From FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression):
The alleged termination of a St. Philip’s College biology professor for saying X and Y chromosomes determine biological sex raises serious concerns about the state of academic freedom at the public college in Texas. Today, FIRE asked the college to reverse course and meet its First Amendment obligations.
Consider the haunting opening lines to the 2010 BBC documentary, "The Power of Nightmares":
In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this. But their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered to their people. Those dreams failed. And today, people have lost faith in ideologies. Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life. But now, they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority. Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us from nightmares. They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand.
Ten years ago, I found this intense documentary online. Over the years, the links to the documentary keep breaking and I have fixed them at least twice. You can now view the entire work here. Also here is the full script.
What would motivate a phalanx of high-paid government-financed experts to protect us from a never ending procession of alleged nightmares? How about job security. More specifically, now that Middle East terrorism is no longer looming as a threat to Americans, how about drumming up the new threat of misinformation/malinformation/dysinformation? How about funding huge bureaucracies of highly paid experts to protect us from each other? Notice that they have now turn our suspicions and paranoia toward each other, a disgraceful tactic in a country founded on the principle that we the citizens are in charge and it is our duty as self-rulers to interact and negotiate with each other to find solutions to complex problems. To feed their coffers, they have found a gift that keeps on giving, the concept of "misinformation," ignoring that this concept is comically vague, in other words, perfectly suited for instigating Americans to form circular firing squads.
See the latest example, “They're searching for fears to tap into," article at Public by an excellent journalist, Lee Fang. Here is an excerpt:
Smith: So when you're talking about this mission creep, do you think that this is just an example of the government just trying to grab power increasingly or do they seem to have some sort of position that they're creeping towards intentionally, if that makes sense, like some sort of policy or what?
Fang: Bureaucracies tend to be self-perpetuating. We see this in a number of areas. The military is certainly an example of this. It's difficult to wind down major military programs to cancel or roll back major military conflicts. Even with wars ending and conflicts ending and winding down in Iraq and Afghanistan, oversized military budgets seem to only grow and grow. There's no peace dividend when these conflicts end. And the same is the case with the Department of Homeland Security. This agency has grown and grown.
And even as the threat of Islamic terrorism from Al-Qaeda or ISIS has radically waned in recent years, has gone down, this agency needs to justify its existence. So it's searching for new threats, searching for new fears to tap into, and coming up with new justifications for this enlarged bureaucracy and variety of government contractors. It's shifting from protecting against overseas terror threats to focusing on social media censorship. And that seems like a radical progression, but it helps justify the duration and expansion of these agencies.
How was John Cleese able to generate so many creative scripts for the Monty Python Flying Circus? He worked longer hours, which required that he put up with more discomfort. That was his formula, which he discusses in this short video:
In 2020, Cleese wrote a wrote a short and cheerful guide to creativity called Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide.
Here are a few of my favorite ideas from his book:
Definition of creativity: "Wherever you can find a way of doing things that is better than what has been done before, you are being creative."
"Creativity is elusive like a dim star – sometimes you can’t see it until we look away."
"Creativity often come when you least expect it. For instance, while leeping or taking a walk. To be creative, you often need to work in silence."
Creativity comes quietly – often it only whispers at you.
I began to realise that my unconscious was working on stuff all the time without my being consciously aware of it.And that's the problem with the unconscious. It is unconscious. The language of the unconscious is not verbal. It’s like the language of dreams. It shows you images, it gives you feelings, it nudges you around without you immediately knowing what it’s getting at.
There were only two differences between the creative and the uncreative architects. Creative architects knew how to play.Creative architects always deferred making decisions for as long as they were allowed.
The greatest killer of creativity is interruption. It pulls your mind away from what you want to be thinking about.
Creativity may come from inside, as you suddenly remember something that you’ve forgotten to do, or worry that time is running out, or that you don’t think you’re clever enough to solve whatever problem it is that you’re trying to deal with. This can paralyse you.
It is, however, very important that when you first have a new idea, you don’t get critical too soon. New and “woolly” ideas shouldn’t be attacked by your logical brain until they’ve had time to grow, to become clearer and sturdier. New ideas are rather like small creatures. They’re easily strangled.
I'll close with two more quotes about creativity:
“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work." Chuck Close
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” Attributed to Pablo Picasso.
I completely agree with J.K. Rowling:
Recently, Elon Musk declared that "Cis" would be considered to be a slur on Twitter.
I oppose any censorship of the word "cis." Even if it is considered "hate speech," it would be protected by the First Amendment. FIRE explains:
There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment. So, many Americans wonder, "is hate speech legal?"Contrary to a common misconception, most expression one might identify as “hate speech” is protected by the First Amendment and cannot lawfully be censored, punished, or unduly burdened by the government — including public colleges and universities.
The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly rejected government attempts to prohibit or punish “hate speech.” Instead, the Court has come to identify within the First Amendment a broad guarantee of “freedom for the thought that we hate,” as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes described the concept in a 1929 dissent. In a 2011 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts described our national commitment to protecting “hate speech” in order to preserve a robust democratic dialogue:
Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here—inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.
In other words, the First Amendment recognizes that the government cannot regulate “hate speech” without inevitably silencing the dissent and dialogue that democracy requires. Instead, we as citizens possess the power to most effectively answer hateful speech—whether through debate, protest, questioning, laughter, silence, or simply walking away.
I want to see what other people are thinking, unvarnished, whether or not I approve of it, whether or not it is crude or wrongheaded. It gives me important information about that person.
"Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly."
Spencer W. KimballOne of my favorite Howard Zinn quotes:
