Anti-gender movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gender_movement 

"Gender no more": demonstrators from Con mis hijos no te metas ("Don't mess with my kids") during a pro-life march in Lima, Peru, 2018

"Gender is death — it kills identity, soul and body": picketing against "gender ideology" in Warsaw, 2014

The anti-gender movement is an international movement that opposes what it refers to as "gender ideology", "gender theory" or "genderism", terms which cover a variety of issues, whilst not having a coherent definition. Members of the anti-gender movement primarily include those of the political right-wing and far right, such as right-wing populists, conservatives, and Christian fundamentalists. Anti-gender rhetoric has seen increasing circulation in trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) discourse since 2016. Members of the anti-gender movement oppose some LGBT rights, some reproductive rights, government gender policies, gender equality, gender mainstreaming, and gender studies academic departments.

The term gender ideology has been described by academics Stefanie Mayer and Birgit Sauer as an "empty signifier" and by Agnieszka Graff as a "great name for all that conservative Catholics despise". The idea of gender ideology has been described by some as a moral panic or conspiracy theory, as it alleges that there is a secret cabal out to undermine society. A report by the European Parliament linked the rise of the anti-gender movement in Europe to disinformation campaigns that are sponsored in large part by Russia.

The movement derives from Catholic theology and can be dated to the late twentieth century, but the protests that brought the movement to attention did not start until around 2012–2013. Gender researcher Andrea Pető states that the anti-gender movement is not a form of classical anti-feminism but instead "a fundamentally new phenomenon that was launched to establish a new world order".

Terminology

In non-English speaking countries, many anti-gender activists avoid using vernacular translations of the word "gender" in favor of the English word to promote the idea that gender is a foreign concept.

The concept of gender ideology does not have a coherent definition and covers a variety of issues; for this reason, it has been described by academics Stefanie Mayer and Birgit Sauer as an "empty signifier" and by Agnieszka Graff as a catch-all term "for all that conservative Catholics despise". The term gender ideology and related terms gender theory and genderism, used interchangeably, are not equivalent to the academic discipline of gender studies, within which significant controversies and disagreements exist. Anti-gender proponents are often unaware of these debates and disagreements. Elizabeth Corredor writes: "gender ideology serves as both a political and epistemological counterclaim to emancipatory conceptions of gender, sex, and sexuality". She adds that the anti-gender movement combines "gender ideology" rhetoric with attempts to exploit the existing divisions within LGBT and feminist movements. The movement accuses various actors of being bearers of "gender ideology", including "liberal, green or leftist politicians, women's rights activists, LGBT activists, gender policy officers of public administrations, and gender studies scholars".

Origin theories

There are various theories about when and where the anti-gender movement originated.

International conferences in the mid-1990s

Some scholars studying the anti-gender movement date its origins to 1990s discussions within the Catholic Church to counter the results of the United Nations' 1994 International Conference on Population and Development and the 1995 World Conference on Women, following which the UN began to recognize sexual and reproductive rights. The Holy See feared that this recognition would lead to abortion being seen as a human right, delegitimization of motherhood, and the normalization of homosexuality. The term gender "was understood by the Holy See as a strategic means to attack and destabilize the natural family". In 1997, American anti-abortion journalist Dale O'Leary, who is affiliated to the Opus Dei, wrote a book titled The Gender Agenda: "the Gender Agenda sails into communities not as a tall ship, but as a submarine, determined to reveal as little of itself as possible". In Catholic thought, the concept of gender ideology emerged from John Paul II's theology of the body, in which the sexes are held to be different and complementary. Although the ideas of the anti-gender movement were developed by 2003, protests related to the movement first emerged in some European countries around 2012–2013. Although it is still promoted by Catholic actors, the anti-gender movement spread more generally throughout the right-wing by 2019.

1980s Church origin

Alternately, the anti-gender movement has been dated to the early 1980s when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the later Pope Benedict XVI, noticed that feminist books arguing that gender was socially constructed were bestsellers in Germany and noticed changes in German law allowing transgender people to legally change their gender. Researcher Mary Anne Case therefore argues that "Trans rights claims were, together with feminist claims, thus a foundational component, not a recent addition, to the Vatican's sphere of concern around 'gender' and to the focusing of that concern on developments in secular law."

