Aspects of Racism

Jews are racists. Israeli rabbis have backed a ruling by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu that bans renting property to non Jews. This proves that Jews consider non Jews to be beneath them and hence shows that Jews are inherently racist. Obviously this statement - Jews are racists - is far too broad and too general. It condemns many for the attitudes of the few. Uttered in any forum, this statement will rightly provoke a huge outcry. It also ignores that many rabbis around the world who have condemned this ruling.

The controversy stirred by this ruling highlights the multi-faceted nature of racism. People mostly tend to think of this issue in black and white terms. The vast majority of people are racist to some degree. This racism is usually not overt any more. However covert racism exists and this is actually more harmful and hurting. People are quick to point out the racism of others as shown in this, this and this post but will not see their own.

Priorities

What do we consider to be important matters and what are unimportant (or at least relatively less important) matters to us? Our priorities affect us and those around us and the converse is also true; the priorities of the people around us affect them individually and us as well. While we tend to think that our priorities are dictated only by us, the fact is that our priorities are also affected by what we read and see around us. Not only that, there is often a mismatch between the priorities that we think are important and the priorities that would be important to us if we were super rational (or Homo Economicus as economists love to portray us). On top of all this, each of us plays multiple roles in our daily lives. Each role has its own set of priorities and all of these priorities must be juggled on a daily basis - something that is not easy and does not come naturally to most people. As Gema from Florida put it so nicely in this post on priorities "balancing priorities has been like juggling fireballs barehanded and with little training." In essence what is it that the vast majority of personal development sites, articles, blogs etc. are teaching? How to handle all the different priorities that we encounter in our daily lives in our various roles.

Related articles

• Balancing Priorities (radicalparenting.com)
• Juggling Priorities During the Holidays (1-2-3getorganized.blogspot.com)

Wikileaks

Image via WikipediaFreedom of expression is a much valued concept. Strongly associated with this is freedom of press. This concept, much beloved of democratic governments, is being tested to the limit thanks to Wikileaks. This was a much lauded site that was doing sterling service for the cause of freedom everywhere until of course it started releasing material that had been classified by the US (or as some people like to put it "the Powers That Be"). At this point, suddenly Wikileaks became an evil organization. The way the Americans have reacted, one would imagine that this was the end of civilization as we know it. Barbarians are storming the gate!

Yet if one actually starts to go through the material released so far, the inescapable conclusion is that this is a storm in a teacup. I have gone through some of the material on the Wikileaks site and read the analysis published in the press. The vast majority of the cables are completely innocuous. One cable I read described a wedding and this was classified as secret! Not only is this secrecy run amok, this is actually insane. One of the key requirements of democracy is an informed citizenry. Classifying material secret regardless of their actual provenance diminishes democracy by making the citizenry less informed and thus less liable to judge material that affects them often vitally on its merits. It is for this reason that one of the first steps of totalitarianism is to restrict information and freedom of information.

Wikileaks has done the world a tremendous service by releasing this information. By shining a bright light on activities that a lot of people would prefer remain dark, it has become harder to indulge in nefarious activities. These are the kinds of activities that eventually generate violent reactions - what is known euphemistically as blow-back. That in turn will hopefully make for a less violent, saner and (dare I say it) a more equitable world.

Related articles

• The US's Reaction To Wikileaks Is Doing A Lot More Harm Than The Leaks Themselves (techdirt.com)
• "Senator Lieberman on WikiLeaks Julian Assange" and related posts (economycollapse.blogspot.com)
• Why is wikileaks being treated as a leaker, or hacker, rather than publisher? (tobiasbuckell.com)
• Govt's reaction to WikiLeaks 'troubling' (news.theage.com.au)
• Attempts to prosecute WikiLeaks endanger press freedoms - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com (indigenist.blogspot.com)
• Take personal action for Wikileaks and Free Speech (wilderside.wordpress.com)