Legitimate Criticism Research Articles

Medical crisis in 2024: challenges for Korea’s medical policy

Background: On February 6, 2024, the Korean government announced a drastic increase in the medical schools’ admission quota to 2,000, sending shockwaves through the medical community. In protest, residents submitted their resignations and medical students submitted their leaves of absence.Current Concepts: The government has used many shocking tactics in pushing for greater medical school quotas. First, the government used lies to incite public opinion and socially isolate a group of doctors. Second, it violently imposed law enforcement against residents in the process of promoting the medical school expansion policy. Third, it pursued a medical school expansion policy that did not consider the quality of medical education. Triggered by the government’s rapid expansion of medical schools, fierce resistance from doctors and medical students has revealed structural contradictions in the Korean healthcare system.Discussion and Conclusion: In essence, the medical crisis of 2024 has been created by the government. The medical community cannot stop its legitimate criticism and resistance for the following reasons. First, this is not just a medical crisis but a crisis of the Korean constitution, rule of law, and democracy. Second, the fate of future generations depends on the resolution of the 2024 medical crisis. Third, the government’s policies are not saving essential medicine, but pushing it off the cliff.

Contemporary Censorship Debates in Germany

During the past five years the cultural world in Germany has been shaken and divided by a series of controversies involving contemporary works of art charged with being anti-Semitic. Obviously, with the Holocaust continuing to occupy a major position in modern German consciousness and history, sensitivity to anti-Semitic expressions is particularly keen here. This sensitivity has been increased by a number of recent developments, including the growing visibility of far-right political groups, the rise of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) protesting Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, and the official politicization of these tensions by a parliamentary ruling in 2015 restricting the activities of the BDS. The conflict between legitimate criticism of policies of the Israeli state and legitimate censorship of ethnically offensive material has recently become increasingly bitter in Germany. This article discusses the dynamics of three of the most significant recent examples: the conflict involving Germany’s most prestigious arts festival, the Kassell documenta in 2020; the withdrawal in 2022 of the European Drama Award, the continent’s largest award, from British dramatist Caryl Churchill; and the withdrawal from the Munich stage of the most recent play by Wajdi Mouawad, who has been widely heralded in Germany as the most significant contemporary dramatist.

Resistance and Reform as Responses to Human Rights Criticism: Relativism at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022

AbstractThe language of human rights is a prominent tool of choice to push for moral principles such as justice, equity, and fairness in the social, economic, and political spheres. Simultaneously, the concept and practice of human rights have attracted critiques. Relativism is one such enduring critique. Relativists advocate due and reasonable consideration towards cultural diversity and specificity of diverse human communities, within the limits allowed by universality of human rights. The relativist critique featured prominently in the debates surrounding Qatar’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup 2022. Commentators have spoken about Qatar’s scrutiny often moving beyond legitimate human rights criticism, uninformed activism being counterproductive; and the appropriateness of, largely, Western and maximalist ideals of human rights being applied without accounting for local needs and peculiarities. In this Article, I bring together the literature on the relativist critique and the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 as a case study, to examine the usefulness and limitation of human rights as a language of critique to achieve meaningful transformative change in sporting contexts. I focus on the debates surrounding the rights of migrant workers and the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community; and argue that while human rights advocacy had a notable impact in relation to FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, it is a tale full of cautions and lessons.

Wissenschaftsfreiheit, Moralische Kritik und die Kosten des Irrtums

AbstractThis article attempts to do justice to two conflicting positions in current public debates. On the one hand, it defends a strong version of scientific freedom, according to which science should be free, not only from external obstacles and pressures but also from criticism that is based on reasons “of the wrong kind.” The only admissible criterion in debates about scientific claims, I argue, is whether there is sufficient evidence for their truth. Furthermore, I accept the anti-moralistic view that (non-)conformity with moral ideals is never itself evidence. On the other hand, the article nevertheless argues that there is a possibility of legitimate moral criticism of moral claims. This argument relies on the popular (if controversial) idea that there is pragmatic encroachment – specifically, the idea that the standard of sufficiency for evidence is in part determined by pragmatic factors like the costs of error. This opens up the door for a certain type of legitimate moral criticism. For the costs that determine a standard of sufficiency for epistemic justification can also plausibly count as morally significant. There is thus a con-contingent connection between epistemic and moral defects of certain scientific claims. The resulting view is applied to concrete debates, most importantly about race, genetics and IQ.

