The Platform the GOP Is Too Scared to Publish – article by David Frum in The Atlantic, referenced by John Naughton in his Memex 1.1 blog. “I’m about to list 13 ideas that command almost universal assent within the Trump administration, within the Republican caucuses of the U.S. House and Senate, among governors and state legislators, on Fox News, and among rank-and-file Republicans. ... (1) The most important mechanism of economic policy ... is adjusting the burden of taxation on society’s richest citizens.... (2) The coronavirus is a much-overhyped problem. It’s not that dangerous and will soon burn itself out.... (3) Climate change is a much-overhyped problem.... (4) China has become an economic and geopolitical adversary of the United States. ... (5) The trade and alliance structures built after World War II are outdated. ... (6) Health care is a purchase like any other. ... (7) Voting is a privilege. States should have wide latitude to regulate that privilege in such a way as to minimize voting fraud, which is rife among Black Americans and new immigrant communities. ... (8) Anti-Black racism has ceased to be an important problem in American life. At this point, the people most likely to be targets of adverse discrimination are whites, Christians, and Asian university applicants. ... (9) The courts should move gradually and carefully toward eliminating the mistake made in 1965, when women’s sexual privacy was elevated into a constitutional right. (10) The post-Watergate ethics reforms overreached. ... (11) Trump’s border wall is the right policy to slow illegal immigration; the task of enforcing immigration rules should not fall on business operators. ... (12) The country is gripped by a surge of crime and lawlessness as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement and its criticism of police. ... (13) Civility and respect are cherished ideals. But in the face of the overwhelming and unfair onslaught against President Donald Trump by the media and the ‘deep state,’ his occasional excesses on Twitter and at his rallies should be understood as pardonable reactions to much more severe misconduct by others.... The platform I’ve just described, like so much of the Trump-Republican program, commands support among only a minority of the American people. The platform works (to the extent it does work) by exciting enthusiastic support among Trump supporters; but when stated too explicitly, it invites a backlash among the American majority. This is a platform for a party that talks to itself, not to the rest of the country. And for those purposes, the platform will succeed most to the extent that it is communicated only implicitly, to those receptive to its message.”
Benevolent sexism: a feminist comic explains how it holds women back – comic sequence by Emma in The Guardian. "Benevolent sexism is all about treating women like fragile little creatures that must be protected. Two psychologists, Susan Fiske and Peter Glick, developed this concept in 1996 during their research. It means that while women are being placed on a pedestal and lauded for their supposedly feminine qualities, they're being thought of as incompetent in other areas. Contrary to hostile sexism which is easy to identify, benevolent sexism often comes across as well-meaning."
White US professor Jessica Krug admits she has pretended to be Black for years – article by Poppy Noor in The Guardian. "A seasoned activist and professor of African American history at George Washington University has been pretending to be Black for years, despite actually being a white woman from Kansas City. In a case eerily reminiscent to Rachel Dolezal, Jessica A Krug took financial support from cultural institutions such as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for a book she wrote about fugitive resistance to the transatlantic slave trade. But according to a Medium post allegedly written by Krug herself, her career was rooted in a 'toxic soil of lies'.... Krug went by the name Jessica La Bombalera in activist circles and could be seen speaking in a New York City public hearing on police brutality in June.... Those who knew Krug as La Bombalera have taken to social media today to announce their upset."
Oliver Burkeman's last column: the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life – article by Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian. "I am drawing a line today not because I have uncovered all the answers, but because I have a powerful hunch that the moment is right to do so. If nothing else, I hope I’ve acquired sufficient self-knowledge to know when it’s time to move on. So what did I learn? ... (1) There will always be too much to do – and this realisation is liberating.... (2) When stumped by a life choice, choose 'enlargement' over happiness.... (3) The capacity to tolerate minor discomfort is a superpower. ... (4) The advice you don’t want to hear is usually the advice you need.... (5) The future will never provide the reassurance you seek from it.... (6) The solution to imposter syndrome is to see that you are one... (7) Selflessness is overrated. ... (8) Know when to move on."
'I'm extremely controversial': the psychologist rethinking human emotion – interview by David Shariatmadari in The Guardian. "Psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett... in her extraordinary 2018 book, How Emotions Are Made... argues that people have misconceptions about emotion – indeed about all of consciousness – that can make their lives harder. ... Chief among these misconceptions is the view that feelings are innate and universal, and can be consistently measured. So, anger, for example, is thought of as a fundamental building block of human nature with a tell-tale physiological 'fingerprint'; all we’ve done is gone and named it.... 'Anger' is a cultural concept that we apply to hugely divergent patterns of change in the body, and there’s no single facial expression reliably associated with it, even in the same person.... Barrett argues that the universal components of human experience are not emotions, but changes on a continuum of arousal on the one hand, and pleasantness and unpleasantness on the other. The term for this is 'affect'. It is a basic feature of consciousness, and people in different cultures learn to mould this raw material into emotional experiences in different ways. ... Barrett’s point is that if you understand that 'fear' is a cultural concept, a way of overlaying meaning on to high arousal and high unpleasantness, then it’s possible to experience it differently.... 'So my daughter, for example, was testing for her black belt in karate. Her sensei ... doesn’t say to her, "Calm down"; he says, "Get your butterflies flying in formation." That changed her experience. Her brain could have made anxiety, but it didn’t, it made determination."'
