook, Twitter, and coffee-shop conversations abound on the role of gender…in presidential politics, in The Danish Girl, in Caitlyn Jenner’s tabloid exploits, in Mexico’s epidemic of femicide, in Olympic qualifying standards, in health insurance protections, and so on. The following quotation is true today much more than it was in the 1980s when Luce Irigaray said it: “ Sexual Difference is one of the major philosophical issues, if not the issue, of our age.”[1] If academic philosophy wants to demonstrate its usefulness to students and the public, thoughtful engagement of the topic of gender should be pursued….

link to blog.apaonline.org

Plato on Gender: Three Different Views
link to yorku.ca

Feminist Political Thought
link to oxfordbibliographies.com

@Owen Jones
Remember censoring me on the Independent’s blog in 2014, because you were loosing the debate? That simply confirmed my suspicions that you’re an anti-democratic prick.

Do Clothes Make the Woman?: Gender, Performance Theory, and Lesbian Eroticism
link to utexaspressjournals.org

So in four days and 30 comments Cam bb has posted 18 yet he does not want to hog?

Now fair enough, this is where these subjects should be expressed and i have no problem with that.

Just please keep it off the main site?

@ Liz. Ty and I will.

@ Sma. I couldn’t possibly trouble you with my shite mate. You have more than enough to be dealing with.

@Smithie. Gi yirsel peace. Who made you the gaffer?

CamB is part of the fixtures and fittings around here and if he wants to make a point on the MT or OT then who are you to tell him otherwise?

I may not understand everything he posts but, I do enjoy reading it and furthering my own knowledge. I certainly don’t recall you posting anything that made me sit up and pay attention in quite the same way.

smithie
That’s not an invitation to a square go, btw, simply an offer to meet face-to-face.

@Owen Jones
There is no moral justification for your stance on self-identification. What on earth made a know-nothing such as yourself, think they have the justification to undermine language, reason and the basis of human rights? Oh yeah, misogyny, far-left ideology and stuff.

THE NOTION OF GENDER AS A NORM IN JUDITH BUTLER‘S THOUGHT

3.2. GENDER AS A NORM
Butler writes that the conditions of human intelligibility are composed of socially articulated norms of recognition (UG, 2, 57). According to Lloyd, the notion of intelligibility, as it is deployed by Butler, suggests the way one can be recognized ?as a legible subject? only with reference to a culturally produced ?normative framework? (Lloyd, M. 2007, 33) In other words, the norms of
recognition set the scene at which we might come to appear enabling but also restricting the possibilities of our appearance in the social world. As Butler puts it, these norms accomplish this by imposing ?a grid of legibility on the social? (UG, 42). The world is thus perceived only through a normative conceptual framework that gives phenomena their intelligible, recognizable form. In this way the norms contribute to the production of reality and the ?reality itself: they are what makes somebody real and deems some other body unreal or impossible. (See UG, 15 – 39, 52, 206.)

link to tampub.uta.fi

Drivers of change in gender norms
An annotated bibliography
link to odi.org

1-800 GIRLS – Just Cause
link to youtube.com

@Owen Jones
Here’s some normative legal theory you might want to clue yourself up on, though that might lead you to questioning you personal beliefs. Is it in you to allow your ethical self to rise above your ideological self? Are you a reflexive human being or simply the facade of white male entitlement?

Legal Theory Lexicon: Welfare, Well-Being, and Happiness

Introduction

Normative legal theory is concerned with the ends and justifications for the law as a whole and for particular legal rules. Previous entries in the legal have examined exemplars of the three great traditions in normative theory–consequentialist, deontological, and aretaic (or virtue-centered) perspectives. There are important differences between these three families of theories at a very general and abstract level: for example, deontologists emphasize rights and wrongs while consequentialists emphasize the goodness or badness of states of affairs. And there are differences between particular theories within the broad families: within consequentialism, for example, welfarists emphasize preference satisfaction, whereas hedonistic utiliarians emphasize pleasure and pain….

link to lsolum.typepad.com

Feminist Philosophy of Law
link to plato.stanford.edu

Gender and the Rule of Law in Transitional Societies

Dominant hierarchies … often marginalize women’s priorities, interests,and participation … in fact, they render invisible the gendered patternsand structures …. In many cases, this invisibility is shaped and enabledby background social structures and ideologies, including discriminationembedded in the legal system, the dearth of women in the political sphere,barriers to women’s access to the media …. These social norms,ideologies, practices, and institutional arrangements characterize contextsof war, but also peace.

This article examines a unique relationship-specifically, the connection between the rule of law, as it is imported andexperienced in post-conflict/post-repression societies, and gender. We assert that some of the most gendered and problematic dimensions of rule of law discourse and practice canarise with intensity in post-conflict or post-repressive societies. In particular, we explore a fundamental contradiction. Transitional societies bring powerful and transformativemoments to global attention. The rule of law movement gainscachet from being a defining and motivating cog in that transitional process. Yet such transformation can be selective, both in its spheres of influence and in its masculinity. While transformation may occur, the pivotal question we raise is for whom?

link to pdfs.semanticscholar.org

smithie,

Look up my name if you want to find out who ‘hogs’ Off Topic, I think my friend Cameron’s comments will come a poor second to my inane drivelling and copious amounts of music played, just go back a page and this will become very apparent to you.

We all have our different ways of expressing ourselves, here and on the M/Thread, so if anyone doesn’t like a certain person’s comments then it’s easily enough remedied by scrolling on past and moving on to something that does interest them.

Please confine any complaints you may have about Cameron to the main thread if you wish to do so as O/T is generally used by others to pass messages, chat and play music or, as in all cases, post whatever we feel like. We’re an inclusive and mixed bunch of punters here on O/T and it’s an extremely rare occasion to have anyone complain about other persons posts/comments.

