From the Editors Archives - Page 119 of 172

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terra nullius, Jules Ferry Calais

Readings and Exhibits to mark the First Anniversary of the Destruction of the Jungle

November 1, 2017 • by Siraj Izhar

There are spaces outside memory that belong to no-one or to nature, and there are places cast out of memory and returned to nature or to no-one. Across them there is an order, an order that brings together in time the ground, the territory, the space, the place, the land, ...

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Who are the Rebels in the Catalan Democracy Crisis?

Evil is never obvious

November 1, 2017 • by Jordan Luber

Catalonia has 16% of Spain’s population. It accounts for 25% of its exports and 19% of the Spanish GDP. After Spain’s financial collapse in 2008, the secessionist movement began to gather steam, saying that Catalonia gives more money to Spain than it gets back.[1] In 2014 an unofficial, non-binding referendum ...

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What Cass Sunstein Gets Wrong About Marxism, Sanders, and American Politics

Heightening the Contradictions and Missing the Point

October 31, 2017 • by Jan Dutkiewicz and Andrew Norris

Sunstein mentions, in his lone footnote, that his account of Marx and Lenin’s views on “heightening the contradictions” is “a brisk summary of some famously complex and ambiguous arguments.” But the problem is not that his summary is overly brisk, but that it is fundamentally inaccurate and is used as ...

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The Manafort Indictment

Twelve Counts — and I’m Still Counting

October 31, 2017 • by Claire Potter

For those of us who have been waiting almost a year for some good news, yesterday's indictment of Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates was a real lift. The bonus news that someone who had been flying under the radar -- George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the ...

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Thaler’s Nobel Does Not Challenge Mainstream Economics

Prizing nudges over shoves misjudges what we need right now

October 31, 2017 • by Eli Cook

Behavioral economics contends that economic agents -- contrary to orthodoxy theory -- do not always behave in ‘rational’ ways. Human beings base their decisions on "biases" or "heuristics." For example, behavioral economists argue that we tend to overvalue things we already own. This is known as an “endowment effect.” The experiments ...

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Lessons of Clandestine Organizations

Motivation and practice in the Weather Underground and Jane (a secret abortion network)

October 30, 2017 • by Jonathan Lerner

I spent the early Seventies in Chicago, not underground myself but as a secret operative of that organization. The Weather Underground was successfully keeping several dozen people hidden. Otherwise, we weren't actually doing much more than an occasional symbolic bombing of a corporate or governmental target. Our armed actions and ...

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#MeToo, Trump, Weinstein, and the Problem of Individual Responsibility

Society is Guilty

October 30, 2017 • by Bryant William Sculos

More recently, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted that if all the women who have faced unwanted advances or assaults at the hands of the men in their lives tweeted or posted “#MeToo” on social media, maybe men would realize the ubiquity of this heinous problem that women face on a daily ...

Education

Law and Sexuality

A course and syllabus from Eugene Lang College

October 29, 2017 • by Mayra Cotta

Course Outline August 28 // Introductory Class Presentation of the syllabus and course outline August 30 // Class 01 : History of Law and Sexuality We “Other Victorians”, Michel Foucault, in The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, pp. 3-13 Extra Material: Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism, Kristen R. Ghodsee, in NYT, 8/22/2017 Confrontation: Paris, 1968, Documentary by Seymour ...

Education

Judgment and Decision Making

Syllabus for GPSY 6421

October 28, 2017 • by Shai Davidai

#1 01/26 Introduction · How We Know What Isn’t So – Chapters 1-2 · Thinking Fast and Slow – Chapter 1-3 #2 02/02 Heuristics and biases · Thinking Fast and Slow - Chapters 10-15 · Gilovich, T., & Savitsky, K. (1996). Like goes with like: The role of representativeness in erroneous and pseudoscientific beliefs. Skeptical Inquirer, 20, 34-40 · Deri, S., ...

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Jeffrey C. Isaac, John McCain and Me

Thinking about a Democratic Antifa

October 27, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Isaac documents the danger that is White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. General Kelley’s disciplined authoritarianism may be more “adult” than that of his boss. Yet, as Isaac observes, it is enabling and not controlling the threat Trump presents to American democracy. Analyzing the interactive context of Trump’s telephone conversation with ...

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No Muslim Ban Marches in D.C.

October 18th 2017

October 27, 2017 • by Jo Freeman

Two thousand people rallied and marched from Lafayette Park to the Trump Hotel on October 18. Organized by immigrant and civil rights groups, it was the culmination of a couple weeks of activities to demand that there never be any ban in Muslims entering the U.S. The day before a federal judge in ...

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Mourning Poland’s Burning Man

Polish man sets himself on fire after distributing letter condemning PiS Party

October 26, 2017 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

The text of the letter is eminently rational. It carefully enumerates and decries actions taken by Poland’s government that, according to Polish and international courts alike, amount to an attack on the rule of law and liberal democracy. The letter accuses the government, controlled by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, ...