Later developments

Trans-exclusionary radical feminism or gender-critical feminism

Main article: Gender-critical feminism

Bassi and LaFleur note that "the trans-exclusionary feminist (TERF) movement and the so-called anti-gender movement are only rarely distinguished as movements with distinct constitutions and aims." Pearce et al. posits that the concept of "gender ideology" long employed by the anti-gender movement "saw increasing circulation in trans-exclusionary radical feminist discourse" from around 2016. Claire Thurlow noted that "despite efforts to obscure the point, gender critical feminism continues to rely on transphobic tropes, moral panics and essentialist understandings of men and women. These factors also continue to link trans-exclusionary feminism to anti-feminist reactionary politics and other 'anti-gender' movements."

Foreign influence

A report commissioned by the European Parliament found that anti-gender activity in Europe was funded to a large degree by Russian and American actors.

Central figures and issues

Key proponents of the anti-gender movement include Dale O'Leary, Michel Schooyans, Tony Anatrella, Gabriele Kuby, and Marguerite Peeters [Wikidata]. According to Łukasz Wawrowski, it is not possible to have a scientific discourse between gender studies scholars and anti-gender proponents, because for the former, gender is a scientific concept that can be researched and falsified, whereas anti-gender proponents derive their arguments from transcendent truths handed down by God, which are not subject to empirical verification.

In the European Parliament, the strong election results of the Italian Lega, the British Brexit Party (having left parliament on 31 January 2020), Poland’s Law and Justice, Hungary’s Fidesz and France’s Rassemblement National contributed to a surge of the movement. Most of these MEPs belong to the right-wing populist and nationalist Identity and Democracy (ID) or the European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) parliamentary groups. However, there are also members of the European Parliament representing these views within the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) groups.

Members of the anti-gender movement oppose some reproductive rights, particularly abortion, as well as some LGBT rights, especially same-sex marriage, along with some campaigns against gender-based violence. They may also campaign against anti-bullying programs, sex education in schools, and gender studies in higher education. According to Kováts, not all the movements fitting under the "anti-gender" label (by opposing "gender" or "gender ideology") are overtly anti-feminist or anti-LGBT, and the anti-gender movement is a novel phenomenon distinct from previous anti-feminism and homophobia. The anti-gender movement is not synonymous with the far-right, as not all far-right movements espouse anti-gender views, and anti-gender themes extend beyond the far-right.

"Gender ideology"

The anti-gender movement often uses the term "gender ideology". Anti-gender activists may portray the EU and international organizations as manipulated by lobbies, such as American billionaires, Freemasons, feminists, or Jews. To promote the idea that gender is a foreign concept imposed by corrupt elites, they often use the English word gender, rather than a translation into the local language.

Proponents present themselves as the defenders of the freedoms of speech, thought, and conscience against the "gender ideology", which they label as "totalitarian".

Some in the anti-gender movement consider "gender ideology" to be a totalitarian ideology. This is allegedly pushed by a secret cabal or foreign entities (such as the European Union, World Health Organization, or United Nations) for the purpose of weakening, undermining, or destroying families, the Catholic Church, the nation, or Western civilization.

Related concepts

According to sociologists Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, "the invention of 'gender ideology' is closely connected to debates within the Catholic Church". Pope Francis has stated that "gender ideology" would undermine the Catholic Church's position on gender complementarity, comparing it to nuclear weapons, and said it was one of the "Herods that destroy, that plot designs of death, that disfigure the face of man and woman, destroying creation". In 2019, the Catholic Church released the first major document dealing specifically with "gender ideology", which states that there are only two biologically determined genders or sexes. According to Corredor,

the Holy See's perspective deeply depends on a stable and predictably correlated relationship between biological sex, gender identity, and heterosexual orientation, which is expressed in the Church's terms as the one and only natural unity of mind, body, and soul. Because this unity is believed to be rooted within natural and divine law—as a direct creation of God—it transcends political, historical, and social arrangements shaped by man.

The anti-gender movement is closely related to right-wing populism, nationalism, and the Christian right. According to Kuhar and Paternotte, "anti-gender campaigns are [not] the direct consequence of the right-wing populist wave, but the shift towards the Right reinforces these campaigns and provides them with new supporters who took over a concept of 'gender ideology' which shares some ideological structures with right-wing populist ideology". In line with their populist framing, referendums are often used to secure the outcomes desired by the anti-gender movement.

Analyses and responses

It is disputed the extent to which the anti-gender movement is a reaction to events and other movements, or a proactive movement attempting to create social change. Hande Eslen-Ziya argues that the anti-gender movement relies on what she calls "troll science," that she describes as "(distorted) scientific arguments moulded into populist discourse, creating an alternative narrative on the conceptions of gender equality."

