Ultimate Appeal Research Articles

Postcolonial Theory in the Arab World: Belated Engagements and Limits

I take the belated and confused response to Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) as due not only to the pretentious “verbosity” of the first translation, but also to objective circumstances of a political and ideological nature. Frantz Fanon, for instance, made a significant belated presence in the 1960s through translation and ultimate appeal to the rising critique of the national elite thereafter. Gramsci was already known among the Left. Not so is the case with Orientalism. The confusion surrounding the term, the distrust of the West, and the affiliation of prominent Arabists and Orientalists in Arabic language societies in Damascus and Cairo and their significant contributions to the study of Arabic added another dimension to a blurred picture. As noticed by some scholars, the much deferred application of Said’s contrapuntal cultural criticism rather than his postcolonial drive, speaks of a different politics. Largely but not solely indebted to Marxist theory, this liberatory politics in gender, race and class, and the significant interest in social equality, justice and political/economic and cultural liberation, take a number of directions that surpass and also obfuscate postcolonial experimentations and their parlance. To demonstrate the efficacy of this massive engagement in the devaluation of postcolonial discourse, I use among others three early texts of the 1930s that put us face to face with a postcolonial consciousness that not only exposes colonialism and the cultural dependency of the elite, and sets the ground for political awareness, but also brings forth the issues of biopolitics and the implications of subalternity along a number of axes. This line of thought is predicated on a cultural and ideological script that had already taken root in urban centres since the early twentieth century. Although the Cold War situation and the enforced assimilation of the Left into statist national blocs or confederations or the denial and prosecution of opposition intensified a polarized polemic against the “West”, there was already that script that was given legitimacy and power in national democratic writings. Hence, whatever is subsumed under the rubric of the “postcolonial” sounds like “carrying dates to Hajar” (ka-nāqil tamrin 'ilā Hajar). Put together in a genealogical map, these early engagements, including the forceful critique of the “West” and its body of representations, gain further solidification that derails and incapacitates the “postcolonial” as a viable category of analysis and application in the Arab world.

Standing in the Breach: An Old Testament Theology and Spirituality of Intercessory Prayer by Michael Widmer

