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Wings Over Scotland


Off-topic

Posted on January 02, 1968 by

For off-topic chat. Duh.

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40330 to “Off-topic”

  1. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto Chiel at 6.58

    Tend to be with you on that. We should pay little attention as it has nothing to do with the case for independence.

    Huge respect for Nicola’s wisdom and strength here. She has acted in such a way that it is impossible for the media to attack the SNP.

  2. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting to watch the snippets of interviews with AS today, but with the sound muted.

  3. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @hackalumpoff

    EUROPEAN CITIZENS’ INITIATIVE

    Permanent European Union Citizenship

    https://eci.ec.europa.eu/002/public/#/initiative

    Just added my name to that list, noted that 68% of those that have signed are from the UK. No surprise there then.

  4. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood: I’m down at my daughter’s at the mo and have just seen footage of Monica Lennon commenting on the AS situation. I had a weird deja vu experience which reminded me of Malcolm Malcolm at the Politics Bar, which I know is one of your faves, full of strange barings of teeth and frankly weird head position.

    In fact, something like this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ9v30iI98M

    I’m still waiting for she and Rhoda Grant to get their story straight regarding the serious sexual harassment Monica complained of some time ago but which now seems to have disappeared up the collective BLiS______d lum. Oh, for an interview with her on that instead of her grinning grandstanding.

    I’ve been expecting a big move against AS or NS for a while. I presume its appearance just now indicates Establishment explosive diarrhoea following some disappointing polling results.

    All diversion from October, of course.

  5. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tinto Chiel

    It’s a big move against AS right enough and the civil servant at the centre of it all, Leslie Evans turns 60 in December after working her entire adult life in government.

    Just saying.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Evans

  6. Ruglonian
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi guys and gals, hope everyone’s well!

    Since I haven’t been in for a while I thought I’d better not show up at the door empty-handed πŸ™‚

    youtu.be/T4rf7bAApM4

    and if I need to explain one more time that Leonard is not depressing he’s just being honest…

  7. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Och, Alex, I think I’m just going to avoid any further comment on this situation, and try to take WGD’s advice to rise above it all. I’m feeling pretty sick at the enormous Yoon hypocrisy/gloating over this but we knew it was coming for someone in the SG some time soon and perhaps it will have unexpected and beneficial consequences for Yes.

    As DMH said, you have to admire the FM for gritting her teeth and doing the right thing in the midst of the meeja storm.

    My hope is we are very close to endgame now.

  8. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tinto Chiel

    Well said and it is the most reasonable approach to take. Paul’s two posts of the past 48hrs are bang on the nail IMV. Scotland’s electorate cannot afford to allow the media to dictate their attention or drive the agenda.

    Brexit is falling apart in the most ungodly mess. Raab’s statement next to Barnier was merely a glimpse. It was the picture of a man who has seen his world view and his confidence shaken to its core. Hammond’s release of the impending costs and the on again off again release of the contingency papers, should be a heads up as to the political and social catastrophe headed our way.

    A wave of austerity that will make the past ten years look like days of plenty. We allow the meeja and their chain tuggers to take our eyes off that at our peril.

  9. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Follow up on the complimentary National exercise.

    Now finished and the National reports an increase in circulation for the area in a piece today.

  10. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve never been accused of being reasonable before, Sam πŸ˜› ‘cos usually my red mist descends at some bit of Britnat skulduggery or hypocrisy and I say things I sometimes regret later. I admire your ability to not get dragged into the squabbles on the M/T and stay focused on what really matters.

    My handler and I attended all but one of the summer marches so far and it’s no surprise The Watchers are getting worried. They were all happy, well-attended affairs which were really morale boosting (for the shy Yessers/undecideds on the pavements too, I’m sure).

    Hoping for a Mega Embra March to finish off in style and have the fruit loops frothing.

    Bonus track: I have managed to obtain for the soffisticates on here a bootleg copy of Donald Trump secretly recording the new post-Brexit UK national anthem for Jacob Rees-Mogg, whom you can just make out on the paper and comb if you listen hard:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I7yAC1Pz6Y

  11. Michael McCabe
    Ignored
    says:

    HI Folks looking forward to catching up with you all on the Streets of Edinburgh on October the 6th. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qTbLoyQ23g

  12. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tinto Chiel

    Dae ma bestest tae get tae Embra in October. πŸ™‚

    As for staying focused? S’easy. I stick to readin’ the folks I know have something informative to say or contribute and sayin’ hi tae ma chums.

    Folk aren’t daft. They can spot the trouble makers and contrarians a mile off. I’m guessing they do the same as me. One sight of a name and you walk on by without even reading their guff. Stick to the folk you like and the reading experience improves in leaps and bounds.

    Also? The stress levels drop and your hair grows back. In my case… on my back. Oot ma ears and the palms of my hands.

    You’ve seen my avatar? That. πŸ˜€

  13. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Macart: hee hee hee. Have you tried a wet shave? I use Nivea Sensitive Gel.

    I shall try to follow your Dionne Warwick Strategy to maintain my mental equilibrium on line.

    Hi, Michael. Would have liked to have talked longer with you @Stirling but, as I recall, That There Thepnr took you to a pub for a cultural phenomenon or two.

    6/10/18: the Far East is the place to be for a Darkest Lanarkshire chiel.

  14. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick McGregor

    Well done Chic as it looks like your distributing of the National in your area might have paid off. It was a great initiative and you deserve some plaudits for the efforts.

    Cheers from me.

    If you all feel like me right now then I know exactly how your feeling. Thing is though I also know I will put it behind me shortly and get on with the job in hand and that is winning our Independence.

    We’ll all be back doing our bit soon, something to look forward too is Edinburgh, this has the potential to stun all the No voters and I have a feeling that the carry on over the last two days will boost support for that.

    One thing is certain and that is Yes supporters won’t lie down so we’ll be back alright.

  15. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks Alex
    Yep, a bit gutted and angered at the moment, more the latter I think.

  16. Welsh Sion
    Ignored
    says:

    I know this isn’t really off topic – but am placing it here so it doesn’t cut across the main thread on Effie Dean. If anyone wants to re-post it elsewhere, I leave that to them and Stu.

    Interesting reading, anyway.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/25/no-deal-brexit-break-up-uk-warns-van-rompuy

  17. vlad (not that one)
    Ignored
    says:

    Help!
    Is there any way to prevent half-written comments suddenly posting themselves for no apparent reason??
    Happened to me twice today.
    I do not think I ever got near the “submit” button.
    This sort of thing can put you off commenting.

  18. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Evenin’ vlad, what kind of device are ye using to post.. desktop computer, iPad, mobile phone?

    Sometimes it’s good to draft a post and copy it all across from your notepad software (if ur on a desktop,) then post.

    Peek-a-boo Smallaxe on the MT πŸ™‚

    Mini-burp at 9.

  19. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Cactus,

    A word from our sponsors;
    Honey Cone:”Innocent Til’ Proven Guilty”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeC7CepPXRc&ab_channel=RiqGz
    πŸ˜‰

  20. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Welcome back Smallaxe… was beginning to worry about you..
    Hope you are keeping well
    Tell Mrs Smallaxe I’m asking for her XX

  21. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Excellent Smallaxe, you got the groovy, Wings Over WOW, that is such an uplifting song!!

    Nice backing vocals πŸ™‚

    A big dedication to ye all.

    Let us do it again:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeC7CepPXRc&ab_channel=RiqGz

    Ah just had tae:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eglgj77T0rk

    You understand, “cause aye do it too.”

    Put your hands on your face.

    Go crazy like!

  22. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @vlad

    Like Cactus, if I’m going to post a longish one I usually just type it in Notepad first then cut and paste. No spell checker in Notepad so mind check before you hit the submit button.

    Sometimes I forget LOL.

  23. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Liz,

    I’m convalescing for a while but I’ll pop in now and again. Mrs S. sends her love and regards, as do I.
    πŸ™‚
    Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes:”Wake Up Everybody”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pspeIJS7XQ&ab_channel=TTV-rus1138

  24. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    Great to have you back on Off Topic. Saved this for you πŸ™‚

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss6sZgiX-Eo

  25. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Cactus

    Peek-A-Boo Tremendous πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

  26. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr, Good work on the M/T, I’ve been watching.

    “So Good To Be Back Home Again”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll5hKSgB5nE&ab_channel=lemmy9991
    πŸ˜‰

  27. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    Great choice πŸ™‚

  28. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    You’re a rascal, nearly had me greeting LOL

    Aye, chin up always and never be divided πŸ™‚

  29. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Nearly greeting, pnr? That’s because you have one of these that I’ve been searching for;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFGY2E4oH60

  30. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    I don;t know if you know this but I’m pretty sure I the first person to play that here on O/T. Played it at least 3 times, a favourite of my brothers.

    I’ve told this story before on Wings but I’ll tell again in case you missed it first time.

    So I’m sitting in a disco with the brother in the early 80’s there’s a “late to the party” punk rocker with a mini kilt over his jeans, the usual pins and a huge blonde mohican sticky up spikey hair.

    So the punk has the girls, lots of them and the brother steps in and asks for a dance with one. Goes great and then he has them lapping up his patter with the poor mohican being ignored.

    Of course he doesn’t take kindly to this and turns on my brother saying “Do ye know you look like Fergal Sharkey”.

    John straight off says “and you look like Orville the Duck”
    the lassies nearly peed themselves laughing at Orville and he then looked like the not so Mr Cool.

    OK it was a long time ago but so funny then I can’t forget it now. That song always brings back those old memories but without memories such as those there wouldn’t be much point.

    And no. I’m not greeting I’m smiling πŸ™‚

  31. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    I’n’I Mi sey goodnight now gud people Sleep well mi brothas an sistas.

    “Turn Your Lights Down Low”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPV4yO7LKQ

  32. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr,

    Please, accept my apologies for signing off last night without refreshing the page and in doing so, missed the amusing story that you had posted. Here’s a wee song from Bob to start the morning;

    Bob Marley:”Duppy Conqueror”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGZo28IAv4o&ab_channel=Rastavibe13

    Duppy = Ghost

  33. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    Good to see you cuttin aboot Sma. πŸ™‚

    Cha’n eil fealladh ann cho mΓ²r ris an gealladh gun choimhlionadh!

    Meh tap fehve πŸ˜‰

    The Gael
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikQXY4qnFNs

    The Uprising
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSNsHDPAmOo

    1320
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OlLnsFTKvs

    Hope over Fear
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASdCqWbbj64

    Loch Lomond ( The Flamingo email saga πŸ˜‰ )
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXGVFJqSqqg

    Peace and Love Brithers an Sisters πŸ™‚

    Pished again! πŸ˜‰

  34. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Complimentary National update.

    The circulation increase in the area covered by my little punt has exceeded expectations.

    If extrapolated nation wide The National’s circulation would rise to similar levels of that of the Sun and Record.

    Staff at The National are very excited by it and have been holding meetings to discuss what to do about it.

  35. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ William Wallace…..YES!

  36. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    A classic line at the end of the eleventh paragraph in Michael Fry’s piece in today’s National

  37. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Dashed off a wee poem

    A weel kent guy has touched a tit
    Who ever wid have believed it?
    And bum as weel, or so we’re telt
    (Hoo mony extra Records selt?)
    Witnesses ? Nane to be foond
    Buy what a story going roond
    She made her way upstairs tae the bed
    (Nae proof o’ that it must be said)
    But if she did why did she risk it
    She thought she’d get a Penguin biscuit?
    Aye, right.

  38. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick McGregor,

    Great work, Chick. Well done, sir, for turning people on to the National!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNsCeOV4GM&ab_channel=TheBeatlesVEVO
    πŸ™‚
    β€œProduce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It’s quite possible to do anything, but not if you put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don’t expect Carter or Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself.”
    [John Lennon]
    *************************************************************
    DMH,
    πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚
    **************************************************************
    Fred,

    Sober up!
    πŸ˜‰

  39. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Well done, Chick.

    Those who derive amusement from the farce that is the Skripal Affair may enjoy this:

    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

    Seems many of the BBC’s reporters are “spooky”, if you get my drift.

  40. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,

    I am so pleased that it went so well. I did think it seemed a really good idea at the time for people to actually have a copy.

    Most people, even if they know it exists won’t have tried a copy for lots of reasons. The lack of visibility in the shops that sell it being the main one and habit, which is possibly one of the biggest drivers of newspaper sales.

  41. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,
    I’m thrilled at your success – I thought it was a good idea and hoped urban-area Yessers would follow your example. [ I’d like to do it too but a rural i.e. 10 miles from the nearest shop, and only rare forays to it, adds some extra difficulties. I’ve not been in to collect our own Nationals yet so haven’t even seen the report of your success in print!]

    If the National’s readership rises, so do our chances of success at the next referendum.

  42. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Thought you historical vile seps might like this trailer of a trailer:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_IMNsSDyo

    I’m just waiting for the Britnat wailing and gnashing of teeth when it comes out.

    Can’t wait for Grouse Beater’s film review either.

  43. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Treeza,

    Here are some weans to show you how it’s done.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcKuBpGNvDI&ab_channel=GalaxyFoundation

    Did ye clock their Armani outfits, ya fuckin dancer!

  44. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick

    Great news, glad to hear too that it has raised the interest of the staff at the National. Put that one down as a result! πŸ™‚

  45. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Buffy Sainte-Marie & Tanya Tagaq:”You Got To Run (Spirit Of The Wind)”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zb0WTSLsY&ab_channel=polarismusicprize

  46. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Ry Cooder:”How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6efQ_GyQW3o&ab_channel=mbroders

  47. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Sarah et al, thanks and Sarah, here is a link to The National article.

    http://www.thenational.scot/community/16598579.yes-diy-giving-out-free-nationals-is-a-great-example-to-set/

    Circulation change figures I have been given by The National are, well, mind blowing if extrapolated nationally.

    Cautionary note is, as always, the small sample size my effort represents but certainly more than enough to justify further similar testing.

  48. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Jeezo Smallaxe ye were hot last night kid!

  49. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yeah, some great tracks Smallaxe but I prefer my music to be a bit harder edged:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8acGK5lPhzA

  50. The Tree of Liberty
    Ignored
    says:

    Rev, I think you should think about doing a piece on the Cairnross Review? We only have only until 14 Sept to stop this.

  51. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    The National are going to deliver free bulk newspapers to people and groups who can deliver to potential readers in their area on Saturday 8th Sep.

    Great, but not exactly how I would have gone about it.

    Will need to email them.

  52. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,
    I was about to email my Yes group to suggest we follow your example i.e. order some extra copies over a period for delivery – not to everyone at once but spread out.

    But the National are doing it all on one day. This requires us to be available to do the work on that particular day i.e. is less flexible. On the other hand the copies are free!

    What will your suggestion be to The National? I will hold back from contacting my group until I hear your thoughts.

  53. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Sarah,
    There is an official email from the National now doing the rounds and the scale is not as I first feared when I saw a preliminary text.

    I did in fact email them before I saw the official email, my main concern being the problem of ensuring sufficient newsagent stock increase provision to service the new demand. If someone decides to buy a National the next day but the local shop is sold out, in all likelihood they may never bother again.

    The way I did it, 10 per day for a month, meant that normal stock control mechanisms had time to cope with it.

    10,000 newspapers is the target bulk free distribution, that sounds a lot, but provided the Yes groups intimate to the National which areas they plan to cover, it is a manageable figure for stock targeting.

    A similar exercise could be repeated, preferably for areas not previously covered (which requires someone keeping a note of postcode areas already done, ideally a completion list/map would be available for perusal)

    So when the official email hit my mailbox I had to email them again with an apology. Hee haw!

  54. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Great playlist last night, Smallaxe. Glad to see you back.

  55. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,
    Thanks for the detail. Now I can ask my group if they’d like to take some. I’m quite excited at the prospect of increasing The National’s circulation to significant levels!

  56. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Sarah
    It’s still pretty much a trial effort and will not increase the nationwide figure dramatically but it should for those local areas participating and if it does would give the green light for more a much larger effort.

  57. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,
    You are due a medal! One day….

  58. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick McGregor

    I got an email today from a social network platform with the same name as your good self. I haven’t responded as it could have been from anyone. Was it you?

  59. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr

    Yep Alex, I followed Gordon Ross’s recommend over to WEME.

    Looks a bit like FB but without the ads and much better photo and video res.

    Still trying to figure it all out.

    Sarah
    Shucks! Just a foot soldier who got lucky with an idea.

  60. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick McGregor

    OK I’ve signed up and have left you a message πŸ™‚

  61. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    OK Alex, answered.

    You should check out the quality of Gordon’s video today (after he figured out how to enable the HD).

  62. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,
    Too modest!

    WeMe sounds great – no adverts targeted at one because they have analysed ones activity. I always thought that was sinister.

  63. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq-_js08tU0&ab_channel=IRON-LION-ZION-777

    “Life is one big road with lots of signs, yes!
    So when you riding through the ruts
    Don’t you complicate your mind
    Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy!
    Don’t bury your thoughts
    Put your dream to reality, yeah!”

    Soon come. Seen?

  64. fionan
    Ignored
    says:

    Cearc, are there still housing association houses free around your part? Can you email me please if so?
    Does anyone else know of any small cottages for reasonable rent, with garden, where dogs allowed? Or land for caravan + garden area? Please email me if you know.

  65. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    These hep cats can really swing.

    The sham-gabbit drummer’s a drole fellow, too.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30HsgKTkQ68

    Arrividerci, Erchies.

  66. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    A sad, non-football related story about Govan. I can’t believe so many of these stones were destroyed as recently as 1988. Does anyone on here know anything about this?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh6W3Yop-18

    In Welsh, Govan means “little hill” and may refer to the old mound near the church. Govanhill, further east, used to be known as Little Govan.

  67. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Sham-gabbit ah huvnae heard since Jimmy Hill, Tinto.

  68. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tinto Chiel

    A catchy number! You must have saw this one “The Brexit Shuffle”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGtOT1tIAwg

  69. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr: I have sent your clip to David Icke as incontrovertible proof that Treeza is one of the Lizard People who control the Illuminati and seek to reclaim the Earth. I presume her Arthur Askey on stilts hubby stayed at home to avoid embarrassment or work on his hedge fund.

    “Sham-gabbit” is a favourite of my handler, Fred, along with “Shift it, Poindexter!” and “Ya thowless gomeril.”

    Ah, The Laydees, eh?

    Forgot to warn you re American pronunciation in the Govan video.

    An abomination, soanitis!

  70. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fred

    Looks like you nailed the cottage in that “cartoon” from today’s times. Ian Brotherhood has linked to a picture over on the MT. same place for sure.

  71. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Awright abody?

    Hope all well there.

    Long time since I posted some James Brown, but this one’s a wee bit different…

    It’s JB and Bobby Byrd doing Sex Machine in Italy in ’71.

    Question – are they lip-synching?

    I’m as sure as I can be that they are, but it’s affy hard tae tell, eh?

    Hoots all!

    πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UzZUfFUnxY

  72. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    ” Arthur Askey on stilts ” LOL

  73. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick, for your delectation:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xzKoQtQSnI

    Ian B: are you aware of Stuart Cosgrove’s withering critique of James Brown as a person? They shared a taxi, I think, and proved the maxim, “Never meet your hero.”

    I must demur: I met Willie (Billy in Embra) Hunter of Motherwell FC and Scotland and he was a proper gent. Still writes poetry for charity and works with footballers stricken with forms of dementia.

    The Motherwell Nijinsky, imo.

  74. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Hello playmates.

    Just a quick word to say, if any of you are planning to participate in the promo for The National on 8th Sep in your area, I strongly recommend putting them through letter boxes rather than handing out in the street or at stalls.

    I just have a gut feeling that street and stall hand outs will not produce the same result. After all, other nespapers have done similar in the past to no noticeable effect.

    A friend who helped deliver some also feels that the surrounding ribbon might be a factor. The breaking of it triggering a kind of psychological buy in so they are more inclined to read than bin.

  75. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,
    I’ll pass the guidance on – I feel both points are right. Picking something off your own mat, in your own space, is more personal than from a stall, and then the choosing to open the ribbon means the reader is taking control. [Not that I’m an expert!]

  76. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Fionan,

    For the first time in years all the cottages in Kirk road seemed to be occupied when I was last there. So I checked on the website but nothing.
    https://www.trustha.org.uk/

    If I hear of anything I’ll let you know. I’ll be in the village on monday so will see if there are any ads in the shop.

  77. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Everything has went all quiet again over on the MT so here’s something just a totty bitdifferent.

    Officially the greatest racehorse ever, unbeaten and here are all 14 wins. Even if you have no interest in racing you’ll recognise a superstar when you see one.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtVTFb9Tf7k

  78. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    For the ‘Civil War’
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i1ztJhqQZM&ab_channel=stevethrasher

    I’m gone again. Peace to ALL!
    πŸ™‚

  79. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Thepnr at 9:23 pm.

    You typed,
    “Everything has went all quiet again over on the MT so here’s something just a totty bitdifferent.

    Officially the greatest racehorse ever”

    Och, I thought you were going to link to this famous racehorse…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRgokSbo7c8

  80. Dek
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian McCubbin. May have something for you on subject you raised in current thread. Email me on: derekrcameron@btinternet.com

  81. hackalumpoff
    Ignored
    says:

    OK sorry about that, this time with subtitles
    https://twitter.com/charleshw52/status/1036303798543765505

  82. Shinty
    Ignored
    says:

    In need of a laugh? look no further -funniest use of googley eyes ever.

    https://twitter.com/Leistunghund/status/1036036295867420673

  83. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Enjoyed WGD’s thoughts today on the latest poll and the thought that, despite all the MSM lies and smears, we are almost in the majority before our independence campaign has even started.

    Britnat incomprehension and panic must be rising to Corporal Jones levels but my favourite of this kind of reaction is Ceausescu having his Timosoara Moment, when he realises the whole rotten show is up and he can’t even count on his army:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6pvMFfQF50

  84. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tinto Chiel

    I watched that and found it fascinating, right after it finished this was the next one up which is a longer version, I’m guessing from a documentary that uses the same footage but with a good bit more explanation as to what was happening.

    Good stuff this here education you can get on Wings.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRWiz1PhKU

  85. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes, Thepnr, the long version is much better. You almost feel sorry for The Great Dictator as he can’t believe his whole world is crumbling away before his eyes. Not even the state propagandist TV can help him anymore, or the folk at the front ordered to clap and hold up the banners. He even has a Burly Man a la Ruthie.

    I was at a talk given by Lesley Riddoch last night following a showing of the Phantom Power film on The Faroes and she was warning of a very bumpy and disastrous Brexit ride. WM’s time is up and we need to grab our chance for our children and grandchildren’s sake.

    An interesting footnote to the evening was when she was asked if she had offered the Phantom Power film to the BBC. She said she hadn’t even considered it, knowing, for example, that the Faroese remarks about Scotland and its potential and resources at the end of the programme would never have been broadcast.

    She had written to the head of STV about showing the film but it was politely rejected.

    For all their media power, I feel the Britnat hysteria we are seeing just now in their media shows they feel things are slipping away from them, like the old guy on the rostrum in Timisoara.

  86. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    We have Lesley Riddoch and her films on Iceland and the the Faroes at the cinema in Dunoon on Thursday evening at 7.30. All welcome

  87. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye aye, with an excellent ladyfootball result, ah went oot an got masel a kerryootah anna put oan ah couple of lines furra later like.

    Celebrate guid times, come on. πŸ™‚

    Empower yerselves y’all.

    Fucking Yes! πŸ˜‰

    DJ…

  88. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus,

    “The Power”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm6DO_7px1I&ab_channel=SnapVideosOfficial

    Enjoy yer kerryoota.

    I’m gone again. Peace to All.
    πŸ™‚

  89. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey Smallaxe, thx, ra next autoplay video after yours was this one like:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPmBnnon0Ek

    Peace tae ye too, gonna come doon on the choo-choo again soon tae see you-you, gimme a shout when suits yee’s dude X.

  90. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s the reality of the truth Wingers…

    InMyHO… girls are better dancers than boys. FACT.
    (see above)

    Fair play to the dude in the above though…

    Pullin’ some groovy shapes.

    Ladies WIN.

  91. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Smallaxe.

    It’s good to see you droppin’ into “off-topic” now and again.

    You’ve been a pal over the past year or three at the various rallies. Hope to see you at the biggest ever in the known multiverse (quoting Sheldon Cooper) in Edinburgh on 6th October.

    Don’t know if I’ve ever stuck this link in “off-topic” before but I was always impressed by this band – some great singles, This is the best (12″/album) version of the song. Listen to how the guitar theme from the intro is repeated later in the track.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8X1EKyhLHw

  92. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus,

    I’ll hopefully see you in Edinburgh but at the moment;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbhYqV17CoQ&ab_channel=kigonjiro

    So I have to do this for a while;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC9al-gRdPY&ab_channel=SeuReggae
    **********************************************************
    A tune wi’ a lassie singin’;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0quXl_od3g&ab_channel=BlackBoxHouse
    Stay cool Cactus. 😎

  93. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe,

    Aye for Edinburgh πŸ™‚

    Let number two take care of you x.

    Mwah to missus smallaxe xx.

    Independence imminent.

  94. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus @ 10.06,… apart from me!

    I shall miss not being able to dance next week when –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJyOlFmqd1M

    are playing in Lochinver.

  95. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Brian,

    Good band, I wasn’t aware of them but I’ll check out some more of their stuff.

    An oldie but IMO, the best version;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3ChToIvLRM&ab_channel=DUOPHONIC_forSTEREOphonographsII

    Hoping to meet you in Edinburgh, my friend.
    πŸ˜‰

  96. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Cacts 10.06

    …apart from me!

    I shall miss not dancing when …

    youtube.com/watch?v=HJyOlFmqd1M

    play in Lochinver next week.

  97. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey cearc, love the Wolfstone, ahm planning to drive around the circumference of Scotland and back again to Glasgow.

    Ah’ll let ye know ye when ahm heading up if yer about furra visit xx.

    To iEdinburgh soon.

    6/10/18.

  98. Shinty
    Ignored
    says:

    FAO Dave McEwan Hill

    Should cheques be made out to Forward Shop or Yes Cowal (sorry can’t find your original post) Cheers

  99. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    “Yes Cowal” Shinty. Cheers

  100. Shinty
    Ignored
    says:

    DMH -Thanks.

  101. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Smallaxe.

    That’s one of my favourite albums! I have it on vinyl and CD.

    When I was going to church hall and youth club dances in 1967/68, every band with an organist did the Vanilla Fudge version of that song. One I recall was “The Oryx”, who were from Alloa

    Here’s another couple of Motors tracks. First one was an A-side; second was a B-side.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjkeNsWmFSc

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrf56ZhyuPI

  102. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Well done to Chic! πŸ™‚

    This Saturday, ahead of the launch of our brand new Sunday edition, more than 50 Yes Groups up and down the country will be taking to the streets with 17,000 free copies of Saturday’s paper to distribute into the hands of potential new readers.

    We’ve always known we have the best readers in the world – from making sure The National has a prominent position in your local shop, to buying extra copies and leaving them on buses and trains so they’re read by more people, we know how much you already do for us. But we didn’t expect our latest plan to gather so much support!

    We were spurred into action by loyal reader Chic McGregor, who for the past 20 days had been buying extra copies and delivering them into the letter boxes of his neighbours.

    We took his email, and checked out the postcodes in our distribution system.

    It turns out Chic’s efforts were responsible for an increase of around 10 sales (over and above the extra ones he was buying).

    We thought: there’s something in this. What if we could replicate this in towns all across Scotland?

    http://archive.fo/QVuOy

  103. Shinty
    Ignored
    says:

    Well done Chic indeed.
    Acorns and the mighty Oak come to mind.

  104. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Just put my last post on the MT, it should be there.

  105. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr

    Thanks for that.

    But I am a wee bit worried at the gung ho response from The National.

    In an ideal world my solo effort of delivering 200 copies through letterboxes in Kirriemuir, about 10% of the households in Kirriemuir would have first been repeated on a larger scale i.e. maybe 1000 households and THEN if the same increase was seen, to roll it out in a program as fast as they could manage across the country.

    On the other hand I can well understand that time for such an initiative is not on our side and can admire their bravery.

    The figures are roughly this. In Kirrie with a population of 6,000 sales of The National, going by their current circulation, would have been something like 10 per day.

    What they found is that in the postcode areas I sent them, where on average there would have been 1 or 2 sales per day, over the exercise increased by about 10 sales per day.

    Extrapolating from 200 households to the 2 million in Scotland this would represent a circulation increase from 10,000 per day to 100,000 per day.

    However, I was delivering the copies through letterboxes and this weekend does not stipulate that.

    I am therefore worried that instead of putting in the legwork to put copies through letter boxes many groups may just hand them out in the streets or at stalls.

    I have a very strong gut feeling that handing out in the street or at stalls will not have the same effect.

    I have sent an email to the editor on this but so far no response.

  106. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    We will be putting them through the doors but we will be making sure all our members (many of whom don’t buy the National) will be getting one

  107. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    DMH Thumbs up.

  108. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick

    Yeah, I’m totally with you on that, the wee ribbon and the personal touch would have made a big difference. I can understand why the National can’t replicate that as it would take too many dedicated people such as yourself.

    There’s no way this initiative can have the same impact but it will still have some kind of impact if they are delivered through the doors, I do hope they have some kind of message on them though like you did.

    Anyway, you should be chuffed with that, I am and I don’t have the sore feet πŸ™‚

  109. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick
    I think it’s a great initiative from The National, it’s distributed to 50 YES groups who agreed to do so, so they’re not just being sent some copies regardless, they asked for them after being emailed. And as it says “We would send them free copies this Saturday September 8 to deliver to their area, or to give out at a stall “. Different strokes for different errr, people.

    If that’s successful I’d like to see them asking AyeMail to take some for their Indy Kits – all 200 or so of the YES groups. 50 each say, roughly 100 grams each, that adds 5Kg to the box Lindsay thinks would be about 25Kg. My courier service is Β£7.24 + VAT for 30Kg 24 hour, or Β£10.50 for highland and island 48 hour. So they’d be a bit out of date, but a special edition could take care of that.

    But I’d also like to see them doing something with the SNP and Green branches around the palce. I printed off a bundle of A5 susbscription forms when it was launched and handed in to what was then my local YES shop, and there’s a few around my area stock the National – it may have helped.

    Doesn’t cost much what, 10p a copy so Β£1,700 for this try out this Saturday, peanuts compared to what it could do for circulation. And circulation is also advertising revenue, you’ll know yourself, but also makes it more attractive for advertisers if it had say a circulation of 30,000. 100,000 copies extra to give away would be Β£10,000. Shrug.

  110. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick
    Oh yeah, and it would all be your fault πŸ™‚

    A well invested Β£200 if I remember rightly.

  111. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    So my wee effort seems to have generated at a rate of about 20:1. If that were replicated throughout Scotland it would equate to about 100,000, in the same league as the Sun and Record.

    However, logistically, it is a bit of a nightmare.

    It would require more than a hundred times this Weekend’s effort.

    It would require a list of postcodes done, preferably a map available for perusal by activists.

    It would need to be done in a similar fashion, through the door, wee ribbon with zero hard sell on it. No accompanying leaflets.

    And finally there is the headache of coordinating increased delivery to stockists in areas targeted. If someone goes along to buy a National the next day but the shop is sold out they are quite likely never to bother trying again.
    And in small urban areas of large towns it is quite likely that local newsagents would not be used. A large town like Dundee would be best done in a oner, about 50,000 copies and the stock levels for the whole town anticipated.

    Even in my wee area of 200 households, I decided to do 10 per day rather than ordering 200 and doing them in a oner. It would have been easier for me to do a oner. The reason being that then any increased demand would not be met by the retailer and the effect lost. Done at 10 per day over 4 weeks it allowed time for normal stock control methods to adjust.

    I do not have an established dialogue with The National editor just a couple of emails and ones where I made some of those points have so far been unanswered, I know he is a very busy man especially at the moment so I quite understand.

    If circulation rose as hoped, increased revenue could have a snowball effect, better quality product, better advertising maybe even TV adverts.

    I hope they have given consideration to these things, they are the professionals after all, however I had a lot longer to think things through than they have.

  112. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    yesindyref2

    Actually it was only Β£162. My patch only has about 250 letterboxes and some were missed out (businesses, owners in the garden). I felt it best not to engage with recipients because that could have contaminated the data. I wanted only influence via a paper through the letter box. This was always designed to be a useful, if small, sampling exercise.

    I’m a regular donor to most of the usual suspects and that amount is in line with some of of those donations. I felt it was worth a punt and one where I knew where it went and how.

    My next planned project is to promote the flag design I’m working on as I think it could be useful but will need to seek opinion on that first.

  113. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick McGregor says:

    ” but will need to seek opinion on that first.”

    Superb work Chick, here’s my opinion;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xCnhtANl8g&ab_channel=HenryCooper

    πŸ˜‰

  114. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Brian Doonthetoon,

    Sorry, Brian, I’ve just noticed the other two tracks that you linked for me.

    Try these two old pals;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5wTw21Oqv0&ab_channel=WillyBilliams
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5vj0aCqrpY&ab_channel=SteveWalker
    πŸ˜‰

  115. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Burt Reynolds passed away today aged 82, reading that reminded me of a clip from a film that I played here before. I can’t really believe that this film is 46 years old now.

    It was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsC4kf6x_Q0

  116. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick
    It’s given them the impetus, hope they can run with it.

  117. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Had a marvelous evening with Lesley Riddoch at the Dunoon Cinema last night where we showed both her “Nation” films. So impressive on the big screen.

    Every person In Scotoand should be marched into a cinema to watch these and listen to our little neighbours puzzlement about the timid Scots.

    Good turnout and lots of folk we have never seen before. And Lesley is so impressive. She should be in our Parliament (as should be Paul Kavanagh, Carolyn Leckie, Aamer Anwar, Gordon McIntyre-Kemp and lots of others who are intensely literate and articulate with really progressive interest).

    Both films can be watched online – but are so much more impressive on the big screen

  118. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey, Cactus (from a couple of days ago),

    Your Grand Tour sounds fun, of course you can stay, I’m usually here.

  119. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Lochinver is THE place to be on fri. 14th. for the Wolfstone concert. Should be fun.

  120. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @cearc

    I sent you an email on Wed, it’s about AOUB in Edinburgh next month, you might have missed it.

  121. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr,

    I just replied @ 12.23.

  122. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi cearc.

    Your mention of Wolfstone caused me to go to YouTube for a listen to my favourite Wolfstone track –

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJyOlFmqd1M

    I still have that concert (Grampian TV) on VHS somewhere in my hovelhold. Interesting thing is; that song was the last of the broadcast and I’m sure the credits were rolling over the end of the song. Not on the YouTube version though. Looks like somebody had access to the original ‘pre-broadcast’ recordings.

  123. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,

    I am sure that you are right about the ribbon and the effect of having to open it.

    I used to sometimes use a bookshop in the Netherlands which still wrapped the books in a brown paper parcel tied up with string and a loop to hold it. The difference in the pleasure of getting home and unwrapping the new books as against oiking them out of a paperbag was immense.

  124. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick –

    Ye’re a hero.

    Merr power tae ye brother.

    πŸ˜‰

  125. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian B

    Thanks for that Ian but you and I both know if it doesn’t produce the 500 – 800 extra sales hypothecated then by circa Tuesday I will become the proverbial zero. πŸ™‚

  126. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick –

    Here’s hoping.

    And it’ll be interesting to see the figures for the Sunday National, eh?

    πŸ˜‰

  127. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick: you won’t be a zero because your efforts gained an increase of 10. That is significant in itself and I’d be thrilled if I’d achieved that.

    Today in Ullapool we had a glorious sunny day and delivered 200 Nationals [no leaflets]. We only had a sticker on them saying “complimentary copy” instead of your suggested info re on-line copies, I’m afraid [I was away whilst this arrangement was made or else I’d have made sure we followed your advice!].