According to Marta Rawłuszko, the anti-gender movement is, in part, a backlash against the devolution of power from democratically elected national governments to unelected equality bodies and international organizations, such as the European Union, which demand changes. Because these policies are not approved by voters or their elected representatives, they generate a democratic deficit. She notes that "gender equality policies have been implemented without engaging a wider audience or public debate".

However, Paternotte argues that picturing the anti-gender movement as a "backlash" is "conceptually flawed, empirically weak and politically problematic", because comparative research has shown that in different countries, the anti-gender activism is "sparked by extremely different issues".

The emergence and success of anti-gender movements is considered by political scientist Eszter Kováts to be a symptom of a deeper underlying socioeconomic, political, and cultural crisis of liberal democracy and a reaction to neoliberalism. Similarly, political scientist Birgit Sauer refers to these movements as, among other things, a reaction to deregulation, precarization of labor, the erosion of the welfare state and the widening of the gap between the rich and poor. In the journal LuXemburg in 2018, sociologist Weronika Grzebalska and political scientists Eszter Kováts and Andrea Pető analyze the term gender as the "symbolic glue" of the anti-gender movement, which unites different political and religious actors who would otherwise not cooperate with each other. They view the "gender ideology" that these actors mobilize against as a metaphor for the insecurity and unfairness produced by the neoliberal socioeconomic order.

The idea of gender ideology has been described as a moral panic or conspiracy theory. According to two political psychologists writing for The Conversation, the conspiracy theory contributed to a debate in Poland in 2020 about "whether the coronavirus pandemic is a punishment for gender theory". An Ipsos survey in October 2019 found that a plurality of Polish men under 40 believe that "the LGBT movement and gender ideology" is the "biggest threat facing them in the 21st century".

Those said to support gender ideology are delegitimized, negating pluralism and undermining liberal democracy, in a similar way to the far-right. Lorena Sosa, assistant professor at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights  (SIM), states that the anti-gender movement has challenged human rights, such as protection from violence against women, and contributed to democratic erosion.

Pető argues that "The anti-gender movement is not merely another offshoot of centuries-old anti-feminism... The anti-gender movement is a fundamentally new phenomenon that was launched to establish a new world order." She also argues that the movement "is saturated with hatred"—citing online harassment against gender researchers—and argues that it "attacks liberalism and therefore democracy". In 2021 the philosopher Judith Butler described the anti-gender movement as a fascist trend and cautioned self-declared feminists against allying with such movements in targeting trans, non-binary, and genderqueer people. In a 2019 paper Butler argued that "the confusion of discourses is part of what constitutes the fascist structure and appeal of at least some of these [anti-gender] movements. One can oppose gender as a cultural import from the North at the same time that one can see that very opposition as a social movement against further colonization of the South. The result is not a turn to the Left, but an embrace of ethno-nationalism."

Marie Wittenius of the Gunda Werner Institute for feminism and gender democracy argues that the term "gender ideology" "functions as a broad projection area for racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and transphobia, ethnicnationalist ideas as well as hostility towards elites."

In August 2021, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović said the anti-gender movement are "instrumentalising existing societal prejudices and verbally attacking LGBTI people to achieve political objectives for their own benefit" and said the targeting of "LGBTI people for political gain is a costly strategy which harms the lives and well-being of those affected and undermines social cohesion in general." The Commissioner said that "by permeating the political scene, the anti-gender movements are increasingly well-placed to erode the protection of human rights in Europe" and concluded that "by standing up for LGBTI people, we defend the equal human dignity of all, protect our societies' wellbeing and the strength of our precious human rights system."

In February 2022, the European Parliament Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality organised a public hearing on "Countering the anti-gender movement", highlighting the anti-gender movement as a threat to gender equality.

By region

March against "gender ideology" in Chile, 27 October 2018

The anti-gender movement emerged in Europe in the early 2010s and, as of 2019, was making headway in Latin America. The movement is transnational, with campaigns in different countries borrowing strategies and rhetoric from other countries. However, in individual countries the anti-gender movement overlaps with appeals to nationalism and national sovereignty.

Besides Catholicism, anti-gender rhetoric is used by other Christians, Confucians, Hindus, Muslims, and Jews.

Europe

Before the emergence of the anti-gender movement, activists and scholars believed that Europe was on an inexorable course towards complete gender equality and full LGBT rights, serious opposition to which was deemed a holdover from the past or else a phenomenon confined to Eastern Europe and Catholic countries. The anti-gender movement proved this perception to be incorrect. Since the 1990s, the European Commission has made eligibility for funding from the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund conditional on local gender equality policies, which led to rapid changes after Poland joined the European Union in 2004.

