As thousands of final-year students in the UAE submit their applications to local universities, we take a look at some of the best higher education options in the Emirates and what they have to offer

Paris, which is nicknamed the City of Light thanks to its central role in the Age of Enlightenment in the mid-18th century and its early adoption of gas-street lighting.

1257 (parent university); 2006 (Abu Dhabi campus)

Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi was set up as a branch of Pariss College of Sorbonne, which was established in the 13th century by Robert de Sorbon, the chaplain to Louis IX.

While many universities in the UAE focus on business, engineering and other technical subjects, Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi is particularly strong in the arts, humanities and sciences.

It occupies a large, customised campus.

Al Reem Island, Abu Dhabi

Dh48,700 diploma in intensive French (one year)

Dh215,000 all bachelors degrees (three years)

Dh143,400 master in applied sociological research (two years)

Dh166,400 master in international business law (two years)

Bachelors degrees include: applied foreign languages; economics and management; French literature; geography and planning; history; history of art and archaeology; law; mathematics with specialisation in data science for artificial intelligence; philosophy and sociology; physics; and records management and archival science.

Masters degrees include: applied foreign languages; applied sociological research; banking and finance; environment; environmental sustainability law and policies; health economics; history of art and archaeology; history of art and museum studies; international business law; international law; international relations and diplomacy; marketing; management; communication; media; physics; records management and archival studies; teaching French as a foreign language; and urban planning and development.

Accountancy; agriculture; anthropology; biochemistry; biology; chemistry; criminology; dentistry; engineering; filmmaking; geology; journalism; marketing; medicine; music; politics; psychology; sports science; and veterinary medicine.

83rd QS World University Rankings (parent university)

88th Times Higher Education World University Rankings (parent university)

There are 1,065 students, 64 per cent of whom are Emiratis. Overall, there are students from 61 nations.

- Simone de Beauvoir, a French author best known for her book The Second Sex, which was highly influential in the feminist movement.

Famous french writer Simone de Beauvoir attended the parent university in Paris. Photo: AFP

- Enis Batur, a celebrated Turkish author, essayist and poet.

- Christiane Taubira, born in French Guiana. She studied sociology at the Sorbonne and was the French Minister of Justice between 2012 and 2016.

"Sorbonne university Abu Dhabi is a research-led university. We are proud to fulfil our mission by acting as a beacon of knowledge in the Middle East by bringing the expertise in education and academic excellence of Sorbonne University in Paris to the region.

Prof Silvia Serrano, vice chancellor of Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi. Photo: Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi

"Besides awarding our students French degrees that are recognised worldwide, we aim to provide students with world-class education that equips them with the right tools and research methodologies, and develops their critical thinking skills, all of which will enable them to become successful decision-makers and take the lead in knowledge development in the future.

"Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi also offers outstanding students a wide variety of scholarships and preferential rates and presents an overall exceptional university experience.

"In addition, Sorbonne University students and graduates benefit from the universitys strong industry links through internships, career opportunities and professional exposure."

Updated: April 22, 2022, 4:00 AM

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UAE's best universities: Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi - The National

The British Museum opens to the public at 10am, but theyve resumed a little known tour that starts at 9am before the public gets inside.

The tours are themed around five core topics, and you can book for any of the five tours.

They all last around an hour and with the limited number of just twelve people in each group and the galleries empty except for the tour, they cost 33 per person (16.50 for children). After the tour, as youre already in the museum, you can then wander around the rest of the galleries and my tip would be to head to the popular galleries, as theyll take a good half hour or so to full fill up with visitors.

All the tours are here and below.

Uncover the origins of an extraordinary collection as you learn about the beginnings of the British Museum in 1753 and its subsequent development. The Enlightenment gallery (Room 1) focuses on the 18th century, an era of new knowledge, scientific discovery and European colonialism. The Collecting the world gallery (Room 2) focuses on the growth of the collection from the 18th century to the present day.

Galleries on this tour:

Booking details

In the Egyptian sculpture gallery, you can see impressive statues of kings and gods, monumental tomb architecture and ancient tomb reliefs spanning 3,000 years. These include the imposing, colossal bust of Ramesses II, the Gayer-Anderson Cat and the world-famous Rosetta Stone the key to deciphering hieroglyphs. You can learn the importance of large-scale sculpture in ancient Egyptian temples and tombs, and get the perfect introduction to this unmissable collection.

Gallery on this tour:

Booking details

From painted coffins, statues and models of daily life to spectacular wall paintings from the tomb-chapel of the high official Nebamun, investigate what tombs and burial goods tell us about the lives of ancient Egyptian people. The tour will explore the preparation of the deceased for burial, including mummification, and the use of magic to help and protect people on their perilous journey to the afterlife.

