There are 1.5 million learning disabled people in the UK, but they are rarely seen or heard from. Little is spoken of this demographic of people, who in many cases completely rely on others in order to live.

Unless youre a family carer or professionally involved, you may not know or have regular contact with any learning disabled people.

However, in episode 7 of the latest season of The Crown, viewers learn more about the royal family and learning disabled people. Peter Morgan, creator of the series, writes about two learning disabled women, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon.

In Morgans fictional depiction, Princess Margaret and the Queen discover that Katherine and Nerissa, their cousins on their mothers side, are still alive, despite being listed as dead in Burkes Peerage, and have spent their adult lives in an institution for mental defectives.

Despite being born into wealth and privilege, Nerissa and Katherine found that their background didnt protect them from a harsh truth that still perpetuates today: learning disabled people are, in the main, forgotten.

I would like to be comforting, to ameliorate and to say the Bowes-Lyon sisters were born in another time; an age that lacked enlightenment, far removed from our own. But these institutions are still with us, now called assessment and treatment units, and a recent report showed that within NHS hospitals like these and some specialist schools, learning disabled/autistic people are subjected to prone restraint every 15 minutes.

The world knows how dangerous prone restraint is, because we watched in horror as a version of the technique was used on George Floyd this summer.

Covid-19 deaths must prompt better healthcare for people with learning disabilities

Id like to be able to look back to another time and place when I reflect on the fate of the Queens cousins. I want to say that things have moved on significantly in all areas of life for disabled people. But this month, the BBC is commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act and seemingly only physically disabled people are being featured in the broadcasters celebrations.

Learning disabled people are still denied work opportunities; in England, only six in 100 people with a learning disability are in employment, compared with 52.5% of the wider disabled community in Great Britain.

And in the context of the pandemic, learning disabled people in the UK are six times more likely to die of Covid-19 and learning disabled people in the UK aged between 18 and 34 are 30 times more likely to die from Covid-19. Learning disabled people have not as yet been included on the extremely vulnerable shielding list, even though respiratory conditions were the leading cause of death of learning disabled people in 2018 and 2019.

In the episode The Hereditary Principle, Morgan chooses not to forget. He wanted to tell the world that these two women the Queens cousins existed. I loved the episode, and loved too that the production team chose learning disabled performers to tell Nerissa and Katherines story.

Its key that the representation of learning disabled people onscreen is authentically rendered, which is definitely the case with the writing and direction. There is no sentimentality, no inspiration porn on view.

In 2009, I launched a campaign called Dont Play Me, Pay Me after our then 14-year-old child was the first autistic person in the UK to play an autistic character, in the BBCs Dustbin Baby. At the time, it was a radical notion.

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The campaign drew attention to the lack of disabled people in creative industries to highlight that disabled peoples ambitions arent diminished by a lack of talent, only by a lack of opportunity. I met broadcasters including the BBC and the campaign prompted widespread news coverage. I was diagnosed as autistic in 2014 and went back into the acting career Id trained for, but if TV and film representation of disabled people is rare for young disabled actors, its even rarer for those, like me, in middle age.

In The Crown, Morgan puts the reason for the forgotten story of Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyons secret lives and unmarked deaths as being down to the Queen Mothers desire to protect the monarchy from her own personal, perceived family shame.

My question is that in keeping contemporary learning disabled peoples lives away from the public gaze, isnt 21st century society guilty of denying and betraying our shared humanity in a world that would much rather forget that learning disabled people exist?

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The Crown's learning disability storyline highlights painful lack of progress - The Guardian

INDIANAPOLIS Theres an old standby rejoinder that debaters use to rebuff outlandish claims:

Youre entitled to your own opinion, but youre not entitled to your own facts.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Anyone tracking social media realizes that Americans dont even agree on facts these days. President Donald Trumps campaign to overturn the 2020 presidential election results is a case in point.

To most Americans, the presidents court battles to decertify ballots and disenfranchise voters are exercises in a dangerous kind of absurdity. They see that, in state after state and court after court, Trumps claims of voter fraud and other forms of election malfeasance either have been tossed out or flat dismissed, often in withering, even contemptuous terms.

They hear the president claim that he has been wronged but see him produce nothing that resembles evidence facts indicating that fraud occurred and they conclude that he is lying.

They are the majority.