In February 2019, the European Parliament passed a resolution against the "backlash in women's rights and gender equality in the EU".

Bulgaria

In February 2023 the Bulgarian Socialist Party called for a national referendum on "Gender Ideology". Later in the month, the party praised a Supreme Court ruling that only biological sex can be listed on government documents and could not be changed.

France

La Manif pour tous demonstration, 26 May 2013 in Paris

The anti-gender movement in France is spearheaded by Farida Belghoul and La Manif pour tous (LMPT), a protest movement which originated in early 2013 to oppose same-sex marriage in France and pivoted to opposing equality curricula after same-sex marriage was legalized in May 2013. The anti-gender movement in France has spread false rumors and hoaxes, such as the claim that masturbation is being taught in French kindergartens.

Germany

In Germany, right-wing extremists and right-wing populists mobilized against the concept of "gender madness," which was characterized as a "weapon" against "the German people" in a 2013 call by neo-Nazis.

Even outside the extreme right, there has been critical discussion of gender mainstreaming since 2006, when Eva Herman commented on the role of women in society and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung debated "political gender reassignment". Right-wing extremists used this as a prelude to a targeted campaign against gender mainstreaming.

Additionally, since 2013, the fundamentalist Christian protest alliance Demo für Alle  has mobilized against same-sex marriage and gender mainstreaming.

Hungary

According to Eszter Kováts and Andrea Pető, writing in 2017, there was "no significant anti-gender movement" in the country, but "a palpable anti-gender discourse", especially in the later 2010s, which to date had only sporadically intersected with the national public debate. They write that the Hungarian anti-gender discourse emerged in 2008, when a textbook was published that was criticized by a Fidesz MP. The politician said that the textbook contained "gender ideology" and that "the greatest danger of this trend is that society will lose its sexual identity". In politics, the anti-gender discourse first attained prominence in 2010, when the left-wing government inserted a sentence into the national curriculum stating that early childhood educators should "deliberately avoid any strengthening of gender stereotypes and facilitate the dismantling of the prejudices concerning the social equality of genders". Right-wing media gave the change much coverage; it was alleged to promote "gender ideology".

Italy

Anti-gender in Italy has been sponsored by Lega Nord party as well as the groups Pro Vita (associated with the neo-fascist party New Force) and Manif pour Tous Italia, later called Generazione Famiglia. In the 2018 Italian general election, Lega Nord placed members of Catholic organizations on its electoral lists, sealing an anti-gender alliance.

Lithuania

The 2020 Lithuanian parliamentary elections and the formation of coalition between the Homeland Union and Freedom Party, which shares a positive stance on LGBT-related policies, led to the formation of anti-gender movements such as the Lithuanian Family Movement and political parties like the National Alliance.

Norway

Gender studies scholar Elisabeth L. Engebretsen has identified groups such as the Norwegian branch of Women's Declaration International and LLH2019, a self-declared sister organization of LGB Alliance, as key anti-gender actors in Norway. According to Engebretsen these groups are part of a "complex threat to democracy."

Poland

See also: LGBT-free zones

Catholic anti-gay protesters during the 2018 equality march in Rzeszów

In late 2013, the term gender, which had been confined to academic discourse, became popularized as part of an anti-gender campaign by the right-wing and the Catholic Church. The campaign against "gender ideology" is promoted by the ruling, national-conservative PiS party, by the Catholic Church's hierarchy, and more radically nationalist groups with which PiS has a fluid boundary: All-Polish Youth, the National Rebirth of Poland, and the National-Radical Camp. Sociologists Piotr Żuk  and Paweł Żuk write that: "The right in Poland perceives both feminist and homosexual circles as a threat to the national identity associated with the Catholic religion and as a threat to the traditional family model and social order." Anti-LGBT rhetoric from the Polish right increased following the conclusion of the 2015 European migrant crisis, during which anti-migrant rhetoric was prominent. With anti-gender rhetoric, the LGBT community served as the scapegoat or demonized enemy required by populist politics.

A 2020 survey of a representative sample of 1,000 Poles found that 30% believed in the existence of a gender conspiracy, "defined as a secret plan to destroy Christian tradition partly by taking control over public media". The survey found that belief in the gender conspiracy did not correlate with religiosity; it was strongly associated with the belief that the Catholic Church should occupy a privileged position in society and rejection of LGBT people as neighbors. Marta Rawłuszko suggests that Polish people may be prone to finding conspiracies because of the actual plots during communist rule. In June 2020, Polish president Andrzej Duda of PiS drew attention when he called LGBT an "ideology" and a form of "neo-Bolshevism", ahead of the 2020 Polish presidential election.

