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Culture, politics, science, philosophy. General manifesto ***** Immigration manifesto
Switzerland draws a line on immigration 20.02.2014. Switzerland is a small, prosperous country which during World War II managed not to become part of the Nazi empire and during the postwar era has succeeded in staying out of the EU. Nonetheless, like other European countries whose citizens have voted to stay out of the EU, Switzerland – in exchange for participation in free trade with EU members – has signed treaties that subject its citizens to EU regulations. Among those treaties is a seven-year-old agreement that grants most EU citizens the right to live and work in Switzerland. Thus writes Bruce Bawer in an article in FrontPage Magazine. He continues (links in original):
Read the entire article in FrontPage Magazine.
Der Spiegel interviews SVP leader Christoph Blocher 19.02.2014. In a SPIEGEL interview, Christoph Blocher, the leader of the Swiss People's Party discusses the success of his recent campaign in a referendum against "mass migration" and Switzerland's future relationship with the EU. Christoph Blocher, 73, is Switzerland's most controversial politician. The billionaire entrepreneur transformed the Swiss People's Party (SVP) into a right-wing populist organization that campaigns against the European Union, immigration and Islam. It was Blocher, educated as a lawyer, who led the successful campaign against Switzerland joining the European Economic Area in 1992. From 2004 to 2007, he served as a member of the government before getting voted out of office. He remains a leader in Swiss politics and recently financed the campaign against "mass immigration" to the tune of 3 million francs (€2.45 million). SPIEGEL interviewed Blocher in the wake of the Feb. 9 referendum in Switzerland in which 50.3 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of capping immigration from the EU. Swiss Populist Leader Blocher: 'We Are a Sovereign Country':
Reading the entire interview in Spiegel Online. Hat tip Document.no.
Scientists identify gene linking brain structure to intelligence 12.02.2014. For the first time, scientists at King’s College London have identified a gene linking the thickness of the grey matter in the brain to intelligence. The study is published today in Molecular Psychiatry and may help scientists understand biological mechanisms behind some forms of intellectual impairment. The researchers looked at the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the human brain. It is known as ‘grey matter’ and plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language and consciousness. Previous studies have shown that the thickness of the cerebral cortex, or ‘cortical thickness’, closely correlates with intellectual ability, however no genes had yet been identified. Continue reading at King's College London.
Differ in specific brain structures 12.02.2014. Reviewing over 20 years of neuroscience research into sex differences in brain structure, a Cambridge University team has conducted the first meta-analysis of the evidence, published this week in the prestigious journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. Thus reports Medical Xpress:
Read the entire article in Medical Xpress.
Egypt's El-Sisi calls for ijtihad 12.02.2014. General El-Sisi, the commander of the Egyptian Armed Forces and current head of state, is essentially calling for a reformation in Islam. Continue reading at The Clarion Project.
Roger Scruton on the real meaning of freedom 10.02.2014. We need conservatism now more than ever, writes Roger Scruton in Stand up for the real meaning of freedom in The Spectator:
Continue reading in The Spectator.
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Norsk stoff - Norwegian material
Norske og skandinaviske lesere vil kunne finne stoff på norsk her.
Book project In 2008 I received a book-writing grant from the prestigious Freedom of Expression Foundation, Oslo, Norway. The resulting book was launched in Oslo on 6 May 2010.
Quotes
Based on the evidence of the past four centuries and the state of contemporary philosophy, the rational conclusion is that reason alone has failed as a means by which to discover or devise the truth about the nature of reality, morality, what human beings should care about, and how they should live. Despite high hopes for its success since the seventeenth century, modern philosophy has foundered in its central ambition. It sought universal, rationally demonstrable truth, but has produced instead an open-ended welter of preferential, ultimately arbitrary truth claims. Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation, page 379
Modern reason in its two most influential expressions is therefore a schizophrenically mixed bag: philosophy has dramatically failed, but science has spectacularly succeeded. One consequence is that the ever-expanding technological capacities afforded by scientific advances are set within an increasingly rancorous culture of moral disagreement and political contestation. If not necessarily a failure of modernity per se, this fact certainly contributes to its volatility and potential for man-made catastrophes on scales inconceivable in the preindustrial world. Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation, page 380
And perhaps some religious truth claims really are true, and maybe their rejection helps to explain both why Western history has unfolded as it has in the past half millennium and why modernity is now failing. Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation, page 383
No one has the right to legislate the truth. It can only be discovered by free inquiry, and that includes investigations that may make people uncomfortable. Steven Pinker, in a letter of 09.12.2009 (quoted e.g. here) to then Rector Laurits B. Holm-Nielsen at Aarhus University, commenting on the proceedings against Professor Helmuth Nyborg taking place in Denmark at that time
A people that forgets its ancestors will care little for its descendants. G. K. Chesterton, quoted by Ricardo Duchesne in his book review Civilization: The Six Ways the West Beat the Rest, March 2012
Multiculturalism is an effort to destroy the uniqueness of Western nations. My book hopes to encourage Westerners to recover and affirm their exceptional historical identity. Ricardo Duchesne, concluding his Reply to Mark Elvin (a reply to Elvin's review of Duchesne's book The Uniqueness of Western Civilization)
In order to really be able to belong somewhere, others have to agree that you belong there. Noor Jdid, interviewed by Asma Chaudhry, Northernchowk, 26.07.2013
God gives a reward for gentleness which He will never give for harshness. The Prophet Muhammad, quoted by Charles Le Gai Eaton in The Concept of Justice in Islam
Devotion to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Mohamad al-Arefe, on MEMRI-TV, quoted in The Spectator, 27.06.2013
The less they know, the less they know it. Edward Feser, commenting on the intellectual state of adherents of secularism, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (Kindle Location 208)
They played the Bohemian Rap City. Steven Pinker, quoting oronyms discovered by teachers reading their student's term papers and homework assignments, The Language Instinct, page 161
Human evolution did not halt in the distant past but has continued to the present day. The ancestral human population of 50,000 years ago differed greatly from the anatomically modern humans of 100,000 years ago, and people today have had just as long to evolve away from the ancestral population. The human genome bears many marks of recent evolution, prompted by adaptations to events such as cultural changes or new diseases. More visible evidence of recent evolution is the existence of human races. After the dispersal of the ancestral population from Africa 50,000 years ago, human evolution continued independently in each continent. The populations of the world’s major geographical regions bred for many thousand years in substantial isolation from each other and started to develop distinctive features, a genetic differentiation which is the basis for today’s races. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn, page 9
If a detectable degree of local genetic differentiation has developed in Iceland in a mere 1,000 years, much greater differences are likely to have arisen among populations in the rest of the world, much of which has been settled for 40 times longer and where there have been many social and geographic impediments to the free flow of genes. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn, page 97
It is often assumed that evolution works too slowly for any significant change in human nature to have occurred within the last 10,000 or even 50,000 years. But this assumption is incorrect. The development of new brain gene alleles 37,000 and 6,000 years ago, and of lactose tolerance 5,000 years ago, have already been mentioned; several other instances of recent human evolution are cited in chapter 12. There is no reason to suppose that human nature ceased to evolve at some finishing post in the distant past or to assume, as do some evolutionary psychologists, that people are struggling to function in modern societies with Stone Age minds. Genomes adapt to current circumstances or perish; the human genome is unlikely to be an exception. Human societies have progressed through several major transitions in the last 15,000 years, and it may well be that these transformations were accompanied by evolutionary as well as cultural changes. It was only after people had become less violent that they were able to abandon the nomadic life of hunting and gathering that they had followed for the last 5 million years, and began to settle down. The first settled societies appeared in the Near East some 15,000 years ago. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn, page 178
Our bones are more gracile than those of our Upper Paleolithic ancestors, our personalities less aggressive, our societies more trusting and cohesive. An element of human choice, a preference for negotiation over annihilation, has perhaps been injected into the genome. And that might explain why there is an inescapable sense of progress about human evolution over the last 50,000 years: human choice has imposed a direction on the blind forces that hitherto have shaped evolution’s random walk. In parallel with human social evolution, the human physical form continued to evolve. Because the human population was dispersed across different continents, between which distance and hostility allowed little gene flow, the people on each continent followed independent evolutionary paths. It was these independent trajectories that led over the generations to the emergence of a variety of human races. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn, page 180
Genetics are likely to provide ever greater detail about how individuals vary, how men and women have different interests and abilities, and how races differ. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn, page 266
The belief that human evolution is essentially complete rests on the conjecture that it moves too slowly for significant changes to have occurred recently, for instance within the last 50,000 years. But the human genome, just like those of all other species, can adapt quite quickly to changes in the environment. Without this capacity, humans would long ago have lapsed into extinction. At least four types of recent evolutionary change have already become evident and many more will doubtless come to light. The recent genetic changes already discovered include defenses against disease; increases in fertility; responses to cultural changes that affect the human environment; and changes in cognitive behavior. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn, page 268
The other cognitive change is one that can be inferred from the striking recent rise to prominence of versions of two brain genes. As described in chapter 5, the genes first came to light because mutated versions cause microcephaly, a condition in which people are born with an unusually small head and brain. The new version of the microcephalin gene appeared around 37,000 years ago, rapidly became more common under intense selective pressure, and is now carried by most people in Europe and East Asia. The other gene, a new version of ASPM, emerged 6,000 years ago and is now carried by 44% of Caucasians. Both genes are thought to be involved in determining the number of neurons formed in the cerebral cortex in the early embryo. The rapid spread of these two alleles indicates that the human brain has been subject to intense evolutionary pressures in the recent past and may still be evolving. These instances of recent evolutionary change are probably just the first of many that remain to be discovered. Since all occurred after the dispersal from Africa, the alleles that cause them are present to a different extent in different populations. Human diversity therefore cannot be a purely cultural phenomenon, as many social scientists sometimes seem to believe. It has a genetic component too. The component remains to be defined and quantified, but it could prove to be substantial. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn, page 271