But there is a substantial minority of Americans who dont see things that way. They argue, in their own network and now on their own social media platform, that hundreds of thousands of votes either have been manufactured (if they were for Democrat Joe Biden) or thrown away (if they were for Trump.)

These are supposed to be facts things that should be verifiable.

But the verification in the hothouse world that Donald Trumps supporters inhabit is the repeated assertion of the claim. A fact becomes a fact simply because it is said again and again and again.

And not because its truth or accuracy can be established by any sort of objective means.

This might be amusing if the stakes werent so high.

Im not talking about whether the Biden presidency is delegitimized, undercut or opposed. Presidencies come and go. Some succeed. Others fail.

That is the nature of things.

Nor am I speaking now about President Trumps attacks on American institutions the sovereignty of the courts, the oversight responsibilities of the legislative branch, etc. (All of these, by the way, the president took an oath to defend.)

Those are serious matters. The presidents assaults on the bulwarks of a government established by a free people intent on ruling themselves will have lasting consequences and recovery efforts will require years possibly even decades before the damage is undone.

But recovery is possible.

That may not be the case with the war Donald Trump now wages.

In that conflict, the premise animating the American revolution is the enemy, the thing the president seeks to destroy.

The revolution that made us a country was a product of the Enlightenment. The American Enlightenment thinkers many of whom declared independence from Britain and drafted the Constitution under which we still govern ourselves placed their faith in reason. They believed that people who had access to facts would arrive at positions that made sense.

That were fair.

That were just.

The author of the Declaration of Independence, not surprisingly, gave voice most memorably to this creed.

[T]his institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. for here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to English historian William Roscoe.

But Jeffersons faith in freedom and American deals was based on a conviction that facts matter.

That truth is something that can be tested and verified.

That is the faith that Donald Trump and his followers now challenge.

For them, the truth is a malleable commodity, easily shaped and molded to meet the needs of the moment.

And facts?

Well, they are not much different than fiction.

If Trump is right about this, then Jefferson and the other founders of this nation were wrong. Reason is powerless and cannot prevail when facts do not matter.

These days, Donald Trump spends much of his time focusing on filing lawsuits and going to court.

Among the many things hes putting on trial is the idea of America itself.

John Krull is director of Franklin Colleges Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

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Trump's war with America itself | Opinion | washtimesherald.com - Washington Times Herald

Many social ideas strongly rooted in the heritage of Christianity go beyond mere justice to include care for the poor, the homeless and the migrant.

A recent letter to this newspaper contended that the logical outcome of all Catholic politicians following Catholic teaching in their political lives was a theocracy. The writer invoked memories of an old Ireland when some Catholics in politics declared themselves bound to obey the rulings of their church in their decision-making.

Then, presuming causation and ignoring the possibility of similar miseries elsewhere, he linked poverty, emigration, censorship, cruelty to women and children etc with this theocratic Ireland.

Theocracy is a system of government where priests (not politicians) rule in the name of God or a god. Where laws command support from a religious majority but are oppressive to a religious or non-religious minority, you have crude majoritarianism, not theocracy.

But linking religiously influenced ideas with theocracy has propaganda value. If you dont like what religious values inspire some people to think, you can suggest that they are not thinking for themselves at all.

Many of the values we most cherish in the western world, from racial equality to concern for the poor, do not stem from the Enlightenment or the French Revolution. They have deeper roots in the Christian revolution.

Long before the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), the Spanish Dominican friar Bartolom de las Casas (1484-1566) saw the evils committed by European conquerors in the Americas and understood that St Pauls words that there is neither slave nor free meant that human beings had rights that must be respected by everybody.

Critics of the Catholic Church often struggle to grasp that its faithful may draw on this heritage when formulating ideas about the common good; that in thinking for themselves they might be intellectually persuaded by what their church proposes.

Consider laws on marriage, or right-to-life issues as they affect the welfare of third parties. Here, the churchs perspective on the common good is easily shared by non-believers. The famous rationalist, John Stuart Mill, posited that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

This idea sits harmoniously with Christian notions of protecting the vulnerable, and of the legitimacy of restraining your freedom and mine in order to do so.

Other social ideas strongly rooted in the heritage of Christianity go beyond mere justice to include care for the poor, the homeless and the migrant. These values are so widely held that we dont even bother to inquire into their origin among us.