North America

United States

In 2021, Puerto Rico experienced a march against the introduction of a "Gender Perspective curriculum" in public schools that was created under former Governor Alejandro García Padilla and being enacted under Governor Pedro Pierluisi. The marchers, who numbered in the tens of thousands, described the event as marching against "Gender Ideology". Speakers included Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, political scientist Agustín Laje [es], along with other religious leaders.

Latin America

Brazil

Former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has characterized "gender ideologists" as a force that is opposed to conservative Christianity. He has also said that he wants to ban "gender ideology in schools".

Colombia

During the 2016 Colombian peace agreement referendum, evangelical Christian groups and right-wing politicians who opposed the peace agreement argued that protections for LGBT people in the treaty were "an instrument to impose gender ideology". This helped motivate much of the evangelical electorate to oppose the agreement, which was ultimately rejected by voters, 50.22% (No) to 49.78% (Yes).

Middle East

Iraq

In 2023, the Iraqi government issued an order officially prohibiting media from using the word "gender". It also mandated that the word "homosexuality" be avoided, in favor of "sexual deviance".

Natural user interface

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with natural language user interface.

In computing, a natural user interface (NUI) or natural interface is a user interface that is effectively invisible, and remains invisible as the user continuously learns increasingly complex interactions. The word "natural" is used because most computer interfaces use artificial control devices whose operation has to be learned. Examples include voice assistants, such as Alexa and Siri, touch and multitouch interactions on today's mobile phones and tablets, but also touch interfaces invisibly integrated into the textiles furnitures.

An NUI relies on a user being able to quickly transition from novice to expert. While the interface requires learning, that learning is eased through design which gives the user the feeling that they are instantly and continuously successful. Thus, "natural" refers to a goal in the user experience – that the interaction comes naturally, while interacting with the technology, rather than that the interface itself is natural. This is contrasted with the idea of an intuitive interface, referring to one that can be used without previous learning.

Several design strategies have been proposed which have met this goal to varying degrees of success. One strategy is the use of a "reality user interface" ("RUI"), also known as "reality-based interfaces" (RBI) methods. One example of an RUI strategy is to use a wearable computer to render real-world objects "clickable", i.e. so that the wearer can click on any everyday object so as to make it function as a hyperlink, thus merging cyberspace and the real world. Because the term "natural" is evocative of the "natural world", RBI are often confused for NUI, when in fact they are merely one means of achieving it.

One example of a strategy for designing a NUI not based in RBI is the strict limiting of functionality and customization, so that users have very little to learn in the operation of a device. Provided that the default capabilities match the user's goals, the interface is effortless to use. This is an overarching design strategy in Apple's iOS. Because this design is coincident with a direct-touch display, non-designers commonly misattribute the effortlessness of interacting with the device to that multi-touch display, and not to the design of the software where it actually resides.

History

Evolution of user interfaces

In the 1990s, Steve Mann developed a number of user-interface strategies using natural interaction with the real world as an alternative to a command-line interface (CLI) or graphical user interface (GUI). Mann referred to this work as "natural user interfaces", "Direct User Interfaces", and "metaphor-free computing". Mann's EyeTap technology typically embodies an example of a natural user interface. Mann's use of the word "Natural" refers to both action that comes naturally to human users, as well as the use of nature itself, i.e. physics (Natural Philosophy), and the natural environment. A good example of an NUI in both these senses is the hydraulophone, especially when it is used as an input device, in which touching a natural element (water) becomes a way of inputting data. More generally, a class of musical instruments called "physiphones", so-named from the Greek words "physika", "physikos" (nature) and "phone" (sound) have also been proposed as "Nature-based user interfaces".

In 2006, Christian Moore established an open research community with the goal to expand discussion and development related to NUI technologies. In a 2008 conference presentation "Predicting the Past," August de los Reyes, a Principal User Experience Director of Surface Computing at Microsoft described the NUI as the next evolutionary phase following the shift from the CLI to the GUI. Of course, this too is an over-simplification, since NUIs necessarily include visual elements – and thus, graphical user interfaces. A more accurate description of this concept would be to describe it as a transition from WIMP to NUI.

In the CLI, users had to learn an artificial means of input, the keyboard, and a series of codified inputs, that had a limited range of responses, where the syntax of those commands was strict.