I hope you have an enjoyable and Peaceful day, smithie.
link to youtube.com

Afternoon Smallaxe.

Nina Simone – Feeling Good
link to youtube.com

Hi just jumping in to say hi to all the regulars in here. And it’s so good to see you posting again Smallaxe my friend. All the best to all of you. Will be back posting soon. ? ? ???????

Early Clover & The Georgia Soul Drifters – Freedom
link to youtube.com

re. independence qualifying as a philosophical belief. From a Normative Legal Theory perspective, self-ditermination is one of the fundamental principle underpinning the international rule of law. As such, self-determination has enormousness normative significance.

Freedom beyond the threshold: self-determination, sovereignty, and global justice

Abstract

In current debates about global justice, statist and nationalist theories appeal to the right to self-determination in argument against egalitarianism beyond borders, and in general as a reason for caution about substantive international duties of justice, lest the exercise of self-determination would be too tightly constrained. Has self-determination – an important heritage of decolonization – no longer a role to play in the argument against international inequality and disempowerment?

In this article, I examine a dominant interpretation of self-determination in the global justice debate, as defended prominently by John Rawls and David Miller and find it wanting. Specifically, two challenges are raised: at the conceptual level this interpretation leaves unclarified the distinction and relationship between sovereignty and self-determination; at the normative level, this interpretation adopts a sufficiency view of international distributive justice that neglects that problem of relative extents and measures of self-determination, beyond the threshold. While the article’s argument is mainly of a critical scope, it is suggested that a more robust theoretical account is required of the content of the right of self-determination, and in particular of the freedoms that the right confers to the right-holders in the socioeconomic domains and their extents.

Keywords:
sovereignty; self-determination; global justice; John Rawls; David Miller;
international investment law

link to tandfonline.com

Political Self-Determination and the Normative Significance of Territorial Boundaries
link to seis.bristol.ac.uk

A Normative Theory of International Law Based on New Natural Law Theory
link to etheses.lse.ac.uk

Ann-Margret – I Ain’t Gonna Be Your Fool No More
link to youtube.com

The law generally lags behind social change. As such, the legal interpretation of social morality often does not meet social expectations.

Jurisprudence – Natural Law
link to youtube.com

From the perspective of International Relations Theory, self-determination is also viewed as a fundamental human right, though there is uncertainty as to how this right should be implemented. MK. 🙂

The right to self-determination in international politics: six theories in search of a policy

Abstract

The principle of the self-determination of peoples is enshrined in the United Nations Charter and based on liberal and democratic values. However, the international community has, until recently, interpreted this principle very restrictively, so that it has amounted to little more than the right to be free from European colonialism. The collapse of the USSR and Yugoslavia, as well as persistent ethno-nationalist conflicts around the world, have provoked new thinking about the right of self-determination in political theory. This article reviews six theories, and identifies what they have in common and on what they differ. It draws some cautious policy conclusions from this analysis and, in doing so, seeks to clarify the role and limits of theory in international politics.

link to cambridge.org

Self-Determination, Identity and International Relations

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that self-determination constitutes the selves by which it is claimed. I base this argument on a reflexivist conception of identity. The process, I suggest, goes like this. Human groups striving for political independence, autonomy, or a share in state power draw on the norm of self-determination to seek international support and recognition. This norm epitomizes general ideas of freedom, justice and the good life, but it also legitimizes (and illegitimates) concrete ways of bound and rule political communities. These ideas and rules enter the process by which the group construes as a self. They influence the thinking and acting of the group upon itself, and so get reflected in its constitution

link to researchgate.net

International Society, State Sovereignty, and National Self-Determination

Abstract and Keywords

The idea of an international society of sovereign states predates the era of nationalism and the elevation of the principle of the self-determination of people to its present status as an inalienable human right (Articles 1.2 and 55 of the UN Charter). The nationalization of the sovereignty principle immediately raised the question, however, of which groups could legitimately claim the right to self-determination and state recognition? Neither in theory nor practice has this question proved easy to answer. This chapter traces the attempts to do so in the twentieth century, the emergence of an orthodox interpretation after 1945, i.e. self-determination as decolonization, the impact of the cold war, and attempts to widen the interpretation in the context of self-determination disputes in different parts of the world that have arisen since 1989. The chapter concludes that the present situation is confused and that no new consensus has unambiguously emerged.

Keywords: Sovereignty, self-determination, international society, secession, irredentism, ethnic nationalism, civic nationalism

link to oxfordhandbooks.com

P.S. Does a belief in the principle of universal human rights and the international rule of law, count as a philosophy? Does England’s embrace of ethnic nationalism also count as a philosophy?

Cameron, I’ll see your ‘Like Sugar’ and raise you…

“Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” – Dj Ko Remix;
link to youtube.com
🙂

Back at you, Cameron, only double:

The Archies – “Sugar, Sugar” (remix)
link to youtube.com

Let’s call it a draw, Cameron.
link to youtube.com
🙂

Smallaxe 🙂

@Kevin Hague
Fascism is so twentieth century, you spanner? Here’s a Social and Political Philosophy view of what you stand against. Dick head.

Self?Determination: Politics, Philosophy, and Law

This chapter examines the empirical complexities of territorially based ethnic separation (boundaries) against the growing philosophical justifications for self?determination. Horowitz argues that ‘clean breaks’ are not likely, not least because ethnicity itself is a contextual and therefore mutable affiliation, and argues that more attention should be paid to encourage domestic measures of interethnic accommodation.

Keywords: accommodation, affiliation, borders, boundaries, ethnicity, national pluralism, secession, self?determination

link to oxfordscholarship.com

@Kevin Hague
Your are a British nationalist, a state of being that opposes patriotism to Scotland. My advice to you is to fuck right off or hud you whist, as your loyaty is to Queen and country, i.e. England, not to the people of Scotland.