Galleries on this tour:

Booking details

In the Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery of China, you will gain an insight into the development of Chinese history and culture from 5000 BC to the present day.

Gallery on this tour:

Booking details

Enjoy some of the highlights of the Museums exceptional collection, including sculptures from the Parthenon and the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Galleries on this tour:

Booking details

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Tickets Alert: Early hours tours of the British Museum - ianVisits

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Re: We Are Less Free Today Than 40 Years Ago; The Social Justice Threat To Liberty, Ryan Alford, both, April 16.The United States Bill of Rights is based on enlightenment political theory: the natural rights of John Locke; Jean-Jacques Rousseaus The Social Contract; maybe Immanuel Kants moral principles based on human autonomy. All uphold the principle of inalienable human rights. To suggest a right is granted but can be limited, subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, is like suggesting one can be a little bit pregnant.

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Rights are generally designed as a buffer against government overreach. When government can override rights with a notwithstanding clause, we have no individual rights. A right is a right, or it isnt. You cant suck and blow at the same time.Larry Sylvester, Acton, Ont.

Kudos to Ryan Alford for nailing the most important constitutional issue of our time: should the government and courts be deciding social justice issues, or should individuals, through their own deliberation, decide for themselves. Liberty and freedom should rest in the peoples hands as was originally conceived by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Freedom of speech is the most essential cornerstone of democracy. Trust the people.Patrick Skillings, Victoria.

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Re: Ukraine Burns, Canada Hesitates, John Ivison, April 19.Ukraine needs help now. Canada has a supply of light armoured vehicles in storage, but rather than providing immediate aid to Ukraine by sending them, Defence Minister Anita Anand is thinking about sending new ones for which there hasnt even been a contract awarded to build them. Ukraine needs help now, not months from now.

When first elected, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada is back, yet there has been very little to support this statement. His government should do the humane thing and get those light armoured vehicles out of storage and over to Ukraine as quickly as possible.Barbara Cantlie, Toronto.

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Re: The Problem With Banning Holocaust Denial, Terry Glavin, April 14; Holocaust Denial Ban Likely To Be Pointless, Chris Selley, April 16.A number of National Post columnists have expressed doubts as to the legality and effectiveness of legislation being proposed by the Canadian government, and already adopted by several European countries, to ban Holocaust denial. Although they acknowledge the evils of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, little is offered on how to stem the tide of antisemitism other than public education.

Statistics indicate a troubling rise in antisemitism around the world. It must never be permitted to reach the levels it did in the 1940s. Certainly education is vital, but whose freedom of expression is impeded, other than antisemites, by the proposed language in the budget, condemning those who wilfully promote antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust?Sam Mitnick, Cte-Saint-Luc, Que.

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Re: No, Poilievres Populism Isnt Racist, Adam Zivo, April 16.Its early days in the Conservative leadership race, so there is more hype than scrutiny around what Pierre Poilievre has promised at this juncture. His musings about the Bank of Canada and its independence would be a game-changer, and not in a good way. His promise to speed up the accreditation for foreign workers is a non-starter, as the provinces control the accreditation process and it is there for a good reason. There are standards in our various professions and trades, and many immigrants coming in simply dont meet those standards. There is no fast track to becoming qualified in Canada as immigrants must pass the same exams as everyone else.

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Poilievre has to get through the leadership election in September, and then spend three years or less trying to convince voters to choose the Conservatives next time out. This will be a big ask, as the more right-wing element of the party that former prime minister Stephen Harper spent 10 years keeping power away from will most definitely be a part of Poilivres cabinet if he succeeds at defeating the Liberals. It would seem unlikely that voters would consider a party that would have anti-abortionist, anti-vaccine and pro-gun advocates in its cabinet.Jeff Spooner, Kinburn, Ont.

Re: Sweden, Finland Edge Closer To Joining NATO, April 14.Russia has threatened to move its nukes and hypersonic missiles closer to Europe if Sweden and Finland join NATO. But arent these the same missiles that can easily cover long distances? Having Russian missiles on Europes doorstep, rather than many kilometres away, is a distinction without a difference. The question is: will Russia ever deploy them?

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Russian President Vladimir Putin knows that NATO has no offensive designs over Russian territory and is no threat to Russia, per se. The present madness stems from the realization that NATO on Russias doorstep means its doorstep will stay right where it is.Mike McCrodan, Langley, B.C.

Re: 40,000 Deported By Force, Says Mariupol Mayor, April 19.The city of Mariupol, Ukraine, has reportedly been almost completely destroyed by the invading Russians.

There is a town in France, Oradour-sur-Glane, that is the site of a Nazi atrocity during the Second World War. In 1944, the retreating Nazis herded the population into the towns church, barred the doors and set it on fire. Then they razed the village to the ground. After the war, the French left the destroyed village at it was, never to be rebuilt. Now it stands as a memorial to those killed by Nazi atrocities.

