What makes something offensive is that it presents an unwelcome viewpoint that creates discomfort, bruises egos, and hurts feelings. When people take offence, they are trying to silence those who offend them. Call this concept of offence offence-as-hurt. The main theoretical counter to this view is to argue that offence is not about ‘hurt feelings’, but about real harm.
Author: Douglas McLennan
Is American Ballet Theatre Trying To Do Too Much? (And Not Enough?)
Alastair Macaulay: “How many admirable policies can any company honor at one time? Currently it looks as if Ballet Theater has discarded Fokine, Ashton, Tudor, and — a big departure — the international stars from its scheduling. And who can notice Ballet Theater’s admirable purity of classical style? Its too-many-cooks approach to ballet obscures that.”
How Alexa Will Change How We See The World
For the moment, these machines remain at the dawn of their potential, as likely to botch your request as they are to fulfill it. But as smart-speaker sales soar, computing power is also expanding exponentially. Within our lifetimes, these devices will likely become much more adroit conversationalists. By the time they do, they will have fully insinuated themselves into our lives. With their perfect cloud-based memories, they will be omniscient; with their occupation of our most intimate spaces, they’ll be omnipresent. And with their eerie ability to elicit confessions, they could acquire a remarkable power over our emotional lives. What will that be like?
Trump Tower Sues Estate Of Art Dealer Who Died In Fire
The Trump Organization has filed a lawsuit seeking $90,000 in unpaid common charges and fees from a Trump Tower resident– six months after he died in a fire that engulfed his Fifth Avenue apartment. Trump Tower did not have sprinkler system that might have put out the blaze
Fewer People In Their 20s Are Working. Could It Be Cheap Entertainment Has Captured Them?
Over the past few decades, labor force participation has sharply dropped for men ages 20-34. Theories about the root cause range from indolence, to a lack of skills and training, to offshoring, to (perhaps most interestingly) the increasing attractiveness and availability of leisure and media entertainment. In this essay, we propose that the drop in labor participation rate of young men is a result of a combination of factors: (i) a decrease in cost of access to media entertainment leisure, (ii) increases in both the availability and (iii) quality media entertainment leisure, and (iv) a decrease in the marginal signalling utility of (conspicuous) consumption goods for all but the highest earners.
Soon It Won’t Be Possible To Spot Fakes – Video, Pictures, Sound… (And Then What?)
We’re rapidly approaching a point where actors will have a new source of revenue. Sooner than later, instead of offering Robert Downey, Jr. $50 million to play Iron Man, the movie studio will offer him a nominal licensing fee to use his likeness applied to an anonymous actor. Sound crazy? As technology improves (and it is improving at an exponential pace), it will become harder for us to discern what is real and what is fake.
How Richard Florida’s “Creative Class” Was The Wrong Prescription
Florida’s central aim, as I read it, was to have cities and states rethink industrial policy—but not by ignoring housing, transportation, health policies and other important aspects of running large cities. Rather, I read it as forcing a serious look into the economic consequences of cultural spaces. Sadly, his book and corresponding creative class thesis gave many urban policy professionals the cover to give up on the constellation of policies and remedies aimed at decreasing inequality, and widen the wealth gap.
On The Reservation, The Art Bus That Comes To You
On South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation, a substantial number of Native households earn income by creating and selling art. But many of these residents lack access to the transportation and financing that would enable them to market and grow their businesses. So – the Rolling Rez, a mobile art bus that travels…
Philadelphia Remembers Gerry Lenfest As One Of America’s Great Philanthropists
In a span just shy of two decades, they gave away more than $1.3 billion to charity — money spent on expansions at the Curtis Institute of Music and Philadelphia Museum of Art, to substantially fund the creation of the Museum of the American Revolution, for college scholarships to students in rural Pennsylvania, to fund hospitals, literacy programs, and nature preserves, and on and on. Wednesday’s three-hour-plus tribute offered seemingly no end of testimony to their generosity, a montage of institutions transformed and individual lives changed.
LA’s Literary Community Furious About LA Public Library Actions In Popular Program
The Los Angeles Library Foundation on Wednesday announced the hiring of a new programming director, weeks after the organization became enmeshed in a controversy over the firings of two previous longtime directors at the library, Louise Steinman and Maureen Moore.