Indonesia’s new Criminal Code: indigenising and democratising Indonesian criminal law?

ABSTRACT In late 2022, Indonesia’s national parliament enacted a new Criminal Code, which replaced a 1918 Code introduced during Dutch colonial rule. Some provisions – such as those covering the death penalty, corporate liability and criminal settlements – have been relatively well received by reformists. But many other provisions have been widely and strongly criticised. While the Code claims to democratise, decolonise and consolidate Indonesian criminal law, this article demonstrates that it has achieved the opposite. It undermines democracy by seriously hampering free speech, including legitimate criticism of government officeholders and institutions. It reinstates offences imposed during the Dutch colonial era that were used against Indonesian nationalists pushing for independence, including Indonesia’s first president, Soekarno. And, far from bringing together Indonesia’s disparate regulatory sources of criminal law, the Code adds another layer of law to existing sui generis criminal statutes, which largely remain in effect. Worse, the new Code imposes conservative religious-based values allowing the state to interfere in citizens’ private sexual lives. The Code also appears to encourage subnational lawmakers to give effect to localised customary norms of criminal law, which might reflect even more conservative values and result in the prohibition of various expressions of sexuality, including homosexuality.

Перестроечная периодическая печать как исторический источник по трансформации образа В. И. Ленина в 1987-1991 гг.

The article analyses the metamorphosis of Lenin's image in late Soviet periodicals. The method of socio-historical phenomenology has been applied in the study. The source base of the research includes materials from the newspaper Pravda, magazine Ogonyok, and newspaper of the Democratic Union Svobodnoe Slovo. The chronological framework of the research covers the period from November 1987 to June 1991. The focus is on the interaction of three discourses in press, which introduced different purport of Lenin's image into the readers’ minds. The first discourse contained positive description of Lenin's image and linked his teachings with the reforms, justifying the Perestroika transformation. The second discourse was based on ideological confrontation between Lenin and Stalin. The periodicals blamed the latter for all costs of Soviet power. Through criticism of Stalin's image, the second discourse urged to abandon shameful criminal past in favour of Leninist legacy endorsed by the society. Nevertheless, such imprudent tactics eventually widened the criticism, intensifying the political debate of more significant symbols of the Soviet system. Such was the content of the third discourse endorsing deconstruction of Lenin and other pillars of the Soviet system. The study constructs three time periods of domination of the aforementioned discourses. The first period was 1987–88, when the first and second discourses prevailed. The second period refers to 1989, when major ideological shifts took place. More articles defending Lenin’s image appeared in the pages of Pravda, indicating presence of legitimate criticism in the press. The Ogonyok magazine called for a condemnation of the results of the October Revolution of 1917. The newspaper Svobodnoe Slovo was published freely, encountering no resistance from the authorities. It openly denounced Lenin's image. The newspaper became the main vehicle for the third discourse. It could be argued that 1989 was a milestone in terms of the transition to the third discourse. In 1990–91 of the third interim period, the anti-Leninist discourse took over the pages of Ogonyok, the Pravda remaining the last mass media defending Lenin's image from criticism. As a result, Lenin's image was negatively reinterpreted in the eyes of the readers and gradually disappeared from the pages of late Soviet periodicals.

Islamophobie – berechtigte Ablehnung einer Religion oder unberechtigte Feindschaft gegenüber einer Menschengruppe? (Islam- oder Muslim/-innenfeindschaft?)

According to certain critics of Islam and of Islamophobia research, Islam should be removed from the notion of Islamophobia. They substantiate this claim by arguing that the rejection of Islam need not necessarily result in hostility towards its followers. To distinguish unwarranted hostility towards Muslims, they suggest using the more appropriate terms of anti-Muslimism, Muslimophobia and anti-Muslim hostility instead of the term Islamophobia. This article analyses three studies undertaken in an effort to empirically substantiate this claim and proposal. The author argues that it is impossible to refer to the phenomenon in question – whatever it may be called – without considering Islam as a central point of reference for Islamophobes. The problem of distinguishing between Islamophobia and legitimate criticism of Islam cannot be solved by simply renaming the phenomenon, but rather by analysing specific cases.