They have prevailed to varying extents outside of Christian civilisation. But if you have any doubt about how they came to influence our culture, read a history of the Roman Empire.

There are, of course, aspects of Catholic or Christian social teaching where reason alone does not seem to bring the point home without the guiding light of faith.

Christians need prudence here. People have the right to present their ideas on whatever basis they like. Because God and the church says so! could be reason enough for one, just as Because there is no God and anything goes! may be sufficient argument for another. But these are unhelpful, unconvincing, extremes.

If you are promoting the common good, it is futile to advocate public policy on grounds that cannot be supported by people of goodwill of different faiths and none.

There are challenges for everybody here. Believers must accept that not everybody shares their idea of a god who demands justice, charity and ultimate accountability. Atheist champions of reason alone may struggle to locate a higher value by which to justify their admirable condemnation of survival of the fittest and neglect of the poor.

Our starting premises are not easily provable, but they set the compass for our thoughts. If you think we are just chemicals, you may reason one way. If you believe that we are beloved children of God, you may argue differently. If you believe in a god that is not loving, then God help us all.

Most of us are ready to agree that human life and human dignity are sacred. We may continue to wonder if this is a religious or a rational worldview, or both. And then we have to debate the application of that vision to our policies and laws.

Original post:
Many exalted western values rooted in Christian tradition - The Irish Times

Where can we find the wisdom needed to deal with growing cultural strife and political conflict? An upcoming conference of Ayn Rand scholars looks to the Age of Enlightenment for inspiration and solutions. The event, Ayn Rand Conference USALive, will be hosted online November 6 and 7, 2020.

The conference aims to be especially relevant to students, young people and relative newcomers to Objectivism. The online format will make it easy to communicate directly with speakers, via Zooms chat and Q&A modules. And in a nod to the Enlightenment eras drawing rooms full of interesting thinkers, the conference will feature virtual salons hosted by speakers and ARI staff breakout rooms where participants can interact with a speaker of their choice.

Whats more, the first talk will be open to the public, broadcast live on ARIs YouTube and social media channels. The remaining talks, Q&A and social events will be open only to registered conference attendees.

Those familiar with some of the ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment will hear fascinating insights into the strengths and weaknesses of those ideas that Rand identified and addressed in her own writings. Scheduled presentations include talks by experts in Objectivism who regularly speak and write about Rands philosophy and its application to todays big questions:

As a preview of the whole conference, heres a short video by ARIs chief philosophy officer, Onkar Ghate, on the historical importance of Enlightenment ideas:

Register today at this link. Students can inquire about significantly reduced pricing here.

If you value the ideas presented here, please become an ARI Member today.

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Explore the Enlightenment with Ayn Rand Scholars - New Ideal

In his celebrated Letter from Birmingham jail, written in 1963 while in prison for having taken part in a banned march against segregation, Martin Luther King Jr describes receiving a letter from a white brother in Texas who had told him that all Christians know that the coloured people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. Such an attitude, King wrote, stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills.

I was reminded of that line as I read Priya Satias Times Monster. For its the same irrational notion about the flow of time against which Satia, professor of international history at Stanford University, argues.

Times Monster is a book about history and empire. Not a straightforward history, but an account of how the discipline of history has itself enabled the process of colonisation, making it ethically thinkable.

Satias story begins with the Enlightenment, when the traditional idea of time as cyclical unwound into a linear vision of history, which came to be seen as something that moves irresistibly forward. History became something that humans made but also that made humans. Humans and history were both seen as possessing agency. This allowed history to exercise the power of moral judgment. Morality was defined in terms of the progress brought about by the unfolding of history. History revealed the institutions and the peoples that had become obsolete. Obsolescence, novelist Amitav Ghosh has observed, is modernitys equivalent of perdition and hellfire. The most potent words of damnation in the modern world, Ghosh has noted, is the malediction of being on the wrong side of history.

The Enlightenments obsession with progress, combined with an unshakable attachment to moral universalism, Satia suggests, helped normalise the violence of imperial conquest. Colonialism came to be seen as morally just, a means of bringing progress to non-European peoples, freeing them from their own barbarism.

Liberal imperialism was inherently contradictory, both demanding and denying freedoms and liberties. So John Stuart Mill, in his classic book On Liberty, could argue that despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement. Those who had not sufficiently progressed along the path of history should not be treated like fully civilised peoples. The historians craft, Satia suggests, proved essential to smoothing over such contradictions, allowing the sheer brutality of the British empire to be glossed over as the collateral damage of necessary progress.

