Phyllis Chesler has thoroughly fisked a ‘study’ in Britain’s formerly most prestigious medical journal.
She says it’s official: the Lancet is gonzo. Just like so many other multi-culti academic ‘standard bearers’, the rag is nothing more than biases tarted up as scientific work (lipstick on a pig and quite attractive if you like pigs).
In the study she examines [here is the abstract], “Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study,” the authors do admit that wife abuse is a problem among Palestinians. However, you can tell what’s coming just by looking at that title itself: we are in for an exercise in PoorPali™ political philosophy here. That oppressive feeling descends and you prepare yourself for the cold-blooded excoriation of the Jews which passes for an academic hypothesis and conclusion. The problem with these “post-colonial” treatises is that they arrive at the hypothesis with ready-made conclusions in hand. And the field is so contaminated by now that no one even demurs.
Conclusion: the Jews are to blame for everything that happens to the Palestinians. So what’s the hypothesis? Make stuff up, just like they do in global warming. Throw out what ever inconvenient facts don’t fit your pre-digested results.
Ms. Chesler gives her own proviso:
I believe that Arab and Muslim men, including Palestinian men, are indeed violent towards Arab and Muslim women. I also believe that war-related stress, including poverty, usually increases “intimate partner violence,” aka male domestic violence. But beyond that, how does one evaluate this study?
She then heaves the body onto the pathology table and performs the necessary autopsy by providing us with a list of fisking points:
– – – – – – – – –
- First, who funded this? Surprise, surprise! The Palestinian Authority and another group at the University of Minnesota. Read her post to see which entity actually collected the data. Hint: remember Jenin?
- Second, The study arrives pre-packaged with a political goal, i.e., that the barbaric Palestinian culture (including severe child abuse) is the fault of the JOOOS.
But of course! And where there are Islamic cultures which have managed to kill or expel all the Jews, why spousal serenity reigns. Women are cherished and loved. Children are treated with the necessary knowledge of their developmental abilities so that they grow up in optimal environments and become strong, compassionate adults. And while we’re at it, the Tooth Fairy loves each and every one of you without showing any favor at all. Everything is fair, too.
- Third, there are convenient omissions in this study because they interfere with the store-boughten conclusion. Facts are trimmed to fit into the carcass they’re dressing up. Thus, no mention of the peculiar violence against daughters and sisters in “occupied Palestine”. Honor killing? Say wha’? Read the post to get the full frontal assault of Phyllis’ account. I will admit I drove right by that part since I’ve become so sensitized to the barbarism and gore. I admire people like Ms. Chesler who can look pathology in the eye without flinching, but I cannot do that without reverting to a fetal position. However, what I can do is point you to the details. Ms. Chesler has them galore and gory. She has the pertinent links to back up the gore, too. I admire anyone who can wade into that and count the bodies. It takes a certain kind of spiritual stamina to look at the results of depravity without flinching. It is a resilience I don’t possess.
- Moving on to Four (whew), Phyllis notes the researchers’ failures to “factor in the rôle of Hamas and what this terrorist group has done to harm the present and the future of women in their grasp. Ms. Chesler describes the fate of the “previously modern” PoorPali women who are now lured into becoming suicide killers. Again, she has the links to back up the stories of these unfortunate souls.
- Five. For reasons known only to themselves and their funders, there are no comparisons with a large cohort of women near by. In other words, there is no mention of the statistics of spousal abuse among Jewish women. Or among Jewish men, for that matter. Just sayin’…
- Six – and probably the fundamental reason here: British academia and journalism is in a sad state of active anti-Jewish propaganda. As Phyllis puts it:
Countless British journalists have done precisely what this study has attempted to do: Blame it all on Israel.
She gives a number of examples of their turpitude and she names names and gives the details of their dereliction. Read her quotes from journalist Jan Godwin, who has it all figured out, even as she contradicts herself by showing the absolute power of Saudi males. Ain’t no JOOOS in Saudi Arabia to blame:
Saudi Arabia has not been “settled,” “colonized,” or “humiliated,” by Israelis. Jordan has not been “settled,” “colonized,” “occupied,” or “humiliated” by Israel. And yet, Jordan has a high rate of honor killing.
Egypt is not colonized by Israel, and yet serious violence against women is common there. This includes female genital mutilation, wife-beating, daughter-beating, forced marriages-and, with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the forced veiling of previously modern women.
