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The topic of this paper is the social and normative conditions for exercising the freedom of speech in Norway. Based on a representative survey of the population, the authors ask which types of utterances are seen as acceptable on different arenas in Norway, and whether certain groups are more likely to withhold their own opinion, out of fear of offending others or of being exposed to ridicule. The...
No truly canonical literary text has emerged from the civil rights movement, which is plausibly defined in chronological terms as 1954 to 1968. Therefore the relationship of literature to the social and political change promoting racial equality has to be elastic in the boundaries that critical scholarship formulates. Black identity and the struggle beyond formal civic rights therefore serve as markers...
Freedom of speech and academic freedom are widely recognized prerequisites for the maintenance of national and international freedom to communicate with colleagues in the relentless, objective, scholarly pursuit of knowledge and the advancement of the human condition. The debate on freedom of speech and academic freedom at universities in South Africa is complicated by the cultural and ideological...
A popular view which has long been in general circulation is that complex human society, while aided partly by instinctive and emotional survival responses, has had to learn to control those responses through norms and other cultural means. I argue that emotion is the basis of organization; and suggest that emotion and organization emerged in concert with art, music and other kinds of symbols and...
Narcissism has become inculcated in many aspects of modern society. It can be found in the growing popularity of social media which enable users to post “selfies;” in the competitive race for fame, beauty and extravagant lifestyles; and in the public’s fascination with power-hungry and greedy politicians and businesspeople featured on television and in the movies. Narcissism thrives when members of...
A dramatic rise in mass shootings in the twenty-first century has compelled divisive political and legal agendas predicated on the Second Amendment and mental health. Challenges to absolute autonomy of firearm possession have broad policy implications, and given the enormous cultural entrenchment regarding private gun ownership in the United States, arouse intense objections to government invasion...
Censorship is once again in vogue on America’s college and university campuses. The urge to silence one’s opponents is nothing new, as is evidenced by the speaker bans of the 1950s and 60s and the rise of “political correctness” in the 1980s and 90s. But the latest effort to silence dissent comes in perhaps the most clever disguise yet: the guise of psychological, or even medical, need.
Alice Goffman’s On the Run has become one of the most controversial books published in sociology in many years. Her moving account of several young Black men and their legal entanglements has raised questions about how whites represent Blacks in their research, what obligations researchers have to avoid illegal activities of their own, and, most importantly, about the character of truth in ethnographic...
Examining past experiences of student activism at Berkeley this article suggests that the present storm of political correctness sweeping American universities represents more than just another of the periodic crusades that have disrupted academic life over the years. The current wave of activism is different largely because the ever-present minorities of militant faculty and student activists have...
Elizabeth Durack, a white Australian artist, produced an extended series of paintings in Aboriginal style that she promoted as being done by Eddie Burrup, a fictitious persona she devised. Upon admitting the subterfuge, she was strongly criticized, but she never apologized, justifying her action through her extensive contact with Aboriginal people and their art. This article examines the reaction...
Mass media explanations and criminological profiles of mass shootings focus on the perpetrator’s individual psychological traits in their search for motive and meaning behind such horrific events. We consider the broader social context to better understand mass shootings. We focus on three recent high profile mass shootings in the United States – Aurora, CO, Newtown, CT, and Santa Barbara, CA as examples...
This article discusses the psychological pressures of free society and the resulting tendency towards totalitarianism -- an ever-present cultural undercurrent in liberal democracies. Recessive in periods of optimism (created by economic growth, military victories, international prestige), this tendency may become dominant when national self-confidence vanes and especially dangerous when it takes hold...
The threat from terror and religious extremism has seen liberal democracies adopt a raft of measures are intended to restrict freedom of expression. Yet very little focus has been spent on how such measures affect freedom of expression and internet freedom compared to debates over hate-speech and blasphemy laws.
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