The Impact Of Online Misinformation On Covid-19 Vaccines: A Literature Review

The spread of COVID-19 misinformation has contributed to what has been labelled as a crisis of trust. This decline in trust has been reinforced by legitimate criticism of government responses to the pandemic and the exacerbation of pre-existing mistrust in governments and health services, particularly amongst marginalized groups. This study aims to analyse the COVID-19 vaccines misinformation and its impact to the life aspect of the society. This study was a literature review discussing about COVID-19 vaccines misinformation and its impact. Based on the database and keywords, 15 articles were obtained, but only 7 articles had relevant topics. COVID-19 vaccines misinformation can lead to several impacts namely the damage on the prevention and control action regarding to COVID-19. Moreover, this misinformation also can be as the stimulus undermines the COVID-19 individual responses that will affect the willingness of society’s vaccines uptake. Misinformation of COVID-19 vaccines can be classified into several types such as misleading contents, manipulated content, false content and fabricated content. Those misinformation lead to the condition of society’s acceptance toward COVID-19 vaccines and damage the management of COVID-19 prevention and control actions that are conducted by the Government.

Michael Adams and Christopher Mayhew Against Maariv: The Trial that Defined the New Antisemitism

This article examines a mostly forgotten libel suit that examined the boundaries of the term antisemitism. Public rhetorical attacks against the Jewish people as a whole were less frequent in the West after World War II, but Israel and Zionism became the target of fierce propaganda beginning in the 1970s. In 1975, British MP Christopher Mayhew and former Guardian reporter Michael Adams co-authored a book criticizing Western media coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict titled Publish It Not: The Middle East Cover-Up. A review of the book, published in the Israeli newspaper Maariv the following year, called them out as antisemites. Mayhew and Adams sued the paper and its book reviewer for libel. In the trial, held in Jerusalem, both sides argued over whether their fierce anti-Zionism and harsh criticism of Israel was politically legitimate or antisemitic. In August 1979, District Court Judge Jacob Bazak's verdict absolved Maariv of the charge of libel, characterizing the book review as "justified and accurate," and drew a fine line between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. This dispute between opposing high-profile scholars, former generals, and politicians contributed to a wider discussion of antisemitism and has relevance for these same debates today.

“To the End of the Line”: The Romanian Army in Operation Barbarossa

ABSTRACT This article uses the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union to re-examine Romania’s role in Operation Barbarossa. Its primary aim is to refute the myth that Romanian soldiers lacked motivation and support for the war, which supposedly quickly eroded after the Romanian Army reconquered territory occupied by the USSR a year prior. The conventional view arguing in favor of Romania being a reluctant Axis ally points to the fact that after initially fielding two armies in June 1941, it only had a corps on the front line in December 1941. This article argues that this was actually the result of German skepticism — based on legitimate professional criticism and bogus racist theories — of the combat value of Romanian soldiers and German logistical inability to supply its own forces, much less those of its allies, as the campaign dragged on. The author argues that Romanian soldiers were actually highly motivated by ideology to fight against the alleged threat of ‘Judeo-Bolshevism’. Although the Romanian Army did suffer many weaknesses in training, equipment, and leadership, it could rely on officers and enlisted men willing to fight with determination against the Red Army and commit atrocities against Jews. This article shows both sides of Romania’s ‘holy war’ by combining military and Holocaust perspectives as both fighting and mass murder were closely related on the Eastern Front. This wider perspective also highlights the importance of several more Romanian corps helping to occupy parts of Ukraine in the rear to allow German troops to be spared for operations on the front as Nazi Germany tried to win final victory before Christmas. Romania’s holy war complemented Nazi Germany’s race war and bound the two tightly together on the Eastern Front even after Operation Barbarossa failed to destroy the Soviet Union.