Reviewed by: Standing in the Breach: An Old Testament Theology and Spirituality of Intercessory Prayer by Michael Widmer Penny Wheeler michael widmer, Standing in the Breach: An Old Testament Theology and Spirituality of Intercessory Prayer (Siphrut 13; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015). Pp. xiv + 592. $64.50. Widmer’s title refers to intercessory prayers, which “stand in the breach” between divine mercy and the wrath of God. His first chapter, “Hermeneutical Reflections,” sets forth his premises and themes. Agreeing with Claus Westermann, W. considers God’s relationship with God’s people to be the overarching theme of the Hebrew Scriptures, and he posits intercessory prayer as the very heart of theology as he outlines his approach and objectives. He notes some of the issues raised by the idea of intercessory prayer, observing that such prayer usually results from a crisis in the relationship between humans and God, on the one hand, and the divine resolution of the crisis, on the other. In chap. 2, W. describes Abraham as “patriarch and intercessor,” citing the dialogue between God and Abraham over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah as Scripture’s first example of intercessory prayer. He argues that in Gen 18:20–22 God implicitly invites Abraham to try to intercede by seeking divine mercy for the sinful cities, describing Abraham’s intercession as a dialogue in which the patriarch bargains—literally, haggles—with God. Here W. repeats Westermann’s assertion that there is no divine concession, as well as Walter Brueggemann’s claim that in Abraham’s prayer lies the power to instruct and change God. In this instance the author agrees with Nathan MacDonald’s view, concluding that, as inter-cessor, Abraham is called to be God’s “coworker,” and thus the patriarch foreshadows Israel’s priestly function among the nations (see MacDonald, “Anticipations of Horeb: Exodus 17 as Inner-Biblical Interpretation,” in Studies on the Text and Versions of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of Robert Gordon [ed. Geoffrey Khan and Diana Lipton; VTSup 149; Leiden: Brill, 2012] 7–19). The third and lengthiest chapter deals with Moses as Israel’s “archetypal intercessor.” [End Page 133] Relating Moses’ intercession to the story of Amalek’s attack on Israel, W. builds on MacDonald’s findings, concluding that Amalek not only represents an enemy but foreshadows God’s wrath and judgment. Moses’ intercession avails Israel against an external foe, but in the case of the golden calf, the enemy is internal, within the people itself. W. dedicates considerable space in this chapter to an analysis of the work of Norbert Lohfink, whose groundbreaking study of more than half a century ago remains the gold standard of scholarship in this field (Das Hauptgebot: Eine Untersuchung literarischer Einleitungsfragen zu Dtn. 5–11 [AnBib 20; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963]). Focusing upon the Deuteronomy account of the intercession of Moses, W. deals with Moses’ prayer on behalf of Aaron, his appeal to Israel’s “special” status as the very people of God, his appeal to the patriarchs, and his ultimate appeal to the very honor of Yhwh. W. concludes the chapter with a discussion of the theological implications of the dual advocacy role of Moses, who is at once advocate of God and advocate of the people. Widmer structures his fourth chapter around Samuel, describing him as “Israel’s second legendary intercessor.” He homes in on the many parallels between Samuel and Moses, discussing Samuel’s dealing with the sin of Israel, the Philistine threat, and the question of Yhwh’s sovereignty. In an excursus, W. treats Psalm 99, in which the intercessor calls upon the name of the king. Concluding the chapter, the author addresses 1 Samuel 12 and the redefinition of the role of prophet in the new monarchy. In chap. 5, W. concentrates on David as repentant sinner and priestly intercessor, as well as on 2 Samuel 24, which portrays Yhwh’s change of mind. W. concludes that in the case of both David and, later, Jesus, the acts of prayer and sacrifice coalesce into a single great intercessory act that yields pardon for the sinner and a reconciliation with God. The subsequent chapter focuses on Solomon’s prayer of dedication...

Mill’s Progressive Principles by David O. Brink (review)

Reviewed by: Mill’s Progressive Principles by David O. Brink Andrew J. Pyle David O. Brink. Mill’s Progressive Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. xx + 307. Cloth, $55.00. “I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being.” This volume, described by the author as a “progress report” on his twenty five years of thinking about Mill’s moral and political philosophy, takes the form of an extended commentary on this famous passage from On Liberty, which Brink clearly—and rightly—regards as providing the key to much that is otherwise puzzling in Mill’s writings. The notion of men and women as “progressive beings” informs Mill’s moral and political philosophy in many respects, and provides him with at least the beginnings of defensible replies to the standard objections levelled against him. These objections concern his distinction between higher and lower pleasures, his putative proof of the principle of utility, and the compatibility of his liberal politics with his utilitarian ethics. Critics have argued that the higher/lower pleasures distinction is incompatible with hedonism; that the alleged proof of utilitarianism commits two first-year logic howlers in quick succession; and that utilitarian ethical principles can be used to support paternalist authoritarianism. Brink clearly regards these common objections as based on misunderstandings, and provides us with an account of how Mill could have responded to them. Regarding higher and lower pleasures, Mill can be read as departing from classical hedonism, which conceives pleasures as subjective states. In opposition to this we have the objective conception of pleasures as activities of certain kinds, notably exercises of our powers. If we align ourselves with Aristotle against Epicurus and Bentham, and think of pleasures as objective, we can think of the autonomous exercise of our rational natures as in part constitutive of our higher pleasures. This makes sense of “better Socrates dissatisfied,” and gives Mill a principled reply to the objection that utilitarian ethics can support authoritarian governments. Even if the authoritarian regime can amply provide the lower pleasures in the form of bread and circuses, it is only a liberal government that actively encourages its citizens to participate in public debate. As for the supposed howlers of the supposed proof of utilitarianism, Brink offers us an alternative reading which starts with the assumption that morality involves an impartial point of view, and then offers us the utilitarian formula as the best way of understanding this impartiality. The work is an admirable example of the analytical approach to the history of philosophy, but might have benefitted, philosophically, from a little closer attention to context. Chapter 2 discusses “Varieties of Motivation,” and the problems faced by utilitarians in reconciling their account of human motivation with their moral theory. Are humans narrowly egoistic? If so, politics reduces to social engineering. Or are we capable of a wider and more generous egoism, coming to take pleasure in the pleasures of others, in which case the problem is one of education and culture? Or are humans capable of fully altruistic action? Rousseau falls here into his notorious chicken-and-egg problem: only the right sort of individuals can establish the democratic state, but it takes a properly democratic state [End Page 853] to educate men and women in the virtues of citizenship. Bentham accepts the Hobbesian picture of individuals driven inevitably by their own pleasures and pains, and reduces politics to social engineering. Godwin argues that human perfectibility will lead us in the end to love everyone’s pleasure indifferently and impartially. Mill’s vacillation and uncertainty on this point is perfectly principled. He tells us clearly in Book 5 of the Logic that ethology, the science of the development of character, is as yet in its infancy. We simply do not know whether the best way of promoting the general good is by means of external sanctions, Rousseau-style emotional education in fraternity, or philosophical arguments in favor of an impersonal love of the good as such, without distinction of mine and thine. Another point at which closer attention to context might...

