Welcome to the modern dark age

It’s not cynical nor exaggerated, but unfortunately the harsh reality of our society. We live in an era that the political correctness and the virtue of not offending anybody whatsoever, are pushing the limits to a level in which one can hardly suggest a topic, let alone speaking about it, without offending a social group and be labeled as male-chauvinist, racist, anti-Semite or even fascist. To a point that the only creature on this planet that can be safely criticized or making fun of, is a typical “white straight male”!

There’s no doubt about the fact that worthy achievements obtained by the feminism, anti-racism, anti-Semitism or all other humanistic movements, founded to bring justice to those discriminated against, should be guarded but do we have to go so far to suppress any controversial idea, that might opens up a whole new set of thinking but is somehow offensive to someone?! Isn’t it a new form of fascism to oblige people to a brutal self-censorship and label them if they think otherwise or moreover put them on trials just for expressing their rather anti-conformist views?!

What’s becoming of us? Freedom of speech, remember that?!

I can hardly name anybody who has more appreciation for women than I have, but I just want to throw up when I see Lawrence Summer, the president of Harvard university is being forced to resign, because he suggested that the difference in performance in math and science between male and female students might be due to their biological differences in their brain structure!
If an academician can not express an idea, however stupid, backward or controversial the idea might sound, in an academic environment, who can express it and where?

Now, don’t get me wrong. If someone in charge wants to use an unproven theory in order to discriminate against anyone of a particular race, gender or sexual orientation, I would be the first to scream against it, but shouldn’t people be allowed to suggest something, at least as a subject of discussion or scientific investigation? If an idea is not controversial, moving or shocking what is it good for?!

Considering the fact that, most of the values we cherished nowadays as undeniable rights of human beings, like the gender and race equality, someday not very long ago, were considered offensive or even blasphemous and those who dared to bring up those questions were forced to pay huge consequences which sometimes, like the case of Giordano Bruno , was as costly as being burned at the stake. So what makes us think that we have reached to the end of world, that everything we know is complete, unquestionable and undeniable and nobody has the right to even pose a new question anymore?

As much as I respect Jewish people and their culture, and as much as I genuinely believe that the Holocaust is a horrendous historical fact, I can not digest that in a modern European country, they actually put someone in jail, only because he has expressed his ideas or published his research, denying a historical fact! I really think that David Irving is wrong and there’re serious doubts about his references, but what happened to our old method of sitting down and talk about stuff? What happened to the tradition of presenting counter argument against a false or weak analogy? What about writing a critic about a book, a research paper or a movie instead of shouting and screaming and labeling? Since when we decided, discussion and reasoning are obsolete and we should return to the good old fashioned inquisition?

The circle of unspeakable is getting tighter by the days. They’re feminists in France, who’re fighting for introducing the word “La professeur” to the vocabulary (the word professor in French is only used as a masculine form, even for women.), or removing the word “Mademoiselle” from the vocabulary, cause they believe it‘s offensive and it degrades women. Give me a break! You know what degrades women?! A huge number of women around the world are illiterate or semi-literate! In twenty first century, they are still markets in which they sell women for prostitutions. In Africa, women are still in large numbers, being circumcised, sold to old men, being forced to sleep with men who’re HIV positive. Every 26 seconds, one woman is raped in South Africa and the rest of the continent doesn’t have a better record. Systematic rape is being used against women as a military tactic, the legal age of marriage in Muslim worlds is only nine years old and I can go forever! These are degrading, if you’re really serious!
Otherwise, I think calling a young beautiful women, Mademoiselle is charming, and a successful female professor at Princeton, wouldn’t mind if she’s being called Le professeur or La professeur!

Personally, I don’t see any difference between those activists who’re trying to suppress any idea they don’t appreciate and those who burned embassies because of a cartoon or are rioting in the streets, as we speak, because of a simple “NA MA NA!”. They are all backwards, extremist and fanatics and their only difference is their agenda. That’s all!

Dear folks, talking about differences between blacks and whites, men and women, straits and gays, Muslims and Jews, is not racism, sexism or chauvinism, acting in a way that deprives people from achieving their goals and their social rights, is. Believing that a group of people are naturally unable to get to certain points or surpass certain limits just because of their gender, race or sexual orientation, is.

The question is accepting or denying the necessity of the red lines. Once the red lines are successfully established, just by playing with them, those in power, or those with good lobbies, can easily suffocate thinkers, as well as brand new ideas, purely based on personal taste or benefits. That’s unfortunately what’s happening in our world.


By the way, if extreme-feminists are looking for a subject to fight for, I have a good one. Why the men’s and women’s chess competitions hold separately?!

Accent class!

Thank you Naz for that. You're great.

One cocktail a day, keeps doctors away!

According to a recent research, published in British medical journal, men who are drinking alcohol everyday are less likely to develop heart disease than those who don’t.
According to this research, steady consumption of alcohol, will reduce the risk of heart disease by 40%.

To see the face of those who try their ass off to justify every religious rules, from fasting and circumcision to not eating pork, with medical facts, is priceless! :)

Cheers!

Shomaal!

Today was hot, humid and beautiful. As I was doing my after-lunch-daily-promenade in the flower market, I had these weird feeling that I’m in “Shomal”, somewhere near “Khaane Daryaa” perhaps. I think the effect of biological clock was also worthy of mentioning. After all, years ago at this time, the exams were finished and we were ready to go there!

Dear Shomal! I’ve missed you so much.