Times Monster is a coruscating and important reworking of the relationship between history, historians and empire. It is also a frustrating account. The thread running through Times Monster is the need to understand the catastrophic consequences of rooting ethical claims in particular historical narratives. Satia castigates historians Thomas Macaulay, James Mill and John Robert Seeley, among others for having acted as handmaidens to imperial power. In the final chapter, though, she worries that historians have in recent decades become sidelined by political leaders and that new kinds of experts economists and political scientists have taken their place, experts who seem even more willing to be bag carriers for the powerful.

Historians who are critical of imperialism must, Satia insists, assert their expertise on policy matters against the monopolistic claims of social scientists, to help shape contemporary foreign policy. Many historians were, she observes, opposed to the Iraq war, but were too far removed from the sources of power to have any influence. She even calls on historians to reprise the Enlightenment project of arriving at (new) judgments of value through history. Todays historians, in other words, should continue the practice of using history as a means of deriving moral norms, but with different norms, a morality that supports the powerless rather than the powerful. Its a demand that might seem obvious, but its also one that cuts against the grain of much of the argument in previous chapters which has condemned the very act of using the lessons of history to craft moral norms.

Satia wants also to ditch a linear view of history and to reconsider history as cyclical, if not aimless. The fatal flaw with Enlightenment-derived notions of history, she argues, is that they place humans rather than biology, geology and astronomy at its centre. In fact, the idea of humans making history, rather than simply being made by history, was one of the great leaps in Enlightenment thinking. The problem was that history also came to be seen as something that automatically progresses, that there was, in Kings words of criticism, something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. This was a vision of history that allowed certain peoples and nations to be damned as backward or obsolete and provided moral justification for colonialism. Yet replacing it with a conception of history as circular, which by definition abjures the possibilities of permanent change, a notion of history that is defined more by biology, geology and astronomy than by human activity, would not, it seems to me, be much of a gain.

Times Monster helps lay bare the discipline of historys collusion in empire. It also reveals, however, perhaps unwittingly, what remains valuable in Enlightenment ideas of history and of humanity.

Times Monster: History, Conscience and Britains Empire by Priya Satia is published by Allen Lane (25). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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Time's Monster by Priya Satia review living in the past - The Guardian

Abraham was the first Jewish luminary. And we can all take a page out of his playbook.

The story of Abrahams life is primarily told in two portions of the Torah, Lech Lecha and Vayera. In the first portion of Abraham's story, Abraham comes across as a deeply spiritual person. The Torah tells how he traveled the land and of the altars he built for Gd in every place that he went. Toward the end of the first portion, Gd introduces a new idea to Abraham. No longer will it suffice for Abraham to be a spiritual person. From now on, Abraham's task will be to connect the spiritual with the physical. Abraham is commanded to circumcise himself, fulfilling Gd's commandment My covenant will be in your flesh. From here on, Abrahams mission is to teach how the spiritual covenant must express itself in the tangible physical world.

The second portion, Vayera, opens with Abraham, on the third day after his circumcision, sitting at the opening of his tent seeking guests. Its an exceedingly hot day, and theres no one in sight, yet Abraham sits there, waiting and hoping to find someone to invite into his home. As the Torah tells us:

Now the Lrd appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground.

The opening phrase is the Lrd appeared to him. As a result of this Divine revelation, Abraham reached a greater level of kindness. Typically, a kind person will express kindness when he or she sees someone in need, or at least someone who can receive the kindness. In this scene, Abraham was sitting at the opening of his tent looking to express kindness even when there was no one in sight who was in need of kindness. Abrahams heart was overflowing with love. For the more Abraham experienced the presence of Gd, the more he transcended himself and sought to connect and share with other people.

The verse continues, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. The literal translation of the verse is he was sitting at the entrance of the tent like the heat of the day. Not in the heat of the day, but like the heat of the day. The verse implies that Abraham himself was like the heat of the day. Abraham was like the sun, spreading warmth, love and enlightenment.