The Fierce Urgency of Now: Barack Obama and the 2008 Presidential Election

This essay uses an analysis of the convention addresses of Barack Obama, John McCain, and Sarah Palin to explain the development of the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama’s ultimate appeal can be traced to his call for reconstituting the American Dream to take care of the entire community. It is his appeal to communitarian values in a time of growing crisis that explains the enormous movement that his campaign generated. As the economic crisis worsened in the fall, this message became still more powerful. In contrast, McCain and Palin ran a campaign based on personality, largely a depiction of McCain as a hero and of both of them as mavericks. Given their commitment to utterly traditional conservative policy prescriptions, the maverick theme ultimately declined in importance, leaving their campaign with no option except strident attack on Obama as unqualified and out of the mainstream. These attacks ultimately failed in part because of Obama’s skill at calmly explaining policy positions and also because in a time of growing crisis they lost resonance.

An Indian solution to ‘incompleteness’

An Indian solution to ‘incompleteness’

Decreasing procedural pain over time of left prefrontal rtms for depression: Initial results from the open-label phase of a multisite trial (OPT-TMS)

There is much interest in whether daily left prefrontal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over several weeks may become a clinically useful antidepressant treatment. Although rTMS appears largely safe, many patients report that this procedure is somewhat painful, which may restrict its ultimate appeal and utility. We analyzed interim results from the open-label phase of a multi-site randomized trial of rTMS as a treatment for depression to investigate whether the procedural pain of left prefrontal rTMS changes over time. Patients with unipolar depression who had failed to respond during at least three weeks of the sham-controlled double-masked rTMS were then offered three more weeks (15 sessions) of open-label rTMS. Retrospective pain ratings and state emotional factors from 20 subjects were assessed using visual analog scales (VAS) recorded on computers before and after each treatment (289 sessions). Over the 15 treatment sessions, subjective reports of the painfulness of rTMS decreased 48% from baseline. This reduction, although greatest in the first few days, continued steadily (average 2.11 points per session) over the 3 weeks of treatment. The analysis found a significant effect for rTMS-session (p<0.0001) on rTMS-procedural pain over and above changes in subjective emotional states. The procedural pain of left, prefrontal rTMS decreases over time, apparently independently of other emotional changes. Since rTMS scalp pain may decline over time, physicians and patients may decide to continue treatment despite initial discomfort. These observational data can be better tested once the data from the blinded phase of the trial becomes available.