When all of this is over, and Ukraine has survived, something like that should be done with at least a section of Mariupol: a memorial to the insanity, and the victims, of Vladimir Putin. Never to be forgotten.Murray Bowman, Vancouver.

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Letters to the editor: True freedom does not have loopholes - National Post

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Eighty-nine years of slow but steady enlightenment Part 3 - Payson Roundup

Abbot Austin Murphy, of St. Procopius Abbey and chancellor of prestigious Benet Academy, expressed last October being deeply troubled by Benets decision to hire a womens lacrosse coach who was in a same-sex relationship. His New Years resolution was to pull the plug on the Abbeys relationship with an annual $50,000 support for Benet, which it oversees. The academy doesnt comport with Catholic teaching on sexuality, Murphy cited, in his New Years lump of coal to Benets 1,400 students.

While the vast majority of America and much of the world has entered the 21st century on enlightenment over homosexuality, the Benedictine monks of St. Procopius Abbey, and much of the Catholic hierarchy, apparently prefer to fade into irrelevancy rather than switch. Nineteenth century thinking on the subject is just fine for them.

SEND LETTERS TO: letters@suntimes.com. We want to hear from our readers. To be considered for publication, letters must include your full name, your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be a maximum of approximately 350 words.

Benet Academy elders initially bowed to the will of the Abbey, which founded Benet 120 years ago and provided secondary education excellence in Chicagos western suburbs. They withdrew their coaching offer to the gay candidate after her same-sex relationship was revealed. But a firestorm of pushback by over 4,000 students, school administrators, alums and parents on the lunacy of their action overpowered their delusional Abbey overseers.

That annual $50,000 withdrawn by St. Procopius Abbey might well be replaced by donations from enlightened Catholics and others of good will. Abbott Austin Murphy and his Benedictine monks would be wise to use their new revenue source for extensive psychological counseling to peel back the centuries of fear, ignorance and yes, loathing of gay individuals.

Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn

As a CPS parent of two kids, I am pissed at the teachers. They are not locked out. They chose not to show up to work. Theres a difference. If they show up tomorrow, there will be school.

Id like to work from home too, but my job requires me to show up. My kids need to be tested for math and science, not COVID. By keeping my kids in CPS, I have failed them. After this joke of a year, they will join the many others and never go back. My wife and I are only sorry we waited so long. The union and CPS deserve each other.

Robert Vivalet, Beverly

Throughout the pandemic, parochial schools have safely remained open, while Chicago Public Schools were closed, leaving students with remote learning, where learning seemed to take a back seat to remote. The public schools eventually reopened this school year, but with more problems with the CTU, teaching and learning have ceased, creating a problem for the students as well as their families.

Its time to revisit the school voucher issue.

Larry E. Nazimek, Avondale

More here:
Enlightened Catholics and others of good will should step up to support Benet Academy - Chicago Sun-Times

Religious tyrants, revelation radicals, adherents of binding, blinding, theological codes, often feel out of placein the modern world. They routinely misuse the very laws of liberal democracies to mount counter-systemic attacks against critics, even killing those they disagree with. 1 Even if they seem more closely associated with one faith tradition or another, they are not confined to any particular religion or part of the world. Religious fundamentalism and bigotry, of one sort or another, continue to scourge our world, producing cognitive disasters, even aggression and violence.

But reason, turning into monstrous myth or organised atrocity, has scarcely fared better. Its very orderliness, industrial efficiency and scale are indicative of its derangement. Our uncivil cultural and narrative wars, supposedly in the name of a variety of good causes such as justice, equality, and, yes, climate change, too display dangerous degrees of irrationality and intolerance.

In 1944, towards the end of the devastating World War II and appalling Holocaust, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W Adorno, passed the dire decree of the self-destruction of enlightenment.In their Preface to their epochal Dialectic of Enlightenment2, they warned of the regression of reason that threatened the world: Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology. Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity (xviii).

For, as they argue, The Concept of Enlightenment, has at its very heart the very principle of corrosive rationality (4). The Enlightenment project cannot escape it. A shocking dnouement follows: Enlightenment is totalitarian.In other words, rationality of the modern, instrumentalist, post-enlightenment age is, at best, a god with clay feet, at worst a hideous monster.

That is why it is imperative to reflect on how a new global consciousness suitable for the times to come into being.For starters, it will have to resist the corruptions of both revelation and reason, to steer clear of the mass hysteria and histrionics of the narrative wars of the left and right, to think beyond the straitjacket and self-interest of nation-states, to break out beyond disciplinary silos policed by specialist gatekeepers.