No. That is a myth that some here want to create: that it's supposedly illegal or unacceptable in Norway to have different opinions on immigration. Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, to Spiegel Online, 10.10.2011
Humanists believe that humanity improves along with the growth of knowledge, but the belief that the increase of knowledge goes with advances in civilization is an act of faith. They see the realization of human potential as the goal of history, when rational inquiry shows history to have no goal. They exalt nature, while insisting that humankind—an accident of nature—can overcome the natural limits that shape the lives of other animals. Plainly absurd, this nonsense gives meaning to the lives of people who believe they have left all myths behind. John N. Gray, The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern Myths, quoted in book review by Robert W. Merry, The Fallacy of Human Freedom, The National Interest, July-August, 2013
Today, the dead end of western culture is no longer theoretical; it is contained as anxiety and absurdity in the everyday way of life. Christos Yannaras, Elements of Faith: An Introduction to Orthodox Theology (page 164)
Like clothes, gender fits the preformed human body and mind, even though on occasion it is a bit of a squeeze. Frank Salter, The War against Human Nature II - Gender Studies, Quadrant Magazine, July-August 2012
The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it. Attritubet by some to George Orwell (disputed)
The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, four-term U.S. Senator, ambassador, administration official, and academic
Whether or not there are [intelligence] differences between ethnic groups, is a well-researched field. However, I will not here reference the results of others, let alone speak my mind. Otherwise, I fear I would be pelted with eggs during lectures. Unfortunately, it is not possible to discuss this issue in a rational way. Professor Detlef H. Rost, Der Spiegel, 06.05.2013 (my translation)
When I was a Revolutionary Marxist, we were all in favour of as much immigration as possible. It wasn’t because we liked immigrants, but because we didn’t like Britain. Peter Hitchens, 31.03.2013, The Daily Mail
Michel Foucault’s approach reduces culture to a power-game, and scholarship to a kind of refereeing in the endless ‘struggle’ between oppressed and oppressing groups. The shift of emphasis from the content of an utterance to the power that speaks through it leads to a new kind of scholarship, which by-passes entirely questions of truth and rationality, and can even reject those questions as themselves ideological. The pragmatism of the late American philosopher Richard Rorty is of similar effect. It expressly set itself against the idea of objective truth, giving a variety of arguments for thinking that truth is a negotiable thing, that what matters in the end is which side you are on. If a doctrine is useful in the struggle that liberates your group, then you are entitled to dismiss the alternatives. Roger Scruton, The great swindle, Aeon Magazine, 17.12.2012
Do not believe the confessions of tortured texts. Abdal Hakim Murad, Contentions 11/92
This healthy instinct to poke fun at an unbalanced piety is the same instinct that makes us laugh at a one-armed man rowing a boat. He is not failing to make an effort, but he lacks balance. The unbalanced pietist, however, may not see the joke; and herein is a deadly threat. Abdal Hakim Murad, Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions, (#86), page 151
Suicide bombing is an extreme way of shooting oneself in the foot. Abdal Hakim Murad, Contentions 4/49
Meanwhile, individuals such as Stephen Jay Gould, who commit outright academic fraud in support of their ideological positions, do enormous damage to the credibility of their own camp. Ron Unz, Race, IQ, and Wealth - What the facts tell us about a taboo subjec, The American Conservative, 18 July 2012
When the black Messiah (Nelson Mandela) dies, we'll teach the whites. We'll commit genocide against them: I hate whites. South African police officer Juda Dagane, quoted by IOLnews
Our Manifesto |
HonestThinking is dedicated and committed to the art of thinking honestly. Yet honest thinking is not the same as true thinking, for it is possible to think honestly, but be mistaken. For the same reason, honest thinking is not identical with objective thinking either. Honest thinking is striving to get things right. This involves being truthful about whatever one publishes, but just as importantly, it involves an uncompromising dedication never to suppress relevant data, even when data collides with dearly held prejudices. Such an approach may sometimes cause hurtful revisions in one’s belief system. That’s what HonestThinking is all about! Read the entire manifesto.
Provoked or enthusiastic?
Please send e-mail to postmaster at honestThinking.org (replacing ' at ' with '@') if you would like to tip us about a web resource that we should link to, or if you wish to submit an article for publication here. Quality contributions are welcome from anyone.
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| Multicultural societies – respect for Muslims and Islam |
The current European immigration and integration policy is profoundly disrespectful of both Muslims and Islam, because it is built on the tacit assumption that the Muslims will become like us. One claims to have respect for Islam and for Muslims, but one also expects Muslims to give up their orthodox faith when they come here. At the same time one is assuming that Islam will be reformed and modernized as soon as the Muslims become integrated and understand and appreciate how superior our Western culture is compared to their own. This is cultural shauvinism and arrogance indeed! The unspoken premise for this scenario is that Western socities are superior to Islam. Read more.
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| Threats against democracy and human rights |
Human rights and democracy are under pressure. One threat comes from the Western world, in the form of lack of or dishonest thinking. There exists a peculiar Western "tolerance" which is so "tolerant" that it even tolerates totalitarian or anti-democratic ideologies. A tacit assumption underlying such an attitude is that all cultures, world views, and religions are really equally good. As a consequence of this assumption one is cut off from the possibility of critically examining the above mentioned ideologies. Read more.
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