Habits of a Free Mind

A toolkit for democracy—including engaging across lines of difference w/out feeling traumatized & w/out dehumanizing others 🔗

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

“Free speech isn’t just a legal right, according to @glukianoff. It’s a psychological necessity. That’s why he says today’s culture of silencing, shouting down, and canceling isn’t just a political problem. It’s a mental health one.”
by @PamelaParesky
https://t.co/5Cj6QFqhdV

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

More than seven years after writing the bestseller, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” both co-authors are targeted for cancelation.
Read the Habits of a Free Mind newsletter by @PamelaParesky
https://t.co/f6GXTsJH4q

[Pamela Paresky 🟦 (Habits of a Free Mind) @PamelaParesky]

Tremendous kudos to the brave @RosieKayK2CO and @Freedom_in_Arts

[Ashley Rindsberg @AshleyRindsberg]

Tucker is cracking.

I spoke not long ago with an influential figure in US politics who told me that people in DC do indeed care about antisemitism, and that most of the serious people would be appalled to know that Carlson might be spreading it.

The problem, I learned, is that the algos simply weren't serving up Tucker's anti-Israel and anti-Jewish clips to these individuals.

In a way, the Iran war has forced Tucker's hand. His antisemitism—or, let's define it as his "extreme, obsessive, myopic focus on the faults of just one country which just happens to be the only Jewish state"—is now merging with a foreign policy position three states to the left of Mearshimer.

Here, we have Tucker engaging with an individual who popped out of nowhere, bolstered by claims that he's some famous professor, to spew positions so nakedly pro-CCP they would make Edgar Snow blush to his kneecaps.

Tucker isn't doing a journalistic interview in any normal sense. He doesn't push back or challenge this man's ideas or question his credibility. It's mere platforming.

But Tucker has taken a wrong turn. Melding his Jewish-state monomania with his "Down with American" foreign policy contortion exposes both at the same time.

In a way, he needed the former to pull off the latter—otherwise it would just be garden variety far-left protest ideology, the sort you find on the quad in UC Berkeley. The Israeli piece to this gave him a lever to say: "Our foreign policy is being hijacked by this evil state. It's not that America is bad, it's that America under Israel is bad."

That audiences were asked to believe that a country with 10 million people somehow has leverage over the most powerful nation in history only made it more attractive in our conspiracy-theory-addled social media atmosphere. With these dark minor chords oozing in the background, it lent it a sense of inside information being hidden from view. Step this way folks, for the truth.

It almost worked. But by espousing a directly anti-US position—the US should "share power" with its top enemies and adversaries—Tucker taken off the mask.

We can now see this for what it is: anti-Israel monomania, anti-American foreign policy, built into a single conceptual complex—and delivered by a masterful performer.

[WikiBias @WikiBias]

BREAKING: Iskandar323, the Wikipedia editor banned for extensive anti-Israel, pro-terror biased editing, was recruited by Euro-Med Monitor, which runs a "Human Rights" Wikiproject designed to push its biased narrative by recruiting editors.
Our eyes are wide open. More to come.

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

The March Habits of a Free Mind newsletter is out. Interviews conducted in Israel by @PamelaParesky, articles she wrote in Israel, and a podcast recorded in Israel for which she is the interviewee rather than the interviewer.
https://t.co/4yCpnPHfGj

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

The March Habits of a Free Mind newsletter is out. Interviews conducted in Israel by @PamelaParesky, articles she wrote in Israel, and a podcast recorded in Israel for which she is the interviewee rather than the interviewer.
https://t.co/4yCpnPHfGj

[Mor Edge Insight @MorEdge_Insight]

One of the best interviews you’ll watch this week. The phenomenal @visegrad24 interviews the brilliant @Imamofpeace. I encourage you to watch all of it. You can thank me later. Or better yet, thank @visegrad24. Exceptional 🔥

[מיכל קוטלר-וונש | Michal Cotler-Wunsh @CotlerWunsh]

“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against its own civilians, as well as Israelis, Americans, Canadians, Argentinians and many others around the world…R2P was not intended to be a feel-good theoretical framework. It is anchored in moral clarity that demands action in the face of mass atrocities and egregious violations of international law.”

More in @nationalpost with @becca_w13 https://t.co/aoucveAbgd

[מיכל קוטלר-וונש | Michal Cotler-Wunsh @CotlerWunsh]

“When the threat is direct, when missiles fall closer to home, when terror metastasizes beyond its preferred targets, leaders who once equivocated discover urgency. Principles once treated as negotiable become sacred. Words like freedom, sovereignty and self-defense return to their rightful place in public discourse.”

Words in @JNS_org

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

“A society that maximizes belonging while severing it from standards produces conformity, not freedom. A society that encourages mattering divorced from truth produces fanaticism, not dignity.”
Belonging Matters. And Mattering Matters Too. https://t.co/EtGAkHJrfI

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

“What makes the IHRA definition controversial... is not that it conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism—it explicitly avoids doing that—but that it attempts to pry open a moral system that is closed where Jews are concerned.”
@PamelaParesky
https://t.co/SJBrOKk7ty

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

Does the @IHRA definition of antisemitism conflate “criticism of Israel” with hatred of Jews?

Short answer: NO.

Long answer in the article below: https://t.co/16beLp4uWv

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

“Existential psychiatrist Irvin Yalom found that people’s behavior often reflects deeper human concerns than we might think—for example, death, isolation, freedom, and meaninglessness. Political convictions can mask such profound existential priorities.”
https://t.co/lEKHWktlTt

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

The Habits of a Free Mind Holiday Newsletter is out!

New research by psychologist @toddkashdan and his colleagues indicates the real obstacle to cross-partisan understanding and depolarization.

Read this to learn more.

[Pamela Paresky 🟦 (Habits of a Free Mind) @PamelaParesky]

Highly recommend @benappel’s new memoir! (Amazon link in comment.)

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

Oh amazing! @ShorrTirza is brilliant!

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

If you want to understand what's going on with the Red–Green Alliance, Queers for Palestine, Zohran Mamdani, and all the likes (that is, Islamic Socialism), I strongly recommend you read this smart piece by @ShorrTirza.
https://t.co/eqMRLqGWCZ

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

https://t.co/S5ysv71SWK

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

Author @benappel grew up in the Lamb of God Christian cult. Years after escaping, he found that he didn’t need to live in a religious commune to experience cult dynamics. He only needed to go to college.

@PamelaParesky’s review of his brilliant memoir is in the Habits newsletter

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

“After Escaping a Cult, Author Ben Appel Found Another One in College.”
https://t.co/S5ysv71l7c

[Habits of a Free Mind @HabitsFreeMind]

The Habits of a Free Mind December Newsletter is out. @PamelaParesky writes about author @benappel’s new book, Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic.

“After Escaping a Cult, Author Ben Appel Found Another One in College.”

(Link next tweet.)