    We did check our only newsagent [apart from Tesco, that is] if they were happy with this project and they were. I hope they will increase their order to allow for a surge in demand!

    Fingers crossed. And thank you again for inspiring so many people to give it a go.

  128. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Sarah

    Fingers crossed indeed. The wife and I did push some of Kirrie’s allocation through doors with ‘the ribbon’ but, like most others seemingly (looking at twitter) they were distributed in the street or from stalls.

    It may be that that is just as effective.

    Could be. Time will tell.

  129. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick McGregor

    Being handed one in the street can never be as effective as having one through the door when you have to sit down and read it I would think. Especially wone with a “personal” message.

    The Scotsman has been given them away for years and that doesn’t seem to have done much for their sales.

  130. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘were largely distributed’

  131. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Thepnr

    Re your MT comment at 11.50am

    Some days I feel I am wading through Brexshit treacle!

    Reading about brexiters living in a fantasy, on the road to nowhere while we sit on a bridge over troubled waters.

    Reality for brexiters

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abZlWqVeLzg

  132. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Nana not the song I expected but very appropriate all the same πŸ™‚

    Take care and keep up the good work, Scotland will appreciate it!

  133. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,

    Don’t know if you spotted this on Stu’s twitter feed.

    https://twitter.com/andrewpicken1/status/1038847752782966784

    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The ignorance is outstanding!

  134. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Cearc,
    Heh heh!

    If it quarks like a duck, it’s Boris the boson.

    I wouldn’t let him anywhere near CERN, unless he is to be used in a search for the stupidity particle.

  135. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    He’s probably working on a trade deal right now to import a few lorry loads!

    Swiss ones, of course. We don’t want any nasty EU ones made in France!

  136. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Only particles which have been stopped and searched at the border of course.

  137. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I think a particle is a tad namby-pamby.

    You need to administer a full tickle to make it worthwhile.

    Eh’ll git meh coat…

  138. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg2np37JNEg

    Apart from our own, of course.

  139. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Though I’m not a gender theorist and I’m very out of practice, sex is an expression of biology, where as gender is an expression of psychology, which is formed through the interaction of the individual’s biology with the social environment.

    re. the misogyny inherent in the term “TERF”.

    The β€˜Facts’ of Life?
    How the Notion of Evolved Brain Differences Between Women and Men Naturalises Biological Accounts of Sex/Gender

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08164649.2016.1149904?src=recsys

    Evolution, Language and the Battle of the Sexes
    A Feminist Linguist Encounters Evolutionary Psychology

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08164649.2016.1148097?src=recsys

    #MasculinitySoFragile: culture, structure, and networked misogyny
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2016.1120490?src=recsys

  140. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I know I suggested keeping things simple, but some times there’s just no escaping philosophy.

    Critical Realist and Postpositivist Realist Feminisms: Towards a Feminist Dialectical Realism

    Abstract

    Current inquiries into the meaning of feminist concepts, such as the third world woman worker, seek to explain contemporary social relations of global capitalism within the context of the legacy of post-colonialist structures. At the same time, these very concepts draw attention to the limitations of language to adequately approximate the world as it is in order to capture some truth about its categorical entities, in particular, about the embodied experiences of the third world women worker. Through a comparative analysis of critical and postpositivist realisms that highlights feminist interventions in the context of standpoint epistemology, and the evolution in both towards dialectics, I argue that feminist dialectical realism offers an alternative to feminist poststructuralist materialisms as well as addresses limitations in prevailing standards for truth in social theory and philosophy.

    keywords: Adorno, constellationality, dialectics, postpositivist realism, dialectical realism, feminist dialectical realism, feminist standpoint epistemology

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14767430.2016.1191005

    Theorizing Agency and Domination through a Critical Realist Perspective on Gender Positionality

    Abstract

    Feminist theory continues to struggle with the recurrence of the twin-problem of agency and domination: how can gender be conceptualized as a structure of domination that constitutes and restricts agency, without obscuring the possibilities for change and transformation through agency? To address this problem, I draw on the concept of agency developed by Margaret Archer. By elaborating on her notion of the structural shaping of the situation and combining it with elements of Thomas Wartenberg’s work, in this article I outline a concept of domination from a broadly critical realist perspective. I thus demonstrate how gender can be understood as a social structure that is constitutive of relations of domination. This framework draws attention to the limitations of β€˜undoing’ gender on an interactionist micro level as well as to the concrete possibilities for agency due to situational contradictions and emergent subjective powers.

    keywords: agency, Margaret Archer, domination, emergence, gender, social structure, Thomas Wartenberg

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14767430.2016.1210338

    The Failure of Diagnostic Psychiatry and Some Prospects of Scientific Progress Offered by Critical Realism

    A brief overview is provided of sociological and historical critiques of Western psychiatry before focusing on pre-empirical, non-empirical and empirical aspects of psychiatric diagnosis. These are then discussed by using the analytical devices of the ontic fallacy, the epistemic fallacy and generative mechanisms. It is concluded that mental disorders do not really exist but particular presenting problems of unintelligibility, interpersonal dysfunction and common human misery, in particular social contexts, recur in modern life and thus constitute real problems for those intimately implicated and for social order. These require new ways of understanding, beyond the option of deconstruction, which could displace categorical reasoning and be sensitive to causes, meanings and their situated social contexts. The paper concludes with an outline of an alternative future for research into mental health problems, which could be informed by critical realism.

    Key words: critical realism; deconstruction; epistemic fallacy; generative mechanisms; erklΓ€ren; ontic fallacy; psychiatric diagnosis; verstehen

    http://dxsummit.org/archives/1186

  141. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I honestly didn’t see the day I would ever use this knowledge. Still haven’t used algebra though, not knowingly anyway. πŸ™‚

    Most children and teens with gender dysphoria also have multiple other psychological issues

    New research on gender identity disorder (also known as gender dysphoria, in which a person does not identify with their biological sex) questions how best to handle the condition when it arises in children and adolescents. Should biological treatments be used as early as possible to help a young client transition, or is caution required, in case of complicating psychological issues?

    Melanie Bechard of the University of Toronto and her colleagues examined the prevalence of β€œpsychosocial and psychological vulnerabilities” in 50 child and teen cases of gender dysphoria, and writing in a recent issue of the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, they argue their findings show that physicians should be considering these factors more seriously when deciding on a treatment plan. Salting the situation, one of the paper’s co-authors is Kenneth Zucker, an expert on gender dysphoria who was last year considered too controversial for Canadian state television.

    https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/01/17/most-children-and-teens-with-gender-dysphoria-also-have-multiple-other-psychological-issues/

    What Social Psychology Can Contribute to the Study of Sex, Gender, and Sexual Orientation

    Abstract

    The concepts of sex and gender have received increasing attention in sociology in recent years, with social psychologists providing many of the key insights. Issues of sexual orientation and sexuality have received comparably less attention, although many of the tools social psychologists use could be fruitfully applied to better understand sex, gender, sexual orientation, and the intimate connections between the three. In particular, I outline the perspectives of doing gender, stereotyping, and status and suggest possible ways to incorporate these frameworks into intersectional examinations of sex, gender, and sexual orientation. I argue that to fully understand sex, gender, or sexual orientation, researchers should consider all three and recognize the highly interconnected nature of each.

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/soc4.12331

    Gender and social influence: A social psychological analysis.

    Abstract

    Men and women are believed to differ in how influential and easily influenced they are: Men are thought to be more influential, and women more easily influenced. In natural settings, men and women tend to differ in these ways, but these differences stem largely from formal status inequalities by which men are more likely than women to have high-status roles. Status is important because of the legitimate authority vested in high-status roles. Within appropriate limits, people of higher status are believed to have the right to make demands of those of lower status, and people of lower status are expected to comply with these demands. Yet, small, stereotypic sex differences in leadership and social influence generally have been found in laboratory experiments and other small-group settings where men and women have equal formal status. These small sex differences may occur because experience with hierarchical social structures in which men have higher status creates expectancies about male and female behavior, and these expectancies affect social interaction in ways that foster behavior that confirms the expectancies. Sex differences that occur in the laboratory as well as natural settings may stem from social structural factorsβ€”namely, from the existing distributions of women and men into social roles. (77 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

    http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1984-09441-001

  142. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Fred, I’ve been building an “easy assembly” rubber wood futon for the past gazillion hours but I finally got to read the article this afternoon. Great stuff and I noticed a good few cantonment dots in my area for further research. The Stennis web site is most interesting.

    I believe Murray Pittock is working on a book using these materials and I think it will be called “The Occupation”. That should set the cat among the pigeons.

  143. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Shockin stuff Tinto, Outlander isn’t the half of it!

  144. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fred: no, it’s not but they don’t want you to know that πŸ˜›

    Looking furrit to that book appearing. Hard to believe MP was once Bojo’s debating partner at Oxbridge (forget which one).

    Hope he didn’t mention there is a place in Scotland called Bonkle or we might be getting a visit.

  145. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Looking forward to that book Tinto, right noo ah’m reading “Lord Lovat of the’45” by Moray McLaren. Not just the scoundrel of popular belief!

  146. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    An amazing man, Fred. What a film could be made of his life and very complicated times! Sadly, that is unlikely until after our independence but I think I have the physique for the role πŸ˜›

    His brave last words clearly showed where his heart was.

  147. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Ha ha, have you the head for it but Tinto?

  148. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Ceann mor air duine glic, Fred πŸ˜›

    Meanwhile, in other news: dirty Ruskies!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFnbnJrpT6o

    You soffisticates will instantly recognise the piano melody at 1.16.

  149. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    ?

    😎

  150. Wullie B
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye Tinto, Fraser was some man, and one of the main movers in the kidnapping of Rachel Erskine along with Macleod of Dunvegan and the lord of the isles, quite a good story that I had heard nothing of until I started taking boat trips out to St Kilda and heard about the Lady Grange who was married to James Erskine, brother of the Earl of Mar and friend of the Fox, if you get a chance The Prisoner of St Kilda is a decent read as well of that whole escapade, Rachel Erskines father was the Chiesley that killed the Lord justice in Edinburgh

  151. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi yesindyref2.

    I’ve just submitted another (2nd) comment so this is just a test to see if my original one and second one are “lost”.

  152. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi yesindyref2.

    Yes, they are “lost”.

    If you want, email me at

    brian@doonthetoonbumfluff.plus.com (removing the bumfluff to get the real email address) and I’ll pass on the info.

  153. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Wullie B: I only discovered that story recently and I would love to go to St Kilda. Former climbing buddies of mine went there and had a very rough return journey to the mainland ahead of some bad weather. I’ll try to get a copy of that title on A____n.

    Why “former buddies” I hear you ask? Closet Brexiteers they were and worse but it took me a few climbs to suss ’em. Matters came to a head on Ben Ledi.

    Anent (ooh!) Braveheart: whatever trendy Bella C Types say, I will always be grateful to James Horner for providing the music for me to walk my younger daughter up the aisle a couple of years ago:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilt2SZxvlGU

    If you have tears, etc…

    @yesindyref2: “a big head on a wise man” in the Language of Eden, mon vieux haricot. Must point out that there is another Gaelic version that says, “A small head on a wise man”.

  154. Wullie B
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, its not the nicest of crossings at times, we did have a good spell between May and July, but since has been pretty crap, Aye you need to go out there, and if you can, camp for a day or two to see the entire island.
    As for Bella C, I left that site in 2014/15 as couldnt be arsed with all the pseudo Socialism that went on, only komrades are allowed to post in my experience and stopped visiting after falling out with some of those felllas and some of the green socialists, dont get me wrong I am not against it, but I see the entire picture of Scotland needing the support of even right wing voters before we will get independence and that means toaraidhs which I was piloried and called a Britnat plant amongst others, so couldnt be arsed
    As for Braveheart, its a bloody film, and a decent one at that, historically inaccurate in places but even Better Together Blairs been screaming about Tommy S showing a homophobic film from an anti semite producer, they all seem to be reading ff the same script,

  155. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Amen to all that, Wullie. I’m not a great sailor in the old chunder sense but will try to give it a go before I pop my clogs.

    I have writer friend who contributed a few articles to Bella for a time but he gradually was deemed “not wanted on voyage” for some obscure reason. Ironically, his speciality was land reform and currency, not pretentious cultural matters and he was a fan of Common Weal but he obvs. offended someone.

    Too may egos, not enough smeddum, imo.

  156. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @TC
    I think I was up Ben Ledi years ago (a lot of years), unless there’s munroes around Loch Vennachar (can’t think of any offhand, nearest maybe Ben Venue). Was on the other side of the loch yesterday anyway in the execution of my business, a few showers, wind and some sun, and a whole lot of tour buses, don’t remember it being that busy before with them. Didn’t count but there must have been over 50 back and for, via Aberfoyle or poor Hamish’s gaff. I think there’s plans for Aberfoyle by the way, needs a bit of a facelift. And it was hit by the closure of the A81 with the bridge being struck twice.

  157. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    A good film that I watched a few months back after finding it by accident and I’d recommend is Apocalypto. It was directed by Mel Gibson in 2016 and is a story about the Mayan people of South America before the Spanish arrive in the 16th century.

    It’s all spoken in the language of that time so subtitles throughout. It’s on Amazon Prime.

  158. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Bens Venue & Ledi not Munro’s guys. Got out to St Kilda years ago on a yacht & stayed a couple of nights, motoring all night from Mingulay. Most remarkable place. Must have been quite a shock to Lady Grange after her violent abduction & not understanding a word from the natives. When they later moved her in a small boat a ship appeared & her minders prepared to throw her overboard with a rock tied to her neck, I think she had burned the mince!
    Lovat had to flee to Dunvegan to his MacLeod relations when things got too hot & Atholl was on his tail. When you look at these family portraits & note that they all looked the same that’s because they were all the same extended family. The Fraser’s nowadays I fear have had any heroism bred out of them, judging by the likes of Murdo & Douglas. Completely ism-less whateffer!

  159. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    That should be 2006 not 2016.

  160. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @yesindyref2: Ben Ledi of the two cairns isn’t a Munro, I think, but the view from the top is pretty special.

    Fred: yup, as for the Frasers, how are the mighty fallen. The Scots Nobility must be the ultimate oxymoron. A loathsome bunch who sold us out for buttons and will do so again if we let them.

    Hope lies with the proles, imo.

  161. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Ooh, I really like this but what’s happened to Bobby G?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3ZCZjhjguA

    These young chaps covered a room and some groupies in hot chocolate in a hotel in Markinch. I know ‘cos it said so on a photograph on the wall in our room.

    My life’s been pretty boring……

  162. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    So it isn’t! I feel so – cheated. Might have to decrease my Munro count, no idea if I included Venue or even Ledi at the time. Mmm, I’ll just call them hills, that’ll be safe!

  163. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t worry, yesindyref2, the only time I climbed Ben Venue the track up became a roaring burn and there was an ugly shack near the top with steel shutters. It’s not really worth the effort, the state it’s in.

    After Indy, we should light beacons on all our country’s Munroes and have a giant party, with corned beef and gherkin sandwiches.

    Night, all.

  164. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Can’t rememeber it TC, would have been early 80s and it’s barely possible I was paying more attention to the females in the group I used to walk with πŸ™‚

  165. Wullie B
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye Fred , the Frasers hid in Dunvegan in 1702 or thereabouts after raping some lassie that was supposed to marry the young Strichen Fraser, who funnily enough are the line the Lovats are now,
    Aye Lady Grange went from Heisker to Hiort, to Rodel then Assynt before ending up in Waternish at the MacNeills, but she apparently spent time in a cave at Idrigill Pointt beside the MaclEods Maidens for upto 18months as well, the guie on my boat didnt think the story was worthwhile telling, but I always found it an integral part of the known Kilda history

  166. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Wullie, it was the lassie’s mother that he allegedly raped while his piper drowned the screams/orgasmic outpourings, take your pick. Anyhow, she was physically abused by her family the Atholl’s when she wouldn’t testify against Simon which tells U something. The Murray’s were a bunch of Atholl’s.

    Would make a good movie, the box-office would Lovat! πŸ™‚

  167. hackalumpoff
    Ignored
    says:

    We haff kultcha dontchano.

    Western Isles Council have responded to controversy about their anti Gaelic school stance by stating that to do so would be offensive to the Norse/Pictish culture of the islands.

    Vilhelm Donaldsson of the Council said β€œWe are Vikings up here. You can see it in the placenames …

    http://dailygael.com/gaelic-was-never-spoken-here-were-more-norse-say-western-isles-council/

  168. Shinty
    Ignored
    says:

    FAO DMH – goods arrived, thank you.

    A wee plug here for the Saltire Scarves from Dave McEwan Hill at Yes Cowal. They are really nice and only Β£4.50 each.
    ________________

    On another note and a wee rant.
    I purchased the scarves for my friend & I going to Loch Lomond Live, Drymen 22 & 23 Sept.
    With only 9 days notice the event has been cancelled.

    Although disappointed for myself, I’m devastated for the local businesses. All the hotels and B&B’s have been booked for weeks.
    Also seriously annoyed that the ‘Loch Lomond’ Live name will be tainted for any future events.

    I’ve been told that the organiser, hasn’t a clue and can’t afford to pay the farmer for his ground (under legislation farm animals must be kept off fields for a period of 6 weeks prior to use). So the organisers knew well in advance of 9 days that they could not continue with the event.

    This is a 2 day festival with 50 bands, trade stands, family fun day etc. so there is no way this can be blamed on one person.
    If anyone knows who is behind this event, please let me know.

    Rant over. Cheers.

  169. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I was watching the “independencelive” livestream from George Square today and was AMAZED to see Alastair Macdonald live on stage.

    I only possess one of his singles and, prescient me, I linked to it around a month ago. He was one of those ‘weel kent puhsses’ who was on Scottish entertainment progs on TV back in the 70s and 80s. I never had anything against him.

    Onnyhoo, it was good to see him coming out for independence (first time at an independence rally?) as he will be ‘weel kent’ to a certain generation.

    So, here’s what I posted a month ago…

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/comment-page-69/#comment-2385926

  170. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Naw BDTT he his been oot fir a while.
    Ah’ll admit Ah wis a wee bit surpriset when Ah heard massel.

    The first time Ah heard o ‘im wis at Perth Folk Club aroonaboot 1970. Ah arrived a bitty late an the rule wis, if onybuddy wis singin’ ye waited ootside the door till they stoapit singin afore goin in. Weel, furby massel there wis anither chiel waitin tae get in an a.
    I keekit through the door windae and clockit that there wisnae mony in that nicht sae Ah turned tae the chiel and said ‘Disnae look like this Alistair McDonald cin be much guid goin by the turnoot.’
    When we went in, the chiel went up ontae the stage – it wis him.
    By jings! Ah hid a riddy ye cuild hae spied fae Ooter Space.

  171. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    I hope I’m wrong but I get the feeling something like Independence First might need to be restarted if Westminster refuses a referendum.

    Mind you, if they leave the ECHR and like America last week the UNHCR with presumably the ICJ to follow it is difficult to see what might be achieved by it.

    For those who do not know what Independence First was (it has been well buried by the media) then here is a flyer for our second march, the first march of about 1500 being depicted on it and some basic info about IF.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpcl9idaoswvkou/f50695216.jpg?dl=0

  172. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Amanda Brown’s ‘mish mash’ between Caledonia and Stanley Od’s ‘Letter’ is exceptional. I heard her do it before but she has really honed the performance now, well worth a listen to.

    From 3:19:30 in, it it works.

    livestream.com/IndependenceLive/HOFYesRally2018/videos/180318904

  173. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick

    Have you had any feedback from Callum about the increase in sales of the daily National following last Saturday’s effort? I’m itching to know!

  174. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Amanda Brown’s ‘mish mash’ between Caledonia and Stanley Od’s ‘Letter’ is exceptional. I heard her do it before but she has really honed the performance now, well worth a listen to.

    From 3:19:30 in, it it works.

    livestream.com/IndependenceLive/HOFYesRally2018/videos/180318904

  175. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    I hope I’m wrong but I get the feeling something like Independence First might need to be restarted if Westminster refuses a referendum.

    Mind you, if they leave the ECHR and like America last week the UNHCR with presumably the ICJ to follow it is difficult to see what might be achieved by it.

    For those who do not know what Independence First was (it has been well buried by the media) then here is a flyer for our second march, the first march of about 1500 being depicted on it and some basic info about IF.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/dpcl9idaoswvkou/f50695216.jpg?dl=0

  176. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Sarah,

    I don’t know. My sky email account has been hacked and I can’t get access. I changed the password and had temporary access and could see from countless mailer returns that messages had been sent to many folk, none of who’s email addresses I recognised. The email content was a bunch of numbers and letters, virus?

    It stopped working again.

    I phoned sky and the woman said if resetting doesn’t work there is nothing more she could do. I do not have a sky account and the email account is a legacy free account from years ago so no financial leverage.

    She suggested contacting Microsoft. I had a look but couldn’t see anything on Microsoft that might be useful.

    So, as I have a bt account and email I am just switching over to that but I can’t see if he has communicated on my old sky account.

    Maybe I will email him with my bt email but my suspicion is that, due to the way it was done, it will not have produced the 500-800 circulation increase predicted.

    Hope I’m wrong there.

  177. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Sarah,

    I don’t know. My sky email account has been hacked and I can’t get access. I changed the password and had temporary access and could see from countless mailer returns that messages had been sent to many folk, none of who’s email addresses I recognised. The email content was a bunch of numbers and letters, virus?

    It stopped working again.

    I phoned sky and the woman said if resetting doesn’t work there is nothing more she could do. I do not have a sky account and the email account is a legacy free account from years ago so no financial leverage.

    She suggested contacting Microsoft. I had a look but couldn’t see anything on Microsoft that might be useful.

    So, as I have a bt account and email I am just switching over to that but I can’t see if he has communicated on my old sky account.

    Maybe I will email him with my bt email but my suspicion is that, due to the way it was done, it will not have produced the 500-800 circulation increase predicted.

    Hope I’m wrong there.

  178. Sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Chick,
    Sorry to hear about the hacked email – if we weren’t paranoid before, perhaps we are now!
    As for the National, I’m sure there will have been a spike – there must be a lot of the 64 groups which delivered them through letter boxes – it can’t have only been us in Ullapool & Lochbroom who did!

    And we are prepared to do it again because the 200 we took only covered about 30% of Ullapool. We could spread it out as you advised, and do everything by your method.

    Anyway, thank you again for your initiative.

  179. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    That link doesn’t seem to work automatically. I stripped of the https:// in case it invoked the wrath of Stu like the httpw:// for YT vids.

    Worth the effort involved patching it up to catch a great and moving performance.

  180. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Just been catching up and have to agree with Liz g, British nationalists do often appear to have a Michael Bentine’s β€œPotty Time” appreciation of world history. One of the causes is that the practice of studying history in Britain has played an important role in the creation and perpetuation of paternalistic and colonial social structures. Just ask Dan Snow, though I think he’s a British nationalist Tory, so you can’t really consider him impartial nor trustworthy.

    Imperial and colonial history

    ….The very core terminology of the subject(s) is deeply contested. Keith Hancock, seen by many as the greatest of all historians of the British empire, famously proclaimed that imperialism is β€˜no word for scholars’.(2) A distinguished historian of early modern Ireland, Steven Ellis, suggests that whether the British-Irish relationship was a colonial one is merely β€˜a matter of opinion, since colonialism as a concept was developed by its modern opponents and constitutes a value-judgement which cannot be challenged on its own grounds.’(3)

    https://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/imperial_post_colonial_history.html

    The Idea of β€œColonial Legacy” and the Historiography of Empire

    During the last half?century of the British Empire, few historians outside the political Left expressed concern about how British rule would be judged by future generations. To most scholars, at least through World War II, the empire appeared to be building a solid legacy of progressive political and economic institutions, which were gradually rooting both the β€œrule of law” and commercial, agricultural, and industrial development in native soil. As the Cambridge historian Eric Walker summed up in his wartime work, The British Empire: Its Structure and Spirit, the empire was β€œa great human achievement.”1 As historiography, this view had a number of basic flaws. It was morally and empirically one?sided, taking little account of the complaints coming from the governed or the criticisms from British scholars of the Left; it exaggerated not just the empire’s beneficence but its power and influence upon the colonized; it had no place for the agency of these colonized people themselves; and it treated the long centuries before British arrival as unimportant and irrelevant….

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jhis.12000

    Rules of Thumb: British history and ‘imperial culture’ in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain

    Abstract

    This paper examines the traditions of both British imperial and British domestic historiography and calls for a re-mapping of both so that the so-called separate spheres of ‘home’ and ‘away’ may be brought back into the same fields of debate. Its central claim is that imperial ideology and its effects were not phenomena ‘out there’. Empire was not a singular place; nor did ‘home’ exist in isolation from it. In spite of the polarization, which has been characteristic of their historiographies, their relationship was dialectic rather than dichotomous. These insights, while derived in part from new trends inside British history itself, owe both their theoretical rigor and their self-avowedly political concerns to post-colonial and feminist historiographical work, which together insist on the desacralization of ‘Britain’ proper.

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09612029400200064

  181. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chick
    Email hacking is very common.

    https://securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/consumer/what-to-do-if-your-email-is-hacked/

    Many of the spam emails I get want me to click on a link, and this is mostly how they get past your security. It could be a link, an apparent pdf or jpg which is an exe or a zip underneath,, even a doc file which first steals yoru template and then can get into macros. And it might be from someone you know who’s been hacked.

    It can steal your address book, or in more serious cases zombie your computer, maybe even make you a command and control for a zombie network. Main purpose is money, one way or another, whether it’s your bank details, a scam, or blackmail “it found pictures of you mas****** and will send them to all your colleagues unless you pay them Β£300″” usually by bitcoin.

    I have a load of email addresses, and my webserver / mailserver intercepts most of them, up to 100 a day. I personally reckon over 50% of the UK’s computers are currently hacked. People just can’t resist clicking on an enclosure – I never do.

  182. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Serious question which I don’t want to make MT – what’s the buzz on the National YES Registry? Is it up to scratch?

  183. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the anti-smoking brigade are fuming because of a loophole allowing smoking inside bothies. I guess they want us all blown off this mountain, with the wind. One of my all time favourites as it happens. Doesn’t that send a shiver down the backbone when Sandy comes in?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avX5VlU7MXM

  184. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    As there is an upcoming chinwag about culture, here’s some geeky stuff.

    Cultural Studies: A Critical Realist Intervention.

    Introduction.

    In general terms this chapter is an attempt to answer the question: ‘What difference does Critical Realism make within the field of Cultural Studies?’ The short answer to this would have to be, regrettably, ‘As yet, not much’. Nevertheless we are convinced of the potential of Critical Realism, especially in its dialectical guise as Dialectical Critical Realism (DCR), to make a significant contribution to Cultural Studies. To demonstrate this we examine Cultural Studies, firstly in historical detail, then in its turn to Policy and finally in its move to embrace the New Media, Creative Industries, and the New Economy.1 We conclude this overview with an attempt to suggest some Critical Realist solutions to the aporiai of Cultural Studies as currently practised.

    http://www.criticalrealism.com/archive/iacr_conference_2001/pthomas_cs.pdf

    Critical Perspectives Toward Cultural and Communication Research
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318883465_Critical_Perspectives_Toward_Cultural_and_Communication_Research

    Cultural Value and Inequality: A Critical Literature Review
    https://ahrc.ukri.org/documents/project-reports-and-reviews/cultural-value-and-inequality-a-critical-literature-review/

  185. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Peace, Love and Independence.

    “Let’s Work Together”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnPkEyP_Tzg&ab_channel=SmurfstoolsMusicTimeMachine2
    YES?

  186. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    With an MA in Social Policy, Kezia Dugdale’s politics appear to be those of a self-serving opportunist. That’s British nationalism for you, Tory to it’s rotten core.

    Work as a route out of poverty: a critical evaluation of the UK welfare to work policy

    Abstract

    At a time when more workless people in the UK are being mandated into highly conditional welfare to work programmes, this article engages with critiques of neoliberalism to argue that such policies cannot be shown to have a major impact on outcomes but are pursued for political reasons. Through a systematic review of the assumptions underpinning current welfare to work programmes in the UK, it is suggested that policy has increasingly been driven by a desire to embed a new consensus in which it is accepted that life should be shaped by work and that the unemployed have responsibility for tackling their own unemployment. This consensus marginalises the voice of the workless and wider criticisms of neo-liberalism and reduces the scope for oppositional political organisation. The analysis indicates three areas where contestation and broader study will be important in the future to protect the well-being of the unemployed. They are: welfare reform and the attempt to shape the whole welfare system to embed a work ethic; the demand side of the labour market including requirements on employers; and the empowerment of the unemployed.

    Keywords: welfare to work, unemployment, welfare reform, labour market, neoliberalism, empowerment

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01442872.2010.533510?src=recsys

    P.S. Arbeit macht frei, or so they say.

  187. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Found this on

    https://moflomojo.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-declaration.html

    I found it moving and have shared widely.

    A declaration

    I am a Pictish child
    who starved to death
    after our crops were burned
    by some well-fed warlord
    to intimidate another
    in whose praise the bards
    first elevated speech to poetry,
    in the Age of Arthur, long ago.
    They never sang a song for me.

    I am a child of Dalriada
    who perished in the pestilence
    which the saints told us God sent
    to punish us for the sins
    described in their Vulgate
    and by their desert fathers,
    sins which explained our misery.
    But I was happy until they came.

    I am the infant daughter of MacWilliam,
    brains bashed out against the mercat cross
    one dreich day in Forfar:
    a lineage extinguished, a dynasty defunct,
    to throttle the bifurcations of history
    as had been publicly proclaimed in advance.
    But what do I know of ambition?

    I am the nameless child
    ripped from its mother’s womb
    in the streets of Berwick
    after the three days of its siege and sack
    before the flower of our chivalry were captured
    at Dunbar, and the country fell,
    and the chronicler recorded how the manner of my death
    seemed to exceed even the most medieval of excesses,
    and prompted churchmen to ask a king
    to call a halt to the atrocities.

    I and my twin brother were miscarried
    before we could be baptised,
    dying along with our mother
    in the smoke and straw and turmoil
    as the blazing thatch collapsed
    when they burned us out
    to clear the land for sheep.

    I took my last breath
    before I could speak my first word
    when I succumbed to tuberculosis
    in the slums of the Calton.

    And since you exported these extravagant atrocities
    that you had practised on each other
    in the narrow corridor of our Scottish centuries
    to fulfil some broader civilising duty you say God ordained,
    I am the American child skewered by a sabre
    as I fled the cavalry, running between our lodges
    while my people’s land was seized to satisfy your cupidity,
    – or rescued from our savagery, as you would have it –
    to submit to the grim teleology of commerce,
    the plough, and the long-horned herds of alien ungulates
    that replaced the buffalo you machine-gunned to extinction
    from the trains you dispatched across the metal web
    you spun across our prairies,

    that grim teleology that dictates
    the dark declining climate of our fates:
    that everything is just a means to an end,
    in which the end of everything awaits.

    I am a child taken from its mother’s arms by the sea
    and drowned as we seek these less hostile shores as refugees,

    and the very language in which my mother named me,
    whose lilt and grace animated my now forgotten name
    has itself been forgotten.

    I am silence.

    I am that mute substratum of your loud history
    that has no voice. I am that bloody backdrop
    to your every great exploit. I am the sawdust
    swept from the stage before the curtain is raised
    and you step forth to perform your epic and inspiring tale.
    I am every untold story lingering in the interstices of your syllables.
    I am the ghost that convects and coils through the shafts of light that project your favourite blockbuster onto the silver screen.
    I am every blank page, every pause, every unseen presence
    loitering at the back of the darkened auditorium.

    But I will be heard now, and it is not for honour
    – for what honour is there in being a victim of history,
    in being the silt and ashes which settle in unseen anoxic depths,
    to form the compacted layers upon which the future struts –

    nor for glory – for what glory is there
    in being disposed of and stamped down and ignored,
    suffocating under wasted generations in the landfill of history –

    nor for riches – for there no recompense for annihilation,
    no coin that compensates for my enforced absence –

    that I speak up, but for freedom
    – freedom to be born, freedom to grow,
    freedom to learn and love and know
    the rain and sun and wind and snow,
    the seasons turn and years unfold –

    for freedom, yes, and that alone,
    which no good man gives up but with his life.
    The same freedom which I never gave up,
    but which was taken from me, with my life,
    when I became a victim of your history,

    and I call on you now for restitution,
    for resurrection, for restoration, of my dignity
    in the dignity you seek to establish for yourselves.
    Give your riches to the beggar. Place that coin
    in the hand held out where mine has been held back,
    and find your glory in the insignificance you embrace,
    your honour in the ego you erase. This is my declaration:

    make this Scotland, and the world it is in,
    a monument to the dignity of all
    in commemoration of those who were granted none.
    Make this Scotland, and the world it is in,
    memorable for the best of reasons,
    in memory of those forgotten for the worst.
    Cultivate the anonymous ashes of the past
    to bring forth a blossom so fragrant with freedom
    that its celebration effaces my anonymity,

    and let there be no more victims of history
    in the future you begin to write today
    on the first page of this,
    my declaration.

  188. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    Brexit and the Smelly Rat

    Some interesting developments re Brexit today. The EU is making efforts to come up with a plan to solve the Irish backstop.

    If they succeed, at the very least a transition period would be doable.

    If the Brexit really is all about the Tax Havens – this would be the last thing Westminster will want, since the tax avoidance legislation comes into act 1/1/19 and into enforcement at several stages within the next 2 – 3 years, and there would be no opt out of this legislation for the UK.

    Up till now I’ve kind of thought of the DUP as an intransigent, weight around Terrible May’s neck. If the tax haven theory is correct. Right just now they are her best ally – and each and every one of them is likely to be very handsomely rewarded.

    Meanwhile the pleasant, reasonable voice of ‘we love you, don’t leave us, lead us’ middle England – i.e. Kirsty Hughes is really pushing for the SNP to back The Peoples Vote.

    What a lot of crap it is. Firstly they’ve left if too late, secondly a Peoples Vote on what – EFTA? Canada++, Norway model, in? out? shake it all about. What a great big time wasting operation it is, just to keep the punters occupied. But more importantly – try and split the SNP / Indy vote.

    If they were serious about The Peoples vote they would campaigning like mad in the swing areas of England, not preaching to the ‘remain’ converted in Scotland.

    Vote remain again Scotland, so we can ignore you all over again and do what we want to you, against your will.

    They really do think we’re zipped up the back.

  189. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorted that link for you Lucia πŸ™‚

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PUZMdDNcyU

  190. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi, Chic(k).

    Thanks for posting that, a sad and salutary reminder that the Smaa Folk, for all their efforts and sacrifice, are usually ignored by the “historians”.

    I noticed your first commented was moderated. Hope you haven’t been a naughty boy.

    Miss Daines: if you come across Paula Rose on your travels, tell her I’ve got two of her library books I found in her smokehouse. Don’t want to publicise the titles, obvs :razz:.

  191. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘I noticed your first commented was moderated. Hope you haven’t been a naughty boy.’

    If I have it is inadvertent. Maybe its because I’ve been using my btinternet email address?

  192. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I just tried posting this on the Wee Dug’s site but just in case it doesn’t show up. With regard to preserving a society in aspic, like what British nationalism has to do in order to survive.

    Axiopsychological Refutation of Totalitarian Ideologisms in the Era of Globalization
    https://journals.umcs.pl/j/article/download/2539/2917

  193. Welsh Sion
    Ignored
    says:

    Have just voted in the Plaid Cymru Leadership Election by using my SNP pen (picked up at a Perth Conference, some time ago).

    How’s that about commitment to the indy of our two nations? πŸ˜‰

    PS ALL three candidates are pledged to the ‘I’ word and they are all strong, decent people. May the best win and lead us in the manner of the SNP to our mutual goals!