Then, when the mouse enabled the GUI, users could more easily learn the mouse movements and actions, and were able to explore the interface much more. The GUI relied on metaphors for interacting with on-screen content or objects. The 'desktop' and 'drag' for example, being metaphors for a visual interface that ultimately was translated back into the strict codified language of the computer.

An example of the misunderstanding of the term NUI was demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2010. "Now a new wave of products is poised to bring natural user interfaces, as these methods of controlling electronics devices are called, to an even broader audience."

In 2010, Microsoft's Bill Buxton reiterated the importance of the NUI within Microsoft Corporation with a video discussing technologies which could be used in creating a NUI, and its future potential.

In 2010, Daniel Wigdor and Dennis Wixon provided an operationalization of building natural user interfaces in their book. In it, they carefully distinguish between natural user interfaces, the technologies used to achieve them, and reality-based UI.

Early examples

Multi-touch

When Bill Buxton was asked about the iPhone's interface, he responded "Multi-touch technologies have a long history. To put it in perspective, the original work undertaken by my team was done in 1984, the same year that the first Macintosh computer was released, and we were not the first."

Multi-Touch is a technology which could enable a natural user interface. However, most UI toolkits used to construct interfaces executed with such technology are traditional GUIs.

Examples of interfaces commonly referred to as NUI

Perceptive Pixel

One example is the work done by Jefferson Han on multi-touch interfaces. In a demonstration at TED in 2006, he showed a variety of means of interacting with on-screen content using both direct manipulations and gestures. For example, to shape an on-screen glutinous mass, Jeff literally 'pinches' and prods and pokes it with his fingers. In a GUI interface for a design application for example, a user would use the metaphor of 'tools' to do this, for example, selecting a prod tool, or selecting two parts of the mass that they then wanted to apply a 'pinch' action to. Han showed that user interaction could be much more intuitive by doing away with the interaction devices that we are used to and replacing them with a screen that was capable of detecting a much wider range of human actions and gestures. Of course, this allows only for a very limited set of interactions which map neatly onto physical manipulation (RBI). Extending the capabilities of the software beyond physical actions requires significantly more design work.

Microsoft PixelSense

Microsoft PixelSense takes similar ideas on how users interact with content, but adds in the ability for the device to optically recognize objects placed on top of it. In this way, users can trigger actions on the computer through the same gestures and motions as Jeff Han's touchscreen allowed, but also objects become a part of the control mechanisms. So for example, when you place a wine glass on the table, the computer recognizes it as such and displays content associated with that wine glass. Placing a wine glass on a table maps well onto actions taken with wine glasses and other tables, and thus maps well onto reality-based interfaces. Thus, it could be seen as an entrée to a NUI experience.

3D Immersive Touch

Main article: Edusim

"3D Immersive Touch" is defined as the direct manipulation of 3D virtual environment objects using single or multi-touch surface hardware in multi-user 3D virtual environments. Coined first in 2007 to describe and define the 3D natural user interface learning principles associated with Edusim. Immersive Touch natural user interface now appears to be taking on a broader focus and meaning with the broader adaption of surface and touch driven hardware such as the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and a growing list of other hardware. Apple also seems to be taking a keen interest in “Immersive Touch” 3D natural user interfaces over the past few years. This work builds atop the broad academic base which has studied 3D manipulation in virtual reality environments.

Xbox Kinect

Kinect is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console and Windows PCs that uses spatial gestures for interaction instead of a game controller. According to Microsoft's page, Kinect is designed for "a revolutionary new way to play: no controller required.". Again, because Kinect allows the sensing of the physical world, it shows potential for RBI designs, and thus potentially also for NUI.

Veterinary medicine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterinary_medicine

A veterinary technician in Ethiopia shows the owner of an ailing donkey how to sanitize the site of infection.

Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in animals. Along with this, it deals with animal rearing, husbandry, breeding, research on nutrition, and product development. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all animal species, both domesticated and wild, with a wide range of conditions that can affect different species.

Veterinary medicine is widely practiced, both with and without professional supervision. Professional care is most often led by a veterinary physician (also known as a veterinarian, veterinary surgeon, or "vet"), but also by paraveterinary workers, such as veterinary nurses, veterinary technicians, and veterinary assistants. This can be augmented by other paraprofessionals with specific specialties, such as animal physiotherapy or dentistry, and species-relevant roles such as farriers.

Veterinary science helps human health through the monitoring and control of zoonotic disease (infectious disease transmitted from nonhuman animals to humans), food safety, and through human applications via medical research. They also help to maintain food supply through livestock health monitoring and treatment, and mental health by keeping pets healthy and long-living. Veterinary scientists often collaborate with epidemiologists and other health or natural scientists, depending on type of work. Ethically, veterinarians are usually obliged to look after animal welfare. Veterinarians diagnose, treat, and help keep animals safe and healthy.

