> Suzana wrote:

>> chazwin wrote:

>>> Thought this article might be of interest.
>>>
>>> http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/worst_ideas_4228.jsp
>>>
>>>
>>> A 2007 warning: the world's twelve worst ideas
>>> Fred Halliday
>>> 8 - 1 - 2007
>>>
>>> The world is full of conformism masquerading as profundity, says Fred
>>> Halliday, who explodes twelve global falsehoods.
>>>
>>> In identifying error, two great models at either end of modern times
>>> exist. The first is part thirty-nine of Francis Bacon's Novum Organon
>>> (1620), with its four categories of idol: those of the cave (of
>>> individual men), the tribe (human nature), the marketplace (intercourse
>>> of men with each other) and the theatre (philosophical dogma). The
>>> second is Francis Wheen's How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short
>>> History of Modern Delusions (2004).
>>>
>>> Some errors are products of the unchallenged, the routine, the
>>> conventional. Some are new, products of fashion, of novelty, even of
>>> globalisation. Everyone has his or her own selection, born of
>>> profession, personality, place. The list could be a long one but, like
>>> Christ and his disciples, twelve seems a comfortable figure, at once
>>> extensive and compact. Here, for 2007, is one suggested list, in
>>> ascending order:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number twelve: Human behaviour can be predicted
>>>
>>> In the name of a supposedly "scientific" criterion of knowledge,
>>> scholars are berated for not predicting the end of the cold war, the
>>> rise of Islam, 9/11 and much else besides. Yet many natural sciences
>>> - seismology, evolutionary biology - cannot predict with accuracy
>>> either. Human affairs themselves, even leaving aside the matter of
>>> human intention and will, allow of too many variables for such
>>> calculation. We will never be able to predict with certainty the
>>> outcome of a sports contest, the incidence of revolutions, the duration
>>> of passion or how long an individual will live.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number eleven: The world is speeding up
>>>
>>> This, a favourite trope of globalisation theorists, confuses
>>> acceleration in some areas, such as the transmission of knowledge, with
>>> the fact that large areas of human life continue to demand the same
>>> time as before: to conceive and bear a child, to learn a language, to
>>> grow up, to digest a meal, to enjoy a joke, to read a poem. It takes
>>> the same time to fly from London to New York as it did forty years ago,
>>> ditto to boil an egg or publish a book. Some activities - such as or
>>> driving around major western cities, getting through an airport, or
>>> dying - may take much longer.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number ten: We have no need for history
>>>
>>> In recent decades, large areas of intellectual and academic life -
>>> political thought and analysis, economics, philosophy - have jettisoned
>>> a concern with history. Yet it remains true that those who ignore
>>> history repeat it; as the recycling of unacknowledged cold-war premises
>>> by the Bush administration in Iraq has devastatingly shown.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number nine: We live in a "post-feminist" epoch
>>>
>>> The implication of this claim, supposedly analogous to such terms as
>>> "post-industrial", is that we have no more need for feminism, in
>>> politics, law, everyday life, because the major goals of that movement,
>>> articulated in the 1970s and 1980s, have been achieved. On all counts,
>>> this is a false claim: the "post-feminist" label serves not to register
>>> achievement of reforming goals, but the delegitimation of those goals
>>> themselves.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number eight: Markets are a "natural" phenomenon which allow for the
>>> efficient allocation of resources and preferences
>>>
>>> Markets are not "natural" but are the product of particular societies,
>>> value systems and patterns of state relation to the economy. They are
>>> not efficient allocators of goods, since they ignore the large area of
>>> human activity and need that is not covered by monetary values - from
>>> education and the provision of public works, to human happiness and
>>> fulfillment. In any case the pure market is a fantasy; the examples of
>>> the two most traded commodities in the contemporary world, oil and
>>> drugs, show how political, social and cartel factors override and
>>> distort the workings of supply and demand.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number seven: Religion should again be allowed, when not encouraged, to
>>> play a role in political and social life
>>>