Nationalism and Patriotism

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter, which first defines nationalism by describing its features, looks at nations, states, and nation-states, and then examines nationalism’s relationship to patriotism. It then turns to the history of the nation and considers its existence as an imagined community. The narrative and liturgical nature of nationalism places it firmly in the sphere of religion. It is theology, and not race, politics, geography, or law that provides the best lens through which to critically observe nationalism. Søren Kierkegaard is one theological critic who is well placed to challenge nationalism’s idolatrous and anti-social tendencies. His attack upon the self-deified establishment of Christendom contains many points of contact with theological nationalism. The chapter examines the outlines of his critique and then considers the positive contributions that a non-nationalistic, nonpatriotic account of identity can make to a Christian theology of social life.

Keywords: theology, Søren Kierkegaard, Christendom, identity, social life, theological nationalism, patriotism

link to oxfordhandbooks.com

What’s the difference between patriotism and nationalism?
link to philosophy.stackexchange.com

Cosmopolitan Patriotism in J. S. Mill’s Political Thought and Activism
link to journals.openedition.org

@Kevin Hague
Ever hear of post-colonial theory?

NATION/NATIONALISM AND THE POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURES

However, there are innumerable other ways in which discourses and practices related to the notions of nation and nationalism can be experienced, perceived and defined. Preference for one particular definition over others will largely depend on factors like one’s location, or one’s religious, racial, cultural and linguistic identity and background. In addition to this local short term and long term memories, histories and divisions, political contexts, social and economic issues and ideological predilections at conscious as well as unconscious levels determine how an individual is likely to respond to, conceive or imagine him/herself as a member of a particular nation-state.

As this chapter sets out to critically examine this very important political, social and cultural category, Grosby’s definition, given above, offers itself merely as a suitable starting point. The theoretical objective of writing this chapter is to present nation as an unresolved problematic – as an idea that has not only been eternally critiqued but which craves eternal critiquing – particularly so in postcolonial spaces where the uncertainties surrounding it become even more pronounced. The opinions and theories on nation and nationalism are so varied and mutually incompatible that the chapter is bound to become a little abstract in studying them. However, since the present thesis has nation and nationalism as the theoretical framework against which Rohinton Mistry’s fiction is to be studied; it becomes important to consider, even if briefly, the various theoretical and academic positions on the subject so that appropriate selections can be made in the successive chapters when they are to be applied to the works of fiction under study….

link to shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in

Cosmopolitanism, Communitarianism and the Subaltern

This essay takes as its point of departure, the debate between cosmopolitanism and communitarianism in international normative theory. It expresses several dissatisfactions with this debate, criticizing its inattention to politics and history, its Eurocentrism, and the simplistic imageries of threat on which attitudes towards boundaries in the debate are premised. In attempting to remedy these problems, it recasts the figure of the subaltern that haunts this debate — hitherto imagined as a passive recipient of Western largesse — as an active agent struggling for emancipation, and contrasts the potentials of cosmopolitanism and communitarianism to function as vocabularies in which such struggles might be articulated….

link to eprints.soas.ac.uk

Aretha Franklin – Think
link to youtube.com

Used to come on here for a bit of crack, it wid terr holes in yer drawers noo!

Fred
Science is under attack from both the right and the left wing. What do you want me to do, remain silent?

Ah, Tinto,

I see you sneaked in while I was drinking my dinner. 😉
I was aware that your good lady was a Swede, so much sweeter than a tumshie. Don’t cha know!

Ian Dury & the Blockheads: “Sweet Gene Vincent”
link to youtube.com

On Twitter I follow a dude called David Taylor (@taylordauthor) – in the queue at Lidl today I burst out laughing upon remembering a tweet he wrote in the wake of all that shite about a ‘black panther’ lepping around the Drongan area. Can’t locate the original tweet, but he said he spotted what he thought was a kangaroo in an Ayrshire field but it turned out to be a greyhound having a shite.

😉

A fabulous cover of the most recorded song of all time

link to youtube.com

Another cover.

Wilbert Harrison – Kansas City
link to youtube.com

smithie
Got a problem with edumacation?

smithie
Are you up for a pint and a chat? I’ll be back in Dundee tomorrow.

Though I might do a Glesga version

Ahm gaun tae Glesga city
Glesga city here ah come
Ahm gaun tae Glesga city
Glesga city here ah come
There’s some crazy little burds therr and ah’m gonnie get me wan.

Ah might take the bus, ah might take the tube
But If ah hiv tae walk there ah’ll get tae thon Garscube
Ahm gaun tae Glesga city
Glesga city here ah come
There’s some crazy little burds therr and ah’m gonnie get me wan

Ah’m gonna be standin at the bus stop
Oota that auld Carntyne
Standin at the bus stop
Leaving that auld Carntyne
With ma Coocaddens burdie
An a boatle o’ Eldorado wine
(Drawers right doon by nine ?)

I’m going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come
I’m going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come
They got a crazy way of loving there and I’m gonna get me one
I’m gonna be standing on the corner
12th Street and Vine
I’m gonna be standing on the corner
12th Street and Vine
With my Kansas City baby and a bottle of Kansas City wine
Well, I might take a plane; I might take a train
But if I have to walk, I’m going just the same
I’m going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come
They got some crazy little women there and I’m gonna get me one

IanB
14 ac and 15 dn both seem certain fits but the end letter of 14 ac ‘d’ doesn’t fit with the first letter of 15 dn ‘o’.

A mistake?

yes today’s

Didn’t think it was yours.

14 ac A pull recalled in prize. answer ‘AwArd’
15 dn Lone rider’s surpringly second showing good management.
answer ‘oRdErLinEsS’ anag of lone riders and s.