Many spiritual seekers seek to escape worldly distractions and seek enlightenment in solitude. The more enlightenment they experience, the more removed they become from the rest of society. But Abraham taught us that the closer one comes to spirituality, holiness and transcendence, the more the person will sit at the opening of the tent, seeking to express kindness even when the need is not immediately present before him or her. The closer one comes to Gd, the more he or she will be like the heat of the day, like the sun, expressing warmth and friendship to all.

The rest is here:
How to Be a Luminary - Torah Insights - Parshah - Chabad.org

The reproduction of Charlie Hebdos cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) recently was no surprise. What was frustrating though was French President Emmanuel Macrons open endorsement of them and his claim that Islam is in crisis. He has made orientalist, neo-colonial statements such as, I want to build an Islam in France that is compatible with the Enlightenment.

The first thought that came to my mind when I listened to him was clash of civilisations. A few months ago I had a discussion with a Muslim academic in the US who insisted that we should stop teaching Samuel Huntingtons controversial and reductionist theory to students. Clash of civilisation, she claimed, reinforces the rigid and mythical boundaries of East vs. West, Muslim vs. Christian and Us vs. Them. Her argument, in which I saw some value, was that migration and globalisation has blurred the boundaries between the East and West and that religion and culture cannot be related to a particular civilisation any longer. Islam is found in the West, and the West and its values can be found in those living in the East. Macrons latest speech and support of blasphemy made me realise that maybe it is not so much about the clash but the politicisation of civilisations and their ideologies.

This is not the first time that blasphemous acts have targeted Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) in Europe and elsewhere. A decade ago a Danish newspaper published similar cartoons and outraged Muslims around the world. This is all about freedom of expression, we are told, but if it is apparent to any reasonable person that derogatory remarks or acts against Islam, the Quran or the Prophet will prompt a strong reaction from Muslims, why does the cycle keep repeating? Why do the advocates of free speech light the flame and then express surprise that a fire follows thereafter? Why do they feel the need to offend simply because they can? At this point it seems almost intentional. It has become a means to express dominance through which the superiority of the Western philosophy and beliefs is being asserted upon Muslims. And I say Muslims because it is we who have been singled out for enlightenment by Macron and those like him.

READ: France recalls envoy in Turkey

As a Western-educated academic from and working in the Middle East, I have for long been frustrated by the Eurocentric approaches of political and social theories. They are not only being taught in institutions globally, but also provide the framework for international politics which reinforces power hierarchies and justifies neo-colonialism.

The whole rhetoric of Charlie Hebdo, which was emphasised aggressively by Macron, was framed within the concept of freedom of expression. He claims that this is one of the main values of the French Republic. To be free in France, he said, means to have the freedom to believe or not to believe. But this is inseparable from the freedom of expression. This deification of freedom of speech is actually a politicised myth. If it is as logical and rational in France as Macron claims it to be, then why is denial of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide banned in France? Or insulting the French flag and national anthem? Freedom of speech in France is not without ideological connotations.

To contextualise my position, Europes history of attacks on the Prophet and Islam predate the concept of free speech itself. It is rooted in the religious, ideological and political history of Medieval Europe and Christianity over a millennium; I do not have the space to explain the details here.

A turning point in modern European history, the so-called Enlightenment, not only established a Eurocentric approach to modernity, rationality and logic, but also further institutionalised the language of hatred against Islam. Enlightenment philosophers like Voltaire and Kant who are hailed as the founders of human rights used offensively vicious language to describe the Prophet. These celebrated intellectuals and their philosophies inform constitutions and political structures in the West and other parts of the world. Enlightenment philosophers established hierarchies in knowledge production. Kant, who glorified moral philosophy to which Macron referred in his speech, was also a racist. Hence, this philosophy of logic, reasoning and human rights is inherently flawed because it is exclusive to European experience. There is no universal here. We have to look at who established these universal concepts. Marx, Burke and Mill, for example, saw colonialism as modernising the backward and viewed the non-Western world as barbaric and savage, and yet their work is taught in academic institutions all over the world even as we also try in theory at least to build more equal and tolerant societies.

Morocco: Hashtag calling for boycott of French products trends on Twitter

My point is that Macron and his ilk are a result of socialisation through structures within which the racist and orientalist ideologies produced by the Enlightenment were politicised and normalised. To find solutions to this hatred and marginalisation of certain religious groups, we need to look at the root cause, which lies within the fundamental philosophy of these states and their structures.