(Views are personal)

Twitter: @makrandparanspe

1 The fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the several deaths associated with it, Bangladeshi feminist Taslima Nasrin being hounded out of her country in 1994 and later from India, Ayaan Hirsi Alis forced departure from the Netherlands after the killing of producer-director Theodoor Theo van Gogh, the hideous murders of Charlie Hedbo staffers and guests on January 7, 2015, and so on.

2 Max Horkheimer and Theodor W Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, tr. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

Makarand R Paranjape

Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Original post:
Beyond Revelation and Reason: Need to reflect on a new global consciousness suitable for the times to come - The New Indian Express

There are many corrosive forms of discrimination. But one of the most dangerous is the bias in favour of consciousness, and the consequent denigration of the unconscious.

We see it everywhere. Its not surprising. For when were unreflective which is most of the time we tend to suppose that we are our conscious selves, and that the unconscious is a lower, cruder part of us; a seething atavistic sea full of monsters, from which we have mercifully crawled, making our way ultimately to the sunlit uplands of the neocortex, there to gaze gratefully and dismissively back at what we once were. Its a picture encoded in our self-congratulatory language: Higher cognitive function; Shes not to be blamed: she wasnt fully conscious of the consequences.: In the Enlightenment we struck off the shackles of superstition and freed our minds to roam.

We see it in medicine. The job of a psychiatrist is to put the patient back in her right mind a complex and troubling notion which means (whatever else it might mean) a state approximating more nearly than before to the mental state of the treating psychiatrist. The medical team is relieved when a patient emerges (that idea, again, of evolving out of the howling dark) from unconsciousness.

We see it in the law, which encourages the psychiatrists attempt to recreate the patient in his own cognitive image, and, if satisfied that a patient will not come out of her vegetative state, is happy to endorse the withdrawal of life-sustaining interventions. For vegetation, after all, belongs back there in our evolutionary past; its the weed swaying in that sea. As Aristotle held, vegetation may have a soul, but its not as good a soul as ours because it doesnt have the same sort of consciousness.

And of course we see it supremely (and supremely self-servingly) in philosophy, because philosophy is all about the exercise of those higher cognitive functions. When modern philosophers agree with Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living, they really mean that if you cant think in the focused, highly cognitive way that they do, you might as well bow out a conclusion on all fours with the decisions of the judges in PVS cases. Lay people might think that philosophy is a no-holds-barred search for the truth about the universe: its not; its based on the assumption that the universe perceived and perceivable by our quotidian consciousness is all that there is, and that that consciousness is therefore the only tool available for probing the universe.

This is rather strange. We typically spend only about two thirds of each day in anything like the state of consciousness so robustly privileged by the philosophers, the doctors, the lawyers and the cognitive Establishment, and we spend a good deal of money trying to change that state with caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, sleeping pills, exercise-induced serotonin and any number of drugs. Even the most nerdishly cognitive of us often presume that our dreams tell us something fundamental about ourselves. Few, when pushed, assert that the lands described by Jung and Freud dont exist at all. There are many coherent tales brought back from travellers to those lands: they match well our own recollections on awaking from sleep or anaesthesia, and with our (very common) out of body experiences and other altered states of consciousness.

Human neural networks can process 11 dimensions. We normally operate on just four: three spatial and one temporal. The consciousness with which were obsessed is equipped only for those four. Four elevenths isnt much. Perhaps patients in PVS are having the time of their life in dimension 5? Perhaps well meet our beloved dead in dimension 8? At any rate it ought to be thinkable and, in the swashbuckling tradition of Enlightenment enquiry, thought.

But to make it thinkable and thought we need to shed our cognitive snobbery.

References

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Cognitive snobbery: The Unacceptable Bias in Favour of the Conscious | Practical Ethics - Practical Ethics

Russell Brand is aptly named. His brand has long been loud and specific and memorable; the manic pixie dream dude from Forgetting Sarah Marshall had a show on the BBCs Radio 2 before he emerged on the American scene as a tall, attractive scamp in leather pants and hair like an onion dome. He flaunted his loud, appetitive sexuality in ways that tweaked the more usual understanding of masculinity (and straightness). He arrived on the scene in the 2000s young but fully formed, with a history of former addictions that would inspire a number of amusing books on how he dealt with them and how you can, too. Guru-ish and irreverent, Brand is contradictory, which is also what makes him fun: Hes self-deprecating and self-aware about his (considerable) vanity, equally obsessed with hokey enlightenment and poop humor, and delights in using clips of himself doing other interviews (some good, some bad) to make flattering and embarrassing points in his actsusually about how he is covered by various dishonest media outlets, but sometimes to make himself look ridiculous too. He is temperamentally epiphanic. He gives the impression of total candor, of not caring at all how he comes off provided hes perceived as original. If he sometimes appears to confuse attention-seeking with renegade truth-telling, no oneone imagineswould be quicker to admit it. Hes witty and voluble and has such an absolutely enormous amount of stuff to say that the consistency of his message matters less than the enormous pleasure he takes in his ability to produce fluid, almost incantatory speech about how much the media and other evil entities suck.