  194. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    Good luck Welsh Sion.

  195. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Cultist behaviour is far more common than one might imagine.

    Exploring the CULT in culture

    A CULT is most commonly thought of as a religious or utopian group with a charismatic leader, though not all cult leaders are charismatic. Such groups can do a lot of damage causing anything from the breaking up of families to horrific acts of ritual murder, mass suicide and terrorist acts (Jonestown … Waco … 9/11). Some cult members exhibit obviously bizarre behaviour and wear strange clothes. Yet most cult behaviour is only a slightly more extreme form of the normal cultural behaviour that we are steeped in from childhood β€” for example, peer group pressure to conform.

    Deikman noted that the desires that bring people to cults β€” including the need to feel secure and protected β€” are universal human longings (as we would say, human givens). Their effect in our daily lives can be shockingly similar to the effect they have within the most bizarre cults, propelling people to take self destructive paths toward the security they seek, to fail to think realistically, suppress healthy dissent and autonomy, devalue outsiders and accept authoritarianism.

    Deikman’s message is an urgent one, because he sees these pervasive patterns throughout society as threats to our freedom. As he says in the preface to his book, β€œThe price of cult behaviour is diminished realism.”

    https://www.hgi.org.uk/resources/delve-our-extensive-library/society-and-culture/exploring-cult-culture

    Escape the echo chamber
    First you don’t hear other views. Then you can’t trust them. Your personal information network entraps you just like a cult
    https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult

    Cargo cult science and the death of politics: A critical review of social and environmental accounting research
    https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b50c/734fcfc022674637c82d56dd41ed8e6d8c83.pdf

  196. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto,
    I see what you mean, the comment on the blog site.

    No, that was me, I deleted it and replaced it.

    The original YT I posted had clips of the movie Soldier Blue which were to graphic I felt in hindsight.

  197. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Top band.

    The Flying Lizards – Move On Up
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FL9uSKEEF8

  198. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    “If we have a fully thought out No Deal, the EU will see that they need a deal that is better than no deal and they will come to the table….” – John Redwood

    The man is talking gibberish. I really don’t know how Brexit got this far, as Whitehall must have prepared numerous impact assessments prior to the activation of A50. All of these assessments will have indicated Brexit will be an economic disaster for Britain, so who are the hidden vulture capitalists driving this madness?

    Complexity Management Theory: Motivation for Ideological Rigidity and Social Conflict

    Abstract
    We are doomed to formulate conceptual structures that are much simpler than the complex phenomena they are attempting to account for. These simple conceptual structures shield us, pragmatically, from real-world complexity, but also fail, frequently, as some aspect of what we did not take into consideration makes itself manifest. The failure of our concepts dysregulates our emotions and generates anxiety, necessarily, as the unconstrained world is challenging and dangerous. Such dysregulation can turn us into rigid, totalitarian dogmatists, as we strive to maintain the structure of our no longer valid beliefs. Alternatively, we can face the underlying complexity of experience, voluntarily, gather new information, and recast and reconfigure the structures that underly our habitable worlds.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11235376_Complexity_Management_Theory_Motivation_for_Ideological_Rigidity_and_Social_Conflict

  199. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi, Chick.

    Yes, that was a shocking movie. I think I was in S4 at the time but some of my mates got in to see it and were pretty badly affected, even the Tough Guys. Buffy S-M’s song still brings back bad feelings ‘cos I saw some excerpts from the film later on somewhere. Late Night Line-up? Showing my age now.

    The Native American genocide is just another to add to the long list of Man’s inhumanity to Man and Woman. The NA peoples were generally spiritual folk who lived close to nature and held land in common and in sync with nature.

    As one of their wise said, “You can’t eat money.”
    I always think of that when I think of fiat currency and the massive economic spivvery which Max Keiser exposed.

  200. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m sorry, again, for being a space hog geek, but this is kind of the heart of the matter.

    Editorial: Critical Perspectives on Ideology, Identity, and Interaction.
    Ideology, identity and interaction within discourse and society dialectics

    Interest in “language as social practice” and in the “context of its use” (Fairclough and Wodak 1997), which has been the defining feature of various frameworks and studies within the Critical Discourse Analysis programme, has generated continuous attempts to identify, analyse and describe various aspects and dimensions of the dialectics between discursive events and social structures, situations and institutions. One can get the idea of the scale of these attempts looking at the number of publications, conferences, and projects devoted to the discourse and society interface, aiming to address the complexity of the socially constituted nature of discourse and its socially constitutive function and to demonstrate how it both reflects and shapes (sustains, reproduces or transforms) social actions and relations, (self)identification of social actors and representations of the world. Critical research published regularly in Discourse, Dialogue and Discourse, Discourse and Society, Discourse and Communication, Journal of Language and Politics, Visual Semiotics, Critical Discourse Studies, CADAAD Journal, to name but a few discourse-cantered journals, brings forth new insights, perspectives and approaches to both old and emerging problems within theory, methodology and data analysed….

    http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/journals/cadaad/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Volume-5_Kopytowska.pdf

    Fear Among the Extremes: How Political Ideology Predicts Negative Emotions and Outgroup Derogation
    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54694fa6e4b0eaec4530f99d/t/573c6644b09f9545623eb15c/1463576133018/Fear+Among+the+Extremes+2015.pdf

    Fascism and Political Theory
    Critical perspectives on fascist ideology

    https://cdchester.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Daniel-Woodley-Fascism-and-Political-Theory_-Critical-Perspectives-on-Fascist-Ideology-Routledge-Issues-in-Contemporary-Political-Theory-2009.pdf

  201. Lucia Daines
    Ignored
    says:

    Darlings – anyone got a sofa on the 5th of October cos I’ve got to be up early to help Ronnie and others – also on the 6th cos I’ll be busy all day.

  202. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry folks but here’s another geek-out (responding to Rev’s twitter).

    @Skylar Baker-Jordan
    OJ does seem a bit of a posser who probably doesn’t appreciate he’s jumped on the misogyny bandwagon in a very public manner. πŸ˜‰

    POETICS AND PERFORMANCE AS CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL LIFE

    This lecture is based on a chapter that will be published in
    Oxford Handbook of Citizenship edited by Ayelet Shachar, Rainer BaubΓΆck, Irene Bloemraad, and Maarten Vink (2017). I took up the challenge of making a broad case for the way I approach studying citizenship through a language of acts, enactment, and performativity. I am very pleased to deliver a revised and adapted version as the Inaugural Lecture of UCL Citizenship, Social Imagination and Collective Action Research Seminar Series organized by Dr Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou.

    http://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/media/Course_files/anth-490-edward-h-hagen/bauman-and-briggs-1990-poetics-and-performance-as-critical-perspectives-on-language-and-social-life.pdf

    Positioning language and identity
    https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315669816.ch2

    The Politics of Performativity: A Critique of Judith Butler

    Dr Geoff Boucher
    Judith Butler’s celebrated concept of β€œperformativity” is designed to expose hegemonic conceptions of identity as fictions. It thereby seeks to contribute to a leftwing cultural politics, based on the strategy of the marginal subversion of the reigning cultural norms.1 Her work, which has been central to debates around identity politics and cultural recognition,2 began by questioning the unity of the liberal subject and problematised liberal legal discourse on minority rights,3 but has now shifted, in the context of neo-conservative xenophobia and the β€œwar on terror,” to explore the implications of the traumatic encounter with an unknown other.4 Introducing a recent debate with leading thinkers on the Left, Butler has welcomed critical engagement with her positions that explored theoretical differences in the context of political solidarity with the post-Marxian emancipatory project.5 In this spirit, my article presents a critique of what I take to be the persistent kernel of methodological individualism in Butler’s work. I aim to demonstrate that her theoretical trajectory exhibits a major inconsistency, which indicates the limitations of an individualistic account of subject-formation framed in exclusively cultural terms.

    Butler’s inquiry into the embodied-performative aspect of the reproduction and contestation of social structures highlights the potential for resistance to hegemonic norms, which she claims results from a permanent disjunction between psyche and society. According to Butler, material structures are sedimented through ritualised repetitions of conduct by embodied agents, but these agents, rather than being mere cultural dupes, possess a divided subjectivity that implies a standing potential for deviation from regulatory norms. From this perspective, the theory of performativity seeks to explain how the subversion of power emerges within a dialectical relation between constraint and agency. Butler’s description of the contradictory process of
    social structuration, which seeks to avoid recourse to political voluntarism, or the sovereign intentionality of the autonomous individual, yields some insights into the links between personal and social identity.

    According to her conception, β€œperformativity” describes the culturally-scripted character of identity, which is generated by power through repeated citations of norms and their transgression. Hegemonic cultural norms produce β€œmelancholic” subjects, modelled on the Hegelian β€œunhappy consciousness,” whose identity depends upon the marginalisation of excluded, transgressive subjectivities. The openness of the process of structuration, however, means that subjectification is not something permanent or stable, but rather represents the precarious assertion of identity through an always-ambiguous demarcation of mainstream subjectivity from marginalised alternatives. Generally speaking, because social identities are the permanently divided result of the ritualistic repetition of conventions, the possibility for subversion of the reigning social norms remains an ineradicable potential of all social relations.

    https://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia01/parrhesia01_boucher.pdf

    P.S. I might be reaching peak flow. We’ll see. πŸ™‚

  203. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    P.S. I have read the above and am aware it’s incredibly dense, sorry not my fault, and that Dr Boucher ultimately dismisses Butler’s theory of Performativity as a repackaging of liberal individualism, which suggests a constrained potential for transforming hegemonic cultural practices within liberal society.

  204. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    That’s what you get for staying up past bedtime.

    which suggests a constrained potential for transforming hegemonic cultural practices within liberal society.

    which suggests the theory may not have the transformative potential that its proponents might suggest.

  205. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    If someone can turn the graphs into venn diagrams, I might be able to help. Nah, only kidding. πŸ˜‰

  206. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Definately too quick of the mark, I’d forgotten the significance of partiality, tbh.

    The Partiality Problem

    The partiality problem refers to the need to (1) allow persons to pursue their own partial interests including the interests of those to whom they are partial, (2) while somehow taking into account the partial interests of others whose interests are more remote to them. The partiality problem represents an independent reason to adopt the solution to the knowledge problem provided by the fusion of justice and the rule of law. The liberal conception of justice based on a decentralized regime of several property rights addresses the general problem of partiality by compartmentalizing the effects of partial decision making, requiring that persons seeking to use the resources under the jurisdiction of others take their interests into account, and permits a checks and balances system of tit?for?tat to operate among right?holders. The liberal conception of the rule of law based on publicly accessible and generally applicable legal precepts addresses the acute problem of partiality that arises in the administration of justice by triggering a warning when these formal tenets are violated that a partial exercise of judgement may have occurred.

    Keywords: checks and balances, decision?making, justice, partial interests, partiality, precepts, property rights, rule of law, tit?for?tat

    http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0198297297.001.0001/acprof-9780198297291-chapter-7

    Universalism vs Particularism
    Resolving Dilemmas from Conflicting Values in Cultural Diversity

    https://www.laits.utexas.edu/orkelm/kelmpub/universalism.pdf

    The Limits of National Partiality
    http://jeffersonmcmahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Limits-of-National-Partiality.pdf

  207. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Hoping Smallaxe is keeping well and hoping today’s shennanigans has put a smile on his face.

    Be well fella.

  208. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, cheers to ye Smallaxe, hope to catch up with yee’s in Edinburgh.

    Howde Macart, what a day we’re all having eh, cheers πŸ™‚

  209. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Test πŸ™‚
    __ __ __ ___ ______ __ ___
    | | | | | |/ / / __ \ | |/ /
    | | | | | ‘ / | | | | | ‘ /
    | | | | | < | | | | | <
    | `–' | | . \ | `–' | | . \
    \______/ |__|\__\ \______/ |__|\__\

    __ __ ___ __ __ ___
    | | | | / \ | | | | / \
    | |__| | / ^ \ | |__| | / ^ \
    | __ | / /_\ \ | __ | / /_\ \
    | | | | / _____ \ | | | | / _____ \
    |__| |__| /__/ \__\ |__| |__| /__/ \__\

  210. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Drat! LOL

  211. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Test looking good Thepnr πŸ™‚ ahm just about tae stagger out into the south-side of Glasgow…

    Gaun clubbin’ hehe!

  212. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus have a good one!!

    Black 17, 20, 26, 29, 35 straight down the middle LOL

  213. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    No too shabby Cactus. No too shabby at all.

    Have a good one. It is Friday. πŸ™‚

  214. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    My Ascii text message was meant to be

    UKOK
    HAHA

    Don’t know why only the last two lines were in the right place πŸ™

  215. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    If aye was here right now, I’d be there, aye ahm aye.

    Rockin’ ra Southside auld Corona bar like!

    Freedom callin’ ye.

    Love Scotland.

  216. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    On the move… saunterin’ thru the Queens Park, music bound. Aye aye may return to the Casino Thepnr… ah Love yer nummers.

    Middle column mwah.

  217. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Cactus

    Mind an no lose the taxi money it’s no summer now πŸ™‚

  218. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @dhothersall
    How can you support a political ‘union’ that treats one partner as an insignificant subordinate? Are you a Tory?

    The Limits of National Partiality

    Formal and Substantive Impartiality

    Many writers have thought it possible to reconcile the demands of impartiality with the permissibility of partiality by distinguishing two levels at which partiality and impartiality may operate. Impartiality, they say, is required by respect for the moral equality of persons. But equality is sufficiently recognized if impartiality functions at the formal level by governing the evaluation, formulation, selection, or defense of moral principles. This means, as Thomas E. Hill, Jr., puts it, that moral principles must be assessed “from a point of view that requires temporary detachment from the particular desires and aversions, loves and hates, that one happens to have;… principles must be defensible to anyone looking at the matter apart from his or her special attachments.”16

    But this formal impartiality, as Hill stresses, does not entail a requirement of impartiality at the substantive levelβ€”that is, the level at which principles are implemented in action.17 In other words, the principles arrived at within the constraints of formal impartiality do not necessarily rule out substantive partialityβ€”that is, giving priority to some people over others, for example, because of the relation they bear to oneself. While this seems true, it is not helpful in assessing the challenge to nationalism, which comes not from the requirement of formal impartiality but from the demand for substantive impartiality. Universalist nationalism seems compatible with the requirement of formal impartiality.

    The principle that each person should be loyal and partial to his or her own nation does not appear to be biased in favor of any individual or group. But no form of nationalismseems compatible with substantive impartiality, which forbids giving preference or priority to one person over another for reasons that are private or peculiar to oneself or one’s group. And substantive impartiality, it may be argued, is required by the principle of equal concern and respect. For if all people have a right to equal respect, then even from the standpoint of the individual agent, no one must count more than another.

    http://jeffersonmcmahan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Limits-of-National-Partiality.pdf

    P.S. Britain is a ‘union’ of nations and Scotland voted to stay.

  219. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry, I missed this bit.

    The important question, then, is whether strict impartiality is required at the substantive level. If so, can some attenuated form of nationalism be defended on purely instrumental grounds? If strict impartiality is not required, what forms and degrees of partiality are permitted or required? In particular, is conationality a legitimate basis for partiality, and if so, what degree of priority is it acceptable to give to conationals over others? It doe not help, in answering these questions, to insist on formal impartiality. A great many methods of generating or defending moral principles, including numerous varieties of contractarianism, are compatible with formal impartiality. Some of these may yield principles requiring substantive im-partiality, while others will surely grant that varying forms and degrees of partiality are defensible.

    You’ll need to read the rest yourself to find out where moral authority lies. I’ll not spoil it for you.

  220. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @dhothersall
    I thought you could do with some help on your path to a more social world view.

    Revisiting β€˜identity’ in International Relations: From identity as substance to identifications in action

    Abstract

    In recent years, the concept of identity has become central to International Relations theory. Opposing rational actor assumptions, constructivist and post-structuralist identity scholarship has argued that preferences and interests are tied to actors’ identities, which, in turn, explain action. While we welcome the attempt to move beyond rationalist and materialist accounts of state action, we argue that identity scholarship conceptualizes identity in methodologically individualist and causal terms. However, understanding identity in this way hinders us from grasping how actors are situated and continually develop within complex networks of social interdependencies. We suggest an approach that draws on processual-relational thinking and figurational sociology, and that shifts analysis from searching for identity to analysing identification processes.

    Contrary to the notion that identities inform action, we argue that specific sets of identifications are temporarily and incompletely stabilized in decision-making, and do not precede or inform action. To this end, we develop a model for empirical research that makes agency in identification processes visible and apply it to Swiss foreign policy decision-making. We suggest that non-foundationalist research revisit and discuss how identity is conceptualized and used in research, lest it reproduce the pitfalls of rationalist and materialist approaches.

    Keywords Enactment processes, foreign policy, identity, performativity, processual-relational sociology, Switzerland

    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354066116644035

    Race, Gender, and Culture in International Relations. Postcolonial Perspectives
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322989541_Race_Gender_and_Culture_in_International_Relations_Postcolonial_Perspectives

    Identity in International Relations
    http://www.isa-theory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Identity-Syllabus_2012-13-FB.pdf

  221. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @dhothersall
    I’m spoiling you really.

    Political Philosophy and Nationalism

    Summary and Keywords

    Theoretical debates for a better definition of nationalism have played a key role in understanding the core issues of history, sociology, and political sciences. Classical modernist theories of nationalism mainly synthesized former sociological and historical approaches with a political science perspective. Within the classical modernist perspective, the necessity and importance of transformation from traditional culture and society to a horizontal one in the agenda of modernization was characterized as a universal consequence of industrialization. Some of the foremost complexities and problems involved in the classical and contemporary studies of nation and nationalism include the logic of dualization; the definition of nationalism with reference to its substantive and paradigmatic nature; and whether it is possible to concretely construct a universal theory of nationalism.

    Both classical and contemporary theories of nations and nationalism can be postulated with reference to two major theoretical sides. Universalist theories of nations and nationalism focus on the categorical structure of nationalism in conceptual grounds while being associated with (neo)positivistic methodological points of departure. On the other hand, particularist theories of nationalism underline the immanent characteristics of nations and nationalism by going through nominalism and relativism in methodological grounds. Considering the conceptual, epistemological, and theoretical contributions of β€œpostclassical approach to nationalism” in the 1990s, three major contributions in contemporary nationalism studies can be marked: the increasing research on gender, sexuality, and feminist social theory; the framework of β€œnew social theory” or β€œcritical social theory”; and the discussions derived from political philosophy and normative political theory.

    Keywords: nationalism, classical modernist theories, contemporary nationalism studies, dualization, universalist theories, particularist theories, critical social theory, political philosophy, political theory

    http://internationalstudies.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-276

  222. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @dhothersall
    Now just think of the effort I’ve gone to, just for you. Night, night. πŸ˜‰

    CfP: The (im)possibility of liberal nationalism in the age of Trump and the Catalan conundrum – Moving beyond the binaries of Nationalism Studies, University of Edinburgh, Proposal Deadline: 15 March 2018

    β€˜The (im)possibility of liberal nationalism in the age of Trump and the Catalan conundrum’ – Moving beyond the binaries of Nationalism Studies

    Trump, Brexit and the rise of far right parties across Europe suggest the return of nationalism as an exclusive, populist and illiberal ideology. But not all nationalisms are similarly coloured. The secessionist nationalism of Scotland or Catalonia, for example, or the reformist nationalism of the Arab Spring suggest instances in which nationalism is more closely associated with liberalism and democracy. Arguably, of course, we only take notice when nationalism becomes β€˜hot’, and its character very apparent. At other times, its banal, everyday role as a source of personal and collective identification goes unnoticed, as does its character. These examples suggest perhaps that nationalism is labile or promiscuous, with no fixed essence, taking its character from dominant or emerging ideologies (John Hall)….

    https://nationalismstudies.wordpress.com/2018/01/26/cfp-the-impossibility-of-liberal-nationalism-in-the-age-of-trump-and-the-catalan-conundrum-moving-beyond-the-binaries-of-nationalism-studies-university-of-edinburgh-proposal-deadline-1/

  223. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Politics, eh?

    Normative Political Theory: A Flight from Reality?

    Andrea Sangiovanni

    12.1. INTRODUCTION
    In this essay, I first seek to characterize what I conceive to be some of the most difficult objections to the project of systematic normative reflection about politics, and then to work towards their assessment. These objections are at the heart of several forms of contemporary political realism and have quite wide-ranging implications for how to think about the possibility of normative political theory, including much of contemporary international political theory. My aim will not be to defend systematic normative reflection about politics per se, but to assess how the force of these objections, when properly understood, should alter the way we think of the justification and formulation of political valuesβ€”justice, human rights, solidarity, liberty, equality, and so onβ€”in contemporary political philosophy.

    12.2. NORMATIVE POLITICAL THEORY

    Let me begin by stating more precisely what I mean by β€˜systematic normative reflection about politics’, or, as I shall sometimes refer to it, the β€˜project of normative political theory’. This project is closely associated with Rawls and post-Rawlsian philosophy, and includes philosophers whose interests are as diverse as Brian Barry, Allen Buchanan, Joshua Cohen, G. A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, David Miller, Robert Nozick, Susan Okin, and Philippe Van Parijs.1 What characterizes the project in which they participate, along with a significant majority of other political philosophers, is a set of defining features. I emphasize that these are defining features rather than necessary and sufficient conditions for identifying the project: there might be cases that clearly seem to be instances of systematic normative reflection in a post-Rawlsian vein, but which do not share at least one of the features included below.2 The representative members of the project, we might say, bear a family resemblance.

    http://www.andrea-sangiovanni.org.uk/Main/publications_files/Proofs%20-%20Sangiovanni%20-%20final.pdf

    Normative Political Theory
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319122489_Normative_Political_Theory

    POSITIVE CONSTRAINTS ON NORMATIVE POLITICAL THEORY
    http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/schools/soss/politics/research/workingpapers/mancept/PositiveandnormativetheoryforMANCEPTwp.pdf

  224. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    RIP Chas Hodges.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dnsj_PlXoAAWtN6.jpg:large

    Chas and Dave’s Christmas Knees Up 1982 (with Eric Clapton, Albert Lee, Lennie Peters):-

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rizRsvBluAA

  225. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Howde do y’all, I feel that we are at the cusp of returning our independence to and for Scotland and those who choose to be here with us in our beautiful country. It’s SO exciting! Ye may have picked up on that from me twilight postings hehe.

    Have an excellent day sexy sovereign citizens! πŸ™‚

  226. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    That Tom Gallagher is one to talk about principles.

    Strange encounters: a dialogue on cultural geography across the political divide

    Abstract

    Disagreement is a fundamental aspect of scholarly inquiry, yet it is exceedingly rare for scholars on opposite sides of the political spectrum to engage in a sustained dialogue across the political divide. This article seeks to contribute to precisely such a dialogue with specific reference to the field of cultural geography. The discussion featured herein consists of an encounter between β€œcritical” and β€œconservative” approaches to cultural geography in the form of a back-and-forth exchange of arguments and counter-arguments by the interlocutors. The dialogue covers a wide range of issues, including the cultural politics of essentialism, white supremacy, racial segregation, patriarchy, traditional morality, secularism, justice, authority, friendship, difference-as-strangeness, and the very question of disagreement itself. The broader aim of this dialogical intervention is not to find some sort of common ground that will resolve all differences but rather to explore what those differences are with the hope of opening up a space for more constructive dialogue on cultural geography across the political divide.

    KEYWORDS: Conservatism, critical geography, dialogue, disagreement, political divide

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08873631.2016.1201351

    Pluralism and consensus in deliberative democracy
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13698230.2017.1328089

    Against naΓ―ve pluralism in media politics: on the implications of the radical-pluralist approach to the public sphere
    https://blogs.helsinki.fi/kekarppi/files/2012/03/MCS.karppinen.pdf

  227. Welsh Sion
    Ignored
    says:

    A wee victory against the BBC. Please raise your glasses.

    This morning, BBC Wales featured the ONS story that there had been an increase in the number of my mother tongue (and 1st professional) language of Cymraeg/Welsh speakers in Cymru/Wales from 726,600 in 2008 to 874,700 people now, 10 years later.

    They headed the piece with a 1950’s style signpost, which to all intents and purposes was monolingual English (as they were back then).

    An irate phonecall from me to BBC HQ and a promise to refer the matter to the Head Honcho of BBC Wales online followed (apparently the “Complaints Department” is not open on weekends).

    Subsequently, some time this afternoon, (I’ve been out), the picture has been removed for a stock one featuring solely the word “Cymraeg”. Thus, the photo used is 100% Welsh in language.

    Pints of Brains SA all round!

    PS I was wise enough to make screenshots of both photos. It goes to show (as if we didn’t already know it) that Aunty Beeb can amend graphics, text, photos at any time – often, if we are not careful, without our knowledge.

  228. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    You could say that the Britpop period reinvigorated British culture, though you could also say it simply re-cast the imperial culture that has shaped British society. I think the latter view helps explain Britain’s Brexit stance. Bloody nationalists.

    The Romance of Decline: The Historiography of Appeasement and British National Identity

    38. Although the Thatcherite re-engineering of Britishness did of course not go uncontested, more positive perspectives on national identity have persisted. As one recent commentator has argued,

    [T]he Falklands War may seem a geographically and historically distant conflict today, but … it represents a critical space – physical, mythic and narrative – in the shaping of contemporary Britain. The brash, self-confident nationalism of later 1990s ‘Cool Britannia’
    is built on the bones of what happened in the South Atlantic in the spring of 1982 and how these events were mediated, experienced and understood back in the United Kingdom.(133)

    Explicit in this positive national redefinition was a reaffirmation with a vengeance of the old doctrine of anti-appeasement. (134) This reading of the 1930s was mobilised into service in the nascent Second Cold War, and its truth seemed (at least to dominant conservative commentators) to be confirmed by the events of 1989-1991 when the West triumphed in that titanic conflict. It did further sterling work during the Gulf War of 1990-1991, when the analogy with
    the 1930s was much less problematic than in 1982. (135) Subsequently, under the New Labour government in power since 1997, professed aspirations towards an ethical foreign policy (which presumably involves prioritising moral considerations over realpolitik) very quickly dovetailed with continued support for a hard line policy towards Iraq based on the premise that dictators need to be faced down.

    This same principle was even more in evidence during the 1999 Kosovo crisis, when Tony Blair proved that he was just as willing and able to strike Churchillian poses as his Tory predecessors.(136) While it is problematic on a number of levels to establish direct causal connections between political discourses on British identity and appeasement and the historical discourse on British foreign policy in the 1930s, it is nonetheless striking that the counter-revisionist critique should have emerged in this climate. Indeed, it prompts one to think that while historians may sometimes have only a marginal impact upon public consciousness, it is often very difficult for us to step outside of the dominant ideas of our age.

    https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/3385/1/Journal_of_International_History_2000-06_Finney.pdf

  229. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Kirstine Hair MP
    It’s your party that is endangering the livelihood of workers in the agri-food industries, and will most probably dilute quality standards enjoyed by consumers, in general, as your party appears to be ideologically hostile to scientific advice. You’re a disgrace.

    Michael Gove’s agricultural utopia ignores the realities of UK farming

    Who’s going to supply the Basics range?

    The issue is that British agriculture’s post-Brexit future lies as much in the hands of Liam Fox as with Gove. A leaked Brexit impact assessment seen by Buzzfeed suggested that, unlike the rest of the economy, agriculture would not suffer if Britain defaulted to WTO terms. But that document, though the full details are yet to come out, most likely doesn’t take into account the political decisions that could be taken in such a scenario.

    To get the wider benefits of a hard Brexit, many Brexiteers are advocating a lowering of tariffs and a cutting of red tape. In this scenario, where the government agreed trade deals that led to lower quality food produced to lower environmental and welfare standards than the status quo, the β€œrace to the bottom” would come whether British farmers were part of it or not.
    http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/03/22/michael-goves-agricultural-utopia/

    Brexit: how might UK agriculture survive or thrive? Some early indications.

    The UK agri-food will be one of the sectors most seriously affected by Brexit, and a number of potential policy scenarios and their possible consequences need to be considered.
    https://www.ncl.ac.uk/media/wwwnclacuk/centreforruraleconomy/files/brexit-how-might-agriculture-thrive-or-survive.pdf

    Agriculture after Brexit
    https://watermark.silverchair.com/grx010.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAikwggIlBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggIWMIICEgIBADCCAgsGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMVKwWzQhfuFXb5N8hAgEQgIIB3AC_hnNVGog8eWjKGxLj-yZJSzx6w4UsEoshXpKj0QuOu5BEMG6p-1AtE-IaxOp30ui0dzM4pQbrqSn2afNcNXp9FZynUPiqE1xDq9IGDfVd4hd_OzTY6RYOy-hIJM_tjBMFANqJUiQK_87AEDF8H82I0GqOkXUXSh6SeiVinSFArbUKOsJBgrNQBz2DgwqRjkGxUt0e4u6ABm47toKeChSWQ68ZcUlD5Wo2V8J53dNi6RhunxyOQCc3Gz0AUIoFgAotRp8_CLz3Y8SBy1aWO_4NCaFM2CoU8iado5do-WH7AJk7QN4WCa8cVoGe3epytiWFaoxpQ5LgUrXsQMzgQGf6vmEcH0e4DqPmqB5xyECpQH1_zYXwWUPVUSLoIWrnCmF4CfnRKtzUACFJysnEaIn8VY_4mQZ47r66guwm89kdRFb4MXHI9O4wswZzfyyOaBSLgTjiAWWKS-JRKa82E5AS4hkHkIlL40Wersdf8-1MixCtIKCoqJoD5QcDvJtrefSO2-RT8aOSwGXIZi2dJ0YF2BZSXLHnQtsBjgvHFUl8bo2IGcxDUczPYcPLyxdnpTuyGW9j2Yd3HeOXvUT9qBjA4HzlZ7HYkfuvncvtTg_6LD8Dee8SSsGxzLIF

    (sorry for the mess but tinyurl didn’t seem to work)

  230. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Historywoman
    Your opposition to the principle of universal human rights betrays your inner fascist. Sit down, shut up and learn.

    Encyclopedia of Public International Law

    Self-Determination

    1. Self-Determination as a Binding Rule of International Law

    13 Four instances may inform the principle of self-determination with a legal dimension.
    (a) Right to Self-Determination: Instances

    14

    (i) The principle of self-determination is binding upon the parties, whether they have adopted it as the basis or as a criterion for the settlement of a particular issue or dispute. In the peace treaties after World War I, and in the cases of Kashmir (after 1948), the Saar Territory (1955), and Algeria’s struggle for independence, the principle of self-determination was chosen as a basis for negotiation, and in the Agreement on Ending War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam (1973) the parties expressly recognized the South Vietnamese people’s right to self-determination.

    15

    (ii) Self-determinationβ€”as a result of the practice of the UN under Chapters XI to XIII UN Charterβ€”clearly emerged as the legal foundation of the law of decolonization. As expressly affirmed by the ICJ both in Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970) (Advisory Opinion) (1971) para. 52 and in Western Sahara (Advisory Opinion) (1975) paras 54–59, it became applicable to non-self-governing territories, trust territories and mandates, notwithstanding the differences and the qualifications of the respective constituent instruments (South West Africa/Namibia [Advisory Opinions and Judgments]; Western Sahara [Advisory Opinion]). As such, it includes the right of the population of a territory freely to determine its future political status. Furthermore, the Friendly Relations Declaration recognized that the territory of a colony or other non-self-governing territory has, under the UN Charter, reached a status separate and distinct from the territory of the State administering it. It is generally concluded that, as a consequence of this qualification, the use of force to prevent the exercise of self-determination of a colonial people has become unlawful (see also Use of Force, Prohibition of), as has the assistance of third parties to the metropolitan powers in their effort to frustrate self-determination. On the other hand, it should be noted that armed support of colonial liberation movements is not considered legal by a number of States and was not recognized as such, for lack of consensus, in the Friendly Relations Declaration. Furthermore, it must be noted that the uti possidetis doctrine guided the process of decolonization and thus contributed to the realization of self-determination in that it guaranteed that borders between former coloniesβ€”or non-self-governing territoriesβ€”or administrative borders that were drawn during colonization, would be maintained (see Frontier Dispute [Burkina Faso/Mali] paras 20–25; Frontier Dispute Case [Burkina Faso/Republic of Mali]).

    16

    (iii) Self-determination might be considered to apply, as was suggested by the Commission of Rapporteurs in the Γ…land Islands case in 1921, in situations where the existence and extension of territorial sovereignty is altogether uncertain.

    17

    (iv) Self-determination includes the right of a people of an existing State to choose freely their own political system and to pursue their own economic, social, and cultural development. As such it does not, in light of the current state of international law, impose on all States the duty to introduce or maintain a democratic form of government, but essentially refers to the principle of sovereign equality of States and the prohibition of intervention which are already part of international law (Intervention, Prohibition of; States, Sovereign Equality). However, recent scholarly work suggests a more nuanced approach to self-determination in this regard (see paras 33–39 and 41–44 below).

    http://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e873

  231. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Histoywoman
    I thought you were an academic. Do you really believe a tradition of cultural chauvinism trumps international jurisprudence? Well, I’ve got some bad news for you.

    International Law and Self-Determination

    The right of all peoples to self-determination is one of the core principles of international law and, by virtue of its erga omnes status, it is the responsibility of all states to ensure that this right is realised. The obstruction or violation of this principle, particularly through the use of force, constitutes a very serious violation of international law.

    https://www.diakonia.se/en/IHL/The-Law/International-Law1/IL–Self-Determination/

    Self-Determination

    Introduction / Definition:

    At its most basic, the principle of self-determination can be defined as a community’s right to choose its political destiny….

    https://pesd.princeton.edu/?q=node/266

    Self-Determination and Secession Under International Law: The Cases of Kurdistan and Catalonia

    Self-Determination

    Under international law, minority groups that qualify as β€œpeoples” have the right to self-determination: the ability to freely determine their political fate and form a representative government.[4]

    https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/22/issue/1/self-determination-and-secession-under-international-law-cases-kurdistan

  232. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Richard Leonard
    You’re a fud, who seeks to re-invigorate class-war politics so as to protect, rather than sell, British nationalism. High ambitions for a nation. Not.

    Power and Ideology in Everyday Discourse: The Relevance of Critical
    Discourse Analysis in Pragmatic Linguistics Today

    Abstract
    This paper focuses on what is arguably one of the most compelling and contentious issues in pragmatics today. It explores the relationship between language and concepts of ideology and power in the linguistic practices of contemporary society through a critique of a critical discourse analysis(CDA) approach to linguistic enquiry, as evidenced in a study and brief review of one of its major practitioners, Norman Fairclough. Essential differences with other mainstream linguistic approaches are emphasized in exploring and explaining the social basis of the ideological and power dimensions that underpin discourse in society. It is maintained that the development of a critical linguistic awareness, which informs a capacity to resist and change exploitative and dominating linguistic practices, is an issue which should be of importance to everyone with a concern and interest in the problems of our contemporary society.

    Key words: power, ideology, critical linguistic analysis, social theory

    https://www.juntendo.ac.jp/hss/albums/abm.php?f=abm00008234.pdf&n=vol8_p020.pdf

    Texts and Practices
    Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis

    http://www.felsemiotica.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Caldas-Coulthard-Carmen-Rosa-and-Coulthard-Malcolm-Eds.-Texts-and-Practices.-Readings-in-Critical-Discourse-Analysis.pdf

    Class Conflict and Social Change in Historical Perspective
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/2083186?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

  233. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Phew. Good to hear friendly voices =)

    Found myself in the presence of some Loyal Unionists last night. Rarely do I witness such crass ignorance.

    Gently, and as respectfully as possible, put them straight.

    Thank you all Wingers for the information and sentiments lent to me that give me the confidence to speak my truth to those who would rubbish my folk.