The liberal conscience: politics and principle in a world of religious pluralism

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. A Liberalism of Conscience2. Liberalism and the Liberty of Conscience3. How Should Liberal Democracies Treat Theocratic Communities?4. Inspiring Public Reason: The Promise of LiberalismReview and Conclusion: The Ultimate Appeal of LiberalismNotesIndex

Chisholm's Grand Move

Abstract: Roderick Chisholm famously held that our knowledge of the world is supported entirely by a foundation of self‐justifying statements, none of which logically implies the existence of any physical object in that world. The only contingent statements to be found in the foundation, he maintained, are those that are “about our own psychological states and the ways we are ‘appeared to’.” It is a view that, as Chisholm was well aware, tallies poorly with our ordinary practice of justifying statements. We are typically happy to justify statements by ultimate appeal to what we have seen or heard; that is, by ultimate appeal to statements that logically imply that certain things in the world are as we take them to be. This essay examines how Chisholm sought to explain away this apparent disconfirmation of foundationalism by ordinary practice—in effect, how Chisholm responded to one of the chief criticisms of foundationalism launched by J. L. Austin. My suggestion will be that, when the dust clears, it is Austin who comes out ahead.

New forms of strategy — No change of heart

Sharing the preoccupations of my fellow writers, I was the first to express the conviction, now become a general stand, that the release from ban of a few books by well-known white writers is not a major victory for the freedom to write, and that the action carries two sinister implications: first, those among us who are uncompromising opponents of censorship with wide access to the media can be bought off by special treatment accorded to our books; second, the measure of hard-won solidarity that exists between black and white writers can be divided by `favouring' white writers with such special treatment, since no ban on any black writer's work has been challenged by the Directorate's own application to the Appeal Board. I don't claim any prescience or distinction for early arrival at this conviction--Burger's Daughter(1979), my novel, happened to be the first released as a consequence of the Directorate's new tactics. It was natural for me to examine the package very carefully when my book came back to me--apparently intact, after all the mauling it had been through. It was inevitable that I should come upon the neat devices timed to go off in the company of my colleagues. It was not surprising that they should recognise for themselves these booby-traps set for us all, since a week or two later Andre Brink received the same package containing his novel The Dry White Season (1979). And then, in time for April and the seating of the new Chairman of the Appeal Board, came Afrikaans literature's Easter egg, all got up for Etienne le Roux with the sugar roses of the old Appeal Board's repentance and the red ribbon defiant of Aksie Morale Standaarde, the NGK and Dr Koot Vorster--of course, Magersfontein O Magersfortein was not released as the two other books were, as a result of the Director's own appeal against his Committee's bannings, but it's release on ultimate appeal by the author's publishers transparently belongs to the same strategy in which the other two books were `reinstated'. I am one who has always believed and still believes we shall never be rid of censorship until we are rid of apartheid. Personally I find it necessary to preface with this blunt statement any comment I have about the effects of censorship, the possible changes in its scope, degree, and methodology. Any consideration of how to conduct the struggle against it, how to act for the attainment of immediate ends, is partial, pragmatic, existential response seen against a constant and over-riding factor. Today as always, the invisible banner is behind me, the decisive chalked text on the blackboard, against whose background I say what I have to say. We shall not be rid of censorship until we are rid of apartheid. Censorship is the arm of mind-control and as necessary to maintain a racist regime as that other arm of internal repression, the secret police. Over every apparent victory we may gain against the censorship powers hangs the question whether that victory is in fact contained by apartheid, or can be claimed to erode it from within. What exactly has changed since the 1st April 1980? What exactly does the `born again' cultural evangelism staged with the positively last appearance of Judge Lammie Snyman and the previews of rippling intellectual musculature displayed by thirty-seven year old Dr Kobus van Rooyen, mean? The Censorship Act remains the same. It is still on the statute book. The practice of embargo will continue. The same anonymous committees will read and ban; a censorship committee having been defined in 1978 by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court as an extra-judicial body, operating in administrative capacity, whose members need have no legal training, before whom the appellant has no right of audience, who in their deliberations are not required to have regard to the rules of justice designed to achieve a fair trial, whose proceedings are not conducted in public and who are not required to afford any reason for their decision. …