Sir Ken Robinson – obituary by Stephen Bates in The Guardian. "It was an off-the-cuff, 19-minute address without notes entitled Do Schools Kill Creativity? at a TED (technology, entertainment and design) educational conference in California in 2006 that propelled him to something approaching worldwide celebrity within and beyond education. His wry and witty extempore style, honed in Liverpool, was characteristically engaging. Subsequently posted on YouTube, the talk has reputedly been viewed by 380 million people in 160 countries and has influenced schools around the world. [However, he] was largely ignored by politicians of both main parties as he insisted that the policy of successive UK governments, that literacy and numeracy should predominate, was a false priority. As he told interviewers: 'That’s like saying let’s make the cake and if it’s all right we’ll put the eggs in.'”
Irregardless of your agreeance: language pedants are crying foul too often – article by Sue Butler in The Guardian. "As the long-term editor of an English dictionary, I have arrived at the trouble with pedants: they cry foul too often. I have a sneaking suspicion that the desire to be right is more important to them than the desire to defend the language from degradation, which is what they claim to do. In many instances the transgression that they lament is simply an instance of language change ('agreeance' v 'agreement', for instance), or a variation that is accepted in the community but not their personal choice (the pronunciation of 'schedule'), or an innovation that, conservative as they are by nature, they do not like (the use of 'agenda' as a verb).... So when to care and when not to care? I do care when one word is being confused with another, especially when it is part of a phrase where the meaning of the individual word has become less important than the meaning of the whole phrase. For example, we find that increasingly we are handing over the 'reigns' to someone else (as opposed to the 'reins')... Straight-out errors are always worth calling out. I cannot abide the way that 'infamous' is used instead of 'famous'. We used to have two words. A person was famous for very laudable reasons, and infamous because they had done something reprehensible. Famous – known for the right reasons. Infamous – known for all the wrong reasons. But now we talk about a great hero being infamous. This is simply wrong."
'A blood-spattered thrill ride into vengeance’ – review of exhibition 'Artemesia' by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. “This is the most thrilling exhibition I have ever experienced at the National Gallery. The sensational Susanna makes its first room so dazzling the show has already, in a moment, done its job: to prove Artemisia’s greatness.... Great art stays great for ever, even when we don’t love it enough, which is why museums are so important. ... But cultural shifts make art look different. This year is the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death, but no one will ever care as much for Raphael’s perfect art as grand tourists in the 18th century did. That was the age when Artemisia was forgotten alongside Caravaggio, whose cutting realism influenced hers.... Caravaggio’s cinematic light struck a modern chord and today it’s hard to imagine a time when he was not one of the most famous artists in the world. But Artemisia went on struggling. ... That’s why the National Gallery ... deserve so much praise for finally ratting out the conspiracy of sneers and revealing Artemisia Gentileschi in her full staggering strength, with a sword in one hand and a tent peg in the other. It is impossible to imagine, after this great show, that she will ever be cast down again.”
Irregardless of your agreeance: language pedants are crying foul too often – article by Sue Butler in The Guardian. "As the long-term editor of an English dictionary, I have arrived at the trouble with pedants: they cry foul too often. I have a sneaking suspicion that the desire to be right is more important to them than the desire to defend the language from degradation, which is what they claim to do. In many instances the transgression that they lament is simply an instance of language change ('agreeance' v 'agreement', for instance), or a variation that is accepted in the community but not their personal choice (the pronunciation of 'schedule'), or an innovation that, conservative as they are by nature, they do not like (the use of 'agenda' as a verb).... So when to care and when not to care? I do care when one word is being confused with another, especially when it is part of a phrase where the meaning of the individual word has become less important than the meaning of the whole phrase. For example, we find that increasingly we are handing over the 'reigns' to someone else (as opposed to the 'reins')... Straight-out errors are always worth calling out. I cannot abide the way that 'infamous' is used instead of 'famous'. We used to have two words. A person was famous for very laudable reasons, and infamous because they had done something reprehensible. Famous – known for the right reasons. Infamous – known for all the wrong reasons. But now we talk about a great hero being infamous. This is simply wrong."
'A blood-spattered thrill ride into vengeance’ – review of exhibition 'Artemesia' by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. “This is the most thrilling exhibition I have ever experienced at the National Gallery. The sensational Susanna makes its first room so dazzling the show has already, in a moment, done its job: to prove Artemisia’s greatness.... Great art stays great for ever, even when we don’t love it enough, which is why museums are so important. ... But cultural shifts make art look different. This year is the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death, but no one will ever care as much for Raphael’s perfect art as grand tourists in the 18th century did. That was the age when Artemisia was forgotten alongside Caravaggio, whose cutting realism influenced hers.... Caravaggio’s cinematic light struck a modern chord and today it’s hard to imagine a time when he was not one of the most famous artists in the world. But Artemisia went on struggling. ... That’s why the National Gallery ... deserve so much praise for finally ratting out the conspiracy of sneers and revealing Artemisia Gentileschi in her full staggering strength, with a sword in one hand and a tent peg in the other. It is impossible to imagine, after this great show, that she will ever be cast down again.”