    Peace and love folks =)

  234. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Prejudice and bigotry accumulate within culture, if they are not opposed. Re. Andy Kerr. I can’t see how he can keep his job, frankly.

    A Comparative Historical Categorization of Anti-Catholicism

    This article seeks to contribute to clarification of the consequent confusions by outlining in a broad comparative framework four different varieties of anti-Catholicism, all of which have rich and complex and in some respects distinct, histories of their own. These categories are not abstract theoretical ones, but are grounded in empirical historical research, which is used both to exemplify them and to illustrate their changing dynamics across time. Boundaries between them were fluid and might indeed be conceptualized in a variety of alternative ways. Nevertheless it is argued that these four categories are representative of perceptible differences of emphasis, personnel and organization and hence constitute a useful tool for developing nuanced historical analysis.

    The article will in turn consider first, constitutional-national; second, theological; third, socio-cultural, and finally, popular anti-Catholicism and conclude with a consideration of cross-cutting issues and alternative formulations. Material for the article is drawn primarily from majority Protestant countries, especially Great Britain and the United States. Some of the attitudes discussed
    had affinities with the concerns of anti-clericals in predominantly Catholic states, although here antagonism was naturally specifically directed against the institutional church, rather than against Catholics as a whole.2 Indeed, as we shall see, in some strands of anti-Catholic discourse, a parallel distinction between Catholics as individuals and Roman Catholicism as an institution
    was also apparent.

    http://oro.open.ac.uk/50701/3/50701.pdf

    WOMEN AND SECTARIANISM IN SCOTLAND: BEYOND FOOTBALL
    https://www.engender.org.uk/content/publications/Women-and-sectarianism-in-Scotland—March-2014.pdf

    Mainstreaming Anti-Sectarianism in Equalities Toolkit
    https://wsrec.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mainstreaming-Anti-Sectarianism-in-Equalities-Toolkit-Final.pdf

  235. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    It is difficult to get an impression of what society must have been like when the Acts of Union were signed, but this might help in understanding how anti-Catholicism has evolved in Britain, and how cultural practices are sustained, in general.

    β€˜Sawney’s Defence’: Anti-Catholicism, Consumption and Performance in 18th-Century Britain

    Abstract

    ….The phenomenon of British anti-Catholicism was not purely sectarian or religiously informed, but intersected with questions of national identity, gender, class and consumption. In this article, I will use a ceramic mug in the collection of the V&A (fig. 1, CIRC.70-1959), as a lens through which to examine these questions, and their relationship to anti-Catholicism. In the first section, I examine the materiality of the mug: its manufacture, likely use, dissemination and location in wider networks of ceramic consumption and print culture. Secondly, I offer a close reading of the image printed on the mug, and interpret this in the context of 18th-century discourses on masculinity, religion and nationalism. Finally, I use the findings of the close reading process to assert that this object is indicative of a shared Anglo-Scottish, Protestant, masculine attitude towards British identity, which was manifested through shared rituals, polite social networks and their consumption of material goods. This attitude, and the object which represents it, crossed to some extent the divisions of class and social status, drawing upon older models of masculine sociability to bring together a demotic lexicon of anti-Catholic symbolism with bourgeois and elite male drinking rituals. In asserting this, I also claim that extra-parliamentary political participation was not merely augmented by the use of appropriately decorated objects, but that it was shaped by such usage; the objects themselves becoming β€˜a tool as well as a site of discourse’.(3)

    Introduction
    ….This article examines an 18th-century English transfer-printed quart mug, printed with an image derived from a popular anti-Catholic satire from about 1779. The article explores the relationship between object, image and audience, locating the mug within a nexus of Protestant masculine sociability that extended across the social hierarchy. Drawing upon existing forms of printed polemic, the mug shaped and was shaped by extra-Parliamentary political action, primarily in the form of toasting. This opened up possibilities for representation beyond those embedded in print culture, bringing a crucial performative element to an otherwise fixed point of polemical reference….

    http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue-no.-7-autumn-2015/sawneys-defence-anti-catholicism,-consumption-and-performance-in-18th-century-britain/

  236. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    The way I understand things, patriotism and nationalism expresses an emotional bond and loyalty to one’s nation. Unlike patriotism, nationalism is often supremacist and authoritarian in nature. IMHO, Scottish ‘nationalism’ is the former, where as British nationalism, increasingly the latter.

    Nationalism and Patriotism

    [The following is an adapted chapter from Middle Way Philosophy 4: The Integration of Belief. It’s of special relevance given recent political events!]

    Nationalism is an ideological commitment often, but not always, associated with conservatism. However, the fact that it can take liberal or socialist forms (as under the recent leadership of Alex Salmond in Scotland, or the anti-colonialist left wing leadership of such figures as Julius Nyerere in Tanzania) shows that it is worthy of separate treatment rather than being treated only as an aspect of conservatism. It could also be argued that most politicians add a seasoning of nationalism to their other ideologies – one that needs a separate critical perspective. For example, there are few politicians who will not appeal to β€˜national interest’ to justify a stance in international negotiations, apparently without embarrassment.

    http://www.middlewaysociety.org/nationalism-and-patriotism/

    A cognitive account of belief: a tentative road map
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327528/

    Nationalism, Patriotism and Diversity
    Conceptualising the national dimension in Neil MacCormick’s post-sovereign constellation

    https://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/publications/arena-working-papers/2011/wp-03-11.pdf

  237. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Kevin Hague is entitled to his opinion. Unfortunately for him, he has presented himself as an expert, where as, he is in fact clueless. He’s a nationalist, so his thought horizons are bound by the limits of the ‘One Nation’ ideology. Silly man.

    @Kevin Hague
    I’m just getting warmed up.

    Nationalism and Constructive Patriotism: A Longitudinal Test of Comparability in 22 Countries with the ISSP
    Students of political psychology have paid considerable attention to the study of national attachment as an individual group association (Ashmore, Jussim, & Wilder, 2001; Knight, 1997). Some of these studies have focused on the interrelationship between national attachment and different theoretical constructs of interests such as religious or ethnic identities (e.g., Davis, 1999; Knight, 1997; Muldoon et al., 2007; Roccas et al., 2008; Sidanius et al., 1997), authoritarianism, anomie, and general self-esteem (Blank, 2003) or attitudes toward foreigners and tolerance for cultural diversity (Billiet, Maddens, & Beerten, 2003; Blank & Schmidt, 2003; Hjerm, 1998; Li & Brewer, 2004; Raijman et al., 2008). Many of these studies largely differentiate between two types of national attachment: blind, militaristic, ignorant and obedient (often called nationalism or chauvinism) and another which is genuine, constructive, critical, civic, reasonable (often called constructive patriotism (CP); see e.g., Blank, 2003; Blank & Schmidt, 2003; Coenders & Scheepers 1999, 2003; Rothi, Lyons, & Chryssochoou, 2005; Smith & Kim, 2006).

    http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.703.9143&rep=rep1&type=pdf

    The Borders of Nationalism and Patriotism: Cosmopolitanism according to Kok-Chor Tan
    https://cdn.uclouvain.be/public/Exports%20reddot/etes/documents/Degryse.pdf

    The Ethics of Globalism, Nationalism, and Patriotism
    https://www.humansandnature.org/the-ethics-of-globalism-nationalism-and-patriotism

  238. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Or for those not impressed by KH’s liberal nationalism or who are intimidated by critical theory’s Marxist roots, here’s an alternative approach to patriotism and loyalty to nation.

    A general theory of constitutional patriotism

    This article offers a theory of constitutional patriotism independent of the controversial social theories of modernization and rationalization with which JΓΌrgen Habermas’s version of constitutional patriotism is associated. It argues that the purpose of constitutional patriotism, as a set of beliefs and dispositions, is to enable and uphold a liberal democratic form of rule that free and equal citizens can justify to each other. The object of patriotic attachment is a specific constitutional culture that mediates between the universal and the particular, while the mode of attachment is one of critical judgment. Finally, constitutional patriotism results in a number of policy recommendations that are clearly different from policies that liberal nationalists would advocate.

    https://watermark.silverchair.com/mom037.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAhUwggIRBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggICMIIB_gIBADCCAfcGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMVqZCtPRycSPkDSAHAgEQgIIByM38Q4ispoAg0-822mCsgimpgDeuO7oRehycPwWbfECY8EGV5rNXngstZu8zTaJEkBQ7mfWkWe88PWOV3dT5wL5yIz66-8IUmmQrg9WNp4AbNi-bl2GScltEzXVgGA5DYSuX18ad-nTH_ZyMPnKkDD1JuXEE2QLXssX1TfqkuN4DcfjSC7yVfIufpoyiinAS-K6NEObSpZLkekLffCRCsBAP6zNu2lDH3nKemkbmgIpjX3cr_I-acRXfFs5WsvhDzaRrc2OmNmpkuublB7PNtkfRBq5649_8po1_Csa57Un-FsSKNCHti14ajepPxnBUMAKnwq5HgZfw17ZALa5Vj0sfJ2h6iR-Of2CYMmXLOSBUgS2SRHFeHgeIOM2VP7rGcuVB-miOW7eLOemE9eyLENc3lyGdEe-nrR0JjIKJ76W59zP1L64_6UXwxrRtzqksA0C52xzwIK6vntq96Ds05aCtngVgMAW0rdGGMaYlz8bD8gbeY4MNg6Dwuib0CxXoiGsffDovv-duHtcJyKJ6r70OX2kGsLZQ97_5QWMh-J5-jfvYiZMuR7qrRQ6KJoFBA8lq9cJKScKga0-6LTgSV8GVEO0PU7wyvA

    (sorry, again, for the mess)

  239. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Kevin Hague
    Some suggested reading I think you could benefit from. Might knock the edge of that chauvinism problem of yours. πŸ˜‰

    For a theory of nationalism

    Abstract
    Nation is state-oriented, whereas nationalism is an ideology which may simply promote one’s own identity against Others. Therefore, theories of nation-building do not explain nationalism. Other theories adopting a materialist approach do, like Gellner’s model in which nationalism appears as resulting from socio-ethnic conflicts, but they ignore the inner mechanism of this ideology. Theories looking at nationalism as an export product from the West also miss this point too. In contrast, a convincing body of theories anchor nationalism in socio-cultural reform. The intelligentsia which undertakes it in order to resist the threat posed by some dominant Other – often from the West, that fascinates them -, eventually develops a nationalist attitude, because it is not willing to imitate the West but strive to restore its culture by incorporating into it prestigious features of the West through the invention of a convenient Golden Age, the cornerstone of nationalism.

    This approach finds a parallel in the theories of ethnicity which do not apply the primordialist paradigm but focus on the making of group boundaries. Barth highlights the decisive role of the relationship to the Other and the little
    importance of cultural contents – compared to the maintenance of group boundaries – in the making of ethnic identities, in such a way that there are more affinities between his theory of ethnicity and theories of nationalism
    than between the latter and theories of the nation.

    However, one can construct an integrated model of nationalism by organising different theories in a sequence. While the ideology-based approach comes first, the creation of a nationalist movement implies the rise of socio-economic conflicts and the massification of nationalism, a process of nation-building.

    https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01065058/document

    Constitutional Patriotism, Nationalism, and Historicity
    https://pol.gu.se/digitalAssets/1316/1316032_constitutional_patriotism_helldahl.pdf

    Critical Patriotism: Incorporating Nationality into MFT Education and Training
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2012.00325.x

  240. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    This will do you for now, I don’t want to be accused of attempting to silence you through the weight of relevant literature.

    Measurement Equivalence of Nationalism and Constructive Patriotism in 34 Countries

    1 Introduction
    National identity is considered a central concept of group attachment in the modern world. Although global and regional identities such as the European Union are becoming increasingly relevant, nations are still the core of individuals’ social identities (Hjerm 2001). Attachment of group members toward their country is expressed by a sense of belonging, love, loyalty, pride, and care toward the group and land (Bar-Tal 1997, 246). However, the concept of national identity still lacks a distinct and uncontroversial definition. This makes comparative research on national identity problematic.

    National identity reflects different aspects of an individual’s relationship toward his or her nation. In general, what it describes is the intensity of feelings and closeness toward one’s own nation (Blank, Schmidt, and Westle 2001). Previously, empirical work has treated it as a one-dimensional construct1. However, a few studies have argued that national identity is two-dimensional (e.g., Curti 1946; Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford 1950; Morray 1959; Sommerville 1981). What these studies have in common is that they distinguish between two types or forms of national attachment, each one differing in the conception of how the relation between the individual and the nation is structured. They consider one aspect of national identity as blind, militaristic, ignorant, obedient, or irrational, and the other as genuine, constructive, critical, civic, reasonable, and disobedient.

    Building on these studies, scholars in recent years have differentiated between the national attachment of uncritical loyalty and another one, which is based in questioning, constructive criticism, and dissent (see, e.g., Schatz, Staub and Lavine 1999). The first, negative aspect of national identity has been labeled nationalism, pseudo-patriotism, chauvinism, or blind patriotism and was found to be associated with authoritarianism (see, e.g., Blank 2003). The second has been labeled constructive or positive patriotism (Bar-Tal 1997; Schatz and Staub, 1997; Staub 1997). It has also been labeled civic or political national pride based on being proud of the country’s political institutions, culture, economy, and social welfare system (Hjerm 1998a, 1998b).

    https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/25419/3/davidov__measurement_equivalence.pdf

    In the Name of the Nation: Reflections on Nationalism and Patriotism
    http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/brubaker/Publications/28_In_the_name_of_the_nation.pdf

    “PATRIOTISM” – A CONTRADICTION, A POSSIBILITY OR AN EMPIRICAL REALITY?
    https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/c518cdb2-dd68-4b09-a5b8-1125a9d6be5e.pdf

  241. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Reframing the Union: D.H. Robinson (Rapporteur) Closing Remarks
    And here was the funny thing: all of the research that the Cabinet Office had been undertaking in Scotland and Wales revealed that national security in a dangerous world, economic security within the union, and the greater strength that the UK wields in world trade, still resonated most strongly with voters.

    The polling and the focus groups were unanimous on two points: firstly, the strongest arguments for the Union were the old ones. National security, economic security, collective security. Not the politics of multiculturalism and identity.

    http://www.these-islands.co.uk/publications/i316/reframing_the_union.aspx

    Political choices are made from whatever available menue of political options are available. Political concerns are shaped largely through the media. Hence the BBC’s extremely narrow political outlook and dogmatic, chauvinistically nationalistic, neoliberal programming, as apparently there is no alternative.

  242. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    P.S. Sorry, I forgot to mention that national security, economic security, and collective security are not best served by Brexit nor neoliberalism, in general.

  243. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I continue to make crosses for myself. Sorry for being a space hog.

    INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY AND SECURITY

    Abstract
    Security has been and will be an essential preoccupation of state leaders, at least until the division of the international system in states remains in place. Analyzing the international relations theory, it becomes obvious that there is no universal accepted definition of security. Each international relations theory/approach uses and promotes its own definition of security. The paper aims to present and analyze the ways in which the main theories of international relations have understood to define security. Besides the theories that dominate international relations, realism and liberalism, other theories such as socio-constructivism, the Copenhagen School, feminist approaches, critical theories and postmodernist approaches are taken into account.

    Key words: security, realism, liberalism, socio-constructivism

    http://revad.uvvg.ro/files/nr9/4.%20nicoleta%20lasan.pdf

    The Neoliberal Way of War: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary British Security in Policy and Practice
    https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/40993/1/18019982_Whitham_thesis.pdf

    From Defense to Resilience: Environmental Security beyond Neo-liberalism
    https://academic.oup.com/ips/article-abstract/8/3/256/1805851?redirectedFrom=fulltext

  244. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Space Hog =)

    I like it!

    Thing is Cameron B, that even though I don’t manage to read everything you offer to us, the bits I do read DO add to my understanding and that is brilliant!

    Thank you πŸ™‚

  245. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ghillie
    You’re very welcome and I’m not expecting folk to consume everything, though that would be great. I reckon Indy would be a doddle if that were to happen. πŸ˜‰

  246. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m certainly not re-reading everything.

    Ian Dury – clevor trevor
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiulgP9kR7c

  247. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Wow, what a bonnie full moon ra nicht ra now.

    Gorgeous.

    Aooow.

  248. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus

    And cold (its 4 degrees here at the moment and the sky is not clear) . You heard it here first. We are in for an early winter. Apart from the below seasonal temperatures and the huge profusion of berries and fruit I’ve had seven little toads and a little newt in through my front door at least a month earlier than normal. They are going into hibernation already and make their way to crevices in walls etc but find themselves confused in my hall when they come in under the door.
    No idea how the little buggers get up the front steps however.

  249. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Mornin’ Dave, aye, aye can feel a change a comin’ too, nature leads the way, will be listenin’ in on Thursday, excellent show. πŸ™‚

    Our moon last night was a ‘Harvest Moon’:
    https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/uk/edinburgh
    https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/harvest.html

    That’s a belter.

    Shine on it:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9hmO-wOx-s

  250. Clydebuilt
    Ignored
    says:

    DMH isn’t the profusion of brambles due to conditions earlier in the year. My resident expert says ” many haws many snaws”. We haven’t seen a profusion of haws.

  251. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus
    I’m almost ready to have a bet on a White Christmas. The robins that were eating out of my hands last winter are back again and I see a collection of green finches and siskins eating the huge profusion of rose hips like I have never seen before on the wild rose bushes at our car park.

    Unrelated to the weather is the growth of our little Holy Loch SNP branch which is now approaching 200 members (from a normal about 50 a couple of years ago).
    We intend in conjuction with Dunoon and Strachur SNP branches to take to the air on Argyll Independent radio as a majority of the over 500 members we share in this Cowal area are online. Talking about this on my Roundabout Show on Friday.
    Online radio equals huge potential

  252. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone still trying to get your head around what it means to be British in the early 21st century?

    Racism, Crisis, Brexit

    ABSTRACT

    This article offers a conjunctural analysis of the financial and political crisis within which Brexit occurred with a specific attentiveness to race and racism. Brexit and its aftermath have been overdetermined by racism, including racist violence. We suggest that the Leave campaign secured its victory by bringing together two contradictory but inter-locking visions. The first comprises an imperial longing to restore Britain’s place in the world as primus inter pares that occludes any coming to terms with the corrosive legacies of colonial conquest and racist subjugation. The second takes the form of an insular, Powellite narrative of island retreat from a β€œglobalizing” world, one that is no longer recognizably β€œBritish”. Further, the article argues that an invisible driver of the Brexit vote and its racist aftermath has been a politicization of Englishness. We conclude by outlining some resources of hope that could potentially help to negotiate the current emergency.

    KEYWORDS: Racism, crisis, Brexit, empire, Englishness, neoliberalism

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2017.1361544?src=recsys

    British National Identity and the Dilemmas of Multiculturalism
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537110701872444

    Islamophobia, Racism and Critical Race Theory
    https://www.palermo.edu/Archivos_content/2016/Economicas/journal-tourism/edicion15/02_RacismWithinMulti-culturalSociety.pdf

  253. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Before the gales there were rowans with berries & flowers at the same time. Purple shite appearing under trees in the park, can only guess the perpetrators are woodpigeons feeding on elderberries?

  254. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. Alastair Cameron c/o Scotland in Union, and latent violence in his tweet. Words matter, as they point to the mindset and pathology of the speaker, as well as transmitting social meaning to the listeners.

    Ethos and Critical Discourse Analysis: From Power to Solidarity
    Ethos and Critical Discourse Analysis

    In a book published in 2012 about political discourse, Isabela and Norman Fairclough formulate an answer, probably without being aware of the aforementioned question26: β€œWe view evaluation of argumentation as an appropriate grounding for normative critique and explanatory critique (including critique of ideology)27”.

    The authors share Amossy’s and Koren’s starting point, namely the fundamentally argumentative and deliberative nature of political discourse. What is more, ethos, within the French Discourse Analysis tradition, can be effectively applied to analyse institutional power in discourse very similarly to what Critical Discourse Analysis studies do without the notion of ethos28. This kind of modus operandi of ethos in Critical Discourse Analysis is useful, but would not help our aim to broaden the focus of Critical Discourse Analysis to the discourse of the – at least partially – dominated.

    In the French tradition of discourse analysis, ethos is clearly a multi-layered concept. Maingueneau distinguishes prior and discursive ethos, closely tied to a scene of enunciation with a clear social aspect. Amossy gives attention to the notion of collective ethos as β€œa way which the I is extended and amplified to offer a group image29”. Furthermore, ethos is fundamentally a social/discursive hybrid notion. It is a β€œsocially evaluated behaviour that can not be understood outside of a specific communicational situation, itself integrated in a specific socio-historical conjuncture30”. Mapping the concept to the three dimensions in the analysis of discourse as often conceived in Critical Discourse Analysis31 opens up possibilities far beyond a strictly text-linguistic stance.

    https://journals.openedition.org/contextes/5805

    One does not simply borrow a meme.
    Memetics from the perspective of cognitive contact linguistics

    https://www.uni-trier.de/fileadmin/fb2/ROM/WINFRO/Abstracts_WortSpTagung_16/DWP16_Geeraerts_Zenner.pdf

    The Psychological Meaning of Words: LIWC and Computerized Text Analysis Methods
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0261927X09351676

  255. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    His apparent hostility towards Others indicates he’s a staunch British nationalists, so essentially an authoritarian cultural chauvinist. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll accept he’s simply a wank.

    Dominance and Entitlement: The Rhetoric Men Use to Discuss their Violence towards Women

    Abstract

    Academic interest in applications of rhetoric to social issues is undergoing a revival. This paper develops a rhetorical analysis of discourse generated by men who have been recently violent towards women. The texts have been drawn from transcribed interviews with 14 men who had recently begun or were about to attend stopping violence programmes. Each 90-minute interview prompted the men on their views towards women, violence and relationships. A range of rhetorical devices within the texts were identified and their effect was analysed.

    This paper focuses on five devices: reference ambiguity, axiom markers, metaphor, synecdoche and metonymy. The strategic effects of each device are discussed with close reference to sample passages from the transcripts. The paper explores how these rhetorical devices resource discourses of male dominance and entitlement to power, and how these in turn resource men in their violence towards women. Increased sensitivity to the nuanced effects of the rhetoric is seen to improve understanding of how men justify, camouflage and maintain positions of dominance within relationships with women.

    Keywords ambiguity, dominance, feminism, gender, markers, metaphor, metonymy, rhetoric, synecdoche, violence

    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0957926595006003006

    Refining Our Understanding of Language Attitudes
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0261927X99018001007

    Social Identifications
    A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes

    https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781134986484

  256. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I didn’t catch the interview but I just spotted tRuthless being intervened about mental health, on ch4. The Tories (who are different to Conservatives), are free-trade fundamentalists who live by the bible of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism both demands and produces health inequalities.

    β€˜THE BUSINESS END’: PERSPECTIVES ON MENTAL DISTRESS IN THE CONTEXT OF NEOLIBERAL RESTRUCTURING OF COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

    ABSTRACT

    Contemporary neoliberal reconfigurations of statutory mental health services involve significant organisational changes. Based on findings from twelve months fieldwork within a community mental health team, the thesis examines the effects of this new service landscape on the way conceptualisations of mental distress are utilised and articulated. The thesis combines critical realist epistemology and reflexive ethnographic method to produce a contextually situated understanding of the field capturing the dynamic relationships between concepts, agents and the context of action.

    This draws on and extends Rhodes’ β€˜pentimento’ (1993) as a conceptual framework for understanding mental health practice. It argues the mental health team is a β€˜differentially sedimented structural institution’ in which practitioners and service users navigate a field of contradictions defined by four strata: the custodial system of the asylum; the biomedical treatment system of the hospital; community care within the Keynesian welfare state; and neoliberal welfare reconfigurations. These are conceptualised as ideological positions that co-exist within practitioners as alternative modes of thinking and operate in a relationship of mutual tension. Practice should be understood as a process shaped by mechanisms at different levels of scale from micro to macro, and involving movement between these overlapping and co-existing strata of historically sedimented meaning.

    http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/5274/4/Moth14PhD_Redacted.pdf

    Examining Neoliberalism and Mental Health Strategy – A Discursive Analysis
    of a UK Department of Health Document

    https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/619203/1/Jack%20Kennett.pdf

    Health Inequalities: Critical Perspectives
    Neoliberalism and health inequalities

    http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198703358.001.0001/acprof-9780198703358-chapter-9

  257. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve had enough of the trans activism pish myself, things are getting way out of hand. As I’ve said before, I must be old fashioned as I think I live in a world where sex is defined through biology, not unbounded subjectivity. The identity of biological women is being colonised by men, in an act of misogenistic identitarianism. If you are aiming to address mental health or discrimination issues, focus on those fields of law. Don’t look to undermine the written word, bio-medical science, jurisprudence, or the place of biological women in society.

    @boodleoops
    I’ve got a penis, which helps me know that I am of male sex. I don’t know you well enough so I’ll keep my gender private for now. πŸ˜‰

    The UK government’s unscientific and dangerous transgender agenda
    If there is a disconnect between body and mind, do you fix the body or fix the mind?

    Men and women will be able to change their gender without a doctor’s report and amend their birth certificate accordingly under new government proposals.

    https://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/the-uk-governments-unscientific-and-dangerous-transgender-agenda/20154

    The Flourishing of Transgender Studies

    Trans Optics

    Pioneering activist Virginia Prince was perhaps the first to put the lexical compound of trans+gender to work, Robert Hill tells us in β€œBefore Transgender: Transvestia’s Spectrum of Gender Variance, 1960–1980” (TSR2). Prince coined the term transgenderist in the 1970s, Hill observes, to distinguish heterosexual male cross-dressers from transsexuals and homosexuals. A few decades later, in the early 1990s, transgender took on a new and expansive life, first deployed by activists as an organizing principle to hail and connect a broad spectrum of gender-nonconforming people and then conceived and claimed as an identity.

    Much of the early work in a field that would become known as transgender studies focused on transgender identity: pondering its embodiments, working to leverage its political utility, and debating its distinction from and/or inclusion of other gender and sexual identities, including transsexual, butch, queen, queer, and genderqueer. As Stryker and Aizura observe, β€œThe first iteration of the field engaged in the kind of identity politics necessary to gain speaking positions within discourse, and consequently featured a good deal of autoethnographic and self-representational work by trans subjects” (TSR2: 3).

    Given that history, perhaps the most striking development in transgender studies as represented in these new collections is the turn away from identity as a primary object of analysis and, in some work, the move to critique the notion of a coherent transgender identity or a master narrative of transgender identity formation. Indeed, much of the work in these collections is explicitly anti-identitarian. Aizura, for instance, in his essay in TP, β€œTransnational Transgender Rights and Immigration Law,” argues that we need a theory β€œthat turns β€˜trans’ in an anti-identitarian direction,” one more attentive to β€œwhere and how bodies escape or act clandestinely outside those categories?β€”?and at moments in which the categories of immigrant, transgender person, man, and woman become incoherent and inconsistent” (135). To Enke, transgender studies is limited by β€œa perception that [it] only or primarily concerns transgender-identified individuals” (TP: 2). Enke is eager to see β€œtrans” and β€œfeminist” β€œdo more flexible work?…?opening broadly in all directions,?…?modify[ing] and?…?modified by participants whose names we may not even yet know” (3).

    https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article/1/1-2/285/91893/The-Flourishing-of-Transgender-Studies

    The invisible woman: Gender identity in the age of neoliberalism

    Identitarians (those who hinge their subjectivity to identity politics) have attempted to remedy their feeling β€œexcluded” by subverting women’s political movements and the language through which women describe their realities. One of the recent attempts to redefine woman was the U.S. women’s strike platform, which prioritizes transgender women over women of colour in its statement of violence against women and promotes the reproductive rights β€œfor all women, cis and trans.” Of course, transwomen are male so clearly have no concerns about reproductive rights. Prioritizing males over females in the name of women’s rights is anything but subversive. Rather, it’s age old misogyny.

    Nobody knows this more steadfastly than BBC Radio 4 presenter, Jenni Murray, whose piece this past weekend in The Sunday Times, β€œBe trans, be proud β€” but don’t call yourself a β€˜real woman,’” sparked an uproar, resulting in Murray being disciplined by the BBC. Her β€œcrime”? According to the BBC, Murray was not β€œimpartial” on a β€œcontroversial subject.” Critiquing various misinterpretations within transgender discourse, Murray debunked the pseudoscience of β€œmale” and β€œfemale” brains, touched upon the tumultuous political climate which prevents medical practitioners from speaking frankly on this subject, and described the gradual institutional erasure of the word β€œwoman” from medical praxis.

    Additionally, Murray addresses the phenomenally abusive misinterpretation of Simone de Beauvoir’s infamous quote from The Second Sex, β€œOne is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” In writing this, de Beauvoir did not mean that makeup and dresses could make a male into a woman, but rather that the imprinting of social, political, and economic expectations onto the female body and psyche throughout a lifetime are such that women are pressured into a preformed mould. In short, Murray’s β€œsin” was to show that transgender women are not female, but are males with a lifetime of privilege….

    https://www.feministcurrent.com/2017/03/10/invisible-woman-gender-identity-age-neoliberalism/

  258. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    This is just soo-perb:

    Feature length documentary/concert featuring Gil-Scott Heron, must be early 80s. Brilliant.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8NblY2h-yY

  259. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Is the meaning of womanhood being erased from public consciousness, as part of the neoliberal project which aims to shed the state’s responsibility for the provision of public services, such as healthcare? From the neoliberal perspective, we are to be self-determining in our own welfare, I shit you not. Obviously, such a strategy is doomed to heighten cultural inequality and social polarisation.

    Abstract

    The current care crisis and the increasing outsourcing of care work in the context of neoliberal reorganisation are major issues currently being addressed within feminist science. On the basis of these gendered characteristics of the new global division of labour, this theoretical article aims to bring two heavily discussed approaches in this field together: intersectional theory and the Foucauldian concept of governmentality. The article suggests that there are three different theoretical or methodological ways that these complex approaches might be combined. Discussing the mutual benefit, it then goes on to deal critically with the concept of intersectionality as a current dominant and widespread feminist theory, which tries to capture social complexity.

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.9.2.0079?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

    Governmentality and Gender: Current Transformations of Gender Regimes revisited from a Foucauldian perspective
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228689322_Governmentality_and_Gender_Current_Transformations_of_Gender_Regimes_revisited_from_a_Foucauldian_perspective

    Feminism and Neoliberal Governmentality
    https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/article/viewFile/4116/4533

  260. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry for being a space-hog geek but I think this is important, in its self. I think it might also shed light on the intrinsically authoritarian nature of contemporary British, neoliberal, society.

    Normative β€˜Sexual’ Knowledge and Critique as a Mode of Resistance – a response to Damien Riggs

    ABSTRACT In this response to Damien Riggs’ analysis of sex education websites, the author draws on Foucault’s understanding of knowledge, power and governmentality to understand how some forms of knowledge about sex and sexuality become normalised β€˜official knowledge’ that frame institutional policies and practices and shape everyday discourses. Foucault provides a framework for analysing sexuality as a modality of government that produces and manages what types of knowledge are, or are not, β€˜knowable’ about sex, gender and sexuality. The author then considers the implications for those who are marginalised or silenced in β€˜official’ knowledge cultures of this kind. Theory, she argues, provides tools for disrupting normative knowledge about childhood sexuality, which frames educational practices and everyday discourses.

    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/ciec.2014.14.1.87

    Desiring Neoliberalism

    Abstract

    The paper is based on the premise that neoliberalism is a political rationality that is not only anti-social but also requires an anti-democratic and violent form of statehood. However, neoliberalism is not solely based on coercion and force, but paradoxically also on consensus. This consensus is not least organized through its flexibilized and pluralized sexual politics. By focussing on sexual politics in Germany’s capital Berlin, the paper highlights that the flexibilization of the apparatus of sexuality is not merely a side effect of neoliberalism but a constitutive element of neoliberal governmentality that is deployed to legitimate an anti-democratic and violent neoliberal state. Neoliberalism uses the promise of sexual tolerance, flexibility, and pluralism in order to fulfill its anti-social, anti-democratic, and violent agenda. Furthermore, it is argued that neoliberal sexual politics require a rethinking of the concept of heteronormativity. Here, I propose to recast heteronormativity as heteronormalization.

    Keywords: Neoliberalism, Sexual politics, Governmentality, Statehood, Apparatus of sexuality

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5080324/

    Reproducing the Homonormative Family: Neoliberalism, Queer Theory and Same-sex Reproductive Law

    Abstract

    This paper seeks to highlight the often overlooked interconnectivity of the cultural sphere and the economic sphere, particularly focusing on same-sex reproductive law and neoliberalism. Using The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, specifically highlighting its implications for same-sex couples, this examination demonstrates the way that policy and legislation frequently echo normative ways of being, encouraging the β€œgood”, productive neoliberal citizen and/or family. This article is informed by Foucault’s notions of governmentality and biopower, problematising this limiting legislation, arguing that it is grounded on an internalised ideal of the traditional family, discouraging more transgressive or creative family formations. Specifically, I challenge the way that this legislation privileges marriage, the two parent model and bolsters the binary constructions of heterosexual/homosexual and male/female.

    Consequently, despite being celebrated as a victory for same-sex couples, The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 reaffirms the hierarchy of non-heterosexual identities, allowing only those who follow the hetero/homonormative ideal to legitimately access reproductive services.

    Key words: Homonormativity, Governmentality, reproductive law

    https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1859&context=jiws

  261. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    This might help explain that gendered map of projected voting intentions.

    Introduction: Gender and Politics: A Gendered World, a Gendered Discipline

    Abstract and Keywords

    This article discusses the gendered nature of politics (as practice) and political science (as an academic discipline). It studies the sex-typing characteristic of most institutions in the modern world and describes how gender shapes the ways people organize, think, and know about the world. The article then identifies the changes that have occurred in politics and political science over the last hundred years and examines the politics and gender scholarship. Finally, it presents an understanding of the evolution of the gender and politics subfield as well as some of the challenges that remain.

    Keywords: gendered nature, politics, political science, sex typing, gender

    http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199751457.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199751457-e-34

    Gender and Political Behavior
    http://politics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-71

    Gender Knowledge and Knowledge Networks in International Political Economy
    https://www.uni-kassel.de/fb05/fileadmin/datas/fb05/FG_Politikwissenschaften/Dateien/pdf/Gender_Knowledge_and_Knowledge_Networks_in_International_Political_Economy.pdf

  262. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Oops, I have been busy.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCCEOi4cp6k

  263. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fred

    Purple shite?

    That’s a new one for me and have never come across that before LOL. Here’s some Purple Rain, though it’s not what you might have thought. Ten times better than the original IMO πŸ™‚

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWBQ44wzP48

  264. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Nice one Ian, though “waiting for the axe to fall” does lead to unsettling thoughts. Like the anti-democratic violence of Scotland being dragged out of the EU. Such is British democracy and the British state’s respect of human rights.

    A case study of critique: Critical perspectives on critical accounting

    Abstract
    As accounting academics, we have a responsibility to act in the public interest as conscience, critic and counselor of society regarding economic, social and environmental justice. In fulfilling this responsibility, we are concerned with how accounting, accountants, and accountability regimes can facilitate democracy by serving the needs of pluralistic communities, giving particular attention to the various underserved constituencies. Informed by Flyvbjerg’s (2001) notion of phronetic social science research that matters, we reviewed 353 articles
    published in Critical Perspectives on Accounting from 1990 to 2014 identifying the focal constituency(s), the injustice(s) addressed, the groups or institutions responsible for the injustice as well as the proposals for social and political praxis outlined in the studies.