The French presidents anti-Islamic rhetoric is also, inevitably, linked to his re-election campaign strategy. Such a populist approach appeals to the right wing. Having said that, his political motives have manifested in hate speech towards Muslims in general, not just in France: Islam is a religion that is in crisis all over the world today, claimed Macron, and so he wants to liberate Islam in his country. His neo-orientalist approach builds on the popular nationalist debate on what it means to be a proper French citizen. You dont choose one part of France, he insisted. You choose France The republic will never allow any separatist adventure. He claims repeatedly that he is a proponent of secularism and aims to defend the republic and its values and ensure it respects the promises of equality and emancipation. Through his attempts to fight Muslim separatism in France, he has in fact further politicised religion and, ironically, marginalised Muslims.

France has a long history of colonising Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East. French colonialism was ruthless as it sought to wipe out indigenous cultures and create replica French citizens. It has never apologised for the thousands of people killed and exploited in this colonial process. Today, enlightened France is, like many other countries in the West, once again trying to assert its hegemony on the Muslim world through ideological rather than physical means or legal sophistry.

READ: Macrons anti-Islam remark against principles of French Revolution, says Brotherhood leader

When Macron went to Lebanon in the wake of the massive explosion that devastated Beirut in August, he was in full European saviour mode; he professed his love for the Lebanese people without acknowledging the damage that French colonialism did to their country. Such double standards also apply to his endorsement of blasphemy when the target is the man held dear by all Muslims around the world as well as their faith. He demands that French Muslims must respect the values of the French Republic but he has no respect for Islam or Muslims. His is the language of domination and the assertion of neo-colonial power.

The issue here is not just the framing of blasphemy within the concept of freedom of speech. It is the hegemony of Eurocentrism and hypocrisy within which selective freedom of speech is promoted. It is the politicisation of the larger ideologies of universal enlightenment, nationalism and secularism. As fascism and populism are on the rise in Europe, such ideological clashes may become more frequent and worse in their impact. Instead of working to combat the real crisis of structural, systematic and ideological racism in France, though, Emmanuel Macron would rather reform Islam.

Anyone offended by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons should be asking what solutions or alternatives we have to these inherently biased political and social ideologies. What exactly are we being asked to boycott, and why? Can a protest boycott of material goods conquer the structural and systematic flaws in international political philosophy? Maybe not, but it will at least draw attention to the latter, and thats as good a place as any to begin this important discussion.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Read more:
The politicisation of civilisations and ideologies: Macron, Charlie Hebdo and blasphemy in France - Middle East Monitor

Masters of their craft Michael Salami, Tom Chambers and Christopher Harper as the beleaguered crew

What makes this play by Torben Betts gripping is the thrill of a life-and-death tale told at the pace of a documentary. As the heroic orchestral swells of Sophie Cottons score give way to unsettling electronic pulses, the playwright thrusts us into the cabin of Apollo 13, where three astronauts must abandon their hopes of a moon landing in order to survive.

With the loss of an oxygen tank jeopardising the power, they must use the moons gravitational pull to swing them back to Earth. Even if you know what happens, it makes for a tense ride.

The mood is amplified by directors Alastair Whatley and Charlotte Peters of Original theatre who, with film director Tristan Shepherd, focus tightly on the faces of the desperate crew. The technique saves the actors from having to share the same space, solving the problem of social distancing, but the effect is to draw us intimately towards the action.

You get the impression, though, that Betts is less interested in what is known than what is unknown. The statistics, the ground-control updates and the famous Houston, weve had a problem line are all present, but as the lighting changes from a high-definition lunar glow to brooding shadows on the moons dark side, Betts uses the cover of radio silence to speculate.

He imagines a tussle about the history of US racism between Michael Salamis Fred Haise, cast as an African American, and Tom Chambers as the rightwing Jack Swigert. The argument is not subtle but the playwrights plea that we find our common humanity is timely as we seek perspective on the schisms and isolation of our own world.

Available online.

More here:
Apollo 13: The Dark Side of the Moon review survival and enlightenment - The Guardian

The sun is setting on the Wests time as the self-appointed democracy police of the world.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Donald Trump are seen together during the G7 summit in Biarritz, France on August 25, 2019 [Stefan Rousseau/Pool via Reuters]

For several centuries, the countries of Western Europe and North America, led primarily by the UK and its colonial spawn, the US, have dominated the globe in economic, military and cultural terms. The West has made and remade the world as it saw fit and projected itself as the pinnacle of human achievement. The developed world it has vaingloriously referred to itself as, a model of enlightenment for the rest of underdeveloped humanity to follow. And the world it built was meant to reinforce this hierarchy.

