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Communication, Christianity, and Climate Change
Get PDFDespite the scientifically established threats of climate change, there remains a segment of the U.S. population that is skeptical of the scientific consensus on climate change. Many scholars view the Christian community and its ties to conservative ideologies, as an obstacle to environmental action. Rather than thinking of Christians or climate skeptics as single unified groups, it is essential to recognize variations in interpretations that foster different environmental conclusions. By analyzing the complexity Christian environmentalism, we can better tailor our communication strategies to engage in ethical and productive ways. About the speaker: Emma Frances Bloomfield (PhD, University of Southern California) is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is a rhetorician who studies environmental communication and scientific controversies. Her book, Communication Strategies for Climate Skepticism: Religion and the Environment (2019) was published in Routledge’s Advances in Climate Change Research series
Cura Personalis
Get PDFGo beyond the buzzwords! Living the Lingo is a new series that explores key concepts related to mission. These interactive 50-minute Zoom sessions include background on the topic and a Gonzaga colleague who is committed to embodying this term.
In this session, we explore the term “Cura Personalis” with special guest Jonathan Rossing, Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences
Why Hate Speech Laws: An Expressive Defense
No full textHate speech laws are controversial. First Amendment jurisprudence is notorious for rejecting such laws, and First Amendment scholars like Nadine Strossen or Edwin Baker argue that hate speech legislation is ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. Yet, this scholarship overlooks the expressive function of hate speech legislation, which many identify as the essential value of such legislation. For example, in jurisdictions like Canada, France, or Belgium that have hate speech laws, courts, legislators and scholars indicate that this expressive value is what interests them in hate speech legislation.
Some scholars hint at the idea that hate speech laws have an expressive value, yet they have failed to present a full-fledged expressive argument for hate speech laws – leaving the expressive defense vulnerable to criticism. Therefore, this paper aims to present the first elaborate expressive argument for hate speech laws. I draw on existing expressive theories of law, yet I apply these theories to the context of hate speech legislation and elaborate on these theories by presenting a uniquely consequentialist expressive theory of law that considers the effects of legislation both in the value and in the determination of legislative expression.
In essence, I argue that, by expressing societal disapproval of hate speech, hate speech legislation strengthens counter-speech, and as such helps to correct the speech inequality between hate speakers and counter-speakers in a way that alternative measures such as counter-speech or private regulation cannot
Vigilantism and Hate Motivated Mob Lynching Cases in India
Get PDFVigilantism is not a new concept; it is a reflection of the platitude and failure of the state in which state always blames their own people for taking law into their hands, and by citizens, who justify their measures on state inactiveness. Vigilantism defines as “the act of taking the law into one’s own hands and attempting to enact justice according to one’s own understanding of right and wrong”. Incidents of mob lynching are encouraged within the atmosphere of hate, rumors and distrust created through continued propaganda. There are several incidents on murder, attempt to murder, harassment, assault, gang-rape etc. were reported in India, in which violent mob attacked individuals who belong to minority or marginalised section. In response to these incidents both media and state either remain silent or support the voice of vigilant act. To analyse the reason behind the hate motivated mob lynching cases in India this paper has gone through the last 10 years of mob lynching cases through content analysis method. The finding of this study highlights that political motivated hate speech and inactive role of society is the main reason of growing mob lynching cases in India. This paper has used Kant’s ‘theory of punishment’ to disclose the silent role of media and state on mob lynching as well as Wilson and Kelling’s ‘broken window theory’ why society is playing silent role
Ethno-Political Tribalism as a Cause Factor of Inequality and Hate (Case of the Central Asian Countries)
Get PDFThe causes of conflicts that occur in different countries of the world are often indicated by the human instinct of tribalism. The article is devoted to the study, analysis and search for ways to solve the problems of ethnopolitical tribalism.
The main features of a tribal society are tribal strife, hostility towards other sub-ethnic groups. The ethno-political tribalism that often forms in such a society is one of the most dangerous phenomena, since the representatives of the dominant tribe who have seized power use the power of power to suppress competing tribes. As a result, instead of forming a national identity and civil society, social inequality, corruption, and tribal hatred begin to grow in the country. Often this is accompanied by bloody civil conflicts within the country.
Central Asia, encompassing the former USSR countries Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, is a typical region with ethnopolitical tribalism. In each of them there were cases of bloody suppression of protests, and in some there was a civil war. As a rule, they have regional economic inequality, when regions become colonies of the central region. In most of them, the rulers rule for decades.
The article examines the ongoing attempts to regulate tribalism in these countries, which in reality turn into political tools to combat dissent.
The article considers the search for ways to solve the problem of ethnopolitical tribalism.
In essence, such a search comes down to finding ways to build a democratic state based on equality, fair elections, the formation of a civil society and the elimination of the risks of seizing power by one of the tribes (ethnic groups, sub-ethnos)
Genocide Denial as Hate Speech - Through the Case Study of Banning Holocaust Denial Online
No full textThrough years of advocacy, Holocaust denial was finally denounced from major internet platforms, and it\u27s spread banned from powerful social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok. This decision followed research into the connection between Holocaust denial and distortion and hate speech and successfully showed that the spread of Holocaust denial and distortion was clearly meant to spread hate against Jews and other victim societies.