Memory, Language, and Society in Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories"

ashid Khalifa, the storyteller in Salman Rushdie's novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), loses his wonderful ability to make up and tell stories when his wife Sorya leaves him for the snively Mr. Sengupta, a man who has always complained to Haroun and his mother about the uselessness of storytelling. Haroun, the only child of the Khalifas, blames himself for the breakup of his parents' marriage and his father's disability. In his efforts to restore Rashid's storytelling powers, Haroun manages to trap the water genie Iff, who has come to cancel Rashid's story water supply, and finally, with the help of the genie and his friends, restores his father's storytelling powers and reunites his parents. Rushdie, the real-life storyteller, is currently suffering from a similar kind of disability, imposed by real-life followers of KhattamShud, the archenemy of stories in the land of Kahani. The story of Haroun and Rashid Khalifa, written by Rushdie in his forced exile, deals with the theme of a writer's freedom to make up stories. Rushdie's current predicament is the latest replay of the age-old battle between the proponents of freedom of speech and its enemies. Plato, in his Dialogue, sought to banish poets from his ideal society because of his concern with the impression that false stories might create in the minds of readers and listeners (Jowett 163). It is a similar fear and concern on the part of certain self-proclaimed upholders of universal truth that has led to Rushdie's banishment. Thus the ultimate appeal of stories lies not in what they actually say but in what sentiments they evoke.

Knowing assistance—a plea for help

The recent refusal by the Appeal Committee of the House of Lords to grant leave to appeal to their Lordships' House in the case of Agip (Africa) Ltd v Jackson means that an opportunity has been lost to clarify the law with regard to the liability of a third party who helps a fiduciary commit a breach of trust. The difficulty is further compounded when one bears in mind that the ultimate appeal in Lipkin Goman v Karpnale did not involve one of the original defendants, Lloyds Bank, whose liability for enabling the gambling-addicted solicitor to sustain his predilection by cashing cheques for him was considered only by Alliott J and the Court of Appeal.

The Supreme Court of Canada: History of the Institution

Unknown and uncelebrated by the public, overshadowed and frequently overruled by the Privy Council, the Supreme Court of Canada before 1949 occupied a rather humble place in Canadian jurisprudence as an intermediate court of appeal. Today its name more accurately reflects its function: it is the court of ultimate appeal and the arbiter of Canada's constitutional questions. Appointment to its bench is the highest achievement to which a member of the legal profession can aspire. This history traces the development of the Supreme Court of Canada from its establishment in the earliest days following Confederation, through its attainment of independence from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1949, to the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982. The authors describe the politics of the judicial apopintments and document the internal struggles and tensions between the justices. Central to the story is the attitude of successive federal governments to the need for a strong and intellectually vibrant court. Not all prime ministers and ministers of justice took an interest in the Court, and some of their appointments were of less than outstanding quality. Only in recent times have appointments been of consistently high calibre. Until 1982 the Supreme Court of Canada played a minor role in the history of the Canadian political structure. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has thrust new responsibilities on the Court, and as those responsibilities are increasingly exercised in the years ahead the Court will become a major participant in our national life. This book explores the foundations on which that participation will be built.

Structuralism and Its Heuristic Implications

ed pattern of change over time. In contrast to Piaget's ultimate appeal to God, Foucault committed himself only to limit as a principle of causation. Consequently, he expressly rejected possibility of a transcendental consciousness, locating regulative power of practices in practices themselves. The rules of formation were considered conditions of existence, coexistence, maintenance, modification, and disappearance within a given discursive formation (1972, p. 38). Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982) accused Foucault of making implausible and unjustified claims regarding prescriptive power of description (p. 96), arguing that it is not legitimate to hypostatize observed formal regularities which describe discursive formations into conditions of these formations' existence (p. 83). Further, they claimed that the causal power attributed to rules governing discursive systems is unintelligible . How, they asked, do discursive practices .form and govern speakers and statements, subjects, and objects they take to be meaningful? (p. xx). Foucault's answer is, by limiting them. According to Foucault's view, form depends on presence of certain possibilities and absence of others. The constraints of knowledge and discourse are limits of possibilities of a given time. Structure is a function of limit. Heuristic Implications of Structuralism Structuralism points to viability of interdisciplinary translation and algorithmic learning. If there is unity of underlying structure, and if knowledge were organized hierarchically according to universal principles, it would be possible to trace transdisciplinary path of a concept; that is, analogous phenomena could be identified in what presently are considered different fields. Thus, truths obtained in one domain could be seen to hold for all others, given proper transmutation of form. Similarly, formal relations could be learned in abstract, and then applied to particular cases. In education, this means that instruction could proceed in opposite direction from present convention (specific to general), so that abstract relations and general principles would form basis for instruction in particulars.