    Our review indicates that generally the studies identify a somewhat focused, though salient and appropriate, set of economic, social and/or environmental injustices experienced by various constituencies, and to some extent, the studies consider the context and conditions that perpetuate the inequality and injustices. However, as the field matures, there is a need for more robust development of the social and political implications of critical accounting research and for articulating the ideas and implications as action programs. Further, our review suggests that several relevant constituencies such as non-human animals, children, future generations, developing nations, and gender and sex/uality minorities have received little or no attention in the current literature.

    Keywords: phronetic critical accounting, phronesis, pluralism, Flyvbjerg, constituencies

    https://tampub.uta.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/101036/a_case_study_of_critique_2017.pdf?sequence=1

    The Quality of Democracy: The Ambiguous Virtues of
    Accountability

    https://www.eui.eu/Documents/DepartmentsCentres/SPS/Profiles/Schmitter/Accountability.pdf

    Fascism? Populism? Democracy? Critical Theory in a Global Context
    https://www.nica-institute.com/fascism-populism-democracy-critical-theory-in-a-global-context/

    Please note there is no mention of Scotland’s circumstances in the last link. Or plight is hidden from view and the threat to our right bearing humanity is subsequently denied significance.

  265. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr
    Sorry Alex, please forgive me but I’m totally brickin’ it about Brexit and I’m determined to prove our cause is just.

    Purple shite? This is the first year I’ve noticed it but it’s all over the place.

  266. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Thepnr, Purple Rain sooperb! we are indeed fortunate that swans don’t eat elderberries! “When the deep purple falls……..fancy getting blootered wi that from a great height!

  267. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Unless the Russians produce a video of the GRU agent and his tourist look-a-like standing side by side it looks pretty damning for the Kremlin.

    Is it time for Alex Salmond and George Galloway to pull out of RT?

  268. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Actually, now seen Craig Murray’s article – it’s no him.

  269. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. institutional corruption. It’s bad, mk. At least from the perspective of normative political theory.

    What Does Corruption Mean in a Democracy?
    Despite a growing interest in corruption, the topic has been absent from democratic theory. The reason is not a lack of normative issues, but rather missing links between the concepts of corruption and democracy. With few exceptions, political corruption has been conceived as departures by public officials from public rules, norms, and laws for the sake of private gain. Such a conception works well within bureaucratic contexts with well-defined offices, purposes, and norms of conduct. But it inadequately identifies corruption in political contexts, that is, the processes of contestation through which common purposes, norms, and rules are created.

    Corruption in a democracy, I argue, involves duplicitous violations of the democratic norm of inclusion. Such a conception encompasses the standard conception while complementing it with attention to the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within democratic politics. By distinguishing the meanings of inclusion and exclusion within the many institutions, spheres, and associations that constitute contemporary democracies, I provide a democratic conception of corruption with a number of implications. The most important of these is that corruption in a democracy usually indicates a deficit of democracy.

    https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/gov2126/files/warrendemocracy.pdf

    WHAT IS WRONG WITH INSTITUTIONAL CORRUPTION
    A philosophical investigation into the moral foundation of modern institutions

    https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/49357/R%20-%20MasterThesis%20TychoPrins%20s0743305.pdf?sequence=1

    INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN, NORMATIVE POLITICAL THEORY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
    http://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/ojs/index.php/revdireitogv/article/viewFile/35252/34050

  270. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. that 11 year old girl. The regimentation of action fits with the neoliberal aim of producing the neoliberal subject, a right-thinking, correctly consuming, internally self-regulating, entrepreneurial, individualist. Of course, it might have been due to something completely different.

    Making Sense of Neoliberal Subjectivity: A Discourse Analysis of Media Language on Self-development

    Abstract

    The influence of neoliberalism on culture and subjectivity is well documented. This paper contributes to understanding of how neoliberal ideology enters into the production of subjectivity. While subject formation takes place in multiple and contradictory ways and across multiple social sites, we focus on the increasingly popular media discourse of self-development, and examine it as a technology of neoliberal subjectification. Drawing on Foucauldian understandings, we analyze data from two different newspapers from two different national contexts, both of which are heavily influenced by neoliberalism.

    Based on our analysis, we detail four interrelated discoursesβ€”rationality, autonomy and responsibility, entrepreneurship, and positivity and self-confidenceβ€”demonstrating how these discourses constitute the neoliberal subject in ways consonant with neoliberal governmentality. There is no observable resistance to subject positions offered within these discourses. Self-development discourse instills stronger individualism in society, while constraining collective identity, and thus provides social control and contributes to preserving status quo of neoliberal societies.

    Keywords: neoliberalism, self-development, neoliberal subject, discourse analysis, media

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2015.1033247?src=recsys

    Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and Ethics
    https://rauli.cbs.dk/index.php/foucault-studies/article/download/2471/2469

    Neoliberal subjectivity – difference, free choice and individualised responsibility in the life plans of young adults in Switzerland
    https://www.geogr-helv.net/68/153/2013/gh-68-153-2013.pdf

  271. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. austerity and 21st century food-poverty in Britain. Has David Torrance ever mentioned the harmful psychological effects of austerity, given he has a degree in psychology and shit? Doubt it.

    The Psychological Impact of Austerity
    A Briefing Paper

    Executive Summary

    This report directly links cuts to public services with mental health problems. Well-established psychological research that explains these links already exists. However, this knowledge has been missing from the debate on austerity so far.

    Psychologists are often in a position to see the effects that social and economic changes have on people. We also occupy a relatively powerful position as professionals and therefore have an ethical responsibility to speak out about
    these effects.

    Key conclusions
    Austerity policies have damaging psychological costs. Mental health problems are being created in the present, and further problems are being stored for the future. We have identified five β€˜Austerity Ailments’. These are specific ways in which austerity policies impact on mental health:

    1. Humiliation and shame

    2. Fear and distrust

    3. Instability and insecurity

    4. Isolation and loneliness

    5. Being trapped and powerless

    These experiences have been shown to increase mental health problems. Prolonged humiliation following a severe loss trebles the chance of being diagnosed with clinical depression. Job insecurity is as damaging for mental health as unemployment. Feeling trapped over the long term nearly trebles the chances of being diagnosed with anxiety and
    depression. Low levels of trust increase the chance of being diagnosed with depression by nearly 50 per cent.

    These five β€˜ailments’ are indicators of problems in society, of poisonous public policy, weakness of social cohesion and inequalities in power and wealth. We also know what kind of society promotes good health. Key markers are that societies are equal, participatory and cohesive. Some important indicators of a psychologically healthy society are:

    1. Agency

    2. Security

    3. Connection

    4. Meaning

    5. Trust

    Mental health isn’t just an individual issue. To create resilience and promote wellbeing, we need to look at the entirety of the social and economic conditions in which people live.

    https://psychagainstausterity.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/paa-briefing-paper.pdf

    Austerity, welfare reform and the rising use of food banks by children in England and Wales
    https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/area.12233#

    Understanding the health and wellbeing challenges of the food banking system: A qualitative study of food bank users, providers and referrers in London
    https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/4648284/1/Understanding-the-health-and-wellbeing-challenges-of-the-food-banking-system.pdf

  272. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the BBC are pimping neocolonial machismo, again. Historically, International Relations Theory and security studies in general, have been dominated by the Realist school of philosophy, which should not be confused with critical realism. As always, don’t believe the Tory hype, there’s usually an alternative.

    Realism: The Domination of Security Studies

    The study of security has developed within International Relations as a gateway for understanding driving forces within international politics. Increasingly global and catastrophic conflict makes the study of security central to policy makers and academics seeking to understand, and predict, behaviour in global politics. Realism[1] describes the world order as a system of competing self-interested state actors under anarchy (Baldwin 1993: 4, Buzan 1996: 60, Morgenthau 1978). This understanding of the world order has a direct affect on the definition of security as a feature of that anarchy. I will take β€˜domination’ to mean realism has been seen as the only theoretically acceptable paradigm in which security studies can be understood.

    Firstly, I will demonstrate that the study of security has been dominated by realism through the use of realist terminology, with reference to examples of relations in the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN). However the definition of security has expanded in recent years, therefore it is necessary to examine how far realism has been able to accommodate for and predict this change. This expansion does not go far enough in testing the limits of the realist paradigm, which will lead to an examination into the development of critical security studies, which both explains and critiques realist dominance over security studies. Ultimately, the only way in which it is possible to understand how far realism has been able to dominate the study of security is by using the framework of critique that is employed by critical security theorists.

    https://www.e-ir.info/2013/06/14/realism-the-domination-of-security-studies/

    Critical Theory: International Relations’ Engagement With the Frankfurt School and Marxism
    http://internationalstudies.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-109

    Feminist Security Studies
    http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0205.xml

  273. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Might change my name to Loretta. πŸ™‚

    White Town – I Could Never Be Your Woman
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OMEWH8vilU

  274. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the Trump administration and climate change.

    Postmodern Nihilism: Theory and Literature

    Ex Nihilo: Constructing Nihilism
    What does “nihilism” mean? This question, posed by Friedrich Nietzsche in The Will to Power, is difficult to answer simply. For Nietzsche, nihilism meant that the highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is lacking; “why?” finds no answer.1 This seems to be the case in the postmodern age, where morals are without justification, faith is replaced with cynicism, and God is all too evidently missing, presumed dead. Nihilism did not originate with Nietzsche, however, and neither did it end with him. Before Nietzsche, philosophies of nihilism are evident from classical Greece to Enlightenment Europe; since Nietzsche, and especially since the Holocaust, nihilism is no longer a marginalized philosophy, but one that is vital to understanding the history of modernity. How we understand nihilism at the dawn of a new millennium – a millennium that is incidentally only possible within a Christian framework – depends upon how its history is constructed in relation to modernity.

    If nihilism is implicit in the history of modernity, then constructing a history of nihilism is a monumental task: it is, in effect, a historiographical exercise incorporating the entirety of Western thought. There are two sides to every (hi)story, however, and nihilism is no different in this respect: one side argues that nihilism and the history of modernity are fundamentally entwined, the other argues that nihilism is only part of the history of modernity, only one thread among many. The former argument is seen nowhere more clearly than in Martin Heideggerβ€˜s philosophical project on the history of metaphysics:

    Nihilism is a historical movement, and not just any view or doctrine advocated by someone or other. […] Nihilism, thought in its essence, is […] the fundamental movement of the history of the West. It shows such great profundity that its unfolding can have nothing but world catastrophes as its consequence. Nihilism is the world-historical movement of the peoples of the earth who have been drawn into the power realm of the modern age.2

    https://philpapers.org/archive/GERBRM.pdf

    The Global Transformation: The Nineteenth Century and the Making of Modern International Relations
    http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/44894/1/__libfile_REPOSITORY_Content_Lawson%2C%20G_The%20global%20transformation%20the%20nineteenth%20century%20and%20the%20making%20of%20modern%20international%20relations_The%20global%20transformation%20the%20nineteenth%20century%20and%20the%20making%20of%20modern%20international%20relations%20%28LSERO%29.pdf

    Donald Trump: A Critical Theory-Perspective on Authoritarian Capitalism

    Abstract: This paper analyses economic power, state power and ideological power in the age of Donald Trump with the help of critical theory. It applies the critical theory approaches of thinkers such as Franz Neumann, Theodor W. Adorno and Erich Fromm. It analyses changes of US capitalism that have together with political anxiety and demagoguery brought about the rise of Donald Trump. This article draws attention to the importance of state theory for understanding Trump and the changes of politics that his rule may bring about. It is in this context important to see the complexity of the state, including the dynamic relationship between the state and the economy, the state and citizens, intra-state relations, inter-state relations, semiotic representations of and by the state, and ideology.

    Trumpism and its potential impacts are theorised along these dimensions. The ideology of Trump (Trumpology) has played an important role not just in his business and brand strategies, but also in his political rise. The (pseudo-)critical mainstream media have helped making Trump and Trumpology by providing platforms for populist spectacles that sell as news and attract audiences. By Trump making news in the media, the media make Trump. An empirical analysis of Trump’s rhetoric and the elimination discourses in his NBC show The Apprentice underpins the analysis of Trumpology. The combination of Trump’s actual power and Trump as spectacle, showman and brand makes his government’s concrete policies fairly unpredictable. An important question that arises is what social scientists’ role should be in the conjuncture that the world is experiencing.

    Keywords: Donald Trump, critical theory, capitalism, political economy, Franz L. Neumann, Theodor W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, authoritarian statism, state theory, ideology critique, USA, United States politics, 2016 US presidential election

    https://triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/835/922

  275. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    And now for something completely different

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyE3Mye-eks

  276. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Rod Stewart and the song the BBC won’t play

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdnR4Q4zvMY

  277. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Afternoon Bdtt, aye aye, ah was away frae screen at a party t’other evening and then onto an aftershow party in Balfron after that, for some afters, dramos muchos πŸ™‚

    Excellent result for Dateline 2018, congratulations to all.

    Couple of crackin’ Sunday Wings articles, yum.

    A defining moment and turning point…

    Get stuck in there.

    6 sleeps to go.

  278. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m pretty new to this trans debate but I’m already beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t realise there are so many women supporting action that can be expected to undermine there already weak position in society. I support the re-writing of social boundaries to undermine hegemonic social practice, but it is possible to take a thing too far.

    Whose personal is more political? Experience in contemporary feminist politics

    Abstract

    Whose personal is more political? This article explores the role of experience in contemporary feminist politics, arguing that it operates as a form of capital within abstracted and decontextualised debates which entrench existing power relations. In a neoliberal context in which the personal and emotional is commodified, powerful groups mobilise traumatic narratives to gain political advantage. Through case study analysis this article shows how privileged feminists, speaking for others and sometimes for themselves, use experience to generate emotion and justify particular agendas, silencing critics who are often from more marginalised social positions.

    The use of the experiential as capital both reflects and perpetuates the neoliberal invisibilisation of structural dynamics: it situates all experiences as equal, and in the process fortifies existing inequalities. This competitive discursive field is polarising, and creates selective empathies through which we tend to discredit others’ realities instead of engaging with their politics. However, I am not arguing for a renunciation of the politics of experience: instead, I ask that we resist its commodification and respect varied narratives while situating them in a structural frame.

    Keywords Epistemology, experience, feminism, intersectionality, neoliberalism, sex work, transgender

    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1464700116663831

    Neo-liberalism, Masculinity and Femininity
    https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/think-leicester/arts-and-culture/2015/neo-liberalism-masculinity-and-femininity-caitlyn-jenner-and-the-politics-of-transgender

    The Neoliberal Feminist Subject
    https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-neoliberal-feminist-subject/

  279. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Political intent and action does not undo biology, though space should be made for all. Gender equality is important but not worth the practical inhalation of experiential womanhood’s meaning. Is the queering of sex and gender aiding the neoliberal governmentality project?

    Gender, Justice, and Neoliberal Transformations

    Left Queer
    by Christina B. Hanhardt

    In my forthcoming book, Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence, I describe how the fight against violence and for safety has propelled a wide mix of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activist and community-based campaigns in the US over the past fifty years.[1] I contend that an analysis of these goalsβ€”and of the strategies used to achieve themβ€”is not only important to understanding the transformation of LGBT politics since the 1960s, but is also a useful lens through which to examine the uneven development and policing of space under capitalism during this time. Since the 1970s, the Keynesian-influenced policies of social welfare and economic regulation have been systemically dismantled, replaced by policies intended to promote neoliberalism’s mythical ideal of an unfettered free market.[2]

    http://sfonline.barnard.edu/gender-justice-and-neoliberal-transformations/left-queer/

    The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09502386.2013.857361

    The feminist frontier: on trans and feminism
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09589236.2017.1411791

  280. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    How should nations conduct themselves? Is there any guarantee that austerity will ever end in Brexitania? How will England’s culture affect Scotland’s future?

    Political Psychology in International Relations: Beyond the Paradigms

    Abstract
    Political psychology in international relations has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past two decades, mirroring the broader changes occurring in IR itself. This review essay examines the current state of the field. We begin by offering a data-driven snapshot, analyzing four years of manuscript classifications at a major IR journal to characterize the questions that IR scholars engaged in psychological research are and aren’t investigating. We then emphasize six developments in particular, both present-day growth areas (an increased interest in emotions and hot cognition, the rise of more psychologically-informed work on public opinion, a nascent research tradition we call the β€œfirst image reversed”, and the rise of neurobiological and evolutionary approaches) and calls for additional scholarship (better integration of the study of mass and elite political behavior, and more psychological work in IPE). Together, they constitute some of the directions in which we see the
    next generation of scholarship as heading.

    https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dtingley/files/psyir.pdf

    Evolutionary Political Psychology
    https://pure.au.dk/ws/files/81248401/Evolutionary_Political_Psychology_Petersen_EP_Handbook.pdf

    Toward a Psychology of Social Change: A Typology of Social Change
    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00397/full

  281. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Just finished Craig Murray’s excellent “Sikunder Burnes!” on the disaster of the first Afghan War 1841, no lessons were learned & Labour embarked on it’s own 4th Afghan War with John Reid claiming the troops would be back without firing a shot. Boom-time for flag manufacturers keeping up with the demand to cover coffins.

    Burns the poet’s cousin Alexander Burnes, political officer in Kabul was made a scapegoat for his superiors in the East India Company & was hacked to death at his house in Kabul after a four hour siege while British regiments were in camp 10 minutes away. Then came a government cover-up by Palmerston & Co. Not many of the invading army made it back to India. Riveting stuff pub’ by Birlinn.

  282. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    SEX AND GENDER: A CRITICAL REALIST APPROACH

    Critical realism and the ontology of sex and gender

    ….Gender orders involve social representations of sexual difference….

    http://131.111.165.101/csog/iacr/papers/New.pdf

    Critical realism: a philosophical framework for the study of gender and mental health

    Abstract
    This paper explores gender and mental health with particular reference to the emerging philosophical field of critical realism. This philosophy suggests a shared ontology and epistemology for the natural and social sciences. Until recently, most of the debate surrounding gender and mental health has been guided either implicitly or explicitly within a positivist or constructivist philosophy. With this in mind, key areas of critical realism are explored in relation to gender and mental health, and contrasted with the positions of positivism and constructivism. It is argued that critical realism offers an alternative philosophical framework for the exploration of gender issues within mental health care.

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1466-769X.2008.00358.x

    Part 5: Critical Realism
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UvjDMpYfrQ

  283. Jason Smoothpiece
    Ignored
    says:

    Folks can anyone confirm AUOB for Saturday is starting at Johnston Terrace?

  284. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. Brexit and immigration.

    Scotland pushes for post-study work in UK

    The Scottish Affairs Committee has urged the UK government to review its immigration policy to consider Scotland’s β€œcritical” migration needs, with recommendations including a post-study work scheme.

    In its latest report on Immigration and Scotland, the Committee stated that Scotland’s population growth is dependent on inward migration and the ability to attract migrants is crucial for the nation.

    Among its recommendations, the Committee called for students to be taken out of the net migration target and for the creation of a Scotland-specific post-study work scheme β€œin the absence of a UK-wide scheme.”

    https://thepienews.com/news/scotland-pushes-for-post-study-work-in-uk/

    Migration theories: a critical overview in Triandafyllidou, Anna (ed) Routledge Handbook of Immigration and Refugee Studies.
    https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/19442/3/O%27Reilly.pdf

    Addressing Whiteness with/in (Critical) Migration Studies
    https://movements-journal.org/issues/03.rassismus/08.aced,schwab–addressing.whiteness.with.in.critical.migration.studies.html

  285. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Jason, Johnston Terrace 1 o clock kick-off, Holyrood chances of a rally are still unclear?

  286. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t need a rally, Fred.The march is the thing and a picnic at the park.

  287. Jason Smoothpiece
    Ignored
    says:

    Fred

    Thanks Fred I’ll be there looking forward to seeing some wingers in Edinburgh.

  288. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fred

    I won’t be at the march but hubby will and hopes to meet up with Wingers.

    If anyone is wondering how Smallaxe is, I’m sorry to report he is not too well at the moment. He was very much looking forward to going and meeting up with indy pals but sadly his health is not up to it.

    This one’s for you Smallaxe xx

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODh1nsHlPg

  289. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Looking forward to Sat’ Haymarket looks the best bet for Johnstone Terrace & the weather looks OK.

  290. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Hope and best wishes Smallaxe and Mrs. Smallaxe.

  291. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Nana, I was gonnae get U a large Gin tae! sorry to hear about Smallaxe, Off-Topic’s no the same without his repartee!

  292. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    All my best Smallaxe, haste ye back my friend.X
    Stay strong Mrs Smallaxe we are thinking of ye.X
    Will you keep us informed please Nana?

  293. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Best wishes to Smallaxe and peace always. πŸ™‚

  294. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    Something I mentioned in passing on one of the main threads, if we do get a big turnout on Saturday it is going to be a quite hard to get 40,000+ people in Johnstone Terrace

  295. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fred

    Never fear Fred, we’ll meet up some time!

    @Lizg

    I will Liz. I’m pretty sure he’ll be back on off topic soon as he’s fit.

  296. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana, sorry to hear that Smallaxe is not too well at the moment.I miss his cheery banter and his music on OT. Much love to him and Mrs Smallaxe.

    Sorry can’t be at the march on Saturday, but I hope for a wonderful turn out, and a happy and most of all peaceful day.

  297. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. anxiety in the age of global neoliberalism.

    Democracy against Neoliberalism: Paradoxes, Limitations, Transcendence

    Abstract

    Procedural (formal, liberal, capitalist or bourgeois) democracy is the political form of neoliberalism, and it dominates political thought and state practice today. This modality of management of class relations is currently in crisis, expressed through the evacuation of politics, the erosion of civil liberties and the emergence of authoritarian governance. This article offers a Marxist critique of neoliberal democracy, concluding that neoliberalism is incompatible with the expansion of democracy into key areas of social life. This is expressed by six paradoxes of democracy. Conversely, the expansion of democracy can provide an effective lever for the abolition of neoliberalism.

    This approach is promising for three reasons: first, the expansion of democracy is valuable in itself. Second, the contradictions between economic and political democracy illuminate the limitations of contemporary capitalism. Third, struggles about the nature and content of democracy can throw into question the limitations of capitalism as a mode of production.

    Keywords capitalism, democracy, democratization, globalization, neoliberalism, political economy, socialism

    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920513507789

    Class, Precarity, and Anxiety under Neoliberal Global Capitalism: From Denial to Resistance

    Abstract

    Circumstantial precarity correlates with anxiety, but the relationship is complex because people often quell anxiety by denying precarity. This article focuses in particular on how in this neoliberal era such psychological responses to precarity are class variegated and articulated with neoliberal ideology. Because this field of research is largely uncharted, this paper pays considerable attention to developing a conceptual framework appropriate to this task. This framework is based in the distinction between β€œontological security” and β€œexistential anxiety” that is correlated with an innovative account of the contemporary global class structure presented as a stratification of security/precarity, and linked with an adaption of Gramsci’s theory of ideology.

    From this basis, likely collective subjective responses are β€œimputed,” adapting LukΓ‘cs’ theory, from different strategic vantage points within the contemporary neoliberal form of the global class structure. As part of the project to resist neoliberalism, final discussion focuses on how anxiety might be quelled without resort to denial.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275222275_Class_Precarity_and_Anxiety_under_Neoliberal_Global_Capitalism_From_Denial_to_Resistance

    Self-care in the Age of Neoliberalism: An Auto-ethnographic Exploration by a Counsellor

    1.4 – Dominant Discourses and the Desire for Reflective Practice

    When researching possible theoretical approaches for this thesis I discovered what Foucault (1988, p.2) refers to as β€œcare of the self”. His writings inspired me to explore the past and unlearn things in order to access a different understanding β€” or truth β€” that was masked by the widely disseminated and dominant neoliberal constructs. Foucault (1987) argues for taking responsibility for what truths a person adheres to, creating what the ancient Greeks described as a method of self-governance. This process involves unlearning unwanted behaviours, driven by the dominant discourse, which leads to challenging the falsehood of liberty that neoliberal governmentality and a politics of the self, proclaim (Curtis, 2007).

    Old beliefs that generated behaviours over years or decades and became part of my identity are now outdated. I want to shape an identity that is not determined by who I compete with, or what I own, or who I rule, but how to find an ethical way to interact with others. I am no longer seduced by the neoliberal constructs that convert countries political systems into β€œinverted totalitarianism” (Wolin, 2010), but rather, I want to strengthen local community efforts and engage in a balanced approach to work and life, shunting away the manic growth and bust cycles of the globalised market economies.

    To work towards my desire to become a reflexive practitioner I need to consider the past, and reflect, in order to conceptualise and to establish new ways of being (Dewey, 1933). I need to prise out long established truisms whilst clearly demarcating the discourses that I believe are responsible for unwanted behaviours. In Chapter 3.3 I outline in more detail the concept of reflective practice and how I envisage using this thesis to advance towards increasing a reflexive approach….

    https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/13324/Multhaup_M_MCouns_2016.pdf?sequence=1

  298. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Social space is full of paradoxes, many of them hidden from plain sight..

    A POWERLESS COMPANION: HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF NEOLIBERALISM

    III HUMAN RIGHTS AND NEOLIBERAL ECONOMICS: HARMONY AND DISSONANCE

    ….Furthermore, neoliberalism and human rights share key ideological building blocks. Most obviously, they share a commitment to the prime significance of the individual, whose freedoms matter more than collectivist endeavors, even when those are justified on the grounds that they will generally advance the well-being of individuals. More controversially, their shared antipathy towards, or at least suspicion of, the state, and especially the nation-state, also seems plain, since both reject its moral credentials (even as both rely on its agency for enacting policy reform).

    https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4711&context=lcp

  299. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    No.

    Nice hat though.

  300. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. (t)Ruthless Davidson’s conception of internationalism.

    From 1984 to One-Dimensional Man: Critical Reflections on Orwell and Marcuse

    ….In these reflections on the politics of language, Orwell was generalizing from the practices of existing totalitarian states and projected a future in which truth and honesty no longer played any role in political discourse. In One-Dimensional Man, Marcuse uses the term “Orwellian language” to describe the nature and functions of dominant discourses within contemporary post-industrial societies, though most of his examples are from the US. In Marcuse’s analysis, public and corporate officials, and the mass media, utilize a “one-dimensional language” to smooth over social contradictions and problems, and thus restrict thought and public discourse to the terms and interests of the established society.

    https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/Illumina%20Folder/kell13a.htm

    Beyond Nineteen Eighty-Four: Doublespeak in a Post-Orwellian Age.
    https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED311451.pdf

    Equivocation and doublespeak in far right-wing discourse: an analysis of Nick Griin’s performance on BBC’s Question Time
    http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/84916/1/PublishedVersion.pdf

  301. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. anxiety.

    The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – 2Kindsa Lov
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiQNXV3C5bs

  302. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe is the original banter boy and I was hoping to see him again on Saturday to discuss Dark Energy but there will be better days for us all quite soon, sodger boy:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A50lVLtSQik

  303. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Fancy a muffin?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEQkIEkxm7k

    O what is that sound?

  304. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    From what I’ve witnessed of the trans debate, it certainly has gone wrong. A totalitarian belief in identitarianism now appears to trump bio-medical science. Woke ‘socialists’ who jump on the neoliberal and misogynistic trans-activist bandwagon, display a hollowed-out appreciation of social solidarity. Probably why some of them have columns in the national press.

    Structural connections in the brain in relation to gender identity and sexual orientation

    Abstract

    Both transgenderism and homosexuality are facets of human biology, believed to derive from different sexual differentiation of the brain. The two phenomena are, however, fundamentally unalike, despite an increased prevalence of homosexuality among transgender populations. Transgenderism is associated with strong feelings of incongruence between one’s physical sex and experienced gender, not reported in homosexual persons. The present study searches to find neural correlates for the respective conditions, using fractional anisotropy (FA) as a measure of white matter connections that has consistently shown sex differences. We compared FA in 40 transgender men (female birth-assigned sex) and 27 transgender women (male birth-assigned sex), with both homosexual (29 male, 30 female) and heterosexual (40 male, 40 female) cisgender controls.

    Previously reported sex differences in FA were reproduced in cis-heterosexual groups, but were not found among the cis-homosexual groups. After controlling for sexual orientation, the transgender groups showed sex-typical FA-values. The only exception was the right inferior fronto-occipital tract, connecting parietal and frontal brain areas that mediate own body perception. Our findings suggest that the neuroanatomical signature of transgenderism is related to brain areas processing the perception of self and body ownership, whereas homosexuality seems to be associated with less cerebral sexual differentiation….

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17352-8

    The neuroscience of transgender identity: Transgender brains match their gender identity
    http://blog.donders.ru.nl/?p=6624&lang=en

    Which box to check: Assessment norms for gender and the implications for transgender and nonbinary populations
    Standard methods in psychology need to be adapted to fully address transgender and nonbinary aspects of gender.

    https://www.apadivisions.org/division-44/publications/newsletters/division/2016/04/nonbinary-populations.aspx

  305. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Owen Jones
    Clue yourself up dude.

    Queerlaw

    ….A basic strategy of queer legal theorists is to challenge the law’s conflation of sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Sex refers to biological or anatomical distinctions. Queer theorists challenge the assumption that sex is binary by pointing to the existence of intersexuals (hermaphrodites). Even pluralized in this way, sex must be distinguished from gender which refers to the series of roles, practices and acts that a given society or subcommunity expects and assigns to people presumed to have a particular sex. Masculinity and femininity are genders, and they must be performed and produced by culture; they are not automatic consequences of sex.

    There may be more than two genders and also variety in the content of particular gender performances expected by class, race, religion, and other subcommunities. Gender and sex are further distinct from sexual orientation, which involves the identity of those with him an individual seeks as a sexual partner or subject of sexual fantasy. Again, binary oppositions between gay and straight are inadequate given bisexuals and a continuum of desire that characterizes some people’s preferences and experiences. Queer theory emphasizes that sex, gender, and sexual orientation need not be aligned; though law often presumes that they are.

    https://cyber.harvard.edu/bridge/CriticalTheory/critical5.htm

    TRANSGENDER INTRASECTIONALITY: RETHINKING ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW AND LITIGATION
    https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1205&context=jlasc

    Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law
    https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/99/Normal-LifeAdministrative-Violence-Critical-Trans

  306. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    “How on earth have HES come to this place? They have rushed at an enemy which was never there, while simultaneously retreating behind denial and being wounded by inference, while people who had never even considered that HES were part of the political landscape look on in frank amazement. Worse, they have provided a new target for the vocal few ready for a fight, and as someone passionate about our heritage I wish with all my heart that they had not done so.”

    Folk might not have previously considered HES political, as “institutional bias” has only recently attained academic recognition.

    Institutional Bias

    ABSTRACT
    This chapter focuses on conceptual and theoretical issues surrounding the study of institutional bias, those institutionally ingrained prejudices and discriminatory practices that lead to inequality across social groups. The first section of the chapter looks at the history and background of the conceptualization of institutional bias, from its relatively recent inception as a construct for scientific analysis. The next section covers a select representation of research domains and theoretical perspectives relevant to the causes and perpetuation of institutional bias. The chapter continues with a proposed two-dimensional model for conceptualizing institutional bias, and concludes by suggesting how such a model may be useful for future theory and practice in the service of ameliorating this poorly understood social problem

    https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6e97/22aded84469a394b60c63ce2ff7acd0af881.pdf

    Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International Edition
    2. Social Cognition

    https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/part/chapter-2/

    Understanding Implicit Bias
    http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implicit-bias/

  307. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    It would be kind of handy if Wingers could make sure the banner at the front of the march was appropriate, maybe with use of mobile phones, no “out Tory scum, out”. Otherwise the options would be to politely replace it, or leave a large gap behind the 20 or so people who actually want that as the message, and have another appropriate banner for the real march.

  308. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m honestly not making any claims as to the actions of HES staff, simply trying to broaden the understanding of the issue at hand.

    Theory and Practice of Archaeological Heritage Management –
    a European Perspective

    Abstract

    This thesis looks at selected issues related to the management of archaeological heritage in Europe. It focuses on the theory, principles and standards of the archaeological conservation and the protection of the historic environment laid out in a number of international treaties and policies supported by the work of UNESCO, ICOMOS, Council of Europe and the European Union and seeks to demonstrate the complexities of their practical implementation on a national and regional level.

    Attention is given to the role of the archaeological heritage and the historic environment as sources of collective narratives: the thesis explores the consequences of the institutionalisation of preconceptions about the past and cultural values and the use of the archaeology and heritage administration as instruments of creating and controlling visions of the past and future. These problems are discussed in the context of modern socio-political issues, such as the process of the European integration and globalisation, the quest for a ‘common European heritage’ and the values and consequent tension between local, national and ‘European’ identity.

    Finally, this dissertation explores the relationship between the protection of the archaeological (cultural) heritage and the natural environment and the growing dependence of the heritage sector on the EU environmental legislation and policies. A critical approach is based on the dual nature of the archaeological heritage: as a universal (trans-national) concept governed by international principles and the material remains located within nation states subjected to diverse domestic laws. The study concentrates on the analysis of the empirical material drawn from the European Union including the UK, the Republic of Ireland, France, Italy, Germany (old member countries) as well as Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Balkans (new members).

    https://orca.cf.ac.uk/54367/1/U584468.pdf

  309. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyway, here we go, popped out likes peas in a pod as they say
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43qB9FpfCR8

    Ach and here’s another
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtfZbj4J71A

    and one more for luck
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30pt2XUJKGQ

  310. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamilton Bohannon – Let’s Start The Dance (Danny Krivit Edit)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSZgvf5AbOA

  311. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. employment and labour markets, especially with regard to Brexit.

    Brexit and its Consequences

    Abstract

    In this brief essay, I argue that the β€˜Brexit’ vote is but the latest manifestation of popular dissatisfaction with the utopian ideal of autonomous markets beyond the reach of regulatory democracy. Brexit represented the collective, if (to my mind) often misguided, efforts of those β€˜left behind’ in Britain to protect themselves from the predatory nature of market fundamentalism. In a Polanyian sense, it is a form of social self-protection from self-regulating markets in money, trade and labour.

    Keywords: Brexit, financialization, Polanyi

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2016.1229953

    Towards a theoretical framework for the comparative understanding of globalisation, higher education, the labour market and inequality
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13639080.2010.534345

    Institutional contexts of political conflicts around free movement in the European Union: a theoretical analysis
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13501763.2018.1488883

    #DissolveTheUnion

  312. DerekM
    Ignored
    says:

    For all those Wingers visiting the capital tomorrow and taking a stroll through the lovely parks do NOT forget to take a few EU flags with you to show off our unionism to those deluded British nationalist isolationists πŸ˜‰

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc

  313. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    The reasons behind the Brexit vote are more complex than simply a response to the financialization of society, IMHO. Analysis that only focuses on one parameter of real life events and circumstances, will not accurately portray reality. For example, Marxists tend to display a fetishism towards capital, hence their poor response to cultural or racial matters.

    Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism

    Abstract

    Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1979

    Conservatism and the neural circuitry of threat: economic conservatism predicts greater amygdala–BNST connectivity during periods of threat vs safety

    Political conservatism is associated with an increased negativity bias, including increased attention and reactivity toward negative and threatening stimuli. Although the human amygdala has been implicated in the response to threatening stimuli, no studies to date have investigated whether conservatism is associated with altered amygdala function toward threat. Furthermore, although an influential theory posits that connectivity between the amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is important in initiating the response to sustained or uncertain threat, whether individual differences in conservatism modulate this connectivity is unknown.