History

Premodern era

Archeological evidence, in the form of a cow skull upon which trepanation had been performed, shows that people were performing veterinary procedures in the Neolithic (3400–3000 BCE).

Fragments of the Kahun Papyrus on veterinary medicine, early second millennium BCE

The Egyptian Papyrus of Kahun (Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt) is the first extant record of veterinary medicine.

The Shalihotra Samhita, dating from the time of Ashoka, is an early Indian veterinary treatise. The edicts of Asoka read: "Everywhere King Piyadasi (Asoka) made two kinds of medicine (चिकित्सा) available, medicine for people, and medicine for animals. Where no healing herbs for people and animals were available, he ordered that they be bought and planted."

Manuscript page of Hippiatrica (14th century)

Hippiatrica is a Byzantine compilation of hippiatrics, dated to the fifth or sixth century AD.

The first attempts to organize and regulate the practice of treating animals tended to focus on horses because of their economic significance. In the Middle Ages, farriers combined their work in horseshoeing with the more general task of "horse doctoring". The Arabic tradition of Bayṭara, or Shiyāt al-Khayl, originates with the treatise of Ibn Akhī Hizām (fl. late ninth century).

In 1356, the Lord Mayor of London, concerned at the poor standard of care given to horses in the city, requested that all farriers operating within a 7-mile (11-km) radius of the City of London form a "fellowship" to regulate and improve their practices. This ultimately led to the establishment of the Worshipful Company of Farriers in 1674.

Meanwhile, Carlo Ruini's book Anatomia del Cavallo (Anatomy of the Horse) was published in 1598. It was the first comprehensive treatise on the anatomy of a nonhuman species.

Establishment of profession

Claude Bourgelat established the earliest veterinary school in Lyon in 1762.

The first veterinary school was founded in Lyon, France, in 1762 by Claude Bourgelat. According to Lupton, after observing the devastation being caused by cattle plague to the French herds, Bourgelat devoted his time to seeking out a remedy. This resulted in founding a veterinary school in Lyon in 1761, from which establishment he dispatched students to combat the disease; in a short time, the plague was stayed and the health of stock restored, through the assistance rendered to agriculture by veterinary science and art. The school received immediate international recognition in the 18th century and its pedagogical model drew on the existing fields of human medicine, natural history, and comparative anatomy.

The Odiham Agricultural Society was founded in 1783 in England to promote agriculture and industry, and played an important role in the foundation of the veterinary profession in Britain. A founding member, Thomas Burgess, began to take up the cause of animal welfare and campaign for the more humane treatment of sick animals. A 1785 society meeting resolved to "promote the study of Farriery upon rational scientific principles."

Physician James Clark wrote a treatise entitled Prevention of Disease in which he argued for the professionalization of the veterinary trade, and the establishment of veterinary colleges. This was finally achieved in 1790, through the campaigning of Granville Penn, who persuaded Frenchman Benoit Vial de St. Bel to accept the professorship of the newly established veterinary college in London. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons was established by royal charter in 1844. Veterinary science came of age in the late 19th century, with notable contributions from Sir John McFadyean, credited by many as having been the founder of modern veterinary research.

In the United States, the first schools were established in the early 19th century in Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia. In 1879, Iowa Agricultural College became the first land-grant college to establish a school of veterinary medicine.

Veterinary workers

Veterinary physicians

Main article: Veterinarian

Surgery on a dog

Veterinary care and management are usually led by a veterinary physician (usually called a veterinarian, veterinary surgeon or "vet" - doctor of veterinary medicine or veterinary medical doctor). This role is the equivalent of a physician or surgeon (medical doctor) in human medicine, and involves postgraduate study and qualification.

In many countries, the local nomenclature for a vet is a protected term, meaning that people without the prerequisite qualifications and/or registration are not able to use the title, and in many cases, the activities that may be undertaken by a vet (such as animal treatment or surgery) are restricted only to those people who are registered as vet. For instance, in the United Kingdom, as in other jurisdictions, animal treatment may be performed only by registered vets (with a few designated exceptions, such as paraveterinary workers), calling oneself a vet without being registered or performing any treatment is illegal.

Most vets work in clinical settings, treating animals directly. They may be involved in a general practice, treating animals of all types; may be specialized in a specific group of animals such as companion animals, livestock, laboratory animals, zoo animals, or horses; or may specialize in a narrow medical discipline such as veterinary surgery, dermatology, cardiology, neurology, laboratory animal medicine, internal medicine, and more.