Thinking the compiler may have misread a hand written ‘d’ for an ‘o’?

@Ian brotherhood Oct 21st: On a similar theme, I still snigger when I remember, at a time when sightings of “large cats” were often being reported in Devon, my husband who worked in Devon telling me about a client who had an accident on a country road due to a tree blocking the road and “a jaguar leaping out of the branches”.

I naturally thought he was talking about a large member of the cat family so responded appropriately, as I thought, only to see the puzzled look on hubby’s face. It was in fact a Jaguar car that burst through the branches…

re. Steve Bannon on the BBC. When do you think would be the best time to comment? I think I’ve got a cracker. 😉

Ray Charles – (Night time Is) The Right Time
link to youtube.com

IanB

FYI

14 ac was ‘award’ and 15 dn was ‘orderliness’

Oops!

Or as Homer might say ‘Do(h)’ 🙂

Owen Jones appears committed to the idea of doing good but I’m not sure he fully appreciates the consequences of his actions. Does his voice count though, what’s his experience of womanhood? Are they not the one’s being asked to share their spaces and cultural significance?

Understanding People
Normativity and Rationalizing Explanation

chapter 4
Explaining Normative Import

5. Intentions, beliefs, and psychological commitment
A crucial feature of the view I shall defend is that the Implication Commitment Principle and the Means–End Commitment Principle are constitutive principles—partial specifications of what it is to believe something or intend something. They are also conceptual principles. Grasping the concept of intention commits one to accepting the Means–End Commitment Principle; grasping the concept of belief commits one to accepting the Implication Commitment Principle. That there should be constitutive normative principles is not puzzling. I shall comment on two such principles that serve as analogues for the Means–End and Implication Commitment Principles. The first is the

Promise Commitment Principle: For any x, f, if x promises to f then x incurs a commitment to fing.

The other is the
Dean Commitment Principle: For any x, if x is Dean then x incurs a commitment to carrying out the duties of Dean.

These are not principles connecting the non-normative to the normative in the way the Means–End and Commitment Principles are supposed to do, on the dispositionalist reading to which I have been objecting. They are constitutive principles. The first partially specifies what it is to promise something. The second partially specifies what it is to be Dean. They are also conceptual principles. Grasping the concept of a promise commits one to accepting the Promise Commitment Principle. Grasping the concept of Dean commits one to accepting the Dean Commitment Principle. I take the Means–End Commitment Principle and the Implication Commitment Principle to be analogous to the Promise Commitment Principle and the Dean Commitment Principle, at least in the respect that they are constitutive and conceptual.65

link to philpapers.org

@MBallantyneMSP
Community and economic robustness are not best served through neoliberalism and a TINA outlook. Not to mention Brexit, which can be expected to hurt women the most. Your party’s economic quackery has had its day, frankly.

Morality in a Natural World
SELECTED ESSAYS IN METAETHICS

Part One
Naturalism: Epistemology and Metaphysics

3 Moral Naturalism and Self-Evident Moral Truths

1. THE ISSUE
It is intuitively plausible that there are substantive moral propositions that are ‘self-evident.’ It is plausible, for example, that, “other things equal, it is wrong to take pleasure in another’s pain, to taunt and threaten the vulnerable, to prosecute and punish those known to be innocent, . . . to sell another’s secrets solely for personal gain,” and “to torture others just for fun.”1 It is plausible that these propositions are true, and it is plausible that they are self-evident. In what follows, I refer to them as “the common sense principles.” And I will call the thesis that some such propositions are self-evident “the self-evidence thesis.”

It is not entirely clear how to understand the idea of a self-evident proposition. Intuitively, a self-evident proposition is one that is obviously true without the need for any proof or argument. But the term “selfevident” is used as a technical term in philosophy, and philosophers have meant different things by it. Russ Shafer-Landau, who gives the common sense principles as examples, proposes a stipulative definition.2 Expressed informally, his idea is that “once one really understands” the common sense principles, “(including the ceteris paribus clause),” one is justified in believing them.3 Robert Audi proposes a somewhat different definition. He suggests that a self-evident proposition is such that anyone who “adequately understands” it would be justified in believing it and would know it if he believed it on the basis of this understanding.4

link to cambridge.org

@MBallantyneMSP
I thought you might benefit from some moral instruction, given neoliberalism widens and deepens social polarisation, particularly health inequalities. TINA and trickle-down economics have failed. Your English counterparts have ripped the yoonyawn apart, yet you still allude to moral authority. Your lack of self-awareness is simply stunning.

THE NATURE OF MORAL THINKING

9 Genetic accounts which debunk morality

Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx are the three great modern debunkers of morality. While their theories differ in quite fundamental respects, they are alike in two respects. First, each offers an account of the origins of, or an explanation of, our having the moral beliefs we do. Second, the account given in each case suggests that in making moral judgements and taking them at face value we deceive ourselves or become subject to quite basic illusions. According to them, making moral judgements involves a serious misunderstanding of the world or of ourselves. All three give accounts which have seemed to many to undermine, or pose a critique of, moral notions….

NIETZSCHE’S ACCOUNT OF ‘MASTER MORALITY’
Nietzsche, in the first essay of the Genealogy of Morals (1967), gives a psychological account of the origins of what he calls ‘slave morality’. This term covers a very wide range of value systems, indeed it would seem to cover most of the influential moral systems in western thought, e.g. Stoicism, many strands of Christianity, Kantian ethics, many socialist views, universalist humanitarian values, and also most of the ethical theories we have discussed in any detail. And while it might be a bit ethnocentric, there is some plausibility in supposing Nietzsche meant ‘slave morality’ to cover anything we might normally call a morality or a normative ethics.