Of course, much of the narrative of enlightenment was little more than myth a convenient fable to cover up the brutal profiteering off the oppression and exploitation of other human beings and destruction of their societies. Still, sitting on the porch of its mansion watching over its global plantation, having grown fat off the wealth it had taken from others, the West came to believe its own rhetoric of racial and moral superiority.

However, the last four years have done much to draw back the curtain on the hypocrisy that has always lain under the pontification. Countries that just a few years ago were proclaiming the end of history and their triumph as beacons of democracy, liberalism and capitalism nations that traversed the globe preaching the gospel of good governance, accountability and transparent government to the less fortunate denizens of corrupt, third-world banana republics have themselves succumbed to the lure of authoritarian, right-wing populism. Gone are the heady days when they sought to enforce democracy through manufactured wars and devastating economic sanctions. Today, democracy seems just as endangered in the US (and in the UK) as it ever was in Kenya and elsewhere.

This has of course elicited great whoops of schadenfreude around the world. Throughout the current US presidential election campaign, and especially in the recent weeks following the tragicomic debate between President Donald Trump and his challenger, Joe Biden, the world has been given a front-row view of the unravelling of a narcissistic, if somewhat psychotic superpower. And it has not been a pretty sight, with violence in the streets, nearly a quarter of a million people dead from the coronavirus, its economy in the toilet, the credibility of its elections and institutions in doubt, and a personality cult around its leader that every passing day feels increasingly familiar to those who have lived under totalitarian dictatorships.

Were not a democracy tweeted Republican Senator Mike Lee from Utah following the vice-presidential debate. And the spectre of violent coups, which was once thought to be restricted to s***hole countries, has reared its head in the US with the disruption of a right-wing plot to kidnap the Democratic governor of the state of Michigan and overthrow her government.

To a varying extent, similar problems with poor governance, authoritarianism, corruption and institutional decay are present in the UK and in other European countries. It is, however, unlikely that the West will face the same opprobrium and consequences that it has imposed on others whom it has deemed to have fallen by the democratic wayside. No sanctions, asset freezes or travel bans on its rulers, no resolutions condemning them at the UN, no threats of prosecution at international courts. It is unlikely that respected world leaders will be heading to the US to mediate its anticipated election dispute.

Still, the evaporation of Western prestige and hubris will have consequences for democracy in other parts of the world. For all their faults and hypocrisies, in much of the developing world, Western embassies and NGOs have been allies in the push to democratise governance. So much so that in much of Africa, authoritarian governments still deceptively refer to human rights and democracy as Western, rather than universal, concepts. There is a real danger that with their democratic credentials rubbished by events at home, it will be more difficult for the West to credibly support pro-democracy movements and efforts abroad.

That, along with the example set by the likes of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, may also encourage rulers with an authoritarian bent to take more liberties, calculating that their oppression is unlikely to attract opprobrium or consequences from the West.

Nestled in among the dangers are also opportunities for the world to wean itself off the patronising grip of the West. In Africa, for example, the African Union has of late been doing much to try to shed its image as a club for dictators, taking forceful stands against military coups and incumbents who refuse to accede to election outcomes. It still has a long way to go before it can be described as a bastion of democracy but the withdrawal of the West has gifted it an opportunity to demonstrate that it can stand with the people rather than with the rulers.

Civil society groups too will now have to look for other benefactors. Already the role for Western embassies in supporting reform movements was much diminished in countries like Kenya compared with what it was 30 years ago. But the reliance on Western governments and organisations for financing continues to be the Achilles heel of local groups an easy target for governments when they seek to delegitimise them as agents of foreign interests or to starve them by introducing legal ceilings on how much they can raise.

