Iconoclast : ideas that have shaped the culture wars / Halloran Mark.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mark, Halloran, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (230 pages)

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : Academica Press, [2022]

Summary:

The culture wars are raging again. The term, which gained popular usage in the United States in the 1920s to describe the ideological divide between those with progressive versus conservative beliefs, now pits a coalition of conservatives and classical liberals against those who adhere to a far-left, postmodern ideology. Iconoclast: Ideas That Have Shaped the Culture Wars is an anthology of essays by, and interviews with, some of the world's most prominent public intellectuals on many of the social, cultural, philosophical, scientific, and political issues that have defined the culture wars of the last two decades. In an age of post-truth, the ideas expressed in this anthology will challenge many commonly held ideological beliefs. The modern culture wars are more than just a battle between the left and the right; they are a desperate struggle over which ideas are politically, socially, and morally acceptable - and who may express those ideas. It is a war over the definition of truth itself.

Contents:

Iconoclast: Ideas That Have Shaped The Culture Wars

Edited by Mark Halloran Ph.D.

Iconoclast: Ideas That Have Shaped The Culture Wars

Academica PressWashington~London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Halloran, Mark (author)

Title: Iconoclast : ideas that have shaped the culture wars | Halloran, Mark.

Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2022. | Includes references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022939776 | ISBN 9781680532661 (hardcover) | 9781680532678 (paperback) | 9781680532685 (e-book)

Copyright 2022 Mark Halloran

Iconoclasm:A Very Brief History of the Culture Wars vii

References xix

Mark Halloran

On COVID19 and Times of Plague 27

References 49

Based on an interview with Nicholas Christakis

Postmodernism and the Failure of Moral Triage 55

References 73

Based on an interview with Peter Boghossian

Me, She, He, They: Reality vs. Identity in the 21st Century 77

References 93

Heather Heying

On Free Speech Absolutismand the Deontological Pursuit of Truth 97

References 119

Based on an interview with Gad Saad

Let Us Prey: On Islamic Immigrationin Europe and Women's Rights 125

References 141

Based on an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

On DarkHorse, Ivermectin and Vaccine Hesitancy 143

References 158

Based on an interview with Eric Topol

Black Politicized Lives Matter 163

References 176

Heather Mac Donald

Making Evolutionary Sense of Sex and Gender 179

References 195

Jennifer A. Marshall Graves

Stories and Data: Reflections on Race, Riots, and Police 199

References 205

Coleman Hughes

In Defense of Free Speech 209

References 226

Based on an interview with James Flynn

Acknowledgments 229

Iconoclasm: A Very Brief History of the Culture Wars

References.

'Culture war' - even the term itself has historically been contentious and divisive. In America, it originated and gained popular usage in the 1920s, to describe the conflict between urban and rural America

between those who possessed liberal, progressive values and those who held to traditional, conservative beliefs.1 In the 1990s, the term was reintroduced into the cultural zeitgeist by University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter, with the publication of Culture Wars: The Struggle

~

This book contains many of the ideas that have shaped the culture wars of the last two decades. Iconoclast, as a title, may seem somewhat hyperbolic. I know that the term had been used in reference to the New Atheist writer

the late Christopher Hitchens,5 but perhaps it is best reserved for historical figures of the magnitude of Galileo. Regardless, this is a book about ideas and the conflicts that come with expressing those ideas. It is also a very brief history. So let us now examine, fleetin

In October 2015, sociologist and physician Nicholas Christakis and his wife Erica Christakis, who is a lecturer in early childhood studies, apologised for the hurt they had caused students and resigned from their positions as Co-Masters of Silliman College, Yale. This occurred due to student protests instigated by an email that Erica had sent to all Silliman students in regards to Halloween costumes. Erica's email was in response to an earlier email by Yale's Intercultural Affairs Committee whic.

In the aftermath, Nicholas Christakis decided to engage the students in a civil discussion. This resulted in 2-hour long debate where Christakis was surrounded by an angry crowd of protesting students, which was filmed from multiple angles, and subsequently became viral on social media.7 Christakis discussed the events on an episode of the then Waking Up podcast with Sam Harris titled Facing the Crowd.8 Harris commended Christakis for his patience and calmness in the face of truculence of the st

students in favour of the values of classical liberalism and human universality.

In Iconoclast I discuss with Christakis the importance of free enquiry to the mission of the university and his book Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live.9 We discuss the evidence for the lab leak hypothesis, the issues surrounding the racialization of the American healthcare system, and his idea that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests were not only a direct result of the murder of George Floyd and a history of racialized police violence in Americ

Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts and sciences college in Olympia, Washington which drew national attention in 2017. Evergreen had a tradition - the annual Day of Absence, which was based on the idea from a 1965 play of the same name by Douglas Ward Turner, whereby minority students and faculty would spend the day off campus to discuss campus issues and to highlight their contribution via their absence.10 Following the election of Donald Trump, Evergreen decided to reconceptualise.

There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles ... and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in itself.

Protest activists stated that students were angered by Weinstein's emails but this was not what triggered the protests.11 In May 2017 police apprehended two black students from their dorms at midnight due to a non-physical altercation in the cafeteria that day - the white student was not taken in for questioning. The protesters claim Weinstein came out of his classroom and confronted the students who were protesting this, agitating them, and when the police arrived they believed that Weinstein h

Weinstein and his wife, the evolutionary biologist Heather Heying, tell a different version of events.13,14 They tell the story of the new college president George Bridges, who, on taking the position, significantly increased administration and fostered an environment of radical political ideology. Bridge's consistent acquiescence to the extreme demands of student protestors created an environment where the protestors were embolden to take control of the campus. Film of Bridges essentially being

In Iconoclast Heying writes about non-binary identity and the reality of the pronoun 'they' in an essay that came about in response to an article written by Anne Fadiman for Harper's Magazine titled "All My Pronouns."16 Heying argues for the distinction between biological and sociological categories and that linguistic terms have to be tethered to the reality of humans being a sexually dimorphic species.

~.

On March 2, 2017, Charles Murray, a social scientist and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute was scheduled to give a talk at Middlebury college. Murray was the co-author, with the late Richard J. Hernstein, of the controversial New York Times bestseller The Bell Curve which was released in 1994

17 a book about the stratification of American society based on intelligence, which contained a chapter on race and IQ. A crowd of 400 protestors, predominantly students, filled the Wilson Hall in

Middlebury had become the latest flashpoint in the intensifying culture wars on college campuses. Major news outlets such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal condemned the actions of the protestors, and schools such as Middlebury gained a reputation as being intolerant of liberal values and essentially anti-intellectual safe spaces which were hostile to conservative thought.19 In the aftermath, Murray appeared on an episode of Sam Harris's podcast titled Forbidden Knowledge, where

Harris then entered into an email exchange and debate with Vox journalist Ezra Klein who, validly, criticised Harris for not having an in depth knowledge of intelligence research, and also accused him of engaging in a kind of 'anti-woke' identity politics in relation to his collusion with Murray during their interview.23 In debating Harris, Klein drew on the work of the late intelligence researcher James Flynn, whose work focussed on the environmental causes for racial differences in IQ.24 In my

Ayaan Hirsi Ali rose to prominence after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. Hirsi Ali had started working as a researcher for a think tank for the Dutch Labour Party, and the attacks served as the catalyst for her public criticisms and disavowal of her old faith. Two years later, Hirsi Ali was elected to the Dutch parliament for the centre-right party The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy.26 Then, on November 2, 2004 Hirsi Ali's friend and collaborator, the film maker The.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Mark, Halloran Iconoclast

ISBN:

9781680532685

1680532685