Nietzsche’s psychological thesis is that ‘slave morality’ arises in certain ways as a psychological reaction to a (psychologically) prior value system, ‘master morality’. And so Nietzsche’s theory of slave morality cannot be given without first discussing his account of master morality. Nietzsche’s discussion of master morality is of interest to us for at least two reasons.

First, it is of relevance to the discussion of this chapter as a necessary part of Nietzsche’s account of the psychological origins of slave morality, and thus of the way in which Nietzsche seems to debunk morality. But, second, Nietzsche’s description of master morality is also of interest just as a description of a radically different set of social values which, by contrast with ones we are more familiar with, sets our own into more relief. For our discussion of descriptive relativism (in chapters 8 and 10), it provides a rather striking example of what a rather different set of social values would be like. At least it contrasts sharply with the Stoic-Christian-Kantian-humanitarian tradition. It gives us a better grasp of the wide diversity there might be in values.

link to goodreads.com

I think Scottish Tories for Yes should really reconsider a name change. Just a personal opinion.

The Dramatics – Whatcha See is Whatcha Get
link to youtube.com

re. the deterministic and exclusionary nature of MBallantyne MSPs’ comments and subsequent follow-up. From an anthropological perspective, the ideological position she projects is an extremely unhealthy and inhuman one. Prejudice likes company, so sonbs are often racist, who are often anti-sexual expression, and so on. Social prejudice is largely generated by our so-called ‘elites’, then transmitted through the media, where is undermines social cohesion and the potential for positive social change. One only has to look at England’s attempt to regain a sense of former glory, to see this in action (Brexit).

Are the media and communications industries institutionally racist?

The Windrush scandal in the UK has revealed how people who arrived in Britain as citizens of its Empire in the post-War years have had their citizenship rights challenged by successive governments trying to create a ‘hostile environment’ for migration, and causing them to suffer significant hardship as a result. It has made painfully visible the fluid nature of ‘belonging’ in Britain, and its constant vulnerability to political or pragmatic considerations. During the days of Empire, for example, the ideological deployment of Whiteness and its utility as a form of property, made it easy to deny the political, economic and citizenship rights of those who could not claim it as their heritage. Post-war, on the other hand, the need for labour meant that the boundaries of citizenship were relaxed. Today, the Home Office’s visa-granting regime tries to balance the political need to be seen to minimize immigration numbers with the urgent pragmatic need for skilled workers in the NHS, academia and elsewhere (often unsuccessfully).

Admission to the UK, however, has never guaranteed belonging here, and the media industries provide ample illustration of this. From the days of Empire until now, and as numerous studies (see for example, here, here and here) have shown, representations of people of colour by the UK media and promotional industries have repeatedly constructed their marginalization in relation to a white, classed and gendered British norm. Of course, these representations are mythical: as Hall notes, in his conclusion to the book, Un/settled Multiculturalisms (p. 217) ‘there have always been many different ways of being ‘British’’ and communities from Africa and Asia have been present in the United Kingdom for well over 500 years. Why is it that the same media who now champion the Windrush generation normally produce coverage of minorities/immigrants that implicitly justifies the discriminatory policies of governments bent on introducing a ‘hostile environment’?

link to blogs.lse.ac.uk

The 12 Item Social and Economic Conservatism Scale (SECS)
link to journals.plos.org

The Old-Fashioned Personality

Abstract

It is noted that the authoritarian personality theory of Adorno et al is now seldom referred to in race relations research and that the scale used to operationalize the theory (the F scale) is a very poor measure of what it purports to measure (Right-wing authoritarianism). The F scale does have many correlates, however, and the work of Pflaum is referred to support the contention that the F scale in fact taps an old-fashioned orientation. A large correlational study by Kline & Cooper is reinterpreted in this light and it is shown that when pejorative assumptions are discarded, the old-fashioned person would appear to have many potentially admirable characteristics. The new understanding of what the F scale measures is also shown to be helpful in making sense of the findings from many other studies.

link to psychnet-uk.com

Britain is broken and ignorant Tories, such as MBallantyne, don’t know what to do except blame the poor. I’ve got to worry about this attitude hardening in austerity Brexitania. As does everyone who isn’t stinking rich.

Poverty and social exclusion in the UK
Volume 1 – The nature and extent of the problem

The largest UK research study on poverty and social exclusion ever conducted reveals startling levels of deprivation. 18m people are unable to afford adequate housing; 14m can’t afford essential household goods; and nearly half the population have some form of financial insecurity.

link to policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk

As I said, Popper wasn’t a positivist. Positivists are bad, MK.

Popper was not a Positivist: Why Critical Rationalism Could be an Epistemology for Qualitative as well as Quantitative Social Scientific Research
link to researchgate.net

OK, one from a six in one shampoo kind of feminist. Life’s complicated. 🙂

Opa Tsupa – Les deux Guitares
link to youtube.com

OK, the OxfordEconomics was a commercial site but I gives an idea of what sort of planning the commercial world has to undertake. Anyway, here are some academics who see Brexit as a ‘challenge to devolution’. I see Brexit as expansionist English nationalism, though I would say that.

The Economic Impacts of Brexit on the UK, its Regions, its Cities and its Sectors

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, “The Economic Impacts of Brexit on the UK, its Regions, its Cities and its Sectors” project started in April 2017 and is part of a series of 25 projects funded by ESRC to support the initiative UK in a Changing Europe coordinated by Professor Anand Menon at King’s College London.
link to birmingham.ac.uk

Here’s one I thought relevant, given the performative turn we’re all being encouraged to embrace. Scottish residents should get used to performing in a manner considered appropriate to those who wish to ‘take back control’. Stand up for the good old-fashioned British values of austerity for the poor, servility to elites, cultural intolerance and a penchant for international buccaneering.

Performing Brexit: How a post-Brexit world is imagined outside the United Kingdom

Abstract

Theresa May’s claim that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ demonstrates the malleability of the concept. The referendum campaign showed that ‘Brexit’ can be articulated to a variety of post-Brexit scenarios. While it is important to analyse how Brexit gives rise to contestation in the United Kingdom, Brexit is also constructed from the outside. Brexit signifies more than the technical complexities of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union. It works both as a promise of a different future and performatively to establish a particular past. Brexit works as a frame with potential to shape perceptions in three domains. The first is identity. How does ‘Brexit’ shape national and European identities in distinct national environments? The second is how Brexit shapes understandings of geopolitical reality and influences conceptions of what is diplomatically possible. Third is the global economy. How does ‘Brexit’ work within intersubjective frames about the nature of global economic order?

Keywords Brexit, diplomacy, identity, performativity, political economy

link to journals.sagepub.com

Can we try and put this self-ID nonsense to bed, please.

Michelle M. Lazar (ed.), Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, power and ideology in discourse

Abstract

As the title suggests, this is a collection of feminist work carried out within the paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which Michelle Lazar glosses in her editor’s introduction as “a critical perspective on unequal social relations sustained through language use” (p. 1). It does not seem to be a goal of the book to develop a distinctively feminist variant of CDA, or to engage in dialogue with its leading theorists (most of whom are men, and tend to be politically pro-feminist but not deeply influenced by feminism in a theoretical sense). Rather, contributors use established CDA methods to address questions about gender as one case of “unequal social relations sustained through language use.” That in itself is not a new endeavor – gender features as one topic in most books and edited collections of CDA, and it is also the theme of numerous journal articles – but this, perhaps surprisingly, is the first book-length volume specifically dedicated to the subject.

link to cambridge.org

Discourse Analysis in Language and Gender Studies
Theories of Discourse as Theories of Gender: Discourse Analysis in Language and Gender Studies
link to blackwellpublishing.com

Widening the Lens of Language and Gender Research: Integrating Critical Discourse Analysis and Cultural Practice Theory
link to bop.unibe.ch

@CamB –

Have just scrolled through the above and noticed your comments on Michelle Ballantyne.

It’s good that you highlighted her by way of example because I can’t believe she actually realises the implications of what she said. The fact that she repeated it after the FM had roasted her in FMQs suggests that she really doesn’t understand *why* her remarks caused such a reaction.

People do get put-off by academic treatments of subjects which are fundamentally simple, but we also have to realise that academics are ‘human’ too – they just happen to be working in an industry which demands that they abide by fantastically strict rules on what they can say and how they can say it.

It’s one thing to call comments from characters such as Ballantyne ‘ignorant’ and ‘appalling’ (as Nicola did yesterday) but it’s quite another business to actually ‘prove’ it.

So, cheers Cameron, as aye, for making us aware that there are decent people who set out to do just that, and that their efforts can be found and shared.

Have a braw weekend there my friend.

😉

@Cameron –

Agreed.

There’s still, what, a full fortnight until Remembrance Day?

We’re gonny get it full-on, 24/7. The ‘poppy’ shite is already out of control.

As for anyone left in Scotland who has trust in WM? They’re beyond naive, no hope left for them – they’re a lost cause.

The internet doesn’t carry nuance particularly well. Performative speech acts heighten an audience’s awareness of context and meaning.

Speech Act Theory
link to youtube.com

Gender equality is important but will not be achieved by privileging men to enable their colonisation of “woomanhood”.

How (the Meaning of) Gender Matters in Political Economy

….It is more difficult to assess how and to what extent less visibly ‘feminist’ scholars participate in the debate. While we see little evidence that political economy scholars assume the centrality of gender, in the last 10 years we do observe more attention to the category of ‘women’ (for example, in labour markets and social movements) and more references to ‘gender’ in a variety of publications. We also observe the inclusion of ‘gender-thematic’ articles in journal special issues,4 as well as ‘gender’ chapters in edited volumes that are devoted to encompassing topics (e.g. globalisation). In this sense, even scholars who do not self-identify as feminist have increased their awareness of and references to women and/or gender in the context of political economy. This is obviously a welcome development, especially as it is neither an insignificant nor easily won gain.

It is, however, a surprisingly limited – arguably superficial – engagement from the perspective of feminist claims and achievements. In the past decade feminists have exponentially increased knowledge about women’s and men’s lives and how gender both structures and differentially valorises masculinised and feminised identities, desires, expectations, knowledges, skills, labour, wages, activities and experiences. They have built professional associations, launched feminist journals, published widely, advanced crossdisciplinary scholarship, pioneered theoretical insights and promoted critical and transformative teaching, research and academic activism. In spite of these successes, feminists note continuing resistance to the breadth, depth and specifically theoretical implications of feminist political economy scholarship.5 What explains the vitality, achievements, and sophistication of feminist/gendered political economy and, at the same time, its limited impact on mainstream and even most critical political economy scholars?

Some, perhaps a great deal, of the resistance is presumably due to individual investments and ideological factors that fuel resistance to feminisms in general.6 However significant these may be, they are difficult to document and relatively unresponsive to critique. What is more productive, and relevant to the ‘state of the debate’, is examining how epistemological differences (among non-feminist as well as feminist scholars) shape one’s understanding of gender and, hence, where one is positioned on the continuum and how one participates in the debate….

link to amherst.edu

Gender & Sexuality: Critical Theories, Critical Thinkers
link to sk.sagepub.com

Of Gender and Rationality
link to lesswrong.com

On legislating misogyny as a hate crime. I’d have thought that near impossible to police and subject to widespread abuse. Well intended but unworkable in practice, IMHO.

Sorry, this will take a couple of posts.