This is the key to his charm, such as it is: how sincerely and consistently hes been a loud critic of power and dominant narratives despite his fame and wealth. Like a classic theater kid, he has prioritizedand insisted onpresenting as an outsider even as he ascended a ladder largely dominated by insiders. Even now, he wrote in his memoir My Booky Wook, I always tend to think I wont fit in, and gravitate toward an identity that will stand out. Thats revealing, I think: Brands invective against the status quowhile compellinghas always been more an energy than a position. Its not that surprising, then, that his YouTube channel has exploded in popularity as he started talking less and less about enlightenment, meditation, and more and more about COVIDspecifically, how policies to curb it are curtailing freedom. He has become an important figure among self-styled freethinking contrarians and antivaxxers. Brands sizable channel has become home to almost daily videos with deeply alarming titles about how everything is a conspiracy and little is true except their intention to censor you. Recent entries include They Must Think Were DUMB!! Disinformation Or CENSORSHIP?! We Were Sold a LIE!!! No wonder People Are ANGRY. And Its All Rigged! Government Insider REVEALS.

This is, to many old Brand fans, likely a little depressing, if not a total surprise. If Brand has long championed outsiderhood as a politicsand gotten a little cosmic, a little vague, when describing his political visionthats historically part of his appeal. Hes a great proselytizer for the kind of freshman dorm thinking I mentally classify as Not This (waves broadly). Brand ably diagnoses social alienation and weariness but his solutions are more hopeful than concrete. He champions some third as-yet-unarticulated alternative that no one has come up with yet, but which might emerge if ordinary people just came together. I think if you tell stories in a different way, then we can create different realities. Reality is only a story, a consensus, what you believe in. Thats why it can change so easily, he told Jonathan Ross in an interview.

Its an optimistic if slightly astrological take on human potential! Its extremely curious, therefore, that the stories Brand has been telling more and more on his YouTube channelwhich has over 4 million subscribersarent different at all. Theyre inflammatory but unoriginal, pitched to stoke anger and fear in a very particular and familiar way. Take a video he published on Dec. 15, titled Hang On The FDA Are Doing WHAT Now?! This Is SHADY. The description under the channel: Last week the FDA approved the Merck covid pill despite evidence that it is only 30% effective. Could profiteering from both Big Pharma and politicians have played any part in its approval? And heres Brands pitch: Weve a new COVID pill being proven to be only 30% effective. Whats the real reason its been approved? HMMM? he says, rubbing his fingers together, making the sign for money.

The packaging is recognizable as the kind of pure, uncut, YouTubish conspiracy-mongering blowing up all over the internet these days. Brands followers love it, and they love him foramong other thingshow skillfully he appears to evade YouTubes fearsome censors on the lookout for COVID misinformation. I have no opinion on this new COVID medication, he says performatively in the video, practically winking. It might be wonderful, it might not be I offer no opinion other than that it is 30 percent effective.

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But Brand is a tick better than his contemporaries. Unlike many a conspiracy-peddler, the first half of Brands video actually offers a relatively decent and well-sourced description of the situation he reduced to all-caps hysteria in his titles: that the FDA advisory committee vote for emergency use was relatively narrow, at 1310, and marked by disagreement. He also cites David Sirotas October article in the Guardian objecting to how pharmaceutical companies gouge Americans for this kind of treatment after receiving government subsidies. He describes how much pharmaceutical companies spend on lobbying.

So far, so good. There are small errors (the FDA did not approve the drug, which he repeatedly states it didbut thats likely to happen soon), but the gist is right. But then Brand makes the disappointingly familiar leap of logic that powers so much conspiratorial thinking. He asks: Do you think that there is a connection between the lobbying and the advantage that pharmaceutical companies get? Then comes the real rub: Increasingly, its getting difficult to discuss those things. A question about mysterious, powerful interests is capped immediately with the threat of censorship. What follows is a hurricane of paranoid and exhortative misdirection in defense of so-called antivaxxers: You wouldnt get people being cynical, suspicious and full of doubt if there was an open public discourse and clearer, more defined and regulated relationships between government and the pharmaceutical industry. But every avenue of potential dissent is shut down. Freedom of speech, criticism, jokes, conversation, all shut down. Not to protect you, to protect me. No. To protect them. (Emphasis mine.)