Stevenson, G. (2020). Anti-Humanism in the Counterculture. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. 223 pages. (ISBN 978-3-030-47759-2)

Certain authors of the twentieth century have without a doubt fallen out of popularity in our twenty-first century, depending on which socio-critical approach one brings to their texts. Among the list, we might include Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Norman Mailer—the primary subjects in Guy Stevenson’s Anti-Humanism in the Counterculture. All five of these men have had their share of criticisms brought against them, in particular for their words involving gender discrimination, racial bias, and anti-Semitism. In any discussion concerning these authors, we cannot put these points aside, Stevenson states, and he goes to significant length to ensure that readers are cognizant of the three areas of legitimate criticism against this group. Keeping these points in mind, Stevenson unveils what he considers is a fresh approach to understanding these individuals and the counterculture movement that grew around them. The presence of Henry Miller may seem misplaced with the other post-war novelists, but Miller’s groundbreaking publications provides the basis for Stevenson’s claims of an anti-humanistic theory stretching through this group’s literature.

Appraising the Impact of Kenya’s Cyber-Harassment Law on the Freedom of Expression

Kenya’s Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act makes it an offence, in Section 27, for a person to communicate with another a message that they know or ought to know would cause the recipient fear; is indecent or offensive in nature; or would detrimentally affect the recipient. This offence carries a penalty of either a 20 million shilling fine or a 10-year term of imprisonment or—discretionarily—both. While the offence is termed ‘cyber-harassment’, its wording appears to exclude a number of offences that would count as cyber-harassment such as cyber-stalking, doxing or impersonation. In fact, its wording is vague and overbroad, using undefined terms such as ‘detrimentally affect’ which require subjective interpretation. Cyber-harassment laws constitute a limitation on the freedom of expression and as such, ought to conform to the limitations of human rights test as provided in Article 24 of the Constitution. Where the aim sought is legitimate in a democratic society and other conditions such as legality are met, this limitation is valid. This paper reviews Kenya’s law that was recently upheld by the High Court in Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) v Attorney General & Three others; Article 19 East Africa & another and finds that it fails to meet the limitations test prescribed under Article 24 of the Constitution. It argues that Section 27 of the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act is therefore overbroad and has the potential to be used as a tool for the unconstitutional suppression of legitimate criticism.

Public Universities in Post-Socialist States Could Become ‘Un-Academic’ after 2020 Pandemic

Firm and verifiable signs give reason for legitimate concern and criticism of the path taken by public universities in European post-socialist states in the last two decades. Not fulfilling their social role and function, as guardians of knowledge, thought, critical reflection and open-mindedness, is a cause for serious concern. Universities have bowed to the aggressive logic of the market. Instead of resisting the purely bureaucratic and brutal administrative conditions and criteria imposed by the state, universities have completely and uncritically subjected themselves to the dictates of authorities and committees controlled by the state. Academics have become passive and apathetic slaves of robotised technocratic dehumanisation. These phenomena have led universities to considerably fail to take care of the education of critically thinking citizens, of moral personalities and courageous civil intellectuals equipped with authentic and high-quality knowledge, and with self-respect, combined with an appropriate ethical self-understanding of their systemic and social role. Academics have lost awareness of their most important public role in the maintenance and progress of genuine democracy and the political system’s legitimacy. It seems that these universities have become almost non-academic. And they could finally become ‘un-academic’ due to the 2020 pandemic.

The Mythical Taboo on Race and Intelligence

Recent discussions have revived old claims that hereditarian research on race differences in intelligence has been subject to a long and effective taboo. We argue that given the extensive publications, citations, and discussions of such work since 1969, claims of taboo and suppression are a myth. We critically examine claims that (self-described) hereditarians currently and exclusively experience major misrepresentation in the media, regular physical threats, denouncements, and academic job loss. We document substantial exaggeration and distortion in such claims. The repeated assertions that the negative reception of research asserting average Black inferiority is due to total ideological control over the academy by “environmentalists,” leftists, Marxists, or “thugs” are unwarranted character assassinations on those engaged in legitimate and valuable scholarly criticism.