    To test whether conservatism is associated with increased reactivity in neural threat circuitry, we measured participants’ self-reported social and economic conservatism and asked them to complete high-resolution fMRI scans while under threat of an unpredictable shock and while safe. We found that economic conservatism predicted greater connectivity between the BNST and a cluster of voxels in the left amygdala during threat vs safety. These results suggest that increased amygdala–BNST connectivity during threat may be a key neural correlate of the enhanced negativity bias found in conservatism.

    https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/13/1/43/4596542

    Inside the racist brain

    Although social categorisation is a natural process of cognition, prejudice occurs when negative attitudes concerning a social group are extended toward an individual based upon that individual’s membership in the group. Assuming that the negative attitudes are triggered by anxiety, neuroscientists interested in prejudice and stereotyping focused on a structure that controls autonomic responses associated with fear and threatening stimuli, the amygdala. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers measured white skin participants’ brain activity while they viewed faces of Whites and Blacks. They observed a significant increase in amygdala activity immediately following exposure to Black people (vs. White)1. The increase was also observed on the startle eye-blink response, a physiological index of amygdala activity. The activation pattern was correlated with individual differences in implicit racial bias such as political conservatism and biased race categorisation2.

    https://www.euroscientist.com/inside-racist-brain/

  314. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Given the direction that Britain appears to be heading in, it might be an idea to know a bit about power and racism.

    Power to and power over: two distinct concepts of power?

    Abstract

    In this article, I analyze the relations between the concepts of power to and power over. The distinction between these two interpretations of power is commonly based on the assumed relational nature of attributions of power over as opposed to the dispositional nature of attributions of power to. I argue, by contrast, that power to refers to social relations as well, and I suggest, accordingly, to consider power to and power over as describing the same category of social facts. As a consequence, they should not be thought of as two distinct concepts of power, but as representing two analytically distinguishable aspects of a single and unified concept of social power.

    Keywords: power to , power over , social power, conceptual analysis, ability and ableness

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2158379X.2012.658278

    β€œBut I’m not a racist!” Phenomenology, racism, and the body schema in white, pre-service teacher education
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13613324.2016.1195354

    The specter of racism: exploring White racial anxieties in the context of policing
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10282580.2015.1025622

  315. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    The violent and world-weary lyrics don’t really match the chillout style but it’s still a classic, imo:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sil76t2X_DE

  316. Shinty
    Ignored
    says:

    FAO Ronnie Anderson,

    I am fairly certain that you will be in contact with Ken (iScot)
    – if you are in touch, please tell him I have been trying to email him for the past couple of weeks.

    The stuff is ready and I will deliver to his home address whenever is convenient for him.

    I hope everything is OK and my emails are just going astray/junk folder.

    The stuff I have is for both you and he to divvy up to help your fundraisers. Don’t want to put my email out there in cyberspace, but Ian Brotherhood may still have it.

    Cheers

  317. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    What security does Scotland gain from being dragged out of the EU?

    Labi Siffre – I Got The…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKISdd2mKzU

  318. hackalumpoff
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Ronnie, PNR etc

    Unfortunately, as wur Ronnie says, a wings stall will not happen.

    So, to facilitate wingers meeting wingers I propose that ALL Wingers to head for a wings flag, when they see one, and then WE can ALL congregate in the park under Wings Flags

    I posted similar in the morning but it never arrived, spooks eh.

  319. hackalumpoff
    Ignored
    says:

    Wass it something I said or have you all fecked off to another yooniverse.

    Great March today spoke with a few lurkers but no regulars. Just shows that as YES grows Wings is shrinking, relatively, which is encouraging in a way.

    Here’s Janey at her best https://twitter.com/i/status/1048625962328477697

    I have a cracking video of a chant from the march, will post when I figure out how to trim it down, don’t want hammers.. ducks.

  320. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Great turnout in Edinburgh, totally inspiring and an indication that the ‘status quo’ is socially inadequate. Dunc wasn’t there either.

    Transgender Issues
    https://philpapers.org/browse/transgender-issues

    TEENAGE GENDER AMBIGUITY: ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES
    https://med.nyu.edu/highschoolbioethics/sites/default/files/highschoolbioethics/Gender%20Ambiguity%20FINAL.pdf

    ETHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL COMPLEXITIES IN RESEARCH INVOLVING SEXUAL MINORITIES
    https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ929950.pdf

  321. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Owen Jones
    Hope you’re keeping up with your homework.

    Bathroom Bills, Bigotry, and Bioethics
    https://www.thehastingscenter.org/bathroom-bills-bigotry-and-bioethics/

    Transgender Rights as Human Rights
    https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/transgender-rights-human-rights/2016-11

    Bioethics in Practice: Ethical Issues in the Care of Transgender Patients
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5472072/

  322. X_Sticks
    Ignored
    says:

    I managed to catch a lot of folk today, and managed to miss a lot too. Whether I caught you or not I love you all. You feel like family. You are family.

  323. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Love you too X Sticks =) xxx

  324. iScot Magazine
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Shinty,

    I’ve not seen any mails from you can you e mail me ken(at)iscot(dot)scot

  325. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Criminy, we’ve transitioned on to child abuse and the sexual reorientation of minors already (Rev.’s twitter). The transsexual debate has global significance, so it is inappropriate to consider the issue from a purely western, neoliberal, perspective. It is the exclusionary social structures and practices of the colonial era that are responsible for much of modern-day life’s dehumanisation of society.

    Sex-Gender Diversity: A Cross Cultural Perspective

    ….The hijra, an alternative gender role in India, are culturally conceptualized as neither man nor woman. Multiple sexes and genders are recorded very early in Indian religion and mythology. Many of these were primarily considered to be sexually impotent males, (Zwilling and Sweet, 2000), as is believed true of the hijras today. Hijras are not merely defective males, however, but are culturally institutionalized as an alternative, mixed sex/gender role, neither man nor woman, neither male nor female (Nanda, l999; Reddy, 2005). Their traditional occupation is to collect payment for their performances at weddings and the birth of a male child; today they also perform for the birth of girl children, collect alms from shopkeepers, act as tax collectors, and run for political office. They also are widely known as prostitutes, both in the past and present.

    Hijras are β€œnot-men” because they cannot function in the male sexual role and cannot reproduce. Hijras often define themselves as β€œmen who have no (sexual) desire for women,” though they do frequently, perhaps universally, act as anal receptive sexual partners for men, who are not, however, defined as homosexuals. Indeed, although the sex work of hijras is widely, though not universally known and/or acknowledged, hijras are perceived as quite different from other effeminate men or gay men in India (Cohen, 1995; Reddy, 2005, p. 53).

    http://www.opusgay.org/projetos/transexualidade/528-sex-gender-diversity-a-cross-cultural-perspective.html

    Transgender? Or TrueGender?
    Transgender people don’t choose gender identity any more than the rest of us do.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/laugh-cry-live/201507/transgender-or-truegender

    Cultural Competency
    https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article/1/1-2/68/92030/Cultural-Competency

  326. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the “Woke Stasi”. I doubt many of the left-wing enablers of neoliberalism have given much consideration to the issue, other than an ego-driven conflation of gay-rights and trans-rights. I really wish trans-activists wouldn’t reject biological science that doesn’t fit with their ideologically laden self-righteousness. Trans-women are not women, they are trans-women. Trans-sexuality is constructed in the same manner as everyone else’s sexuality, through the interaction of biology with society. To deny this not only undermines the potential to understand the issue, it epitomises bigotry.

  327. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Forgot ma links.

    Critical Psychology, Philosophy and Social Therapy
    http://www.loisholzman.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Final.CriticalPsychPhiloST.pdf

    An Argument for a Liberal and Rational Approach to Transgender Rights and Inclusion
    https://areomagazine.com/2017/09/27/an-argument-for-a-liberal-and-rational-approach-to-transgender-rights-and-inclusion/

    Gender Identity and Psychiatric Ethics
    https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2016.3a18

  328. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the β€œWoke Stasi” and the dangers related to practices such as the prohibition of ‘proscribed’ language. Defending the human rights of biological women does not make one trans-phobic. The β€œWoke Stasi” need to recognise the damage to civil society they are enabling.

    Language and Gender: a Socio-Cultural Feature Dominating Perception

    Abstract

    This article is dedicated to the correlation of language and thought in the modern socio-cultural discourse. Particular attention is paid to the influence of language on the social gender roles formation. The opening section provides a historical overview of the related theories, one of the most influential being the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It also studies the contradictory arguments, highlighting the alternative perspectives of the issue under discussion. Being an international language, English is taken as an illustration of gender based lexicon reflecting the social and lexical structure and differentiation. Additional examples from French and Arabic languages are provided to compare differences in linguistic gender.

    The article also shows that the language itself cannot be formed without the presence of initial human thought. However, being once established, a linguistic norm can greatly influence public opinion, support the social stereotypes and facilitate labeling. Only significant social and economic changes can modify the language usage in a particular location.

    Keywords: language, thought, perception, expression means, grammatical gender, gender role.

    https://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_7_No_2_February_2017/16.pdf

    Gender-Inclusive Guidelines
    Gender-Inclusive / Non-Sexist Language Guidelines and Resources
    Advice for Classrooms and Other Spaces

    http://www.wstudies.pitt.edu/node/1432

    Bucking the Linguistic Binary: Gender NeutralLanguage in English, Swedish, French, and German
    https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=wpl_clw

  329. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the thinking behind the Scottish Government’s new Victim Task Force.

    Preventing and responding to hate crimes
    A resource guide for NGOs in the OSCE region

    https://www.osce.org/odihr/39821?download=true

    Hate Crime: Taking Stock Programmes for Offenders of Hate
    http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/65875/1/07_Programmes_for_Offenders_of_Hate.pdf

    Protection of Hate Crime Victims’ Rights: the case of Lithuania
    https://eeagrants.org/content/download/8199/99132/version/1/file/Protection+of+Hate+Crime+Victims+Rights+the+case+of+Lithuania.pdf

  330. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Back to the “Woke Stasi” and their assistance in the dismemberment of language from meaning.

    PERSISTENCE AND NARRATIVE IDENTITY
    Introduction: Why Personal Identity Matters

    There are many philosophical debates that laypeople and non-philosophers find uninteresting or impractical, and understandably so. Consider the following example: the ontological status of numbers. Some mathematicians may take the existence of numbers for granted; others may not. Regardless of individual mathematicians’ beliefs about ontology, mathematics will continue as it always has. Problems will be solved and progress will be made whether or not it is an instance of nominalism or the numbers on the page are related to abstract entities. Another example: many scientists, rightly or wrongly, do not care for many debates in the philosophy of science. This may be because the outcomes of these debates will have little to no lasting impact on many persons’ lives or on their professions. Science will continue regardless of the philosophical consensus on scientific realism. This is not to say that these debates are unimportant; I do not think they are. But their importance can be found within themselves, not in their utility or application to practical living.

    Personal identity is not one of these topics. It is important not only for its own sake, but because of all of the things that seem to rely on it. Our social interactions rest on notions of persons, personhood, the self, and persistence. Serious skepticism about any of these notions would cast doubt and uncertainty on the way we live our lives. The skepticism does not only arise from doing philosophy; everyday people sometimes have doubts about the persistence of the self over time as they ponder their lives. Additionally, some major religious traditions, for example some strands of Buddhism, hold that the self does not exist. The thoughts are already there; the philosopher does not have to inspire them.

    Why should a person be bothered by skepticism about persistence, especially oneβ€˜s own? For one, without persistence persons cannot extend into time. Our notion of survival relies on persistence. For those who are frightened at the prospect of death in the distant future, this may be troublesome. A lack of persistence suggests that persons are constantly dying or at least not surviving, while their bodies may continue and new persons are able to live in them for some short amount of time. Near constant death is not an easy conclusion to accept from skepticism about persistence.

    https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/ouhonors1366647734/inline

    Philosophy of language and mind
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-013-0258-4

    Philosophy of language and mind
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g72d-OWq1RU

  331. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    As I’ve already pointed out, the human rights of experiential/biological women need protecting from the colonising nature of power, as do Scots.

    Language, Borders and Identity

    A wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary discussion of the connections between language, borders and identities

    Identifying and examining political, socio-psychological and symbolic borders, Language, Borders and Identity encompasses a broad, geographically diverse spectrum of border contexts, taking a multi-disciplinary approach by combining sociolinguistics research with human geography, anthropology and social psychology. The book illustrates a representative range of methodological approaches used by researchers in the field and examines regional and local borders alongside the political borders that divide monoglossic and heteroglossic territories.</blockquote

    https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-language-borders-and-identity.html

    Language and Nature
    http://www.ucd.ie/artspgs/meaningthree/chomskylangnatobj.pdf

    New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind
    https://academiaanalitica.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/noam-chomsky-new-horizons-in-the-study-of-language-and-mind.pdf

  332. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I just thought of a way to summaries the above geek-out.

    British nationalism is the same sort of identarian bollocks as a biological man putting on a frock and claiming he is a woman. The British national identity has no foundation in reality, it is a product of ideology. Britain is not a One Nation, it’s persistence negates the humanity of non-English identities (see Brexit).

  333. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry, same geek-out. Brexit will shatter the psychological continuity of non-Brexit supporting Scots who though Britain was a functioning democracy. That wasn’t in the Vow, was it?

    Embodiment and Situated Cognition

    Summary

    Embodied and situated approaches have become increasingly popular in contemporary philosophy of mind and cognition. They tend to be scientifically informed responses to the cognitivism predominant in mid-twentieth century analytic philosophy of mind and psychology. Cognitivism in philosophy assumed – either explicitly or implicitly – that the non-neural body and the environment in which we live and act are best factored out in our investigations of mind and cognition. Embodied and situated approaches along with other related responses to philosophical cognitivism have collectively come to be known as β€œ4EA”: Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended, and Affective.

    While 4EA approaches are united in rejecting the conception of mind and cognition as supervenient only upon internal brain processes they each take a slightly different focus on the reasons why internalism should be rejected and the positions may be held independently. For example, what we might think of as orthodox embodied cognitive science makes little or no mention of the affective domain and it does not imply biological enactivism, which – by its very nature – is itself an inherently embodied approach to cognition. In a similar vein, some of these approaches may be thought to be extensions to twentieth century functionalist philosophy of mind and cognitive science, while in others there is a strong historical connection to the Phenomenologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (in particular Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty) and/or the American Pragmatists such as William James and John Dewey.

    https://philpapers.org/browse/embodiment-and-situated-cognition

    Introducing persons and the psychology of personhood
    https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1269/716cc1e0a6a9262c910cc68e9dd738b55b62.pdf

    Personal Identity – Philosophy Tube
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYVFep0xFYs

  334. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fabian Society
    It’s just not cricket, what?

    The Coasters – Run Red Run
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdVMQbZwP-0

  335. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Shattered.

  336. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    How’s about some popcorn while we await life in austerity riven Brextania.

    Willie Jones – Wheres my Money
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3ArxbwthXI

  337. Lucia Daines
    Ignored
    says:

    An occasional foray…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es3Vsfzdr14

  338. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    How’s about a bit of cinema to shine a little light on the dialectics of mutually exclusive opposites expressed by contemporary British nationalism, i.e. austerity Brexitania and the principles of Magna Carta Libertatum.

    No Country for Old Men – An explanation
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkZeBTNtoXs

  339. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Jon Spencer’s Blues Explosion – I wanna make it all right
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqp1YUoQXCI

  340. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Miss Daines: another occasional foray…..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpgyTl8yqbw

    Apologies in advance.

  341. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Am I bullying?

    @Annie Wells MSP
    You could do worse than learn from the former colonies. Might knock some sense into you and salve that fervent nationalism of yours.

    Theories of the state: Pluralist

    The Pluralist view of the state is distinct from the perspective of Marxist. The Pluralist does not hold that the state is essentially contradictory in nature, as the Marxist and the Elitist schools of thought consider. Instead, the Pluralist view of the state that it is neutral in nature. It is also supposed that the state is vulnerable to numerous influences from various groups in the society. The modern state is not only dominated by one class, that is the capitalist or the bourgeoisie class, which dominates the political power, as believed by the Marxist philosophy. The modern state is a type of framework wherein interests of the society can be reunited.

    https://www.civilserviceindia.com/subject/Political-Science/notes/theories-of-the-state-pluralist.html

    Pluralism: Meaning, Importance and Other Details
    http://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/articles/pluralism-meaning-importance-and-other-details/250

    Monist and Pluralist View of Sovereignty
    https://www.managementstudyguide.com/monist-and-pluralist-view-of-sovereignty.htm

  342. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    If Britain was a functioning, pluralistic, democracy, we wouldn’t be facing an epidemic in food poverty and poverty related deaths, in the 21st century ffs. Instead, Britain is an ambiguous and failing democracy dominated by Tory sociopaths and their British Labour counterparts. The combination of neoliberalism and British nationalism grantee poor health and social insecurity for the vast majority of those living in Scotland, mk.

    The Malthus Factor
    Poverty, Politics and Population in Capitalist Development

    Summary

    The goal of Thomas Malthus, the 19th century originator of a theory about population, was to absolve the state and wealthier segments of society from responsibility for poverty. The briefing explores the theory’s subsequent uses in eugenic, anti-immigration, environmental, Cold War and Green Revolution interests. It explores how population thinking is used today in discussions of globalisation, violent conflict, immigration and the environment.

    http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/malthus-factor

    β€˜Julian Huxley and the Continuity of Eugenics in Twentieth-century Britain’
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4366572/

    Social Work and Social Care seminar: Social Work, Neoliberalism and Neo-eugenics
    http://www.healthcare.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Gurnam-Singh_Social-Work-Neoliberalism-and-Neo-eugenics-Kingston-University_18th-Oct-2017.pdf

    #DissolveTheUnion

  343. Shinty
    Ignored
    says:

    FAO Ken at iscot.

    Emails still not getting through.

    I can drop off stuff any day next week (you gave me your home address previously) Just give me a day and time,

    Cheers.

    (apologies to others for disruption)

  344. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Came across this on YouTube whilst searching for something else.

    Shows the humour of the YES side and is rather amusing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIGjUPwYU94

  345. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s interesting when a Wings reference comes up in a Google search.

    This one came up when researching “The Graham Brown Band”. The comments as you read on, are a potted history of what was going on, back in 2016.

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/comment-page-37/#comment-2174254

  346. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    British nationalism is antagonistic towards the situated and experiential nature of being Scottish. It denies agency to Scots and subsequently impinges on individual autonomy. This is harmful to the psychological well-being of Scottish residents, who are unable to project their cultural values into the future (see Brexit).

    The Role of Positive Emotion and Contributions of Positive Psychology in Depression Treatment: Systematic Review

    Abstract

    The present study aims to conduct a systematic review of the literature by checking the impact of positive emotion in the treatment of depression and on the use of strategies of positive psychology which involves positive emotion to treat and reduce symptoms of depression. For this purpose, we conducted searches in databases ISI Web of Knowledge, PsycINFO and PubMed and found a total of 3400 studies. After inclusion application and exclusion criteria, 28 articles remained, presented and discussed in this study. The studies have important relations between humor and positive emotion as well as a significant improvement in signs and symptoms of depression using differents strategies of positive psychology.

    Another relevant aspect is the preventative character of the proposed interventions by positive psychology by the fact that increase well-being and produce elements such as resilience and coping resources that reduce the recurrent relapses in the treatment of depression. The strategies of positive psychology, such as increasing positive emotions, develop personal strengths: seeking direction, meaning and engagement for the day-to-day life of the patients, appear as potentially tools for the prophylaxis and treatment of depression, helping to reduce signs and symptoms as well as for prevention of relapses.

    Keywords: Depression, emotion, positive psychology, resilience.

    How Can Positive Psychology Help in The Treatment of Depression?
    https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/positive-psychology-depression/

    Positive psychology: Reflecting on the past and projecting into the future
    https://www.psychology.org.au/publications/inpsych/2011/april/vella-brodrick
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866689/

  347. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Oops. The bottom-most link is for the top paper, obviously. πŸ™‚

  348. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Brian Doonthetoon

    I enjoyed both those links. Cheers.

  349. Betty Boop
    Ignored
    says:

    @ hackalumpoff

    Sorry you missed the Wings flag. If you were on the march, ye must have had yer dark glasses on! Wings flag prominently flying at the bottom of the Royal Mile alongside the Choose Scotland banner facing up the street where the march turned the corner of the Scottish Parliament.

    There you would have found Ronnie, Briandoonthetoon, JimT and moi. We were there for over three hours and had visits from several Wings folk inc Ken (iScot). It was a grand place to position ourselves as we probably had the best view of the march in the town.

    For all those we didn’t see, maybe next time… πŸ™‚

  350. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dr. Adrian Harrop.
    Where did you get your medical license, a cereal box? Stop taking the acid, ya woman-hating fannybawz.

    Critical Realism, Gender and Feminism

    An increasing number of gender scholars have become familiar with critical realism, finding it a robust alternative to the poststructuralist perspectives that currently dominate gender studies and feminism. This trend has coincided with an increased interest among feminist theorists in the issues of ontology, materiality and nature, which have always been at the heart of critical realist interventions. However, despite these thematic alignments, and despite the fact that both critical realism and feminist theory are inherently critical-emancipatory, the critical realist approach continues to occupy a marginal role within both feminist and gender studies debates.

    Concurrently, the field of critical realism is decidedly β€˜masculine’ in nature, both in the sense that men dominate the field, and in terms of the issues with which critical realists have most commonly concerned themselves. Recent critical realist feminist work, the International Association of Critical Realism’s adoption of a proactive policy to enhance the representation of women in its organs and activities, and the growing critical realist preoccupation (particularly in Bhaskar’s philosophy of metaReality) with historically β€˜feminine’ topics such as love, mark a potential shift away from these unfortunate trends….

    http://sociologicalimagination.org/archives/16408

    Relating realist metatheory to issues of gender and mental health.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20584241

    The Dominant and its Constitutive Other: Feminist Theorizations of Love, Power and Gendered Selves
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14767430.2015.1136194

  351. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Betty Boop
    It was lovely to meet up and sorry for the no-show at Deacon B’s. I wasn’t feeling particularly social by the time I’d gotten back to my flat and gone through a pile of unopened mail. Maybe next time. πŸ˜‰

  352. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Betty Boop
    Scratch that, I’m getting Wingers mixed up. Maybe next time tough. πŸ˜‰

  353. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Onnyhoo…

    It’s weird when you’re researching a particular topic via Google or YouTube or whatever and you find yourself getting further and further into what turns up, to the extent that you forget what you were originally researching.

    So, I started mulling things over, Scottish comedy-wise. What has gone wrong with the BBC’s Scottish outpost? OK, I enjoyed “Still Game” and “Chewin’ the Fat” and “Rab C Nesbitt” but the Scottish branch seems to have turned inward over the past 20 years or so.

    They produced some great stuff in the 80s and early 90s but where’a the ‘cutting edge’ these days? Even the “Scottish Lift’ is from around 7 years ago.

    Maybe it’s time (or after indy) to do stuff like the content of the links below. Where did Rik Mayall get his big break?

    By the way, his signature tune is “Alle Marcia” from the Karelia Suite by Sibelius.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B6fZPRNGHg

    Those sketches were from “A Kick Up The Eighties”, produced by BBC Scotland.

    Another classic from “A Kick Up The Eighties”,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bo3FHEKX2g

    I’ll stick the last couple of links in a following post.

  354. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Betty Boop, there were 2 wings flags, well apart, in front of me as we left Johnstone Terrace. Who was haudin them ah dinna ken.

  355. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Pamela Nash
    You have all the appearance of cult member, did you honestly study politics and specialise in human rights and international development? Britain is one of the least equal societies in the developed world, with one of the lowest rates of economic productivity. How do you square Brexit with the inability of Scots to access the “Right to Development” and sundry other human rights? How can you support Northern Ireland gaining preferential treatment re. Brexit, whilst ignoring the popular sovereignty of the Scottish public?

    Is the University of Glasgow a serious academic institution or a platform for British nationalism and bias knowledge production?

    Political Economy, Measurement and Effects on Performance
    Institutions, socio-economic models and development: An overview of the literature and a methodology

    http://www.oecd.org/regreform/reform/44537819.pdf

    The True Measures of Success
    https://hbr.org/2012/10/the-true-measures-of-success

    Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach
    http://people.bu.edu/jgerring/documents/MeasuringDemocracy.pdf

  356. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I can’t ignore “Naked Video”.

    “Naked Video – Paul Simon’s agent meets with an orange band”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAVYZLUxaEw

    And who can forget “The Outer Hebrides Broadcasting Corporation”?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpap_n3ukmE

    Mind you, Channel 4, back in the day, weren’t averse to exploiting Scottish comedy talent. I have the box set on dvd. Good stuff. Stoneybridge should get a blue plaque or the Scottish equivalent.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsvLjAzozE

  357. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Now, I’m wondering…

    Why didn’t this comment appear two minutes after I’d posted the previous one?
    There was no “http” and so on before the links so what has put the post into purgatory? I’ll try reposting…

    I can’t ignore “Naked Video”.

    “Naked Video – Paul Simon’s agent meets with an orange band”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAVYZLUxaEw

    And who can forget “The Outer Hebrides Broadcasting Corporation”?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpap_n3ukmE

    Mind you, Channel 4, back in the day, weren’t averse to exploiting Scottish comedy talent. I have the box set on dvd. Good stuff. Stoneybridge should get a blue plaque or the Scottish equivalent.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsvLjAzozE

  358. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Weird…

    My second post seems to have woken up the WordPress system.

  359. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Weird…

    My second post seems to have woken up the WordPress system.

    Why did it take around an hour to appear?

  360. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh dear, I think I may have broken loopy fuddiface in a thread appropriately named insanity, I have this vision of him following my instructions, following my instructions, following my instructions …

  361. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    IMHO, Pamela Nash is either a hopeless liar or is completely detached from reality.

    Human Rights Indicators in Development
    An Introduction

    Human Rights Indicators at Three Levels of Convergence of Human Rights and Development

    Equity and Equality

    Although the concepts of equity and equality are not synonymous, there are ways in which they resemble one another and could be viewed as analogous and complementary notions drawn from development and human rights, respectively. Principles of equality and nondiscrimination are at the foundation of the international human rights framework.32 They are the source of substantive equality rights, but they are also essential to the full respect, protection, and fulfilment of other human rights.33 The international human rights framework incorporates a variety of forms of discrimination, including direct and indirect discrimination, as well as private discrimination.34 Human rights approaches to equality demand that content and consequence of laws be scrutinized, acknowledging that the formal recognition of an β€œequal capacity” for rights is not enough.

    http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTLAWJUSTICE/Resources/HumanRightsWP10_Final.pdf

    Human Rights and Development: a Comment on Challenges and Opportunities from a Legal Perspective
    https://academic.oup.com/jhrp/article/1/1/51/2188613

    Failures and Successes of Human Rights-Based Approaches to Development: Towards a Change Perspective
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/18918131.2015.957458

  362. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Pamela Nash
    London’s intention to drag Scotland out of the EU, is an affront to the international rule-of-law and the principle of universal human rights. Britain is not One Nation, allegedly it is a voluntary political union of nations. You’re certainly no patriot of Scotland, IMHO.

    Sovereignty and Normative Conflict: International Legal Realism as a Theory of Uncertainty

    β€œRealist” critical views on international law discount the idea that external norms determine the behavior and objectives of states. However, they risk replicating the very positions they criticize as a result of two errors. First, they frequently assume that legal norms have clear and uncontested meanings that all observers will agree upon. Second, they assume the preexistence of the state as a rational, self-interested actor. Where interests overlap with norms, then, states will presumably β€œcomply” with the latter. The uncertain content of norms, and the contingency of the state’s own stability and rationality, thus go untheorized.

    This Article proposes an agenda for further International Legal Realist theory premised on pragmatic analysis of the concept of state sovereignty. To this end, it develops the thought of the legal and political philosopher Carl Schmitt, arguably the most thorough and influential Realist critic of modern international law. For Schmitt, drawing on Thomas Hobbes, the sovereign power of the state is justified by the essential epistemic uncertainty of all disputes over norms and values. Only conscious institution of the sovereign authority could solve the conflict resulting when there is no agreement as to β€œwho decides” how to define and apply contested norms β€” as is still the case today in many disputes among states.

    Reemphasizing this centrality of epistemic uncertainty to the institution of sovereignty helps to set a new agenda for Realist international law theory. Neither states nor international norms and their interpreters should be taken as unproblematic elements of a unified order: rather both are heuristic tools that can be evaluated on the basis of their utility in procuring certain judgments on normative conflicts. From nuclear proliferation to Brexit, many of today’s international disputes are best seen precisely in terms of the problem of procuring clear decisions by an effective local sovereign authority and locally-settled definitions of international norms.

    http://www.harvardilj.org/wp-content/uploads/HLI204_crop.pdf

    Critical Perspectives on Human Rights
    http://www.mancept.com/mancept-workshops/mancept-workshops-2015/panels-i/critical-perspectives-on-human-rights/

    Human rights in international relations
    http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/politics/research/readingroom/Dunne-goodhart-chap04.pdf

  363. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    Wee wings gathering in Gretna fir the main man?

    Whaz up fir it?

  364. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the Tories and mental health. IMHO, the Prime minister displays many of the characteristics common to right-wing, authoritarian, sociopaths. Did someone not suggest she had the air of a Nazi about her? She is not fit for public-office, IMHO.

    No health without public mental health
    The case for action

    Recommendations

    Mental illness is the largest single source of burden of disease in the UK. It has an impact on every aspect of life, including physical health and risk behaviour. There are large personal, social and economic costs associated with mental illness. Cost-effective interventions exist to both prevent mental illness and promote wider population mental health. The Royal College of Psychiatrists urges the Government to prioritise public mental health as part of their public health policy.

    Key points and features that should be part of a public mental health strategy:

    1 There is no public health without public mental health. Investment is needed to promote public mental health. This will enhance population well-being and resilience against illness, promote recovery, and reduce stigma and the prevalence of mental illness.

    2 The Royal College of Psychiatrists strongly supports the findings of the Marmot Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England post 2010. It recognises that inequality is a key determinant of illness, which then
    leads to even further inequality. Government policy and actions should effectively address inequalities to promote population mental health, prevent mental ill health and promote recovery.

    3 Physical health is inextricably linked to mental health. Poor mental health is associated with other priority public health conditions such as obesity, alcohol misuse and smoking, and with diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Poor physical health also increases the risk of mental illness.

    4 Interventions which apply across the life course need to be provided. Since the majority of mental illnesses have childhood antecedents, childhood interventions which protect health and well-being and promote resilience to adversity should be implemented. If mental health problems occur there should be early and appropriate intervention. Strategies to promote parental mental health and effectively treat parental mental illness are important since parental mental health has a direct influence on child mental health.

    5 Older people also require targeted approaches to promote mental health and prevent mental disorder, including dementia. Action is needed to promote awareness of the importance of mental health and well-being in older age as well as ways to safeguard it. Ageist attitudes need to be challenged and values promoted that recognise the contributions older people make to communities, valuing unpaid, voluntary work as we do economic productivity.

    6 An effective public health strategy requires both universal interventions, applied to the entire population, and interventions targeted at those people who are less likely to benefit from universal approaches and are at higher risk, including the most socially excluded groups. Such groups include children in care or subject to bullying and abuse, people of low socioeconomic status, those who are unemployed or homeless, those with addictions or intellectual disability, and other groups subject to discrimination, stigma or social exclusion. Health promotion interventions are particularly important for those recovering from mental illness or addiction problems. Those with poor mental health as well as poor physical health require effective targeted health promotion interventions.

    7 The prevention of alcohol-related problems and other addictions is an important component of promoting population health and well-being. The College supports the development of a minimum alcohol pricing policy and a cross-government, evidence-based addictions policy.

    8 Smoking is the largest single cause of preventable death and health inequality. It occurs at much higher rates in those with mental illness, with almost half of total tobacco consumption and smoking-related deaths occurring in those with mental disorder. Therefore, mental health needs to be mainstreamed within smoking prevention and cessation programmes.

    9 A suicide prevention strategy should remain a government priority and should include strategies to address and reduce the incidence of self-harm.

    10 Collaborative working is required across all government departments in view of the cross-government benefits of public mental health interventions across a range of portfolios, such as education, housing, employment, crime, social cohesion, culture, sports, environment and local government. Actions to combat stigma related to mental illness should be included in these strategies.

    11 Doctors can be important leaders in facilitating local and national implementation of public mental health strategies. Many psychiatrists already adopt a public mental health approach in their work and influence national and local strategy. Psychiatrists should be supported in assessing the needs of their local population for health promotion.

    12 Psychiatrists should be engaged in the commissioning process and inform commissioners of the expected prevalence of specific disorders to anticipate levels of service provision and unmet need, and to help prioritise resource allocation. Support and training are required to facilitate this.

    13 Commissioners should take into account the effects of mental health and mental illness across the life course as well as the economic benefits of protecting and promoting mental health and well-being.

    14 Commissioners should consider the existing arrangements and adequacy of services for comorbid disorders and unexplained medical symptoms where cost-effective interventions could be provided.

    https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/Position%20Statement%204%20website.pdf

    Better Mental Health For All
    A public health approach to mental health improvement

    https://www.fph.org.uk/media/1644/better-mental-health-for-all-final-low-res.pdf

    Mental Health Promotion in Public Health: Perspectives and Strategies From Positive Psychology

    Abstract

    Positive psychology is the study of what is β€œright” about peopleβ€”their positive attributes, psychological assets, and strengths. Its aim is to understand and foster the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to thrive.

    Cross-sectional, experimental, and longitudinal research demonstrates that positive emotions are associated with numerous benefits related to health, work, family, and economic status. Growing biomedical research supports the view that positive emotions are not merely the opposite of negative emotions but may be independent dimensions of mental affect.

    The asset-based paradigms of positive psychology offer new approaches for bolstering psychological resilience and promoting mental health. Ultimately, greater synergy between positive psychology and public health might help promote mental health in innovative ways.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3134513/

  365. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    That includes you Cam. πŸ˜‰

  366. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    William Wallace
    I’ve never been to Gretna, sounds like a wee adventure. πŸ˜‰

  367. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe it’s a great place for you to give a talk Cam. You have so much to say but, you are limiting your audience here. Help me organise a good night oot fir the big man ;). He deserves nothing less.

  368. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    Ignore me folks – as per. Making an arse o myself.

  369. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    William Wallace
    Sorry for leaving you hanging William but I just had to go and change my pants. πŸ˜‰

    LEROY AND THE DRIVERS – The Sad Chicken
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAHHZkzbP6Y

  370. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Cam

    Nah I meant ignore my original suggestion. It might not have been my brightest idea.

  371. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the gulf between what Scotland wants and what Scotland is prepared to vote for.

    Character and Social Process

    In studying the psychological reactions of a social group we deal with the character structure of the members of the group, that is, of individual persons; we are interested, however, not in the peculiarities by which these persons differ from each other, but in that part of their character structure that is common to most members of the group. We can call this character the social character. The social character necessarily is less specific than the individual character. In describing the latter we deal with the whole of the traits which in their particular configuration form the personality structure of this or that individual.

    The social character comprises only a selection of traits, the essential nucleus of the character structure of most members of a group which has developed as the result of the basic experiences and mode of life common to that group. Although there will be always β€œdeviants” with a totally different character structure, the character structure of most members of the group are variations of this nucleus, brought about by the accidental factors of birth and life experience as they differ from one individual to another. If we want to understand one individual most fully, these differentiating elements are of the greatest importance. However, if we want to understand how human energy is channelled and operates as a productive force in a given social order, then the social character deserves our main interest.

    https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1942/character.htm

    Old Dilemmas Renewed: Fear of Freedom vs. Freedom from Fear

    Abstract: Contemporary societies are currently subjected to very rapid and radical social changes and, as a consequence, struggle with their outcomes. The results range from the unforeseen repercussions of globally shifting political powers, through rising nationalisms, to prolonged economic, environmental, political and humanitarian crises. Critical analysis of the theories focused on the phenomena of authoritarianism, escapism, political myth, and conformity allows for outlining a comprehensive picture of the universally recognized opposition between freedom and security. From the distinction between the positive and negative freedom to the ambiguity surrounding the concept of β€œfreedom from fear”, the fundamental dilemma is viewed from a historical perspective and illustrated with modern examples, emphasizing its current validity, insightfulness and potential in analyzing contemporary global problems. This approach allows for in-depth analyses of diversified social and political issues, such as the North African-European refugee crisis, rising nationalisms in the Western world, or a marked shift in political and social perspectives worldwide, from modern escapism to the birth of new myths of state.