This is the point of the video: to take reporting on the (very real!) problems with pharmaceutical lobbying and use it to stoke the anxieties of regular people already worked up about nefariously buried truths. Whats sort of remarkable about this is that its self-refuting: Brand himself had seconds earlier presented a bunch of evidence against his own thesis that every avenue of potential dissent is shut down. And dissent and debate about the Merck pill still continues, even after its emergency authorization. Its even in Nature, for Petes sake! Sirotas warning about the relationship between government and the pharmaceutical industry was published in a major newspaper. Thats how Brand saw it.

It doesnt matter. Brands messaging is so reflexively set against institutions that hell prioritize the iconoclasm that made him refreshingly charming for much of his career over the dull slog of being merely accurate. Its just that now this tendency is powering a dangerous embrace of public health skepticism. And its paying off handsomely for him: He has every reason to loosely and passionately connect recent news to his audiences conviction that theyre being censored. Brand may think hes beyond the reach of market forces, but to look at the history of his YouTube channel is to seealmost in real timehow grimly the platform can shape its content creators trajectories as they respond, consciously or not, to the incentives the algorithm supplies.

In 2019, Brands content was almost all the kind of philosophical self-care stuff hes largely known for. He published things like Vulnerability (Learned from Brene Brown) and This is How Yoga Changed My Life! The start of 2020 saw Make the Unconscious Conscious, part of his 12-step recovery course. Then the pandemic arrived. At first, his posts registered thoughtful skepticism about what an experience like this would do to humankind at a time when trust in the government was at an all-time low. Theyre interesting videosnot inflammatory, not yet conspiratorial. He hasnt started to frame his titles in suggestive all-caps, so its just Coronavirus: What Has It Revealed? By June, however, hes publishing things like Why the Left Cant Handle Donald Trump and, on Jan. 7, 2021, Capitol Hill: Whos To Blame? But even these are still more interesting than manipulative. Its starting around February 2021 that the caps-heavy, conspiracy-oriented titles start to make increasingly frequent appearances. (Is there a CONSPIRACY between Wall St and the Establishment?; NEVER Trust the Government.)

By March 2021, Brand has officially shuffled all the self-help stuff that used to be his main content to another channel: Awakening With Russell. Heres how he explains it: Over there on the main channel, were talking about power, politics, the corruption in the world. Here were talking about personal solutions, what you can do to make yourself feel better today. The channel has about 271,000 subscribers. Meanwhile, a Welcome to My Channel post appeared on the main page in July, and is so generic that it could have been written by any standard-issue intellectual renegade: Its basically me breaking down the news, providing you with information you wont get in mainstream media, analyzed from a perspective of a man whos been on the inside.

Clever, eh? Why settle for being Rush Limbaugh when you can be Joe Rogan and Goop at the same time?

As grifts go, at least this one has the sheen of warmth and sincerity. Brands stated missionto seek refuge and camaraderie amid the worlds unrelenting oppression, corruption, and censorshipalso explains why hes so friendly to some (mainly conservative) interview subjects these days. Brand is a sharp debate guy when he wants to be; hes good at keeping his interlocutors on the defensive when he wishes. (His encounter with Nigel Farage was legendary.) But he does not engage this capacity in his conversations with the conservatives he hosts on his YouTube channel and podcast. If he challenges them, he does so tenderly, usually prefacing the objection by repeatedly restating the common ground they share before venturing a dissent. Brand has been famously dickish to all kinds of interviewers (particularly those he regards as corporate reporters) in contexts where hes clearly more invested in breaking the format than real discussionbut he is unflaggingly polite and solicitous to controversial guests like Ben Shapiro, Tim Pool, and Jordan Peterson. In a recent conversation with Glenn Greenwald he observes, of Trump voters and those who dont bother to vote at all, that for all the condemnation the fact is that they dont have an alternative. These parties that were set up in order to represent their interests have been hollowed out and have become ultimately meaningless.

These conversations are interesting; I can see why people tune in. Brand isnt completely wrongmost people are pretty alienated and disenfranchised! The parties are a disaster! And hes speaking to Greenwald about nonvoters because he himself famously announced that he didnt vote. But the selectivity of their points of agreementand hand-waving away of substantial differencesis weird. Especially for a person whose brand isnt exactly nonconfrontational. American conservatism stands for a lot that Brand has always appeared be against, but maybe its all relative. His political squishiness makes sense if you think of his political orientation as not actually based in policy but rooted in opposition to existing structuresa commitment more than anything to an anti-establishment vibe.

You can see a lot of this going back to his earlier YouTube channel which he called The Trews (thats True News). His farewell there back in 2015, years before the recent return to news and politics, is quite moving. He laments his mad rows with Fox News on Hannity, resents that he was called a hypocrite on Fox News on American TV because for sticking up for people who were losing their homes because my landlord has a tax haven, where Rupert Murdoch actively lobbies to create tax loopholes, and reiterates his thoughts on revolution: What revolution really means and what it literally does mean is a change of power not using the conventional means of power. I believe in the possibility of ordinary people to change their circumstances to come together.