Well, heavens to Betsy. This is obviously a plot by those clever JOOOS. Mossad is behind the whole thing, sneaking in and putting something in the water.
After providing much more information about the bad “science” in the Lancet study, Ms. Chesler concludes;
I am challenging the “politics” of both this study and of Lancet, whose aim is to scapegoat Israel for the barbarism and misogyny which is indigenous to Arab and Muslim culture, even more so, when jihad and terrorism dominate the world.
Again, Ms. Chelser provides us with the raison d’etre for the existence of the Counter Jihad. The smarter-than-thou multi-cultis will be all over this report like brown on chocolate. In fact, they’ll eat it up, chewing on the satisfying “evidence” of the Evil Entity.
An old, old meme, but it always makes for a good meal to any hungry Leftie. They never tire of the same limited menu, it’s all ambrosia to them when the packet reads “PoorPalis™, Blame it on the JOOOS”. This is the ultimate fast food for the mind: open packet, pour into bowl, mix well and chow down. It’s been pre-cooked and pre-digested for your intellectual convenience.
Good baby food, maybe, even if an adult couldn’t survive on it.
That’s why it was so important to have global warming up and running and NOT-discredited. Now that we can no longer blame everything on the weather, it’s back to the Jews.
I once asked my Talmud learning partner about this kind of problem (anti Semitism and the war against Israel). He said it is a waste of time to discuss it because people are born with natural prejudice. Some people will be on the side of Jews no matter what they see on the contrary and other will be against Jews no matter what evidence there is to the contrary. Later I discovered that this true in general that people form opinions and even deep rooted beliefs not based on reason but many other factors like groups association perceived benefit etc.
I (to some degree) decided from that that peace will come to mankind when people decide to start basing their beliefs on reason. However I know that reason is not a basis for values. So at least I can say that people ought to form their beliefs on what does not contradict reason and evidence.
I decided that this is what Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas were basically getting at..
It takes a certain kind of spiritual stamina to look at the results of depravity without flinching.
I no longer flinch, I twitch. At least my fingers start twitching at the keyboard and I write even more articles about counter-jihad.
Let’s face it, if the Jews really were so all powerful, the word “Muslim” would be an archaic term found in historical texts about extinct cultures. Followed shortly thereafter by the term, “Palestinian”.
Most ironic of all is how the Muslims themselves play into this idiocy by demanding that Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one single Jewish soldier. Ergo, one Jew is worth hundreds of Muslims. The common fighting death toll ratio of between ten and one hundred Palestinians per Jewish soldier should be enough to give anyone pause … but noooooooooo!
The global community has poured untold billions worth of aid into the Palestinian Terrortories. What the Palestinians have to show for that tremendous influx of wealth should be enough to give anyone a near-terminal inferiority complex. Top that off with repeated @ss-whuppings at the hands of tiny Israel’s military and the typical Palestinian male is not just humiliated or emasculated but unmasked for the incompetent and impotent moron that he acts like on every imaginable occasion.
no one: However I know that reason is not a basis for values.
Horseradish! Reason is more than capable of providing values with which one can live by. Simple logic predicts that productivity outweighs the lack thereof at all times. Similarly, right conduct is far more likely to attract those who engage in similar practices than bad behavior. I strongly urge you the read “Philosophy Who Needs It, by Ayn Rand. Rationality and reason are some of the most powerful tools in the human intellect’s arsenal. You do reason a great disservice by disconnecting it from the determination of values.
No one: I see you have a Calabi–Yau manifold illustration on your profile. Are you into superstring theory? I’m preparing an essay on cosmology and have read a little about it. Fascinating stuff, but difficult.
For some reason, anything related to Jews automatically becomes politicized. Conservative Swede has this theory that the West is split into two camps: The philo-Semites and the anti-Semites. Ironically, both camps inflate the influence of Jews. If you talk about, say, the Czechs, you can do this rationally and without being charged with philo-Czechism or anti-Czechism, but for some reason this is very hard when it comes to Jews. I don’t have any problem with treating them just like any other group, but I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people do.
Zenster
I believe values are a priori–i.e. they are known. Yet they are not known by observation. And they can’t be inferred by observation.
There is no process of reason that they can be derived. So they are not known by reason. Morals are a priori.
But I thank you for pointing out the need to clarify what I meant. And frankly I kind of forgot the whole process of reason (pun intended) I used to get to that point anyway.
And I thank you for the suggestion to read Ann Rand. I always found her an inspiration but in terms of hard core philosophical principles I began to think that I was better for me to learn from earlier philosophers.