Hate, Politics, Law: Critical Perspectives on Combating Hate

Abstract

What is at stake in the modern combatting of hate in liberal democratic societies? This book takes up the question and offers a critical exploration of the basic assumptions, ideals and agendas behind the fighting of hate, as expressed for example through anti-hate speech and anti-hate crime initiatives. Most research on hate crime, on hatred as such, and on the -isms and -phobias with which it is commonly connected (racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia etc.) are written and published in what might be called a “preventionalist” spirit. That is, such studies are undertaken in order to prevent hate or to strengthen the combating of the harms and crimes with which it is associated.

This book is different in so far as it insists upon a more theoretically distanced and exploratory approach to the topic of hatred. It asks questions such as: what are the normative presuppositions, the ideological roots, the promises, the limits, and—not least—the blind spots of the modern fighting of hate? When and why did it become necessary or legitimate to fight it? What is the meaning of “hate”? And how does the modern and public use of the term relate to the longer and broader history of the concept? In this book, a group of distinguished scholars explore these questions and offer a range of explanatory and normative perspectives on what is at stake in the awkward relationship between hate and liberal democracy.

Keywords: hate, hate crime, hate speech, liberal democracy, law, philosophy, political theory, emotion, violence

link to oxfordscholarship.com

WHEN LAW AND HATE COLLIDE LITERATURE REVIEW:
PARTS ONE AND TWO

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Part One: the Emergence of hate crime as a topic for State intervention

The concept of hate crime and subsequent legislation has not entered the social and legal psyche without debate and criticism. A sample of critiques is given below, arranged thematically. Clearly, hate crime legislation singles out some but not all groups for special protections not afforded to others, although literature has tended to focus upon the concept of hate crime, rather than explaining or critiquing the categories.

Hurd critiques hate crime legislation on the grounds that if hatred and bias are construed as mens rea elements, then they are alien to traditional criminal law principles.‘1 The often highly subjective nature of interpreting motivation is a particular focus for many critics, and a cause of concern for legislators. Gadd compares the complications caused by this subjectivity to those experienced in many US jurisdictions, which have a longer history of hate crime‘ legislation, where The defendant‘s bias‘ against an outgroup is often taken as sufficient evidence of the animus‘ required to secure a conviction for hate crime‘- an outcome that some socio-legal scholars have deemed socially divisive and unconstitutional. 2 Cornides considers whether it is possible that the awareness-raising‘ aspects of anti-discrimination policies rather than providing a cure bring a new illness to society: generalized hypochondria…‘3

link to uclan.ac.uk

Understanding Hate Speech

Summary and Keywords

Most of the research dealing with hate and hate speech has examined the practices and discourses of hate groups and hate crimes. This work has tended to focus on hate and hate speech directed at African Americans, Jews, and other nonwhites by white supremacist groups. An emerging and growing literature examines hate and hate speech that is used by men to target and harass women. Research in this area has focused on the ways that hate speech produced by organized hate groups and men’s rights activist groups is used to recruit new members, to socialize new members, to radicalize people, and to encourage ethnoviolence. The Internet has had a revolutionizing influence on these groups’ use of hate speech. Additionally, hate novels and “hate music” have played important roles in the recruitment of people into the hate movement and promoted violence against those perceived as enemies of Aryans.

Keywords: hate, hate speech, hate stratagem, myth, heuristics, manosphere, cyber harassment, white power music, intergroup communication

link to communication.oxfordre.com

Almost done.

Hate crime and identity politics

….Fundamentally, I agree that hate crime and its attendant laws are intimately connected to identity politics. It could not be otherwise, since hate crime is one of many facets of intergroup relations. However, I see bias-motivated violence not as a precursor to greater intergroup tension, but as an indicator of underlying social and cultural tensions. It is, thus, not the laws that are divisive, but the conduct (and its antecedents) to which they refer. The legislation does not create the hostility, for it has long existed. Moreover, it is the ongoing recognition of group membership — insider/outsider or ‘us’ versus ‘them’ — that typically gives rise to hate crime.

In short, hate crimes are more than the acts of mean-spirited bigots. Such violence is embedded in the structural and cultural context within which groups interact (Bowling, 1993; Kelly et al., 1993; Young, 1990). It does not occur in a social or cultural vacuum, but is a socially situated, dynamic process. It might be seen as one of the five interrelated ‘faces of oppression’ by which Young (1990) characterizes the experiences of minority groups, that is, nested within the complex of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, and cultural imperialism. Together, structural exclusions and cultural imaging leave minority members vulnerable to systemic violence, and especially ethno-violence.

In particular, where the popular image of the ‘Other’ is constructed in negative terms, group members may be victimized on the basis of those perceptions. Hate crime is thus ‘bolstered by belief systems which (attempt to) legitimate such violence’ so as to ‘limit the rights and privileges of individuals/groups and to maintain the superiority of one group’ (Sheffield, 1995: 438–9). Members of subordinate groups are potential victims because of their socially subordinate status. They are already deemed inferior, deviant, and therefore deserving of whatever hostility and persecution comes their way. In sum, they are ‘damned if they do, and damned if they don’t’. If they perform their identities on the basis of what is expected of them, they are vulnerable. If they perform in ways that challenge those expectations, they are equally vulnerable.

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.823.7651&rep=rep1&type=pdf

HATE CRIME LAWS
A Practical Guide
link to osce.org

HATE CRIME AND THE LEGAL PROCESS – FINAL REPORT
sro.sussex.ac.uk/70598/3/FINAL%20REPORT%20-%20HATE%20CRIME%20AND%20THE%20LEGAL%20PROCESS.pdf

Then there’s the Normative Legal Theory to consider.