    Keywords: authoritarianism, freedom, Fromm, political myth, security.

    http://www.glocalismjournal.net/issues/local-and-global-democracy/articles/old-dilemmas-renewed-fear-of-freedom-vs-freedom-from-fear.kl

    Strategies and motives for resistance to persuasion: an integrative framework

    Abstract

    Persuasion is an important element of human communication. But in many situations, we resist rather than embrace persuasive attempts. Resistance to persuasion has been studied in many different disciplines, including communication science, psychology, and marketing. The present paper reviews and connects these diverse literatures, and provides an organizing framework for understanding and studying resistance. Four clusters of resistance strategies are defined (avoidance, contesting, biased processing, and empowerment), and these clusters are related to different motivations for resisting persuasion (threat to freedom, reluctance to change, and concerns of deception). We propose that, while avoidance strategies may be triggered by any of these motivations, contesting strategies are linked primarily to concerns of deception, while empowerment and biased processing strategies are most common when people are reluctant to change.

    Keywords: persuasion, resistance, reactance, deception, change

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4536373/

  372. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    More on opening minds to new horizons.

    The Fear of Losing Control
    What’s behind this fear and how you can overcome it.

    One of the most prevalent fears people have is that of losing control. This is the fear that if you don’t manage to control the outcome of future events, something terrible will happen. People who are chronic sufferers from such losing-control anxiety keep themselves continuously in a heightened state of stress with only brief, unsatisfying intermissions between fears.

    The crux of the problem is the demand for certainty in a world that is always tentative and uncertain. It is precisely this unrealistic demand that creates the anxiety. You think that you must accurately predict and manage the future, not just have some probabilistic and uncertain handle on it.

    So, people with losing-control anxiety are perfectionists. They demand perfect certitude-or near perfect certitude–and when they don’t get it they worry and ruminate about it. This is a formula for a roller coaster ride that never ends-until, of course, you die.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-would-aristotle-do/201105/the-fear-losing-control

    Social psychological reactions to social change and instability : fear of status loss, social discrimination and foreigner hostility
    https://journals.openedition.org/civilisations/2310

    Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International Edition
    Changing Attitudes through Persuasion

    https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/chapter/changing-attitudes-through-persuasion/

  373. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    And a bit more ’cause the Cringe is strong in some.

    Social Character: Erich Fromm and the Ideological Glue of Neoliberalism

    Abstract

    Several thinkers have expressed the view that the central nostrums of neoliberalism, including self-reliance, personal responsibility and individual risk, have become part of the β€œcommon sense” fabric of everyday life. My paper argues that Erich Fromm’s idea of social character offers a comprehensive and persuasive answer to this question. While some have sought the answer to this conundrum in Foucault’s notion of governmentality, I argue that, by itself, this answer is not sufficient. What is significant about the notion of social character, I claim, is that it manages to unify β€œtop-down” approaches like governmentality focused on ideas and policy, with β€œbottom-up” approaches focused on how the insights of day to day experience are mediated through culture. Adapting this theory to neoliberalism, I argue, means that the β€œcommon sense” nature of neoliberalism, and the lack of a reckoning for its massive economic failure (as evidenced by the 2007 Great Recession), are explicable through the formation of a neoliberal social character, by means of which experiential processes align with cultural meanings and, subsequently, fuse with social expectations.

    KEYWORDS: Neoliberalism, Erich Fromm, social character, governmentality, ideology

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14409917.2017.1275166?src=recsys&amp;

    Fear and psychological reactance: Between- versus within-individuals perspectives.
    http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-55873-004

    Functional Freedom: A Psychological Model of Freedom in Decision-Making
    http://www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/7/3/41/pdf

  374. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    The enhanced agency that Scotland’s social character will gain through autonomous self-government, can be expected to result in significant benefits to the psychological health of the nation. Just imagine, Scottish residents will be empowered with real choice and government that is emotionally connected to the electorate. Such empathy has been shown to improve the competance and ethical quality of decision making.

    Funky Destination – The Inside Man (Soopasoul remix)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFWRUKpgTO4

  375. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. a written constitution for Scotland.

    From Constitutional Pluralism to a Pluralistic Constitution?
    Constitutional synthesis as a MacCormickian constitutional theory of European integration

    Abstract

    This paper aims at putting forward the key elements of a constitutional theory of European law on the basis of D. Neil MacCormick’s theory of European constitutional pluralism. Firstly, I consider how the institutional theory of law fleshed out by MacCormick creates the theoretical space within which it is be possible to make sense of legal and political phenomena below, above and beyond the nation-state, and particularly, of the EU. Secondly, I ponder on how this affects standard constitutional theories of Community law. Because standard theoretical reconstructions of Community law are premised on the close relationship between law and nation-state, they turn to be incapable of providing a satisfactory and simultaneous answer to three fundamental questions, namely the genesis of EU law, the primacy of EU law and the endurance and growth of EU law.

    Thirdly, I consider the many achievements of MacCormick’s European constitutional pluralism, in particular, the thesis that Community law can be approached from at least two differentiated, but equally authoritative, standpoints (the differentiated but equal standpoints thesis) and that the stability of the European legal order is rooted on non-legal
    bases that reveal the transformation of sovereignty in contemporary Europe (the stability beyond sovereignty thesis). But I also consider the turn that the Scottish philosopher made towards a moderate pluralism under international, a shift that is decisive in order to understand the problΓ©matique of Community law and the questions that MacCormick was struggling to solve.

    Fourthly, I sketch the theory of constitutional synthesis, a constitutional theory of European integration which aims to apply the key insights of MacCormick’s European constitutional pluralism to solving the problems which were left open by the theory of the Edinburgh professor. It emphasises the singularity of the European path towards a democratic constitution, the theory of constitutional synthesis combines sensitivity towards the fundamental pluralistic traits of Union law with a commitment towards the idea of constitutional law as a monistic means of social integration.

    https://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/publications/arena-working-papers/2011/wp-01-11.pdf

    Self-Interest and the Constitution
    https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3422&context=journal_articles

    Constructivism and Reflexive Constitution-Making Practices
    https://www.cairn.info/revue-raisons-politiques-2013-3-page-63.htm

  376. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Pamela Nash
    Did you really study politics, international development and human rights? You hide it extremely well. Not concerned about the likely impact Brexit will have on Scotland’s civil society and cultural integrity? Are you a Tory?

    CULTURAL RIGHTS AND ETHICS

    Ethics has been defined as a set of moral principles and values governing appropriate or the “correct or right” choice of conduct. It is also used to refer to rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession. In Fair Culture? Ethical dimension of cultural policy and cultural rights (2007), Koivunen and Marsio state, “Ethics in cultural policy means a system of moral values…basing decision-making and choices in cultural policy on stated procedural codes and normative principles.” Rights, in turn, are defined as the legal or moral entitlement to do or to refrain from doing something in order to obtain or to refrain from obtaining an action, thing or recognition in civil society. (draft, proposed by John Foote)

    In international discourse, cultural rights are seen as part of civil rights relating mainly to:

    freedom of expression;
    right to and responsibility for cultural heritage;
    right to free practice of art and culture and to creative work;
    right to protect the intellectual and material benefits accruing from scientific, literary and artistic production;
    right to participate in cultural life and right to equally accessible and available cultural, library and information and leisure services;
    right to choose one’s own culture;
    right to the development and protection of culture;
    respect for culture and its autonomy and for cultural identity.

    The Compendium addresses Cultural Rights and Ethics

    Compendium Authors collect and present significant country-based information on issues or initiatives arising from domestic and international human and cultural rights instruments and performance reviews and which have entered into force and form part of the major legal contribution to the development and implementation of cultural policies. While there is at present no separate chapter on ethics and rights in the Compendium, Authors have referred to various aspects of human and cultural rights throughout their respective country profiles. They are well aware of the enormous body of law and cultural capital in Europe and the world which has been generated around rights achievements and initiatives over the past six decades. Member States of the Council of Europe are bound, among other regulations, by five basic texts setting out these rights:

    The European Convention on Human Rights
    The European Social Charter
    The European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
    The European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
    The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

    https://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/ethics-human-rights.php

  377. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Mrs Smallaxe…
    If you’re reading through to keep oor Smallaxe up to date!!
    Tell him we’re asking for him and sending much love..
    We are also thinking of you and hope you are looking after yourself too, and if you’re getting any nonsense!!! just tell him you’ll report it to off topic, and he’ll be in big trouble XX

  378. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I wonder if Karen White’s life sentence will convince Dr. Adrian Harrop that he is wrong, or if he will continue to be a misogynist dick who misleads the ignorant, the gullible and the woke?

    Deconstructing the complex perceptions of gender roles, gender identity, and sexual orientation among transgender individuals

    Abstract

    Conventional heteronormative beliefs about the nature of gender roles, gender identity, and sexual orientation are fundamentally challenged by the experiences of many transgender individuals. Eleven self-identified transgender individuals were interviewed about their definitions of, understanding of the relationships between, and perceptions of their own gender roles, gender identity, and sexual orientation. The questions focused on how transgender individuals define gender roles vs gender identity, how they defined themselves on these dimensions, and how they perceived the relationships among gender roles, gender identity, and sexual orientation. All of the participants understood gender roles to be social constructs and viewed gender identity as being more fluid, compared to essentialist, binary, heteronormative ideas about gender. Most viewed sexual orientation as being dynamically related to gender identity. These findings are discussed in terms of an emerging transgender theory of the nature of gender that transcends essentialist, traditional ideas, as well as social constructionist views of feminist and queer theories.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257067080_Deconstructing_the_complex_perceptions_of_gender_roles_gender_identity_and_sexual_orientation_among_transgender_individuals

    A Self-study into Developing Queer and Critical Pedagogies on Youth and Community Work Courses.
    https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/39720/1/2017SEALMEEdD.pdf

    Empowering Women: The Next Step in Human Evolution?
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1474704915604540

  379. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. is the DWP guilty of corporate manslaughter, at the very least?

    Knowing Your Rights: Implications of the Critical Legal Studies Critique of Rights for Indigenous Australians

    Human rights are the foundation on which social justice rests, encompassing virtually every sphere of life – social, cultural, economic, political and civil. Name any issue of concern to Aboriginal people and it relates to human rights, because at the heart of social justice issues are the experiences and suffering of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders … Everybody has a fair idea of what human rights means. Human rights are about having the opportunity to live as we would choose to live, without gross interference or violation, and having reasonable means to do so.[1]

    In much the same way that the United States civil rights movement engendered a deep sense of pride and solidarity amongst African Americans, indigenous Australians have been and continue to be empowered by a growing awareness of and resort to human rights discourse as a means of challenging systemic disadvantage and discrimination. While the civil rights movement was very much an organic, African American freedom struggle, the human rights movement claims legitimacy through its appeal to universal, inalienable truths.

    According to Robert Williams, a Lumbee Indian and Professor of Law, `the global movement for human rights is redefining the world as we know it’.[2] Indigenous peoples, cognizant of the inherent limitations of international law remedies, consider that international law will be integral to the establishment of minimum standards for governments and will provide opportunities for indigenous peoples to take action when governments fail to meet those standards.[3]

    http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUJlHRights/1999/2.html

    Liberal Rights and Critical Legal Theory
    https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56330ad3e4b0733dcc0c8495/t/56b6fa2022482e99b65db16f/1454832160298/GLJ_Vol_12_No_01_Olsen.pdf

    Unger’s Philosophy: A Critical Legal Study
    https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2286&context=faculty_scholarship

  380. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Just when you think society has regained its grip on reality. Trans-activist ideology articulates misogyny aimed at dislocating language from meaning and ultimately feeds in to the Neo-liberal project of redefining human rights through the power of economic force. Trans-activism is a form of authoritarian, neoliberal, totalitarianism.

    Are Transgender Women Just Reinforcing Sexist Stereotypes?
    Would transgender women exist if men were free to wear dresses?

    Isn’t gender dysphoria simply a result of being limited by gender stereotypes? What if men were free to wear dresses?

    How gender identity expresses itself is of course tied to cultural norms, but our traditional, patriarchal society did not create the stereotypes of the nurturing female in a dress and the aggressive male in pants. There are clear hormonal differences between male and female brains, compelling us to behave in what we think of as stereotypically masculine and feminine ways. In fact, preliminary research indicates that transgender people have the brain structure and function that is more typical of the gender they identify as. Simply put, a trans woman is born with male anatomy and a female brain; a trans man has female anatomy and a male brain. These misalignments are caused by differing hormonal influences in the womb that happen during the first and second trimesters, when anatomy (first) and brain development (second) occur. What’s interesting is that the brain trumps anatomy when determining gender identity, indicating that we really do reside in our heads.

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/laugh-cry-live/201509/are-transgender-women-just-reinforcing-sexist-stereotypes

    The global politics of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights: an introduction
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569770802674188?src=recsys

    The Politics and Ethics of Disenfranchisement
    http://www.mancept.com/mancept-workshops/mancept-workshops-2017/panels-q-z/the-politics-and-ethics-of-disenfranchisement/

  381. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. George Galloway. I think I might already have mentioned he’s a man who is unable to allow his ethics to rise above his beliefs. A political gadfly. A charlatan and ultimately a tool of the Establisment.

  382. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi folks, it’s kinda quiet around here just now.Anyone have a wee update on how our friend Smallaxe is doing. I know that he has not been too well of late, but by jings wee all miss him. Especially on O/T.

    Where’s everyone gone, Thepnr, Tinto, Ian B. we all just seem to pop in now and again. I know I’ve been MIA as well around her, but you know, sometimes all this crap that gets thrown at us all the time, gets you down. I need to take a break now and again, just to recharge the batteries.

  383. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the Spanish Vice President. Fascists tend to be a bit thick and detached from reality. Who needs brains when you have a radical yet apparently familiar political religion and are told what to think from above? Talking of such, how much longer will Scotland put up with the Tory’s articulation of authoritarian, right-wing, British nationalism?

    What is Post-fascism?

    One of Hungary’s leading anti-communist dissidents accuses Europe and the world of abandoning Enlightenment principles. He is now an unillusioned critic of a racialised global liberalism.

    I have coined the term post-fascism to describe a cluster of policies, practices, routines and ideologies which can be observed everywhere in the contemporary world. Without ever resorting to a coup d’etat, these practices are threatening our communities. They find their niche easily in the new global capitalism, without upsetting the dominant political forms of electoral democracy and representative government. Except in Central Europe, they have little or nothing to do with the legacy of Nazism. They are not totalitarian; not at all revolutionary; not based on violent mass movements or irrationalist, voluntarist philosophies. Nor are they toying, even in jest, with anti-capitalism.

    I should define what I mean by the term β€œpost-fascist”. I take the term β€œfascism” to refer to a break with the enlightenment tradition of citizenship as a universal entitlement; that is to say, with its assimilation of the civic condition to the human condition.

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/people-newright/article_306.jsp

    Contemporary Far-Right Racist Populism in Europe
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07256868.2016.1235099?src=recsys

    Infection of the far right? How extremism went mainstream in UK politics

    The process by which the far-right has infected the mainstream of British politics has been a gradual one, says author PAUL STOCKER. Those responsible are not just the usual suspects.

    A prominent British politician addressing a far-right rally in Germany may have, in simpler times, reflected an act of political suicide.

    Not in Brexit Britain. In the final weeks of the country’s election campaign, Nigel Farage’s address to the nationalist Alternative for Germany party, saw him lambast the leaders of Germany’s two largest parties. Describing Social Democrat challenger Martin Schultz as a β€œfanatic” and calling rival, and ultimate victor, Angela Merkel’s decision to provide shelter to refugees fleeing war and desperation, β€œthe worst decision by any leader in modern political history”, it was very β€œdo as I say, not as I do” from the man who described the β€œcreature” Barack Obama’s intervention in the EU referendum β€œdisgraceful”.

    There was notable lack of outrage in Britain at Farage addressing a group whose chairwoman at the time had suggested German border police should shoot refugees and whose Thuringian regional leader called for Germany to stop beating itself up about Nazi crimes during the Second World War (describing Berlin’s Holocaust memorial as a β€œmonument of shame”).

    It is a searing indictment of a country where far-right ideas aren’t just tolerated as an ugly consequence of liberal democracy, but have become a normalised part of the national debate….

    https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/infection-of-the-far-right-1-5236047

  384. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Marie,
    I spoke to Smallaxe yesterday, he is almost over a chest infection but needs to take care he doesn’t go and catch some other bug.
    He was in good form and sends his best wishes to all.

    I’m sure once he recovers his strength, he’ll be back here spinning the discs.

  385. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana, thanks for the update on Smallaxe. I’m pleased to hear that he is improving, look forward to him coming back to O/T.

    Send him my love and best wishes Nana if you are in touch with him again.

  386. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. shared values. Somehow I don’t see Brexit enhancing the social capital enjoyed by Scottish residents, nor any sense they might have of democratic inclusion. Contemporary British nationalism poses a considerable threat to Scotland’s public health, culture and civic society in general.

    Globalization and national policy formation: an exploratory analysis

    Abstract:
    Purpose

    – Even though the promise of globalization has faded and it is no longer the fashionable topic it once was, national policy?makers must still deal with its widespread economic, political and social effects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between, on the one hand, differing levels of human development between countries, and, on the other, the extent to which countries pursue national policy objectives disciplined by what has been described as the β€œuniversal values” underlying the globalization process.

    Design/methodology/approach
    – The concepts of globalization and world society values are first defined and discussed in a policy?related context. The relationship between globalization values, national policy settings and human welfare and freedom is explored by means of a simple SEM model.

    Findings
    – The results of the SEM model indicate that there is a clear link between higher levels of human development where countries’ normative policy settings concord with world society values. A more important outcome is greater insight into the critical role that social connectedness plays in explaining differences in levels of human development.

    Originality/value
    – The paper presents an exploratory analysis of globalization and national policy formation.

    Keywords:
    Government policy, Social welfare, Social values, Society, Globalization, Economic integration

    https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/17422040910974703

    Biomedical Hegemony: A Critical Perspective on the Cultural Imperialism of Modern Biomedical Perspectives on Human Life
    http://euroacademia.eu/presentation/biomedical-hegemony-a-critical-perspective-on-the-cultural-imperialism-of-modern-biomedical-perspectives-on-human-life/

    e-government for all – Norm-critical perspectives and public values in digitalization

    Abstract

    There are hopes that e-government will bring many benefits, including efficiency, democratization, participation, and emancipation of citizens. However, despite some evidence that supports these claims there are also cases that digitalization can exclude citizens and build new barriers. This is a special challenge for already disadvantaged groups falling outside the norms. In this study we approach the notion of a norm-critical perspective in relation to e-government through a review of literature in combination with action research oriented workshops. From this we conclude that there is a need for more norm-critical perspectives in research on e-government, as most research today focuses on socio-economic digital-divide issues. We also show that it is difficult for involved actors to see beyond the norms and be norm-critical since the norms are embedded into the practices, which in this case, e-government has developed and used.

    https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/41464/paper0315.pdf

  387. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I haven’t felt this radical since my twenties. πŸ™‚

    Violent Femmes – Love Love Love Love Love
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbhsQtqTsYg

  388. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Anybody got any succinct comment on the march or the SNP conference that I could reference on my Roundabout show on Argyll Independent Radio at 7 tonight

  389. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ideologically drive scholarly practice isn’t new, I was aware of it in the social sciences 30 years ago (though I was never a proper scholar). Critical theory, post-structuralism and social constructivist views emerged as a response to the dehumanising and totalitarian aspects of modernity. They are useful in the production of knowledge but must be kept in check, largely through keeping a watchful eye on epistemology and ontology.

    Sources of Method Bias in Social Science Research and Recommendations on How to Control It
    https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100452

    Post-structuralism, Realism and the Question of Knowledge in Educational Sociology: a Derridian critique of social realism in education
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/pfie.2008.6.4.507

    The Specials – Do the Dog
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8vltYVYVx8

  390. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi, Marie.

    I think Smallaxe has had some serious computer problems too which have been preventing him from his disc-jockey duties.

    @DMH: can’t think of anything pithy to say re Saturday other than I never thought I’d see 100000 people march through Embra for independence. I first voted SNP in 1974 and in those days you were regarded as a fruit loop.

    Marie: you may like this…..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th3ycKQV_4k

  391. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I have a problem with this passage, which appears to reject Michel Foucault’s study of power and knowledge production. That’s bold of them. Who are these dudes and what’s their politics?

    Any scholarship that proceeds from radically skeptical assumptions about objective truth by definition does not and cannot find objective truth. Instead it promotes prejudices and opinions and calls them β€œtruths.” For radical constructivists, these opinions are specifically rooted a political agenda of β€œSocial Justice” (which we have intentionally made into a proper noun to distinguish it from the type of real social progress falling under the same name). Because of critical constructivism, which sees knowledge as a product of unjust power balances, and because of this brand of radical skepticism, which rejects objective truth, these scholars are like snake-oil salespeople who diagnose our society as being riddled with a disease only they can cure. That disease, as they see it, is endemic to any society that forwards the agency of the individual and the existence of objective (or scientifically knowable) truths.

    https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/

  392. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Dmh is Argyll Independent radioon the Internet, cant get from Brodick

  393. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I feel I have to defend social constructavism now, which makes me a wee bit suspicious of the motives behind the areaomagazine article. The Frankfurt School needs no defense from me.

    Social Constructivism and the Aims of Science

    Abstract

    In this essay, I provide normative guidelines for developing a philosophically interesting and plausible version of social constructivism as a philosophy of science, wherein science aims for social?epistemic values rather than for truth or empirical adequacy. This view is more plausible than the more radical constructivist claim that scientific facts are constructed. It is also more interesting than the modest constructivist claim that representations of such facts emerge in social contexts, as it provides a genuine rival to the scientific axiologies of scientific realists and constructive empiricists. I further contrast my view with positions holding that the aims of science are context dependent, that the unit of normative analysis is the scientific community, and that the aims of science are non?epistemic social values.

    Keywords: Social Construction, Scientific Realism, Values, Aims

    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02691721003632818

    Social Constructivism and Teaching of Social Science

    Abstract

    The paper presents an overview of prevailing pedagogic practices of social science at school level in India. It has been sketched with the help of social science teachers’ interviews. The analysis of teachers’ interview revealed that the teaching of social science is a reflection of teacher’s own biases and beliefs; dominated by deficit model of thinking and learning. Against this backdrop the paper tries to address the question do we have any alternative of β€˜deficit model’ of teaching learning? If yes, what is it? How it can be designed and executed? In the present descriptive study the researcher adopts the theoretical underpinnings of Socio-cultural approach to learning and tries to design and execute constructivist pedagogic setting for teaching social science. It emerges from the analysis of these constructivists pedagogic settings that it helps to develop and sustain a culture of inquiry in the classroom where the strong interface between students’ everyday knowledge and school knowledge take place. The paper establishes the argument that for moving deficit model of teaching-learning, knowledge should be viewed as co-constructed, negotiated and situated entity, knower should have agency and the voice in process of knowing and the process learning should be dialogic.

    Keywords

    Funds of Knowledge, Social Constructivism, Social Sciences

    http://jsser.org/article/view/5000080204

    Social Constructivism – Science topic
    Explore the latest articles, projects, and questions and answers in Social Constructivism, and find Social Constructivism experts.

    https://www.researchgate.net/topic/Social-Constructivism

  394. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Ah Tinto, you know me so well. Yes I’ve always liked that song, great, but nowadays I prefer this one. Maybe it’s just me getting auld and slowing down, but I really like old slow hand and this version. Does it for me everytime.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f-R2rt8xBU

    By the way, how’s Harvey these days, is he behaving himself?

    Here’s a wee song for Smallaxe, hope he’s maybe reading this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrY9eHkXTa4

  395. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s not really possible to understand the world in a post-positivist sense, without an appreciation of society’s constructive force. Positivism is bad when studying social space, mk.

    Like anything though, you can take a thing too far.

    Social Constructionism
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVCkJ7jLnz0

    Professor Obliterates the idea that Gender is a ‘Social Construct’
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yASb05JRmnE

    From Identity to Non-Identity & Back Again: Feminist Dialectical Realism – Laura Gillman
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M75ZToSSQFY

  396. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe
    Great to see you around, hope your feeling stronger soon.

  397. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey, smallaxe, good to see you’ve risen.

    DMH, It was great. Succinct enough?

    There was a bright double rainbow when we were sitting outside the pub later on, a sign?

    Cammy. don’t think putting up loads of interesting links lets you off failing to join us for a wee drinkie.

  398. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Evening, Marie.

    Acoustic Layla? Perhaps a step too far…..

    Harvey’s a bit down, tbh. Walked all the Royal Mile on Saturday and not a carrot in sight.

    At least Smallaxe is back.

    Stand by your bedpans…..

  399. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Smallaxe, good to see you back, hope you’re feeling a lot better.

  400. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi, all you folks up there, let’s cheer this place up a bit. πŸ™‚
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuy-10Ejck4&ab_channel=JorgeSelas

    ‘At least Smallaxe is back’. I know that you meant to say ‘at last Smallaxe is back’, Tinto…ye did, didn’t ye?

  401. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi everybody, my computer is misbehaving a bit, bear with me.
    πŸ˜‰

    Some more Slowhand, Marie?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IigRv6B763k&ab_channel=VittorioG

  402. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Hoots Smallaxe!

    πŸ™‚

    Seeing your post there has made my day.

    More power to ye mister!

    πŸ™‚

  403. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Marie –

    Hoots to you too!

    Here’s a funky version of Inner City Blues (but it’s not by Marvin Gaye…)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X_KYMULPHM

  404. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Sma. πŸ™‚

    Good to see you back. Aff topic was near deid withoot yir presence. Hope you are feeling much better.

  405. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi, Ian!

    This one’s for you.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWRgZPnmYgo&ab_channel=HardbatFrance
    That’s jazz!
    πŸ™‚

  406. Marie Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi guys, Tinto, Smallaxe and Ian, thanks for the music. I’m still really an auld rock chick underneath, I think I’m just in a quieter mood this evening. Nice tunes, all of them.

    I’m glad I asked the question earlier today about where everyone was. William Wallace has it right, Aff topic was near deid. Yay the world has bee put to right, I feel better already. Cheers guys.

  407. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    And now for a bit of Management and Applied Science. Sorry for being a geek but I’m concerned folk might take freight at social constructavism.

    There is a problem in the authoritarian and scientifically incorrect application of certain interpretations of gender theory. There is also too much tribal hostility for the general public to make sense of the debate. I’m no gender theorist but I think an appreciation of Feminist Dialectical Realism would help lift the scales from many eyes (see above). This combines a scientifically grounded critical realist approach to studying gender, with interpretative constructivism (hope my terminology is acceptable as I am very rusty).

    CONSTRUCTIVISM: A DYNAMIC APPROACH OF TEACHING-LEARNING SOCIAL SCIENCE AT UPPER PRIMARY LEVEL

    Abstract
    Teaching-learning approach in Social Science needs to be revitalized towards helping the learner to acquire knowledge and skills in an interactive environment. As the time is changing at very fast pace Social Science must adopt methods that promote creativity, aesthetic sensibility and critical perspectives. Further, it should enable students of elementary level to draw relationship between past and present to understand changes taking place in society. Teaching-learning should utilize resources like audio-visual materials, including photographs, charts, maps and replicas of archaeological materials reflecting various cultures, so as to make the teaching more realistic and thought provoking. Therefore, the objective of present study is to provide an intense look into constructivist theory and its need in teaching-learning Social Science at upper primary level. Constructivism is a dynamic approach that could be applied in a classroom at upper primary level with great ease by the teacher. Moreover, it keeps the learners active and interactive by providing them application based knowledge.

    Key Words – Social Science, Constructivism, Curriculum, Teaching-learning, Teacher, Student, Knowledge

    http://www.iraj.in/journal/journal_file/journal_pdf/14-369-1501671603135-139.pdf

    Constructivism as a Theoretical Foundation for the Use of Technology in Social Studies
    The National Council for the Social Studies has explicitly advocated technology integration into the social studies classroom to transform the teaching and learning of key social studies content and skills. While the call for technology integration into the social studies classroom is clear, the application of technology within the realm of social studies has traditionally been theoretically underdeveloped. One theoretical foundation that has promise for framing the discussion of technology and social studies integration is constructivism. Within this paper the current relationship between social studies education and technology is explored, the nature of constructivist philosophy, theory, and pedagogy is delineated, and principles for the integration of technology in social studies that supports an explicit constructivist foundation are posited. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure, and 5 notes.)

    Descriptors: Constructivism (Learning), Technology Integration, Educational Technology, Social Studies, Theory Practice Relationship, Knowledge Base for Teaching

    https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ824211

    And now for the secret of my success.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhNDdENh_h0

  408. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Marie, in a quiet mood this evening?

    “Turn Your Lights Down Low”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdPV4yO7LKQ&ab_channel=miguelachos

    Don’t take the words too literally.
    πŸ™‚

  409. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Lenny Hartley at 7.11

    Should be available in Brodick. I’ve got friends listening in Nigeria.
    Seemed to be a broadband problem tonight however as it was cutting out for about a couple of seconds off and on.

  410. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Ye dancin’?

    The Dreamboats: “Hippy Hippy Shake”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sjHIgTIWWw&ab_channel=TheDreamboats

    Should really be The Dramboats on here, shouldn’tit?
    πŸ˜‰

  411. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Smallaxe… So good to see you in your 2nd home.. don’t be going daft now!!
    Love to Mrs Smallaxe (also a hero of mine) xxxx
    …………..
    William Wallace
    Hello and where you been hiding too ?
    Hope everything is doing ok in all things Wallace xx
    ……………..
    Dave McEwen Hill
    I don’t know about a sound bites!!
    But it was very much decided ( you had, I suppose to be there) that when telling our great grandchildren β€œwhat we did in the struggle for Indy” we would be able to say…
    β€œWell we hired a flat”..??!!!’’***β€’
    ?

  412. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Cameron, I’ll see your 5.6.7.8s and raise you 6.7.8.9s;

    “Woo Hoo”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DJv0rx5g-c&ab_channel=jeffzpla
    πŸ™‚

  413. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey Smallaxe welcome back and great to have you here again!

    The children of Off Topic have all missed they’re mother while you’ve been away, especially Tinto but all is well now.

    A wee tune to welcome you back “mother” πŸ™‚

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ynEfYCtes

  414. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Liz, thank you, I’ll play this for Mrs Smallaxe.

    Jim Croce: “Time in a Bottle”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO1rMeYnOmM&ab_channel=GuyVanNimmen

    S’luvly, intit.
    πŸ™‚

  415. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe –

    Thanks for the Gil-Scott link, I knew the track but hadn’t seen that YT version, lovely montage along with it too.

    You’re on fire the night mister!

    πŸ™‚

  416. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr, Here you go,’son’,

    Johnny Cash: “Singing In Vietnam Talking Blues”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQAXTvcMoMA&ab_channel=PeterRabbit59

    Did you know that mother and child reunion is a Jamaican dish made with chicken and eggs?
    S’luvly!
    πŸ˜‰

  417. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    Thanks for the Johnny Cash number, another great one and you know how to push my buttons. No, I didn’t know about the chicken and eggs mibbee Sybil could give me the recipe:)

    Here’s a tune you might have missed in your absence, I’m playing it again because I can and I love a bit of bluegrass πŸ™‚

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWBQ44wzP48

  418. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    The Corrs: “Everybody Hurts”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtGZGBvb7ic&ab_channel=SteveP

    “Take comfort in your friends”

  419. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    That version of that song gave me goosebumps. It was brilliant “da” πŸ™‚

  420. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr, it’s actually a Chinese dish but they don’t call it mother and child reunion.
    πŸ™‚

    Eric Clapton: “Over the Rainbow”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwlFTYT2Fdw&ab_channel=TheFilibar

    Goodnight, folks.

  421. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr @ 10.52
    Mother???
    Then..
    12.04 Da??
    Have you been reading the Revs Twitter and loosing track too??
    Anyhoo
    Can you ask Mrs pnr what her thoughts are about Vicks Vapour Rub?
    Has she tried it?
    And did it work??
    I know she hadn’t heard of it before, but using it β€œthat” way does come highly recommended??

  422. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Chicken Foo Yung! Feck Off LOL

    Nighty night.

  423. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe
    A much underated band, IMHO, though some might think me a bit weird. πŸ˜‰

    5, 6, 7, 8s – Bomb The Twist
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8qG4BiS6fI

  424. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    “Wingnut”? This attitude will not assist the social empowerment of women. I could say more but I’m a team player.

    (Trans)Forming Gender: Social Change and Transgender Citizenship

    Abstract

    This paper aims to contribute to recent sociological debates about gendered identity constructions and formations, and gendered citizenship, by exploring gender transformation through an analysis of new femininities and masculinities as they are variously articulated by transgender women and men.

    The paper charts the ways in which transgender has emerged as a subject of increasing social and cultural interest in recent years. Shifting attitudes towards transgender people are also evident through recent legislative changes brought by the Gender Recognition Act (2005). These social, cultural and legislative developments reflect the ways in which gender diversity is acquiring visibility in contemporary society, and suggest that gender diverse people themselves are experiencing greater levels of social inclusion. Such developments mark transgender as an important and timely area of sociological study.

    The paper argues that while the Gender Recognition Act marks a significant shift in socio-legal understandings of ‘gender’ as distinct from ‘sex’, it problematically remains tied to a medical perspective of transgender that continues to marginalise practices of gender diversity. The paper thus proposes caution against an assured trajectory of (trans) gender transformation and social change. Rather, normative binary understandings of ‘gender’ underpin recent social and legislative shifts, giving way to individual and collective tensions around the desirability of assimilation. In turn these issues produce divergent ways of living as ‘new’ women and men.

    Keywords: Citizenship, Identities, Gender, Gender Diversity, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Recognition Act, Medicalisation, Social Change, Surgery, Transgender

    http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/1/hines.html

    Introduction to Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies
    https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=wost_ed_materials

    Viewpoint: Understanding Anti-transgender Feminism
    https://discoversociety.org/2018/04/03/viewpoint-understanding-anti-transgender-feminism/

  425. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Steven Pinker on Sex Differences, Human Nature, and Identity Politics (Pt. 1)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYf6dD4N86E

  426. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe, you are a veritable catalyst, sirrah.

    Who’s been eating a Vesta curry in the gentlemen’s excuse me?

  427. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Someone lacking in the culinary discernment dept.

  428. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I suppose it is only natural that there’s widespread confusion over what sex and gender are and how they relate to human rights. Though a pretty straightforward concept, the cultural tools available to the general public are not adequate to the task of critically considering the full complexity of the issue. This problem also appears to affect many of our policy makers (socially privileged members of the general public with a managerial responsibility to protect society).

    Third Wave Feminism’s Unhappy Marriage of Poststructuralism and Intersectionality Theory

    Abstract: This article first traces the history of unhappy marriages of disparate theoretical perspectives in US feminism. In recent decades, US third-wave authors have arranged their own unhappy marriage in that their major publications reflect an attempt to wed poststructuralism with intersectionality theory. Although the standpoint epistemology of intersectionality theory shares some common ground with the epistemology of poststructuralism, their epistemological assumptions conflict on a number of important dimensions. This contested terrain has generated serious debates within the third wave and between second- and thirdwave feminists. The form, content, and political implications of their “unhappy marriage” are the subject of this article.

    Keywords: third-wave feminism, feminist theory, feminist epistemology

    http://www.jfsonline.org/issue4/articles/mann/

    GENERATION X AND THE INVENTION OF A THIRD FEMINIST WAVE
    https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/case1259803398/inline

    Is It Time to Jump Ship? Historians Rethink the Waves Metaphor
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317155376_Is_It_Time_to_Jump_Ship_Historians_Rethink_the_Waves_Metaphor

  429. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sex is biological and gender is psychological, generated through the interaction of the biological with the social.