Eugene O’Neill’s New Language of Kinship by Michael Manheim

Reviews 85 Michael Manheim. Eugene O’NeilVs New Language of Kinship. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1982. Pp. 240. $24.00 (hardcover); $12.95 (paper). When, in the early 1920s, O’Neill wrote the program notes to a pro­ duction of Strindberg’s The Dance of Death—a play he greatly admired— he remarked on what he saw and heard as a “new language of kinship” beneath and beyond the acerbic surface dialogue. If that observation has supplied Michael Manheim with his title and one-half of his thesis, Travis Bogard, in Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O’Neill (1971), at least hinted at the direction of the second half by showing that O’Neill tire­ lessly wrote and rewrote the same play, a book of himself culminating in the late, openly autobiographical works. Manheim likewise sees O’Neill as “writing versions of Long Day’s Journey throughout his entire career” —though he does not always discriminate carefully enough between the playwright’s family as it was in real life and as it exists transmuted into art. In this reading, every one of O’Neill’s plays is, to some degree, dis­ guised autobiography, and so surveying the entire repertoire results in something akin to a psychobiography of the dramatist. Whereas earlier critics, however, have been satisfied, for instance, to point out that O’Neill gives us aspects of himself in Eben (Desire Under the Elms) and Orin (Mourning Becomes Electro) and Edmund, Manheim suggests more extensive links, ones that even, at times somewhat tortuously, cross the gender gap: in Mourning, for example, Lavinia is also O’Neill and Ezra Mannon is O’Neill’s mother; while Seth in that play and Charlie Marsden in Strange Interlude are both regarded as Earth Mothers. Manheim’s contention that what interests him “fundamentally” is not the life but the plays, whose ultimate appeal is “existential” rather than autobiographical, would perhaps have been borne out better had he kept to the focus on language that his title promises. Yet even granting that language-based analysis of dramatic texts is difficult at best, the one chapter (on Journey) where Manheim does annotate long passages of dialogue is disappointingly pedestrian. He does, however, provide a vocabulary for analyzing the systole and diastole of love/hate that commentators have long noticed in O’Neill’s works and that Manheim finds revealed through the contrapuntal rhythms and gestures of “hos­ tility and affection” and “abuse and embrace” that always exist concur­ rently. O’Neill’s dialogue, Manheim argues, is finally “life-sustaining”; human interrelatedness (kinship) becomes the only available counter to meaninglessness. Manheim initially denotes three periods in the develop­ ment of O’Neill’s dramatic voice, but when discussing the plays actually refines that division into five: from the beginning through Anna Christie; from Hairy Ape through Desire; from Great God Brown through Mourning; from Days Without End through More Stately Mansions', and from Iceman Cometh through Moon for the Misbegotten. In the first period, hope survives in spite of life’s pain because of human kin­ ship; in the next two periods, desperation, violence, and isolation reflect O’Neill’s own “suicidal self-hatred” that is linked to the deaths, in fairly rapid sequence, of his father, mother, and brother; the fourth period functions as a transition into the last, wherein the dialogue gives evidence 86 Comparative Drama of a rarified form of kinship: human relationships, subject though they are to “chaotic” fluctuations of love and hate, are the last remaining value. In several works from periods after the first, Manheim discerns a motif of characters withdrawing into the self—a pattern reflecting the withdrawal of Ella O’Neill into madness. Although O’Neill considers withdrawal an absolute denial of kinship, it does, sometimes, accompany heroism. Ephraim’s heroic endurance in Desire coincides with a “with­ drawal into a half-life where all feeling is suppressed”; the characters’ longing for the South Sea Isles in Mourning is as much a withdrawal as Lavinia’s into the house/tomb at the end—though Manheim does not see her chosen entombment as an opportunity to expiate for her sins that she has only won because she...