He was ending The Trews because he had become a story, and in becoming the story, he felt he needed to pull awayfrom social media, from his channel, to listen and learn more. In his goodbye address he promises that on his return he will be more truthful, more inclusive than ever, because were going to need it, because the world is going mental and more than ever, the world needs to come together. The sad irony is that he was right then, but the reanimation of his mission has totally confused which powerful interests are trying to screw us (hello, YouTube!) and which ones are trying to save our lives.

See the rest here:
Russell Brand is stoking COVID paranoia on his YouTube channel. - Slate

In the weeks following its capture of Afghanistan, sympathy for the Taliban emerged from an unlikely corner of the internet: the online far-Right. In awe of the Islamist terrorist organisations martial spirit and revolt against liberalism, a number of online dissidents took to framing the Taliban fighters as heroes on social media. From caricaturing them as Chads (alpha males) to sharing images of other Islamist groups with captions like Wahabi boy summer (a play on the nationalist white boy summer slogan), many of the memes notoriously associated with fringe digital subcultures were suddenly absorbed into discussion around terrorism including by Taliban members themselves.

This use of far-Right tropes in particular, the Chad vs Wojak dichotomy is telling of the two groups mutual mourning over modern degeneracy and the decline of the West. But this alliance also throws a spoke in the wheel the conventional narrative surrounding Islam and the Right.

After all, in both fringe and mainstream conservative discourses, Islam is loathed as a prime culprit driving societal decline. Whether it takes the form of European white nationalist groups such as Generation Identity blaming Muslim immigration for the great replacement or a Right-wing newspaper columnists deeming it a threat to our liberal values, hostility towards Islam seems to be a defining feature on the modern Right. No less ambiguous is Islamists own hostility towards the Right as the vanguard of the Western culture that they oppose; for both parties, a convergence with one another would seem paradoxical.

Islamism and the Left, on the other hand, appear to make far more intuitive allies. Most recently, it has been suggested that some Islamists may be actively co-opting wokeness andcamouflaging their agenda in the language of diversity and inclusion. But well outside the sphere of extremism, the so-called Islamo-Leftist alliance is a well-established source of analysis. A number of mainstream trends reveal the extent of a relationship between Islam and the Left, from the crossover of Muslim and Leftist causes among student activists to the fact that Western Muslims statistically tend to vote for Left-wing parties.

Yet this alliance is not without its own tensions: the modern Left has an uneasy relationship with traditional religion, and struggles to incorporate moral absolutism, spiritual hierarchies, and the submission to a Divine order that is integral to Islam. In other words, while the modern Left seeks to break down grand narratives, Islam is a grand narrative, and one imbued with a profound metaphysical potency at that.

This is not to overlook the fact that there have been numerous attempts to systematically converge Islamic and Leftist political philosophy. Most prominently in the 20th century, movements such as the Islamic socialism of the Iranian Revolution or the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party sought to achieve their political aims through means which were, or at least strived to be, theologically sincere. It is also notable that this kind of Leftism, which was closer to orthodox Marxism, was more sympathetic to grand narratives than its contemporary forms where postmodern currents prevail (leaving aside the overtly anti-religious sentiments of Marx himself, that is).

Today, attempts by Western Leftists to form alliances with Muslims often overlook religious narratives: unsurprisingly, Islamic theological and intellectual traditions do not take centre stage in secular activism. Though modern Leftists committed to showing solidarity with minority groups may represent the identities of Muslims, they struggle to represent the values of Muslims. Incorporating their traditional beliefs would involve revising their own secular (and ironically, modern Western) biases, which, despite efforts to decolonise the mind, they are often reluctant to do.

In effect, the modern Lefts concern with religion boils down to identity politics; an impetus, perhaps, for practising Muslims to gravitate to the other side of the ideological spectrum. But religion is also relegated to identity politics on the modern Right, where the term culturally Christian is commonplace. Self-styled anti-woke commentators may invoke Christianity in their paeans for a return to tradition, but this often gives precedence to the cultural and aesthetic residues of the religion over its metaphysical and moral precepts. As far as ideology is concerned, more faith is placed in the axioms of the European Enlightenment individual liberty, free speech and, ironically, secularism than those of traditional Christianity, now reduced to little more than a signifier of Western heritage.

It follows that the Rights contempt towards Islam does not come so much from a theological defence of Christianity, but a cultural one. Likewise, the Lefts representation of Muslims, owing to its own secular biases, also ends up reducing Islam to a cultural entity. In effect, theological and metaphysical considerations have been rendered obsolete on both the Left and the Right when it comes to religion.