Dear Fjordman,
I am sad to admit I am not a physicist. My only sad history with string theory was I spent a few months with a fellow from Russia that had a unified field theory. (I wrote a whole bunch of notes on his theory) it actually was quite elegant (as they all are). My wake up call was one day I heard about some supernova someplace and later I saw that the Fermi satellite had picked it up. At that point I knew it was just a matter of time until someone evaluated the data to see if there is Lorenz invariance. Well the data is in and all unified field theories are wrong. So at that point I started looking for alternatives and string theory looked like the best option. But that is just me this poor ignorant layman
@no one
…the suggestion to read Ann Rand. I always found her an inspiration but in terms of hard core philosophical principles I began to think that I was better for me to learn from earlier philosophers.
I concur. Rand certainly has her followers, but for “hard core” philosophical priniciples, start at the pre-Socratics and work your way forward. I have lots of gaps, but have always enjoyed filling them in.
BTW, I do not think reason will ever be a basis for the first formation of values or philosophical reasoning. We’d like to think so, because we think our rational faculties will keep us from the sloughs of depravity and all the ills attending.
I agree with Pascal: the heart has its reasons that Reason knows not of. No one proved that adage more than did Rand herself in the way she lived her life: often emotionally messy and less than honorable when it came to affairs of the heart.
Reason and Feeling must needs be congruent, meshing together in a life lived wholly, not piecemeal. Otherwise one ends up with the right hand in ignorance of what the left hand is doing.
Thanks for your input here.
And just tonight I watched a video on Global Post where the Jews were blamed for Palestinians in Gaza using steroids. Wow.
Oh boy! I just read this on the comments:
“no one: However I know that reason is not a basis for values.
Horseradish! Reason is more than capable of providing values with which one can live by.”
… and prior to read all the rest, I have to say that I do agree with No One. You see, undoubtedly there is a great school of great teachers that can reason that reasoning and vallues can and are related.
However, people often find reason and vallues in contradiction. Think about massive immigration of Third Worlders: Should we help them and perish (vallue and little reason) or should we persecute them and thrive (supression of some vallues in order to use reasoning in a very cold way).
I’ve been thinking about this. Anyone who sees people … like, liberal whites in big cities – for an american public – as not necessarily lesser or degrading human beings… any one who sees them as “potentially… compatible” whith ones person will, at some time understand that reason and vallue do not always walk holding hands.
Two nights ago, talking to friends, I lectured one about how his behaviour was not moral (meaning its not a good costume), lectured another about how her behaviour was not ethical (was against some principles and vallues) and then I turned to another and told her, moronically, that she was a fun person and although she was not evil, I told her that she lacked “etheral vallues”.
In my boring lecturing ethereal vallues are the vallues which are inherent to us, that come from us as independent persons and are not dependent of anything else, be it society, family, religion, education, you name it. (An ethereal vallue to Churchill would be never to surrender to evil, what was ethical to him was to be against Communism and what was moral was to be polite, can you understand what I’m saying?)
Anyway, none of this persnons lacked reasoning. And the one who reasons more easily is also the one who lacks those ethereal vallues in my opinion. Reason and vallue are often two words apart.
Ex: When I was six, I was being harassed by bullies 3 years older. And I was saved by some combative boys my age who were dumb, but had some vallues. In fact, I was not great friend of them and I kind of despised them.
Sorry for this slightly(?) off topic remarks about the relation between vallues and reason but I find it fascinating, and I am stupid enough to lose my time and hours of sleep thinking about it.
What I want to say is that those reasons diverge with ethnic groups!
In Europe: Most Europeans South of the Pyrinees and the Alps, and in the Balkans, are more incline to have vallues first, and reason second. I’ve noticed that people from North of some imaginary line from Strasburg ~ Frankfurt are more prone to reason and have vallues second. The more balanced Europeans are those of the Central Europe (I’m basing this on the Basques, French and two Swiss I’ve met).
Eastern Europeans know no vallues. Well, they do, strongly. But in a crisis they’ll always lose them: reasoning always wins. And sometimes, not even reason wins, but the vallues do not win as well.
East Asians and Indians are the more perfect, especially East Asians. Those I’ve met are high on vallues and high on reasoning. However I feel they tend to “Westernise” and thus abandon reason or vallues at some time. The Indians I’ve met are not representative of the Indian population, they’re better. But, and although they tend to be deranged leftists (in this culture) you can still notice that they have deep “ethereal vallues”. Although these Indians may be prone to reason, it’s still far from the reasoning ability of the average European which in turn is far from that of the average (North)East Asian.