Tradition, Community and Self-Determination

Liberals have regularly associated tradition with constraint. They have spoken of the ‘force’ of tradition or of the ‘despotism’ of custom. Locke drew a contrast between those who let themselves be guided by ‘traditional customs and the fashion of the country’ and those who use their liberty to think for themselves. For John Stuart Mill ‘the love of liberty’ was antagonistic to ‘the sway of Custom’. Tradition and custom are represented by liberals in much the way Machiavelli represented fortuna, as forces which, unless repulsed by independent, free-thinking persons, would inevitably dominate whole societies and epochs. Mill held up China as the warning example. Custom had there become the court of ultimate appeal, the standard of justice, the argument which none could contemplate resisting. Custom had annihilated individuality and with it liberty, along with genuine history. The consequence was ‘stationariness’. Unless the modern pressure of opinion was resisted Europe would become another China. The chief interest of the history of mankind, Mill declared, was the contest between custom and the progressive principle. A free society is in liberal terms an open society.

NEW FORMS OF STRATEGY — NO CHANGE OF HEART

Sharing the preoccupations of my fellow writers, I was the first to express the conviction, now become a general stand, that the release from ban of a few books by well-known white writers is not a major victory for the freedom to write, and that the action carries two sinister implications: first, those among us who are uncompromising opponents of censorship with wide access to the media can be bought off by special treatment accorded to our books; second, the measure of hard-won solidarity that exists between black and white writers can be divided by `favouring' white writers with such special treatment, since no ban on any black writer's work has been challenged by the Directorate's own application to the Appeal Board. I don't claim any prescience or distinction for early arrival at this conviction--Burger's Daughter(1979), my novel, happened to be the first released as a consequence of the Directorate's new tactics. It was natural for me to examine the package very carefully when my book came back to me--apparently intact, after all the mauling it had been through. It was inevitable that I should come upon the neat devices timed to go off in the company of my colleagues. It was not surprising that they should recognise for themselves these booby-traps set for us all, since a week or two later Andre Brink received the same package containing his novel The Dry White Season (1979). And then, in time for April and the seating of the new Chairman of the Appeal Board, came Afrikaans literature's Easter egg, all got up for Etienne le Roux with the sugar roses of the old Appeal Board's repentance and the red ribbon defiant of Aksie Morale Standaarde, the NGK and Dr Koot Vorster--of course, Magersfontein O Magersfortein was not released as the two other books were, as a result of the Director's own appeal against his Committee's bannings, but it's release on an ultimate appeal by the author's publishers transparently belongs to the same strategy in which the other two books were `reinstated'. I am one who has always believed and still believes we shall never be rid of censorship until we are rid of apartheid. Personally I find it necessary to preface with this blunt statement any comment I have about the effects of censorship, the possible changes in its scope, degree, and methodology. Any consideration of how to conduct the struggle against it, how to act for the attainment of immediate ends, is partial, pragmatic, existential response seen against a constant and over-riding factor. Today as always, the invisible banner is behind me, the decisive chalked text on the blackboard, against whose background I say what I have to say. We shall not be rid of censorship until we are rid of apartheid. Censorship is the arm of mind-control and as necessary to maintain a racist regime as that other arm of internal repression, the secret police. Over every apparent victory we may gain against the censorship powers hangs the question whether that victory is in fact contained by apartheid, or can be claimed to erode it from within. What exactly has changed since the 1st April 1980? What exactly does the `born again' cultural evangelism staged with the positively last appearance of Judge Lammie Snyman and the previews of rippling intellectual musculature displayed by thirty-seven year old Dr Kobus van Rooyen, mean? The Censorship Act remains the same. It is still on the statute book. The practice of embargo will continue. The same anonymous committees will read and ban; a censorship committee having been defined in 1978 by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court as "an extra-judicial body, operating in an administrative capacity, whose members need have no legal training, before whom the appellant has no right of audience, who in their deliberations are not required to have regard to the rules of justice designed to achieve a fair trial, whose proceedings are not conducted in public and who are not required to afford any reason for their decision". …