>>>>From the evangelicals of the United States, to the followers of Popes

>>> John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to the Islamists of the middle east, the
>>> claim about the benefits of religion is one of the great, and all too
>>> little challenged, impostures of our time. For centuries, those
>>> aspiring to freedom and democracy, be it in Europe or the middle east,
>>> fought to push back the influence of religion on public life.
>>> Secularism cannot guarantee freedom, but, against the claims of
>>> tradition and superstition, and the uses to which religion is put in
>>> modern political life, from California to Kuwait, it is an essential
>>> bulwark.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number six: In the modern world, we do not need utopias
>>>
>>> Dreaming, the aspiration to a better world and the imagination thereof,
>>> is a necessary part of the human condition.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number five: We should welcome the spread of English as a world
>>> language
>>>
>>> It is obviously of practical benefit that there is one common,
>>> functional, language of trade, air traffic control etc, but the actual
>>> domination of English in today's world has been accompanied by a tide
>>> of cultural arrogance that is itself debasing: a downgrading and
>>> neglect of other languages and cultures across the world, the general
>>> compounding of Anglo-Saxon political and social arrogance, and the
>>> introverted collapse of interest within English-speaking countries
>>> themselves in other peoples and languages, in sum, a triumph of
>>> banality over diversity. One small but universal example: the
>>> imposition on hotel staff across the world, with all its wonderful
>>> diversity of nomenclature, of name tags denoting the bearer as "Mike",
>>> "Johnny" and "Steve".
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number four: The world is divided into incomparable moral blocs, or
>>> civilisations
>>>
>>> This view has been aptly termed (by Ernest Gellner) as "liberalism for
>>> the liberals, cannibalism for the cannibals". But a set of common
>>> values is indeed shared across the world: from democracy and human
>>> rights to the defence of national sovereignty and belief in the
>>> benefits of economic development. The implantation of these values is
>>> disputed, in all countries, but not the values themselves. Most states
>>> in the world, whatever their cultural or religious character, have
>>> signed the universalist United Nations declarations on human rights,
>>> starting with the 1948 universal declaration.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number three: Diasporas have a legitimate role to play in national and
>>> international politics
>>>
>>> The notion that emigrant or diaspora communities have a special insight
>>> into the problems of their homeland, or a special moral or political
>>> status in regard to them, is wholly unfounded. Emigrant ethnic
>>> communities play almost always a negative, backward, at once hysterical
>>> and obstructive, role in resolving the conflicts of their countries of
>>> origin: Armenians and Turks, Jews and Arabs, various strands of Irish,
>>> are prime examples on the inter-ethnic front, as are exiles in the
>>> United States in regard to resolving the problems of Cuba, or
>>> policymaking on Iran. English emigrants are less noted for any such
>>> political role, though their spasms of collective inebriation and
>>> conformist ghettoised lifestyles abroad do little to enhance the
>>> reputation of their home country.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number two: The only thing "they" understand is force
>>>
>>> This has been the guiding illusion of hegemonic and colonial thinking
>>> for several centuries. Oppressed peoples do not accept the imposition
>>> of solutions by force: they revolt. It is the oppressors who, in the
>>> end, have to accept the verdict of force, as European empires did in
>>> Latin America, Africa and Asia and as the United States is doing in
>>> Iraq today. The hubris of "mission accomplished" in May 2003 has been
>>> followed by ignominy.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Number one: The world's population problems, and the spread of Aids,
>>> can be solved without the use of condoms
>>>
>>> This is not only the most dangerous, but also the most criminal, error
>>> of the modern world. Millions of people will suffer, and die premature
>>> and humiliating deaths, as a result of the policies pursued in this
>>> regard through the United Nations and related aid and public-health
>>> programmes. Indeed, there is no need to ask where the first mass
>>> murderers of the 21st century are; we already know, and their addresses
>>> besides: the Lateran Palace, Vatican City, Rome, and 1600 Pennsylvania
>>> Avenue, Washington DC. Timely arrest and indictment would save many
>>> lives.
>>>
>>> http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/worst_ideas_4228.jsp

>>
>> Hi Chazwin,
>>
>> I agree with your article. Would like to add one more to the list.
>>
>> Global warming is 'natural' phenomena and therefore we can't stop it.
>>
>> Global warming is direct consequence of industrial era which exhausted
>> too many resources on the planet crucial to maintaining
>> fauna and flora ie balance on the planet. Scientists from all over the
>> world acknowledge this and are asking for quick and decisive action
>> against pollution and destruction of our natural environment. They all
>> agree it is not too late to prevent global warming from happening if
>> *everyone* takes decisive action. Result in not complying with Kyoto
>> protocol will be devastating. Increase of temperature will increase
>> ocean level, increase bacterial and viral outbreaks cause global famine
>> and surely would increase erratic climate devastation as evident by
>> the last year natural disasters.
>>
>> Suzana

>
> Indeed - I wonder if history will write the legacy of Bush as the man
> who rejected Kyoto? Or will it concentrate on his role as a war
> criminal? America is the main polluter and needs to take responsibility
> for that.