Hate Crime Law and the Limits of Inculpation

I. INTRODUCTION
The enactment of hate crime law-law that enhances the punishment of those whose crimes are motivated by legislatively identified animus or bias (“hate motive”)-is widespread in the United States. According to the Anti-Defamation League, almost every state has passed hate crime law in one form or another, whether the hate motive is treated as an element of a criminal offense or as an aggravating factor at sentencing.’ Notwithstanding its overwhelming popularity, hate crime law has always provoked and continues to provoke contentious debate within legal academia. This debate has proceeded mainly along three distinct, though not unrelated, strands of thought.

The first is the (un)constitutionality of hate crime law because of its effect on free expression. 2 The second is the political or pragmatic wisdom (or foolhardiness) of hate crime law as an instrument for the eradication of prejudicial beliefs and conduct.3 These are the dimensions of the debate that have been most visible, especially in more popular discourse. This Article, while doubtless having some implications for these first two strands, focuses chiefly on the third: the (non)conformity of hate crime law to the theories and doctrines of the criminal law.4

The enhanced punishment of the hate crime offender is based on several rationales in criminal law theory:5 (i) the greater wrongdoing thesis, which posits that a hate crime harms not only its immediate victim (as all crimes do), but also causes greater injury to the victim’s community and society at large;6 (ii) the expressive theory of punishment, which suggests that the criminal law can and should be used as a tool for expressing society’s commitment to the norm against prejudice;7 (iii) the culpability thesis, which argues that hate crime offenders are more blameworthy than offenders who commit crimes without the hate motive;8 and (iv) the equality thesis, which sees hate crime law as a means of evenly distributing the “state-produced good” of protection against crime. 9 Of these, I take up the culpability thesis because I believe that much of the current debate addressing this topic presents a partial and misleading picture of both criminal culpability in general and the hate motive in particular.

link to digitalcommons.unl.edu

The Punishment of Hate: Toward a Normative Theory of Bias-Motivated Crimes
link to pdfs.semanticscholar.org

Submission of Evidence to Scottish Government Independent Review of Hate Crime Legislation (Bracadale Review)
link to oro.open.ac.uk

Andre Williams – Pulling Time
link to youtube.com

Silly me, there I am forgetting a Social Legal Studies view.

The Hate Threshold
Emotion, Causation and Difference in the Construction of Prejudice-motivated Crime

Abstract

Hate crime laws have emerged within a climate of penal expansion and identity politics. They contain ideological claims designed to reconfigure social norms and regimes of difference. This article employs the concept of the hate threshold to examine the principles and practices that turn an ordinary crime into a hate crime and the normative messages that flow from this. The hate threshold takes three major elements – emotion, causation and difference – as a framework for analysing how the legal rules are operationalised. Analysis of Australian sentencing aggravation law reveals that courts have set a relatively rigorous standard for offender sentiment and causation. However, the development of a more fluid threshold around the element of difference raises questions about the constitutive implications when law ‘misfires’. This analysis of the law in action provides a material foundation for reflecting on the capacity of hate crime law to engage in larger processes of remoralisation.

Keywords Hate crime, hate threshold, politics of difference

link to journals.sagepub.com

Misogyny as hate crime
The debate about whether to use a general gender hate crime label or a specific misogyny label is ongoing.
link to lawgazette.co.uk

The Round-Up: A Landmark Ruling for Gay Rights, Misogyny as a Hate Crime, and a Human Right to Divorce?
link to ukhumanrightsblog.com

OK, so why might a white, male, economics graduates with an interest in healthcare, buy into gender ideology and deny scientific realism? I reckon he might be a worshiper of neo-liberal ideolgy and free-market economics. As such, he possibly lacks the biological hardware needed to empathise with the threats women face. Oops, did I say that out loud?

Online misogyny and the alternative right: debating the undebatable

Abstract

The aim of this critical intervention is twofold: first, to offer a few insights to the online misogyny debate based on a case-study involving myself and Milo Yiannopoulos, the prominent anti-feminist and self-styled ultra-conservative “bad boy;” second, to add a new, politically pronounced inflection to the meticulous work in the field, by arguing that although misogyny is not exclusively affiliated with a certain political register, its ferocious articulations in contemporary culture—especially online—should be understood as a type of discourse fuelled largely by a set of well-organised far-right, white supremacist determinations collectively camouflaged by the media-friendly term “alternative-right” (hereafter, “alt-right”).

I contend that far from being a subculture that seeks to articulate a credible anti-establishment position, the alt-right is better understood as a polished, technologically adept strand of the far-right—a strand, what is more, that is easily assimilable by neoliberal socio-economic and political rationality. Much like neoliberalism itself, the alt-right is vehemently opposed to any form of politics or political imaginary that seeks to establish a socialist or socialist-democratic hegemony predicated on class consciousness, collectivism, and egalitarianism.

Keywords: Online misogyny, alt-right, far-right, neoliberalism, lad culture

link to tandfonline.com

Popular misogyny: a zeitgeist
link to culturedigitally.org

Neoliberalism and popular women’s culture: Rethinking choice, freedom and agency

Abstract
‘Choice’, ‘freedom’ and ‘agency’ are terms liberally appropriated in recent years by popular women’s cultural genres to advance an image of the new, empowered woman confidently embracing patriarchal heterosexuality and commodity culture. Critics such as Rosalind Gill have linked this image to the influence of contemporary neoliberalism. This article extends these claims in order to argue that with the rise of this new female subject that reflects the workings of the neoliberal process of subjectification as immanent within and responsive to normative power, a more detailed examination is necessary of the changed meanings of choice and freedom. In the light of this changed form of governance and subjectification, feminist critique of popular women’s culture needs to readjust its terms of engagement.

Keywords
Choice, freedom, neoliberalism, popular women’s culture

link to tandfonline.com

Cameron I don’t mean to go on but where are you?

The real you not these posts that you’re flooding Off Topic with. Come out into the open man be yourself, gies a tune!