The practice of psychology in Ontario, and in many other North American and western jurisdictions, is subject to regulation by “professional colleges” — essentially governmental organizations with a mandate to protect the public from misconduct on the part of physicians, lawyers, social workers, dentists, pharmacists, teachers, architects and many others, including (and most relevant to me) clinical psychologists.
How can we learn from our history if it’s removed from view?
History is a bit like Otto von Bismarck’s famous line about sausages and laws, which, he said, no one should watch being made. Think of all the people you’ve seen in pictures and statues or on coins and currency. Consider figures captured in busts and memorialized in books. Visualize military conquerors and nation builders.
Why the perpetual outsider offends all the right people.
A minor controversy over a major event arose at the start of Morrissey’s career, and a similar experience may soon plague him in the present. Common to both are children, murder and Manchester. What has changed throughout the intervening years is the nature of controversy. What has changed is the nature of those taking offence. It was once the reactionary and the conservative, now it is the radical and the progressive. It was once the old, now it is the young. ‘Manchester, so much to answer for’, he sang in 1984, recalling the bodies on Saddleworth Moor from the 1960s of his childhood. The tragedy of the Moors murders continued to resonate. That’s how the nation grieved back then. It allowed itself to mourn; it allowed itself to be angry. While some events were too sacred to be sung about. ‘Suffer Little Children’ became a tabloid story, hyped up into a minor controversy; the lyric provided a list of the lost. ‘We will be right by your side, until the day you die.’
This week I was interested to learn of a flareup of the perpetual culture war at the Arden Theatre in the Edmonton suburb of St. Albert, Alberta. Like most people who come from what is now Sturgeon County, I know the 500-seat multipurpose performing venue to be a secret blessing of the hinterland. If you picked it up and moved it into Edmonton, it would immediately compete to be the nicest, best-equipped theatre of its size in the city. It’s owned and managed by the City of St. Albert, so it can be rented for any purpose that is otherwise legal, and you probably already know from the way I’m talking where this is going.
‘Racist’ read the spray-painted epithet on Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square following a climate protest in 2020. This brutal assessment of Britain’s wartime leader wasn’t a one-off: ‘Just because Hitler was a racist does not mean Churchill could not have been one,’ says the Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal. In recent years, a movement to ‘tell the truth’ about Churchill has sprung up. He should be knocked from perch, plinth and prominence, his critics argue. So what is the truth about Churchill?
Lord Tennyson has been branded “problematic” by academics who have criticised his “support for British imperialism”.
The Victorian poet laureate and author of The Charge Of The Light Brigade and The Lady of Shalott is one of Britain’s most famous literary figures.
However, his views on the British Empire have been branded as “problematic” by academics at the University of Lincoln, who say his opinions are “failings” to be “regretted”.
Sir Walter Scott has been dragged into a racism row as his most famous novel is given trigger warnings which the author’s descendants have branded “cowardly”.
The Scottish writer became one of Britain’s most popular for his historical fiction, including the often-adapted epic Ivanhoe, which has now been deemed potentially “disturbing” by academics at the University of Warwick.
Scott’s work has been branded “offensive” in its treatment of racial minorities, but this has provoked a furious response from one of the author’s descendants, who has branded such criticism a “cowardly” response to “political fashion”.
A spur-of-the-moment decision by academic staff to take down a 1970s painting depicting male Leiden University board members smoking cigars has sparked a debate in the Netherlands over cancel culture.
The artwork on the wall of a university meeting room had been a topic of discussion for years, with some students claiming that it both endorsed patriarchy and the act of smoking.
In 2023, comedians have got to fight for their right to be offensive, rude and wrong.
2022 was not a golden year for comedy.
It was defined, as so much is these days, by the contours and entrenchments of the culture war. By the endless struggle between freedom – including the freedom to be offensive, rude and wrong – and censorship. By the divide between those who think comedy should be a Safe Space for the performer, and those who seem to have cultivated their sense of humour through assiduously attending a series of workshops run by human resources.
In a career that has spanned seven decades—and included such classic shows and movies as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Life of Brian, and A Fish Called Wanda—the comedian John Cleese has relentlessly satirized politics and religion while stretching the boundaries of decorum and good taste.
In our race-obsessed times, even innocent festive flicks are deemed ‘problematic’.
Less than 20 years after its release, Love Actually is already ‘out of date’, according to director Richard Curtis. The cheery 2003 romcom weaves together multiple love stories, all culminating in a festive denouement on Christmas Eve, which proves, as Hugh Grant narrates, that ‘Love actually is all around’. But looking back, it isn’t the corny lines or cheesy plot points that Curtis is cringing at. No, it is Love Actually’s ‘lack of diversity’ that apparently makes him ‘feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid’.
New York Times theater critic is accused of ‘casual racism’ and ‘white cultural supremacy’ after scathing review of mostly-asian cast in new Broadway play KPOP
Producers of the Broadway musical KPOP, based on the Korean music genre, have accused The New York Times of publishing a ‘racist’ review that implied ‘white supremacy’.
New York Times theater critic Jesse Green was accused in an open letter of racism in his negative review of the production and asked to issue an apology.
The letter, written by KPOP producers Tim Forbes and Joey Parnes, claimed ‘astonishment’ at The Times’s casual racism and cultural insensitivity.
The BBC’s censorship of the Pogues’ Christmas classic is an act of cultural vandalism.
It’s that time of year again – there are wreaths on doors, stars on top of Christmas trees and renewed attempts to censor the Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’. Last week, BBC Radio 2 announced that it would join the growing number of radio stations and music channels to censor the Christmas classic.
Censorship is driving dissident researchers underground
In a quiet group chat in an obscure part of the internet, a small number of anonymous accounts are swapping references from academic publications and feverishly poring over complex graphs of DNA analysis. These are not your average trolls, but scholars, researchers and students who have come together online to discuss the latest findings in archaeology. Why would established academics not be having these conversations in a conference hall or a lecture theatre? The answer might surprise you.
People often talk about “cancel culture.” The way in which people are “canceled” from public life for the tiniest error of judgement or the most minute misstep.
So it is interesting to discover what you can do and still not get canceled. Having studied the matter I have come to the conclusion that the best way to not get canceled is to steal billions of dollars and run off with it. That’ll do the trick.
That is what Sam Bankman-Fried has done. The slovenly crypto-fraudster was exposed weeks ago. His business was not simply badly handled or the victim of unfortunate circumstances. FTX crypto exchange and the hedge fund Alameda Research went out of their way to defraud investors and users. But despite this fact, Bankman-Fraud still seems to have support. No cancellation for him!