From a practitioner’s perspective involved in the work that led to these decisions, as well as research following-up on the implementation and enforcement of such policies, the presenter will discuss the importance of positioning Holocaust denial specifically and genocide denial more broadly under the hate speech umbrella and how to advocate for additional venues to remove such content online
The Precarious Position of Denialism Regulations in Domestic and International Law
No full textDenialism regulations have a precarious position in the wider body of domestic and international hate speech laws—politically, normatively, doctrinally, and conceptually. This paper seeks to understand the nature and causes of that precarious position, both current and historic. At the domestic level, denialism regulations have developed in a piecemeal way and exhibit significant variety. The paper argues that these features are best explained by the fact that denialism regulations serve a plurality of different functions and purposes including but not limited to preventing the stirring up of hatred.
Due to the diversity of functions and purposes, it should come as no surprise that domestic denialism regulations are neither ubiquitous nor uniform in nature. At the international level, the spike in the enactment of domestic regulations against Holocaust denial in Europe during the 1990s, for example, stands in marked contrast to the absence of provisions dedicated to combating the problem of Holocaust denial in the early landmark international laws dealing with incitement to genocide and hate speech in general, during the period from the end of World War II through to the late 1990s. The International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), for example, was a keystone international law against hate speech both because it is now widely recognised as such by judges and legal scholars alike and because it was given precisely this status by Mari Matsuda in her seminal article on the legal concept hate speech. And yet the issue of denialism is addressed in neither the ICERD itself nor in the travaux préparatoires, suggesting it was simply not on the radar. The situation has changed considerably since the late 1990s, of course, and denialism provisions are now a fixture of international law. But this still begs the question of whether denialist speech can be aptly classified as hate speech, conceptually, normatively, and legally speaking, when some of the landmark international instruments on hate speech seem to suggest otherwise.
The paper puts forward and critically evaluates several potential reasons for the absence of denialism provisions from the landmark international instruments on hate speech. Finally, it argues that the most plausible reasons for the absence in no way preclude denialist speech from being classified as a sui generis form of hate speech in international law
Formers Lecture Circuit and Community Dissent: A Case Study of Ex-Neo-Nazi Platforming
No full textThis roundtable offers a case study of the phenomenon of former white nationalists (“formers”) marketing themselves for speaking events, especially at higher education institutions. It brings together faculty, students, community members, and local activists/organizers who worked to block a “former” from speaking at Eastern Washington University (EWU) in spring, and then again in fall, of 2022. It offers a current, concrete example of the ways “formers” market themselves, are able to gain strategic support from certain communities or organizations. In these platforming efforts we see the wielding of free speech discourse, empathy/second-chance rhetorics, the fostering of victim-blaming, and often misleading or obscuring information about the formers, including their motivations and organizational ties. Members of this roundtable talk about how they organized to challenge this event and think collectively about how we all can address these threats in the future. Using the proposed EWU event as an example, we examine how these events center the perpetrators of hate/violence, rather than victims/survivors, thereby perpetuating the very thing they are purportedly opposing, white supremacy. We found at the local level that an event was organized with a lack of transparency and that fascination with stories of redemption may have led to ignoring concerns raised by multiple organizations in the process, including BIPOC-led community groups, student groups, and campus programs.We consider the following questions: how do we effectively communicate our opposition across different constituencies; how do we convince university leadership to take these potential harms seriously; how do we work more collaboratively and effectively; how do we insure that students are educated and how do we sustain institutional knowledge about these struggles; how do we share information, strategies, and resources with other universities/communities facing these events; how do we keep each other safe in this organizing
Progressive Approaches to Fighting Antisemitism Burley/Portland
No full textBased on the extensive archival research, original reporting, and over 150 interviews, our workshop is intended to take the lessons derived from progressive and antiracist approaches to community organizing and to apply them to antisemitism. Building on intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, Critical Theory, and other interdisciplinary interventions, our workshop attempts to develop a unique approach to the question of antisemitism that situates that struggle within larger movements opposing white supremacy, Christian dominance, and the legacies of settler colonialism. This workshop synthesizes the thesis and strategies that coalesced in an upcoming book for Melville House, which proposes a pathway for confronting antisemitism from within progressive social movements
Encountering Our Common Humanity Through Many Arts
No full textRev. Gen Heywood offers an overview of how the Faith Leaders and Leaders of Conscience of Eastern Washington and North Idaho have experimented with using visual arts, storytelling, vigils, and solidarity to raise up our common humanity in an environment of hostility from Christian Dominionist and white supremacists.
This presentation includes The story of developing an interfaith and non-faith coalition to respond thoughtfully and quickly to racism, poverty, violence, and ecological devastation. An overview of how the three core principles, 1. Show up 2. Risk failure to gain success and 3. It doesn’t matter who gets the credit – just get the job done, have been experienced. Insight into plans developing through learning from other countries about the use of the arts in public spaces to own the crimes of our national and local past.
Eastern Washington and North Idaho’s past and present history offers a unique setting to experiment with addressing the wrongs of our distant and recent past. Faith Leaders and Leaders of Conscience have built relationships with people of differing faiths and community organizations that seek to overcome racism, poverty, violence, and ecological devastation. People of faith and non-faith organizations working together can raise the conscience of our leaders and neighbors. The use of the arts uniquely raises our common humanity and helps develop ways to heal the divisions in our communities and potentially across the world