In Kenya, social media, coupled with money transfer apps, have emerged as an effective avenue for local fundraising, one which even the government has not been ashamed to tap into. For NGOs working in the governance space, local donations would not only reduce their vulnerability to nefarious governments but, as a measure of popular endorsement, would arguably increase their clout. Needless to say, it would also be a great way to encourage a sense of local ownership of the reform agenda. And as the sun sets on the Wests time as self-appointed democracy police, that can only be a good thing.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Does the world still need the West? - Al Jazeera English

Jess Keiser (A06), assistant professor of English at Tufts, in his new book, Nervous Fictions: Literary Form and the Enlightenment Origins of Neuroscience (2020), investigates the relationship between literary forms and scientific advancement in 17th and 18th century English literature. Terming a hybrid body of work, which includes scientific writing using literary metaphors and literature incorporating science to explore the psyche, as nervous fiction, the book asks important questions about the relationship between the body and the mind, between rational scientific inquiry and literary expression.

Speaking at a virtual book talk sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at Tufts on Oct. 2, Keiser began by introducing the scientific underpinnings of the 17th and 18th centuries. This period saw advances in what is now known as neuroscience, of which the strikingly detailed studies of human cerebral anatomy by British physician and natural philosopher Thomas Willis in 1664 were a pinnacle, and it included Ren Descartes questioning of how nerves convey sensory information across the body.

Crucial to understanding the nervous fictions is the mainstream view of the nervous system at the time. Keiser explained that, according to this view, as the brain sends and receives commands to and from the body, the pineal gland acts as what Tufts Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies and Professor of Philosophy Dan Dennett dubs Cartesian theater. For example, in visual experiences, the eyes perceive sense stimuli and the nerves connected to the eyes then place the patterns perceived on the pineal gland; in this sense, the pineal gland is where thoughts and stimuli are unified.

The understanding of the nature of nerves also underwent a transformation during this period. Instead of the earlier categorization of nerves as animal spirits, later 18th century natural philosophers described nerves as solid tubes that vibrate like musical strings; one can strike an emotional note with another, causing their bodies to quiver in response.

Ideas like Cartesian theater and synchronized vibrations are attempts by then-scientists to explain neuroscientific concepts using metaphoric devices precisely what Keiser categorizes as nervous fiction. In addition, literary writers at the time also employ scientific figures to experiment with the idea of interiority. Keiser explained that, despite nervous fictions being fusions of science and literature, the two tenets are often in conflict in those works.

The most popular metaphors of the brain and the nervous system at the time include a castle, a kingdom or a state. The body is often depicted in hierarchical terms: the pineal gland as a throne, animal spirits being servants and so forth, according to Keiser.

Keiser also introduced the idea of virtual witnessing, a notion found in the 17th and 18th centuries, in which scientific documents were written as if the readers were present at the experiment. Because the nervous system is incredibly hard to be delineated this way, Keiser argues that science writers thus adopted figurative devices to reproduce the illusion of entering into the nervous system. He cited philosopher Gilbert Ryle, who proposed the idea of a double-life legend, that all outward and public actions are matched by internal and private ones. According to this theory, , when one smiles on the outside, something within their interiority is smiling as well, Keiser explained. Thus, nervous fictions take a microscopic view into the inner workings of our brain and attempt to explain how they translate to outward actions.

Nervous fictions have also made contributions to the mind-body problem how do the physical and biological aspects of the brain translate to our mental and psychological inner world? In his book, Keiser argues that nervous fictions directly respond to this philosophical dispute.

My argument is that the nervous fictions are a response to that gap, that sense of how do we get from matter to mind, Keiser said. [The] nervous in this concept is really nervous in two senses: about the [biological] nerves, but also nervous as an adjective about anxiety and uncertainty.

Keiser went on to discuss what he deems are the top five nervous fictions. Among those are a passage on the brain when in love from Thomas Willis book, Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of Brutes (1683). It proposes that when one is in love, all the animal spirits in other parts of their body would rise to the brain to watch the image of the lover, as if in a theater. Keiser argued that the personification of animal spirits is necessary for Willis to connect them to the feeling of love.

Other nervous fictions discussed by Keiser were Margaret Cavendishs The Worlds Olio (1655), which introduces panpsychism, the idea that everything thinks, including everything in the nervous system; for example, a hand has intelligence. In Laurence Sternes The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen (1759), the narrator describes perceiving a vibration in his heart when speaking, yet the brain made no acknowledgement. Theres often no good understanding betwixt them. In The Hypochondriack (17771783), James Boswell criticizes the practice of anatomy, comparing the soul to a watch in a case that should not be opened, or else it will be ruined.

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Jess Keiser explores the Enlightened psyche, "nervous fictions" in new book - Tufts Daily