Africans try, but can’t reason. The few who do, have an enormous advantage over the others. Contrasting with the Africans are the Jews, they have no vallues. And the ones who have always end up victims of Anti-Semitism.
Americans:
I know few North Americans (2) but they look like Eastern Europeans. I just think they have a good facade of strong vallues but are always looking for ways to profit from the use of reason, even if they’ll have to kill some vallues. North Americans will defend their vallues fiercely while forgeting them if they can profit through reason only.
Latin Americans are like North Americans with one fifth of the reasoning power.
And I think I mannaged to insult everybody by now. Seriously, give this vallues vs reason a thought.
the poor palestinians. Maybe you read this in august ?
“Palestinian Arabs are highly literate, richer and healthier than people in most other Arab countries, thanks to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the blackmail payments of Western as well as Arab governments. As refugees, they live longer and better than their counterparts in adjacent Arab countries. It is not surprising that they do not want to be absorbed into other Arab countries and cease to be refugees.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KH18Ak01.html
Palestine problem hopeless, but not seriousBy Spengler
Steen–
There is no one quite like Spengler/Goldman.
I am slowly — too slowly — doing a post for someone who asked for a reading list.
Spengler in both his incarnations is on it. BTW, you might like his “Sacred Music, Sacred Time” in last month’s First Things magazine. No one quite like him.
thank you Afonso Henriques!!Someone agrees with me!
I cannot speak to the “Palestinians” other than to say that they have become the reverse scapegoat of the world who can do no wrong even when they always do whereas Israel and Jews in general are the eternal scapegoat who are always seen as in the wrong.
I also cannot really speak of cosmology as I am not trained in it but I do have an interest in it and related fields. Einstein believed the universe infinite but with boundaries; a thought experiment to approximate this is to hold a crumpled ball of plastic wrap against the starry night sky and peer through it. Imagine the ball infinitely large but with boundaries. The plastic wrap is the ‘mussing’ dark matter, wormholes are the invisible channels formed by the crumpled plastic, the very bending of space and time can be visualized. I must stop as this is not a physics blog though it is an erudite one.
no one said: I believe values are a priori–i.e. they are known. Yet they are not known by observation. And they can’t be inferred by observation.
There is no process of reason [by which] that they can be derived. So they are not known by reason. Morals are a priori.
You seem to be saying that “values” sprang full grown out of human consciousness like Athena from the head of Zeus.
As to values not being able to be observed: Values are expressed through human conduct. Simply put, criminality expresses a disregard for constructive human values or “morals” whereas cohesive behavior demonstrates appropriate respect for life and individual productivity or property.
The relative worth of values is discernable through the trial and error of individual actions. In pre-historic times abject criminality was frequently punished by group discipline or some form of death penalty. Albeit, some “bullies” literally became group leaders but truly antisocial behavior could not possibly unite a group in any high functioning form. Marauders, pirates and raiders were the best approximation of this mentality and we see its overall dysfunctionality in the modern form of Islam.
Values were derived through human observation and refined via repeated application by those who tested their validity in group circumstances.
That said, the “a priori” nature of values might be of a similar sort to that of mathematics in general and numerals in particular.
There are many mathematicians who argue that numerical values and operations exist independent of human recognition and “came into being” solely by way of human perception of already extant “entities” and not through “strict” invention.
In that respect I might tend to agree in that Love, Compassion, Ethics, Morals and Values and other critical concepts vital to productive interaction may well exist in a similar manner as mathematical components. However, their realization and eventual application still required both observation plus trial and error in order that they could eventually be discerned as the “values” and “morals” we currently label them as.
There simply is no way to credibly explain how such relatively sophisticated and essential concepts could suddenly spring into conscious perception. Especially so if one accepts that there was any evolution of human consciousness, as the historical record seems to indicate.
To assert that humans, somehow, instantaneously realized or comprehended the notion of “values” and “morals” is akin to saying that, somewhere back in time, a tree-climbing ape suddenly said to himself: “I’m hungry, I think I’ll start walking upright on the ground, knap a flint, stab and gut some lower mammilian life form then roast it over the material I’m about to ignite with these handy wooden implements.”
It just doesn’t work and presumes some sort of supernatural intervention which is not indicated by the geological or archaeological record.