This points, among other things, to a major shift within the Right: traditionally, it was the Right that served to uphold religious principles, including moral absolutism, spiritual hierarchies and, in a way, submission to a Divine order. But fixated as it now is on individual liberty, free speech and secularism, the modern Right overlooks this. And in relocating its origins to the European Enlightenment, it forgets that the conservative tradition was itself born out of a hesitation towards the Enlightenment.

Roger Scruton one of the last philosophers to defend conservatism as a counterweight to the Enlightenment, rather than a full embrace of it saw it necessary for politics to have a metaphysical dimension. Following Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott and Matthew Arnold, he remained true to the origins of British conservatism as a reaction against the excesses of liberalism and secularism. This conservatism was, he wrote, a defence of tradition against calls for popular religion and high culture against the materialist doctrine of progress.

With this in mind, the notion of an alliance between Islam and the Right begins to make sense. Islam poses many of the same challenges to Enlightenment liberalism as the English conservative tradition once did, with both traditions recognising the social and spiritual dangers of modern materialism. Islam, in a sense, fulfils Scrutons definition of metaphysical conservatism as a defence of sacred things against desecration. But today, the modern Right is more concerned with defending free speech against wokeness, individual liberties against collectivism, and freedom against censorship than sacred things against desecration.

What does this tell us about the alleged alliance between Islam and the far-Right? Since the mainstream Right has become indifferent towards traditional values, their ideological debris has drifted downstream to be claimed by fringe subcultures. But these fragments, severed from their original contexts, have been misappropriated to suit hateful ideologies that are just as unmoored from religious virtues. Defences of gender roles, the family and community, for example, are often articulated through crude biological reductionism rather than spiritual concerns. Whether its the blood and soil paganism of Neo-Nazis or the New Atheism of hardline rationalists, much of todays far-Right is just as materialistic and hostile towards traditional religion.

The fact that many look for or encounter traditional ideas in these extremist subcultures is telling of the fact that these ideas are severely underrepresented in political discourse. This was once a role fulfilled by the Right. Yet modern conservatisms embrace of liberalism and secularism, despite originating as a counterweight to these Enlightenment ideologies, excludes those wishing to defend the sacred. Without representation of such concerns, dissidents will continue to drift to extremes even if it means promoting a group as nefarious as the Taliban.

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Why the online Right flirt with the Taliban - UnHerd

Local fine art photographer Raymond Bleesz, the co-founder of the Vail Valley Art Guild Photographers Group, has had three images accepted into the 56th Annual Eye of the Camera exhibition at the Littleton Museum of Art in Denver.

The museum hosts juried art and photography exhibits that highlight Colorado artists in their Fine Arts Gallery throughout the year. This years Eye of the Camera exhibit accepted 41 works from 32 artists, all centered around the theme Safe to Wonder, and will be open to the public from Jan. 21 through March 12 of this year.

Some feel wonder wanes with age and is unattainable as we become information-retaining adults, the exhibition description reads. But if we are given the space to wonder, does this change? And what does that encompass, space to wonder? Is it a literal or a physical space, a mental space? Is it permission to admit ignorance and awe? Does it have a sense of urgency or is it irrespective of time and physical location? This years 41-piece exhibition brings us Space to Wonder.

One of Bleesz accepted images is titled Books at Rest. The black-and-white photo depicts books stacked high in the cafeteria window at Battle Mountain High School.

Books have always created wonderment, have opened our minds for further education, for enlightenment, Bleesz said. We can become lost in reading and enjoy the printed word, a mental space. Hence, each book creates a space to wonder.

The second, titled Spirit and Faces, shows faces painted onto wood in the outskirts of Flagstaff, Arizona.

The markings make one wonder, why out here in the open space? Bleesz said. Who did this, why were these markings done, why do they create wonderment?

The final image that will be featured in the exhibit is titled Road Passage Blocked to Yonder, taken in Blanding, Utah.

The signage is most interesting as well as unusual, an art statement to halt further progress, Bleesz said. It creates a sense of space beyond which is not obtainable to all but only for those who can open the gate.

Bleesz has been accepted into the Eye of the Camera exhibit before, but this is the first time that all of his submitted photos were accepted.

I have submitted to the Littleton Eye of the Camera juried shows over the years, as this show is a major exhibit for Colorado Photographers, and on occasions in the past, I have had acceptance for a singular image and rejection as well, but having three is most satisfying, Bleesz said.

All of the images on display at the exhibition are also on sale, with 25% commission going towards the Littleton Museum of Art. For more information about the exhibit, visit littletongov.org.

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Local photographer has three works accepted into annual Denver exhibition - Vail Daily