    Crossing Sexual Boundaries: Transgender Journeys, Uncharted Paths
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-011-9810-9

    Measures of Transgender Behavior
    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1002795929547

    Messer Chups – Sex change
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN_Q5PRZwSY

  430. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    cearc says: “Someone lacking in the culinary discernment dept.”

    Indeed. I remember when they were the height of soffistication in the 60s. You even got a few sultanas in them, as I recall. And there was disgusting Heinz curry powder with too much turmeric and fenugreek and no cumin or garam masala.

    Never mind, when we’re out the EU, we can go back to the dreadful food we had in the fifties, including sossages wot never saw a piggy.

  431. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Another Great Thott I must share with you before I go a-nadgering is about the demise of The Scotsman. I used to buy it in the 70s and early 80s. It was quite progressive and even supported a teachers’ strike as I recall, had a great Letters page and a variety of wicked X-Word compilers. And Albert Morris’s column, full of low-key hilarious madness, like a teetotal Flann O’Brien.

    Then Brillo Heid and Murdoch came along and destroyed it all.

    *Muse over*

  432. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey guys, have you ever considered changing your name to Loretta? πŸ™‚

    The Power of Intersectionality to Transcend National Identity in the United States

    Abstract
    Since the mid-1800s, when the early women’s movement began in the UnitedStates, Women of Colour have been marginalized by white Feminists. The β€˜waves of Feminism’ frame the movement by marking changes in American history that benefit white women while excluding the diverse and unequal experiences of Non-white women. It is necessary to re-evaluate the history of women in America and the many ways in which Non-white women shape the Feminist dialogue. White Feminists must be intersectional and expand their understanding of Feminism beyond the realm of gender, to include race, class, religion, sexual orientation, etc., in order for Feminism to successfully achieve its mission to transcend socio-cultural limitations on women.

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/sena.12235

    Why β€œintergenerational feminist media studies”?
    Why β€œintergenerational feminist media studies”?
    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14680777.2016.1193285

    Reclaiming and Reconciling What Was Originally Oursβ€”Christianity and Feminism: A Concise History
    https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1035&context=histsp

  433. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. ideological rigidity and the closing down of debate.

    Epistemic Pluralism in Public Policy: The Critical Theory and Neuroscience Perspectives

    Abstract

    In this paper, it is argued that public policy theory and practice require both variety and versatility in order to adapt to the manifold situations that public sector work can pose. Currently, several academics and professionals reduce public policy to some amalgamation of the disciplines of economics, political science, and business. However, additional outlying perspectives, such as the critical, neuroscience, psychoanalytic, post-structural, feminist, and post-traditional theories (among others), can also offer much benefit to the comprehension of public policy. Looking at public policy analysis and action through this larger group of disciplines can be phrased as epistemic pluralism. In this realm, the term epistemic concerns knowledge or ways of knowing, while pluralism concerns an approach that considers a variety of perspectives. This epistemic pluralism approach, though often unsung, offers considerable relevance and utility to public policy theory and practice. For instance, scholars and practitioners alike can utilize such a tactic to better understand political arrangements and human behavior.

    This paper will consider the lack of epistemic pluralism in academia and policymaking processes, and analyze practical implications through the critical theory and neuroscience perspectives. The critical theory perspective is deliberated as a way to challenge the obviousness of policy systems, as well as uncover the limitations in how human beings operate within particular structures and relations with each other. The neuroscience perspective focuses on the brain and behavior and is considered as it has prominent established truths concerning human nature that have not yet been connected with public policymaking.

    https://depts.washington.edu/esreview/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Epistemic-Pluralism-in-Public-Policy.pdf

    Economics as a pluralist liberal education
    http://www.res.org.uk/view/art4Jan15Features.html

    UNITARISM, PLURALISM, RADICALISM… AND THE REST ?
    Why the frames of reference approach is still relevant to the study of industrial relations, but why we need nine frames rather than just three.

    https://unige.ch/sciences-societe/socio/files/9114/0533/6223/sociograph_working_paper_7.pdf

  434. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the racialised ideological rigidity of Brexit and the government’s apparent inability to adequately respond to complexity.

    Complexity Management Theory: Motivation for Ideological Rigidity and Social Conflict
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11235376_Complexity_Management_Theory_Motivation_for_Ideological_Rigidity_and_Social_Conflict

    WHY A BALANCE IS BEST: THE PLURALIST INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS PARADIGM OF BALANCING COMPETING INTERESTS
    http://jbudd.csom.umn.edu/RESEARCH/buddgomezmeltz.pdf

    Shifting paradigms: towards economic pluralism
    https://www.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/shifting-paradigms-towards-economic-pluralism/

  435. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m on the point of giving up myself, with some of the fuckwits we have in the movement, projecting their own prejudice and ego laden ideology on to those they disapprove of.

    love – everybody’s gotta live
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNdMvW75LaE

  436. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘height of soffistication’, well not quite.

    Add a few prawns with a dollop of ketchup on a lettuce leaf for ‘orse derv and you had a dinner party, puur posh, eh?

  437. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    cearc: Abigail’s (dinner) Party, perhaps.

    Mine’s a white pudding supper btw.

  438. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s one for those who still think it possible to change sex, or that the distinction between biological women and trans-women is unimportant. Trans-activism is characterised by scientific ignorance and articulates “gender ideology” that is illiberal and counter to individual autonomy. As such, it undermines the potential for emancipatory social transformation.

    Gender Ideologies in Europe: A Multidimensional Framework

    Abstract

    The authors argue, in line with recent research, that operationalizing gender ideology as a unidimensional construct ranging from traditional to egalitarian is problematic and propose an alternative framework that takes the multidimensionality of gender ideologies into account. Using latent class analysis, they operationalize their gender ideology framework based on data from the 2008 European Values Study, of which eight European countries reflecting the spectrum of current work–family policies were selected. The authors examine the form in which gender ideologies cluster in the various countries. Five ideology profiles were identified: egalitarian, egalitarian essentialism, intensive parenting, moderate traditional, and traditional. The five ideology profiles were found in all countries, but with pronounced variation in size. Ideologies mixing gender essentialist and egalitarian views appear to have replaced traditional ideologies, even in countries offering some institutional support for gendered separate spheres.

    Keywords: cultural diversity, family policy, gender, gender roles, measurement, quantitative methodology

    https://revisesociology.com/2014/02/10/new-right-family/

    The story of my first brush with trans activism and what I learned.

    ….As I continued to think about all of this, I did what I imagine many people do when they’re thinking about LGBT issues and considering their view?β€”?I consulted the Stonewall website. I found a page (no longer live) which listed examples of transphobic views and ideas. Included there were words to the effect of β€˜if you don’t think trans women are real women, that’s transphobic’.

    This troubled me in two ways. Firstly, Stonewall’s version of transphobia didn’t seem to require any negative view of trans people, let alone hate or unfair discrimination. All that was necessary to be designated a bigot by the UK’s leading LGBT charity was to question whether trans women and natal women might, in some ways, be different.

    Secondly, Stonewall’s edict unquestioningly prioritised the wishes of trans women over those of natal women. This seemed both arbitrary and unfair to me. This question had been turning around in my head since I discussed it with Julie a year earlier and I’ve still not heard a satisfactory answer to it: why should feminists, engaged in their own civil rights struggle, be forced to redraw their definition of a woman to include trans women? Of course, some feminists have been happy to do so. Some have not. Labelling those who have not as bigots seemed intolerant and disproportionate to me then?β€”?and it still does today….

    https://medium.com/@JonnnyBest/the-story-of-my-first-brush-with-trans-activism-and-what-i-learned-3ef13e31fd37

    Gender ideology, new right, new left. Mr. AgustΓ­n Laje
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4PmcFf6Iw4

  439. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    P.S. As “gender ideology” is illiberal in nature, it requires the states assistance in order to become established and to function.

  440. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Doh! Link for Gender Ideologies in Europe.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5817238/

  441. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto, white pudding?

    Get your Teef into this;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_91T1Z6SZY

    Did you enjoy that?
    πŸ™‚

  442. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    CameronB Brodie says:
    13 October 2018 at 6:13 pm
    “I’m on the point of giving up myself”

    Don’t give yourself up, Cameron. Go on the lam, like me!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAA2rGxblLU

    Keep on running mate.
    πŸ™‚

  443. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    That last track was quite haunting, wasn’t it, this one is even more so.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug_NpT5Io8g

    Ur ye feart?

  444. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe: far out, man, like my teef.

    Don’t have a late night ‘cos we’re auditioning for McCann and Goldberg ramorra, remember and I have to work out what my motivation is.

    Ooh, where’s me washboard?

    Laters, haters.

  445. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    cearc, this one is for you.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xekBgm_Xn-4

    Don’t tell me to cluck off, please.
    πŸ™‚

  446. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Just in case folk can’t be bothered checking out expert evidence and opinion, gender ideology comes from the New Left but feeds into the New Right’s desire to turn the clock back to a patriarchal society.

    Those who seek to shut down this debate are practicing authoritarian totalitarianism. They might want to reconsider the ethics of their own conduct? Perhaps not?

    Bravo to the Truth: What’s Wrong with Transgender Ideology

    What Makes a Person Trans?

    The accepted LGBTQ standard for being a β€œreal” trans woman or trans man is simply that a person desires to self-identify as the opposite of his or her biological sex and to be socially accepted as such. If a person feels distressed about his or her birth gender, then the politically correct action is for everyone to affirm the new and β€œauthentic” gender identityβ€”the one that exists only in the trans person’s feelings.

    In a recent interview on Fox News, transgender lawyer Jillian Weiss, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, was asked repeatedly by host Tucker Carlson, β€œWhat are the legal standards to be transgender?” Finally, the legal specialist admitted, β€œThere are no legal standards.”

    That’s rightβ€”no legal standards or legal definitions of transgender exist. Yet, as Carlson pointed out, $11 billion of federal money is spent on sex-specific programs, such as the Small Business Administration investing in businesses owned by women. Without a legal definition, these funds become easy prey for, as Carlson puts it, β€œcharlatans” who will claim to be women simply to get the money.

    When people feel that their biological sex doesn’t match their internal sense of gender, they are typically diagnosed with gender dysphoria. This is defined as β€œdiscomfort or distress that is caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and that person’s sex assigned at birth.” In other words, the medical diagnostician simply listens to and affirms the patient’s own verbal self-identification and self-diagnosis.

    No objective tests can prove that the transgender condition exists. No physical examination, blood test, bone marrow test, chromosome test, or brain test will show that a person has gender dysphoria. It is a condition revealed solely by the patient’s feelings. Yet the recommended treatment is extremeβ€”cross-gender hormones and sex-reassigning surgery.

    Don’t be duped when trans activists conflate the unrelated condition of intersexuality with transgenderism to gain sympathy for a trans agenda. People with intersex conditions are not the same as self-identified transgender people. Being intersex is verifiable in the physical body; being transgender is not. People who identify as transgender usually have typical male or female anatomies.

    https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/04/19080/

    The far left and far right converge on transgender rights in Canada: Neil Macdonald
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/trans-rights-bill-1.4113455

    Why you can’t rely on the news media to understand… trans issues

    ….Will you allow me to explain? Transgender theory centres on the idea that there is something inherent about β€˜male’ and β€˜female’ characteristics. Whereas feminists argue that gender is merely a social construction1, the transgender line is that girls and boys are born hardwired to like either pink or blue and so if a boy wants to dance around in his mother’s shoes and prefers pink, he was clearly born in the wrong body. Admittedly this is a rather reductive description of the two arguments, but I would say a fairly accurate one.

    So, to return to the everyday censorship of my opinion, when former boxing promoter Kellie Maloney came out as transgender in 2014, transgender activist and journalist Paris Lees argued that Maloney had not β€œbecome” a woman but had β€œalways been a woman”. Since I was known to have a different view, I was invited on to Newsnight to take part in a discussion about what it means to β€œidentify as a woman” alongside Lees and a trans man.

    I declined, explaining that I would rather be drinking wine and relaxing at home than be accused of fascism on live TV. Every feminist whom Newsnight approached said more or less the same thing and in the end Miranda Yardley, a trans woman who speaks out against the bullying and abuse by some trans activists towards feminists, agreed to take part.

    But when Lees discovered that Yardley was also a guest, she walked out, followed by the trans man and the item was subsequently pulled from Newsnight. Meanwhile, the producer who had spent all day trying to book guests was subjected to horrendous abuse on social media for simply inviting commentators to take part in a respectful debate on the issue of what it means to be a woman.

    Thus was the whole debate shut down. Nor was it an isolated occurrence.

    https://unherd.com/2018/03/cant-rely-news-media-understand-trans-issues/

  447. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    For Nana,
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr9C_R2UM20

    Thanks’ for All that you do.
    πŸ™‚

  448. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto,

    Yer motivation!Jist mind and loss a bit a weight this time, a’ve telt ye afore aboot that!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1nEcMImQN4

    Remember?
    πŸ˜‰

  449. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Smallaxe
    I’ve no real plans to stop mate. It just frustrates when those who should be lightening to public concerns, appear not be interested.

    Portishead – Roads
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQYsGWh_vpE

  450. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe –

    One for you, and abody else who has a family. (!)

    ‘Now, more than ever, all the families must be together…’

    Gil Scott Heron, ‘Peace Go With You Brother’

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1dnhdmcqNg

  451. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Cameron, there are always some people that you’ll never get through to, don’t let it frustrate you, others are getting the message.

    Streets;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyHr-4SeILI

    Go placidly, my friend.

  452. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Beautiful, Ian, thanks’ for that.

    Another poet;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RPkJeziNyI

  453. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    Cock-a-doodle-doo,

    I hadn’t heard Sam Cooke for ages.

  454. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the dysfunctional inhumanity we are witnessing in the Palestine. You won’t hear this perspective on the BBC. It would upset their Neo-colonial narrative.

    Narrative and the Cultural Psychology of Identity

    Abstract

    This article presents a tripartite model of identity that integrates cognitive, social, and cultural levels of analysis in a multimethod framework. With a focus on content, structure, and process, identity is defined as ideology cognized through the individual engagement with discourse, made manifest in a personal narrative constructed and reconstructed across the life course, and scripted in and through social interaction and social practice. This approach to the study of identity challenges personality and social psychologists to consider a cultural psychology framework that focuses on the relationship between master narratives and personal narratives of identity, recognizes the value of a developmental perspective, and uses ethnographic and idiographic methods. Research in personality and social psychology that either explicitly or implicitly relies on the model is reviewed.

    Keywords narrative, identity, culture, Israeliβ€”Palestinian conflict

    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868308316892

    Zionism: A Critical Account 1897-1948. The Development of Israel and the Exodus of Palestine from A β€œNew Historian” Perspective.
    http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/assets/files/students/student-journal/ma-winter-10/mayamey-e.pdf

    Promised Land or Homeland?
    https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/2145/promised-land-or-homeland/

  455. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    Yes I do like it, a very cheery tune and I’m a cheery fellow πŸ™‚

  456. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    A cheery song for a cheery fellow;

    Stevie Wonder: “Uptight” (Everything’s Alright)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYIGZrwlTZc
    πŸ™‚

  457. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Good Night.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp_djIuQ2Cw

    Dream sweet dreams for me, dream sweet dreams for you.

  458. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Smallaxe

    You’re a cracking man Billy and I wish I’d known you earlier in my life. I think you would have had an influence especially if I met you when I still lived in Glasgow.

    Anyways I’m happy that I have met you and your lovely missus x

    I think of you as my friend and a brother because we’re the same.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Ni-HBsOhY

  459. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    We’ll meet again soon Alex.

    “Brother to Brother”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ9SFgZVnvM

    Each of us enters this world on our own
    bonded together by forces unknown
    first, we crawl and then stumble
    then learn how to run
    one day we find ourselves running for home
    Brother to brother
    father to son
    mother and daughter
    together as one
    Fight all our battles
    make our amends
    shoulder to shoulder
    until the end.

    Peace brother, good night.
    πŸ™‚

  460. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Goodnight to you also Billy, I think your a wise man.

    Much respect.

  461. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    While violent struggle in the Palestine is still fresh in folks imagination, I don’t know if anyone remembers me suggesting British nationalism and Zionist nationalism shared pathological similarities.

    Levinas’s Ethics, Politics, and Zionism

    Abstract and Keywords

    This article discusses Levinas’s thoughts about Zionism in his Talmudic Readings and in articles published together with the Readings. It is indeed in this body of work that Levinas attempts to demonstrate the concrete relevance of his utopian ethics through cases that are supposed to represent everyday life. In other words, the Talmudic Readings are meant to display the tangible relationship between utopian principles and mundane reality.

    The essay explains Levinas’s defense of the modern State of Israel in this context, and it shows that Zionism is addressed in the Readings as an occurrence of the intrigue of ethics and politics. However, it also shows that, in line with his philosophy, Levinas voiced strong criticism of that Stateβ€”criticism often overlooked or underanalyzed in the scholarship. Finally, the essay examines the main weakness of Levinas’s Zionism, namely, the patent Hegelianism which clashes with a philosophy that claims to refute Hegel.

    Keywords: Levinas, Talmudic Readings, Zionism, politics, justice, Hegel

    http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190455934.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190455934-e-8

    Mental Hygiene and Disability in the Zionist Project
    Introduction: The Place of Disability in the Zionist project

    ….Before and during the Mandate period, Zionist ideologues believed that changing the mental state of the Jewish people β€” from one steeped in Diasporic oppression to one of promised political and emotional liberation in Palestine β€” was of utmost importance to building a “normalized” nation. Indeed, collective mental disability is a powerful theme that runs throughout Zionist ideological formations and medical discourse. Reflecting this emphasis β€” and because I have reviewed the topic of physical disease elsewhere3 β€” this article directs its attention to mental illness as both a signifier and an object of practical policy.

    Operating within the British Mandatory Government’s overarching system with its increasingly strict immigration controls, Zionist leaders and doctors encouraged selective immigration policies, repatriation to Europe or institutionalization of the mentally ill in order to contain and manage what they saw as a serious challenge to the achievement of an ideal society made up of dedicated, resilient, unencumbered “new Jews” in Palestine. In so doing, they prioritized access to the fledgling Jewish homeland to able-bodied individuals, despite a broader promise that Zionism would build a homeland for all Jews.

    http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/42/42

    Against Appeasement: What’s Wrong with Zionism?

    In response to recent attacks on Jeremy Corbyn concerning β€œAnti-Semitism”, the British Labor Party leader sought to appease Zionist organisations in an op-ed in the Guardian (3 August 2018) in which he disavowed the notion that β€œZionism is racism” as an old-fashioned and misplaced Lefty idea. At the same time, liberal Zionists, who are critical of Israeli governmental policies, lament the β€œbetrayal” of early democratic ideals. Recently, Ron Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress wrote in the NYT (13 August 2018): β€œThe Zionist movement has been unwaveringly democratic from its very start. Writ large upon its flag were liberty, equality and human rights for all.” From this perspective, Israel’s recent Nation-State Basic Law, which constitutionalises Jewish supremacy, is a mere aberration or unfortunate development.

    Facing such a blunt rewriting of history, it is crucial to expose the falsity of these narratives and recall the objectionable nature of Zionism, even prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948 and prior to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. This is the task of this intervention, which revisits some of the early debates from the 1890s to 1948. The reason for this method is that Zionism, as Edward Said argues in The Question of Palestine, needs to be studied both genealogically (to examine the lineage of its ideas and their discursive and institutional affinities), and practically (as an β€œaccumulation” of material and symbolic resources and β€œdisplacement” of others’ material and symbolic resources). The focus here will be on early liberal and progressive critiques of Zionism. This presentation of ideas illustrates that there are sufficient grounds to object to Zionism, even if in its liberal Zionist form. What is objectionable about Zionism should not be reduced to its right wing or religious continuum….

    http://criticallegalthinking.com/2018/08/27/against-appeasement-whats-wrong-with-zionism/

  462. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and the gender re-alignment of minors. It certainly looks as if the Scottish judicial system has caved in to the anti-scientific and illiberal sophistry of “gender ideology”..

    Jurisprudence and Gender
    https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1642&context=facpub

  463. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and the gender genital mutilation of minors.

  464. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    From a post-colonial, critical realist, feminist legal studies perspective, gender ideology is bad, mk.

    Feminist Perspectives on Human Rights

    Summary and Keywords

    Feminism has provided some new perspectives to the discourse on human rights over the years. Contemporary feminist scholarship has sought to critique the liberalism on which the conception of formal β€œequality” in the international human rights laws has been derived on a number of grounds. Two of the most pertinent critiques for this discussion are: the androcentric construction of human rights; and the perpetuation of the false dichotomy between the public and private spheres. This exploration of the relationship between liberalism and women’s human rights constitutes a significant shift in which many feminists had realized that the emphasis on β€œsameness” with men was limited in its utility. This shift rejected the β€œsameness” principle of the liberal feminists and brought gender-specific abuses into the mainstream of human rights theory and practice.

    By gender mainstreaming international institutions and future human rights treaties, specific women’s rights could be defined as human rights more generally. Feminists have since extended their critique of androcentrism and the public–private dichotomy to the study of gender inequalities and economic globalization, which is an important systemic component of structural indivisibility. In particular, the broader women’s human rights movement has come to realize that civil-political liberties and socioeconomic rights are inextricable, though there is disagreement over the exact nature of this relationship.

    Keywords: feminism, human rights, women’s rights, equality, international human rights laws, androcentrism, public–private dichotomy, economic globalization, civil-political liberties, democratization

    http://internationalstudies.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.0001/acrefore-9780190846626-e-48

    Feminist Jurisprudence: Grounding the Theories
    https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=bglj

    RECONSTRUCTION OF GENDER LAW VIA A CRITICAL DISCOURSE
    ANALYSIS OF TRANS AND 3rdWAVE FEMINIST NARRATIVES OF SEXUAL SUBJECTIVITY

    https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/314067/1/Final%20Thesis%20-%20E%20B%20Davies.pdf

  465. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Good to see you back, Smallaxe!

    And HELLO to Mrs Smallaxe!

    8=)

  466. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. the legally instituted practice of giving cervical smears to biological men.

    GENDER AND RATIONALITY

    Jones explores feminist stances toward gender and rationality. These divide into three broad camps: the β€œclassical feminist” stance, according to which what needs to be challenged are not available norms and ideals of rationality, but rather the supposition that women are unable to meet them; the β€œdifferent voice” stance, which challenges available norms of rationality as either incomplete or accorded an inflated importance; and the β€œstrong critical” stance, which finds fault with the norms and ideals themselves. This contribution focuses on assessing the various projectsβ€”some rival, some complementaryβ€”being pursued within the third, critical camp. Jones offers a reconstruction of Catherine MacKinnon’s critique of norms of rationality according to which they function to maintain relations of dominance by deauthorizing feminist claims to knowledge. Norms of rationality are thus linked to norms of credibility, and feminist rationality-critique is viewed as contributing to the naturalist project of defending norms of rationality that are appropriate for the kind of finite, embodied, socially located beings that we are.

    Keywords: classical feminist, deauthorization, different voice, dominance, embodiment, gender, knowledge, naturalism, norm, strong critical stance

    http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195145399.001.0001/acprof-9780195145397-chapter-16

    The Variety of Feminisms and their Contribution to Gender Equality
    http://diglib.bis.uni-oldenburg.de/pub/unireden/ur97/kap1.pdf

    Feminism and rational choice theory
    http://myweb.fsu.edu/adriscoll/Research_files/EPSRFemRC.pdf

  467. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    re. Tory voting parents who can’t see the inherent inhumanity underpinning contemporary social policy. The easiest way to change minds is to convince folk not to consume the corporate media, especially the BBC. I imagine David Torrance would agree, that is if he were an ethical being, given his degree in psychology and shit.

    Cognitive Dissonance theory
    Attitude formation and change.

    Core Assumptions and Statements

    Cognitive dissonance is a communication theory adopted from social psychology. The title gives the concept: cognitive is thinking or the mind; and dissonance is inconsistency or conflict. Cognitive dissonance is the psychological conflict from holding two or more incompatible beliefs simultaneously. Cognitive dissonance is a relatively straightforward social psychology theory that has enjoyed wide acceptance in a variety of disciplines including communication. The theory replaces previous conditioning or reinforcement theories by viewing individuals as more purposeful decision makers; they strive for balance in their beliefs. If presented with decisions or information that create dissonance, they use dissonance-reduction strategies to regain equilibrium, especially if the dissonance affects their self-esteem. The theory suggests that 1) dissonance is psychologically uncomfortable enough to motivate people to achieve consonance, and 2) in a state of dissonance, people will avoid information and situations that might increase the dissonance. How dissonance arises is easy to imagine: It may be unavoidable in an information rich-society. How people deal with it is more difficult.

    https://www.utwente.nl/en/bms/communication-theories/sorted-by-level/micro/Cognitive_Dissonance_theory/

    How and Why to Reduce the Cognitive Dissonance You Feel
    https://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/cognitive-dissonance/how-why-reduce-cognitive-dissonance-you-feel/

    Principles of Social Psychology – 1st International Edition
    Changing Attitudes by Changing Behavior

    https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/chapter/changing-attitudes-by-changing-behavior/

  468. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    The Tory mind is probably a hopeless case but the Conservative mind is defiantly open to persuasion. Remember though, the conservative mind is preoccupied with fear and anxiety, and they don’t handle new concepts or scenarios particularly well. So take it easy on the poor souls, as the thought of change scares the wits out of them. πŸ˜‰

    Uncertainty Reduction Theory

    Core Concepts and Assumptions

    Uncertainty Reduction Theory rests on several basic assumptions. The main assumption is that uncertainty creates cognitive discomfort, which people will try to reduce. Uncertainty reduction occurs primarily by questioning new acquaintances in an attempt to gather information about them. This information can then be used to predict people’s behavior, or the outcome of starting a relationship with them. The process of information seeking goes through predictable developmental stages, indicating changes in the quantity and type of information shared between individuals. Berger and Calabrese outlined seven concepts related to these assumptions:

    1. Verbal Output β€” High levels of verbal output correlate positively with a greater reduction in uncertainty, higher levels of communication intimacy, similarity between individuals and liking.

    2. Nonverbal Warmth β€” Refers to positive signs in a person’s gestures and body language that indicate a willingness to communicate or form a relationship.

    3. Information Seeking β€” Occurs when individuals wish to know more about each other. Information can be obtained passively through observation or interactively through conversation.

    4. Self-Disclosure β€” Individuals willingly divulge information about themselves to reduce uncertainty in the other person, thus encouraging them to communicate openly.

    5. Reciprocity β€” Individuals interested in reducing uncertainty or starting a relationship will reciprocate uncertainty-reducing behavior, such as asking questions. The higher the uncertainty between individuals, the more reciprocity a person can expect.

    6. Similarity β€” Individuals who are alike or share interests will feel less uncertain about each other and achieve communication intimacy more quickly. Dissimilar individuals experience higher levels of uncertainty.

    7. Liking β€” Feelings of approval and preference between individuals likewise speed up the uncertainty-reduction process. Feelings of dislike discourage relationship formation.

    Motivators

    However, only in certain circumstances do individuals feel the need to reduce uncertainty. After all, people rarely strike up conversations with others while riding an elevator or the subway. Theorists have identified three situations in which people will seek to reduce uncertainty:

    1. Anticipation of Future Interaction β€” People will seek information about others they expect to see again, such as co-workers and neighbors.

    2. Incentive Value β€” People desire information about individuals who have the power to influence their lives either positively or negatively, such as employers, teachers and politicians.

    3. Deviance β€” People want to reduce their uncertainty about odd, eccentric individuals who behave contrary to one’s expectations or social norms.

    http://www.communicationstudies.com/communication-theories/uncertainty-reduction-theory

    The Critique of Uncertainty Reduction
    https://cedar.wwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1084&context=scholwk

    Uncertainty Reduction: Definition, Theory & Examples
    https://study.com/academy/lesson/uncertainty-reduction-definition-theory-examples.html

  469. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.

    Status quo bias

    Status quo bias is evident when people prefer things to stay the same by doing nothing (see also inertia) or by sticking with a decision made previously (Samuelson, & Zeckhauser, 1988). This may happen even when only small transition costs are involved and the importance of the decision is great.

    Field data from university health plan enrolments, for example, show a large disparity in health plan choices between new and existing enrollees. One particular plan with significantly more favorable premiums and deductibles had a growing market share among new employees, but a significantly lower share among older enrollees. This suggests that a lack of switching could not be explained by unchanging preferences.

    Samuelson and Zeckhauser note that status quo bias is consistent with loss aversion, and that it could be psychologically explained by previously made commitments, sunk cost thinking, cognitive dissonance, a need to feel in control, and regret avoidance. The latter is based on Kahneman and Tversky’s observation that people feel greater regret for bad outcomes that result from new actions taken than for bad consequences that are the consequence of inaction (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982).

    https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/status-quo-bias/

    How Narratives Can Reduce Resistance and Change Attitudes: Insights From Behavioral Science Can Enhance Public Relations Research and Practice

    Abstract:
    This article outlines the importance of new and emerging behavioral insights research for the public relations profession. How attitudes and beliefs are cultivated, processed and then potentially changed through communicative activities are outlined and connections draw to the practice. Research from the fields of cognitive and behavioral science, neuroscience and psychology also detail the types of resistance that intended audiences cognitively employ to counter behavioral and attitude change. Finally, the power and persuasive influence of narrative communication is also discussed and examined as it relates to the fields of crisis management, health communication, public policy issues and consumer behaviour.

    Persuasive communication is at the heart of public relations. While industry professionals continue to successfully change attitudes and behaviours, research in the fields of social cognition and neuroscience are beginning to reveal the underpinnings of this communication. This new understanding is invaluable for improving the practice of public relations because it illustrates why some communications are successful while others are not. As the literature continues to grow, research on the different aspects of communication have started to intersect, providing a more integrated perspective of communication. Focusing on the interactivity of factors continues to be important for the literature to explain the complex nature of communication seen by industry. The advancements in methodology, such as new modelling and imaging techniques, create new possibilities for research and subsequently, application in an industry setting. It is often a reciprocal relation between research and industry, with new applicable industry practices emerging from research, and new directions for research emerging from industry.

    The purpose of this paper is to connect the growing research in the fields of cognitive and behavioral sciences, neuroscience, and psychology with the theory and practice of public relations, with the intention of adopting and potentially applying some of the newer methods of measuring cognition and attitude formation as a means of assisting the practice and the profession in achieving more effective behavorial outcomes in public relations campaigns. This paper will outline a number of important and relevant theories that have tested the impact of narrative-based persuasion strategies and provide new evidence for communicators to use in their current and future campaigns. Following this review a number of insights for practices such as crisis management, health communications, public policy initiatives and consumer products are discussed.

    https://instituteforpr.org/narratives-can-reduce-resistance-change-attitudes-insights-behavioral-science-can-enhance-public-relations-research-practice/

    10 Strategies You Can Use to Overcome Resistance to Change
    https://opwl.boisestate.edu/wp-content/uploads/news-A_Marker_Handling_Resistance_to_Change_v4b.pdf

  470. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    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”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol3AgmKU-lU

  471. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t do twitter but I wonder if anyone who’s not blocked, could ask David Torrance for his opinion on the influence of unconcious knowledge on our ability to make rational choices.

    Resistance to Change: Unconscious Knowledge and the Challenge of Unlearning

    I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Abstract

    The goal of this chapter is to propose that widespread evidence of our failure to achieve individual, organizational and social change may be due, in part, to the impact of automated and unconscious knowledge. After a brief review of the results of personal and collective change programs and the accuracy of self-reported change, the discussion turns to an overview of research on the learning, operation, self-monitoring and unlearning of automated knowledge. Evidence from task analysis is presented to make the case that about 70 percent of adult knowledge is fully automated, unconscious and not inspectable even when it is active because: 1) Adults are largely unaware of many of the goals they are pursuing and the strategies they are using. The consequence of this situation is that we are largely unable to accurately report our attempts to change; 2) When change strategies fail, one of the important but largely unexamined causes is the interference caused by the automated and dysfunctional cognitive behaviors we wish to change, and; 3) We know very little about how to unlearn dysfunctional automated and unconscious knowledge to clear the way for new covert and overt behavior. The chapter ends with a suggestion that if we increase the resources invested in the study of the unlearning of automated knowledge we may increase the success of attempts to achieve and recognize successful personal and social changes.

    http://cogtech.usc.edu/publications/clark_unconscious_knowledge_and_change.pdf

    RESISTANCE TO CHANGE: A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
    http://psych.nyu.edu/jost/Resistance%20to%20Change_A%20Social%20Psychological%20Perspective.pdf

    Techniques for Overcoming Resistance to Change and Selection of Appropriate Technique
    https://www.managementstudyguide.com/overcoming-resistance-to-change-and-selection-of-appropriate-technique.htm

  472. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyway, enough of the science, what about getting on with the day job?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkvEp_B5Kq8

    So what’s the hold-up?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmRYGRILOxU

  473. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Liz

    Sorry, I missed your post but I am doing well and thank you for asking. I hope you are keeping well yourself. I’m not hiding btw. I just don’t have much to contribute that isn’t already covered by many of you great thinkers here on Wings.

    Truth be told, sometimes a lot of what is happening around Indy and in politics in general can wear me down a bit. Particularly with regard to social media, MSM output and prominent voices in the Indy movement frequently accentuating the negative. That and some of the squabbling of late has been dragging me down a bit. I find it all quite draining sometimes.

    I realise folk are simply raising awareness of the negative issues affecting Scotland/Indy and I enjoy reading a lot of the work from leading Indy voices whilst advancing my own knowledge too. There just seems to be so much crap happening at times that I often find it a wee bit overwhelming on the head and heart. By the time I get to thinking about a wee post on aff-topic, my heid is burst.

    Having said that, I’ve really enjoyed the marches this year and the positive feeling they have generated for myself and others. They have given me renewed cause for optimism that the hunger for Indy is still there and what is more, is growing too. The positives I take from that certainly help balance the negatives to a large extent.

    I think another reason I am not on as much is that I used to pop on after a few malts and have a bit of banter but, I have slowed right down in that regard too as my mental, physical and emotional health was taking a bit of a hit. I have gone from drinking a few nightcaps every couple of nights to sometimes going an entire month without one. This is quite a large change for me as I’d been drinking way too heavily over the last decade or so.

    I always check in for a wee read on aff-topic but, sometimes I just don’t have anything much to contribute that would be of much interest to the natives. I will endeavour to make more of an effort over the winter months and inject a wee bit of life into the place (Although now that sma is back spinning the records and imparting his jewels of wisdom, reading is way more enjoyable than typing).

    Was nice to meet some of you this year and I hope to meet the rest of you either upon attaining independence in 2019 or on the campaign trail leading up to it.

    SlΓ‘inte

  474. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    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.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrcwRt6J32o

  475. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi William
    Lovely to hear from you… and as Smallaxe was saying.
    Sometimes we all need a bit of distance and headspace from it all!
    It’s great that you are getting healthier drinking habits too.. always a good idea!
    I’m glad you enjoyed the marches, so did I, and despite all the differences going round…
    Everyone agrees that Indy comes first, we are all on the same page there.
    Hopefully I’ll get to finally meet you at one of the gatherings in the meantime look after yourself and just touch base now and again so we don’t worry.
    Love to you and the family William X

  476. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    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?

  477. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Evening folks, cheers for joining me (again) on one of my many Glasgow mini adventures t’other nicht. Aye was out seeing one of ma friends bands playing in the city, it was a charity gig for Alzheimers… and then aye went walkies. πŸ˜‰

    The way things have gone earlier today with ukexit talks, it looks like an independence referendum could be just around the corner now. It’s all SO exciting!

    Awe ra best to ye’s girls and boys of Scotland.

  478. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    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



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