Justice, Liberty, and the Principle of Utility in Mill

Mill is neither an act-utilitarian nor a rule-utilitarian. Although he professes to regard “utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions”, he in fact makes no appeal to it in determining in Utilitarianism what actions are “of more absolute obligation than any others”. Nor does he appeal to it in his arguments for the two main conclusions of his essay, On Liberty.

Pierre Reverdy, Poet of Nausea

The image of collapse or implosion which dominates Reverdy's poetry and haunts the climactic section of La Nausée is glossed in the concluding pages of Sartre's novel and in various parts of Camus's Le Mythe de Sisyphe. All three men focus on the experience of the absurd, on the malaise that accompanies the fleeting awareness of the contingency of all things, a feeling that is often triggered by the perception of abrupt decline or dissolution. This existentialist malaise or nausea, which terrifies Sartre's hero Roquentin, is in fact the very stuff of Reverdy's poetry and as such it demoralizes his readers. At the same time, however, Reverdy's poetry is deeply satisfying. Its ultimate appeal can perhaps best be understood in the light of Roquentin's final decision to face up to his nausea and to purify it in a lasting form such as a work of literature. It is precisely this solution to the problem of the absurd that Reveredy had intuited at the beginning of his career in 1915. Indeed, his life's work as a poet amounts to a sustained effort to confront the absurd and neutralize it in poetic form.

The relationships between some aspects of visual imagery and the alpha rhythm.

Golla, Hutton and Grey Walter (1943) made an attempt to use the EEG as an objective means of assessing imagery. They concluded that there were three types of alpha rhythm which corresponded to three different kinds of imagery processes: M or minus type whose alpha rhythms were almost non-existent and who used mainly visual imagery in thinking; the P or persistent type whose alpha rhythms continue even during mental activity, and who used mainly vocal kinaesthetic imagery; the R or responsive type with a good resting alpha rhythm which blocked readily during mental activity, and whose imagery was mixed. Though they were attempting to find an objective means ofassessing imagery an ultimate appeal is made to introspection as a validating criterion, and the tasks given to the subjects were such as to present difficult problems in the way of introspection. For instance, they were asked to think over to themselves the story of Red Riding Hood, to think over to themselves their plans for some definite day, to think over the argument for and against some abstract proposition such as “honestyis the best policy” or “the existence of free will”. It is felt that if an attempt is to be made to find an objective means of assessing imagery some at tempt should first of all be made to control the kind of imagery that will be used.

"Who Is Feeble-Minded?"

(This article continues the discussion of the suitability of psychological tests begun in the last number, as tools for the criminological laboratory in the courts.-ED.) Clinicians generally are inclined to ignore attacks upon their methods, attacks which are based on insecure foundations or seem impregnated with prejudice. Yet this restraint occasionally cannot be kept within bounds when the attack is adapted, consciously or unsciously, to prejudice and lead the general public astray. Our ultimate appeal in all this work is to public opinion, and we can hardly afford to sacrifice the normal progress of applied psychology, in this field especially, because of some remediable and inconsequent defect in our procedure, a defect which is often magnified entirely out of proportion. But coming more specifically to the paper under the above title in the January number of this JOURNAL, the careful reader will find it shot through with such fundamental errors that the whole thesis is invalidated and thrown out of court. And it is entirely too bad that this unfounded criticism should have been given such countrywide publicity. For purposes of clarity we will consider the abovementioned errors one by one.