The French origins of ‘Islamophobia denial’

ABSTRACT Denial of Islamophobia as a form of racism is widespread among French intellectual and political elites. Time and again it has been claimed in op-eds, talk shows, investigative journalistic work and even in full-length books devoted to the topic that the invocation of Islamophobia is part of an Islamist conspiracy to ‘silence legitimate criticism of Islam’, and no less than a threat to ‘republican values’ and laïcité (laicism). Even anti-racist activists would want to see the term ‘banished’, and academic dictionaries of racism see in it a tool of ‘blackmail’ and ‘intimidation’. Though what I call ‘Islamophobia denial’ can be observed across the western world, France is exceptional on two accounts: first, virulent denial is the most common mainstream posture on Islamophobia, transcending traditional political camps, whereas in other parts of the western world denial is more localized on the right and the far right. Second, the argumentative toolbox of Islamophobia denial, a consistent if problematic set of assertions and allegations to be found in all its global iterations, from the United States to Scandinavia, was developed in France and proceeds from the specific intellectual history of the ‘Muslim question’ in that country. It is that history of origins, development and reception that this article sets out to analyse.

The Tree Of Life: metaphysics vs. metaphor

The Tree Of Life: metaphysics vs. metaphor

Academic Publishing and Scientific Integrity: Case Studies of Editorial Interference at Taylor & Franci

Editorial independence is a bedrock principle of academic publishing. The growing domination of academic publishing by large, for-profit corporations threatens this independence. There is alarming evidence that large companies too often serve their own business interests and those of powerful clients rather than serving the scientific community and the general public. This evidence includes the publication of infelicitous commercial science and concealing scientific misconduct. We present two case studies in which the UK-based publisher Taylor & Francis interfered in the editorial process by blocking publication of legitimate criticism that had been reviewed and approved for publication by its specialized editors. The integrity of science depends in part on the transparency and intellectual honesty of all stakeholders. The widely-acknowledged inadequacies of English libel law are reviewed as context for some of Taylor & Francis’s fearful decisions.

Neo-Marxist Israeli academics: from post-Zionism to anti-Semitism

ABSTRACT This article reviews the writings of post-Zionist, neo-Marxist Israeli academics, and the way they have contributed to blurring the line between legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and actions and classical and/or new forms of anti-Semitism. By way of doing so, it will describe the paradigmatic shift in the social sciences and humanities that has given rise to the phenomenon of academic anti-Semitism; analyse the writings of neo-Marxist Israeli scholars with an emphasis on anti-Semitic themes in their writings; and look at the extra-mural criticisms made by Israeli academics and the unwillingness of many universities to confront them.

The Role of the Disciplines in Cardinal Newman's Theory of a Liberal Education

For over a century Cardinal Newman's contribution to the idea of a liberal education has received widespread attention. His basic position, that a liberal education conslsts in a well-informed judgment combined with an ability to perform the different logical operations involved in reasoning well, has frequently been criticized on the grounds that it failed to cater to religious and moral training. However, this is not an altogether legitimate criticism. Newman never intended his liberal education to be the only education the university student would receive. It was to form just a part, albeit an extremely important part, of a university undergraduate education-1 Nevertheless, while a substantial portion of the literature on Newman's educational thought is devoted to discussion of this issue, when in fact no real problem exists here, other and more genuine difficulties have been overlooked. Accordingly, it is not my intention to further the already protracted debate concerning the appropriateness of a liberal education as understood by Newman at the university level. It is on one of the real problem areas, specifically on Newman's idea of the possibility of scientific knowledge and its implications for the curriculum of a liberal education, that I wish to focus attention.

Méningiomes de la base du crâne : efficacité et tolérance clinique, efficacité radiologique et cinétique tumorale après radiothérapie

Skull base meningioma leads to functional disturbances, which can significantly alter the quality of life. The optimal management of these lesions, whose goals are neurological preservation and tumour local control, is not yet clearly established. It is widely recognized that the goal of a radical excision should be abandoned despite the advances in the field of microsurgery of skull base lesions. Although less morbid, partial tumour excision would be associated with increased risk of local tumour recurrence. Although discussed both exclusive and adjuvant have proven to be highly successful in terms of clinical improvement and local control. Various radiation techniques have demonstrated their efficacy in the management of this pathology. However, high rates of clinical improvement are in contrast with low rates of radiological improvement. The notion of clinical and radiological dissociation appeared. However, in most of these studies, the analysis of the radiological response could be subject of legitimate criticism. This work proposes to review the local control, the efficacy and the clinical tolerance and the radiological response of the various radiation techniques for the meningioma of the base of the skull and to demonstrate the interest of quantitative volumetric analyses in the follow-up of meningioma after radiotherapy.