As with healthcare professionals, vets face ethical decisions about the care of their patients. Current debates within the profession include the veterinary ethics of purely cosmetic procedures on animals, such as declawing of cats, docking of tails, cropping of ears, and debarking on dogs.

A wide range of surgeries and operations is performed on various types of animals, but not all of them are carried out by vets. In a case in Iran, for instance, an eye surgeon managed to perform a successful cataract surgery on a rooster for the first time in the world.

Paraveterinary workers

US and South African army veterinary technicians prepare a dog for spaying.

Main article: Paraveterinary workers

Paraveterinary workers, including veterinary nurses, veterinary technicians, and veterinary assistants, either assist vets in their work, or may work within their own scope of practice, depending on skills and qualifications, including in some cases, performing minor surgery.

The role of paraveterinary workers is less homogeneous globally than that of a vet, and qualification levels, and the associated skill mix, vary widely.

Allied professions

A number of professions exist within the scope of veterinary medicine, but may not necessarily be performed by vets or veterinary nurses. This includes those performing roles which are also found in human medicine, such as practitioners dealing with musculoskeletal disorders, including osteopaths, chiropractors, and physiotherapists.

Some roles are specific to animals, but which have parallels in human society, such as animal grooming and animal massage. Some roles are specific to a species or group of animals, such as farriers, who are involved in the shoeing of horses, and in many cases have a major role to play in ensuring the medical fitness of horses.

Veterinary research

An eye examination of a kitten is underway prior to the kitten's adoption.

Veterinary research includes prevention, control, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases of animals, and basic biology, welfare, and care of animals. Veterinary research transcends species boundaries and includes the study of spontaneously occurring and experimentally induced models of both human and animal diseases and research at human-animal interfaces, such as food safety, wildlife and ecosystem health, zoonotic diseases, and public policy. By value the most important Animal Health pharmaceutical supplier worldwide is by far Zoetis (United States).

Clinical veterinary research

As in medicine, randomized controlled trials also are fundamental in veterinary medicine to establish the effectiveness of a treatment. Clinical veterinary research is far behind human medical research, though, with fewer randomized controlled trials, that have a lower quality and are mostly focused on research animals. Possible improvement consists in creation of networks for inclusion of private veterinary practices in randomized controlled trials. Although the FDA approves drugs for use in humans, the FDA keeps a separate "Green Book", which lists drugs approved specifically for veterinary medicine (about half of which are separately approved for use in humans).

No studies exist on the effect of community animal health services on improving household wealth and the health status of low-income farmers.

The first recorded use of regenerative stem-cell therapy to treat lesions in a wild animal occurred in 2011 in Brazil. On that occasion, the Zoo Brasília [pt] used stem cells to treat a maned wolf who had been run over by a car, which was later returned, fully recovered, to nature.

Guilt (emotion)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_(emotion)

Glasgow Botanic Gardens. Kibble Palace. Edwin Roscoe Mullins – Cain or My Punishment is Greater than I can Bear (Genesis 4:13), about 1899.

Guilt is a moral emotion that occurs when a person believes or realizes—accurately or not—that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for that violation. Guilt is closely related to the concept of remorse, regret, as well as shame.

Guilt is an important factor in perpetuating obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms.

Etymology

The etymology of the word is obscure, and developed its modern spelling from the O.E. form gylt "crime, sin, fault, fine, debt", which is possibly derived from O.E. gieldan "to pay for, debt". Because it was used in the Lord's Prayer as the translation for the Latin debitum and also in Matthew xviii. 27, and gyltiȝ is used to render debet in Matthew xxiii. 18, it has been inferred to have had the primary sense of ‘debt’, though there is no real evidence for this.

Its development into a "sense of guilt" is first recorded in 1690 as a misuse of its original meaning. "Guilt by association" is first recorded in 1941.

"Guilty" is similarly from O.E. gyltig, itself from gylt.

Psychology

Guilt and its associated causes, advantages, and disadvantages are common themes in psychology and psychiatry. Both in specialized and in ordinary language, guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done). It gives rise to a feeling which does not go away easily, driven by 'conscience'. Sigmund Freud described this as the result of a struggle between the ego and the superego – parental imprinting. Freud rejected the role of God as punisher in times of illness or rewarder in time of wellness. While removing one source of guilt from patients, he described another. This was the unconscious force within the individual that contributed to illness, Freud in fact coming to consider "the obstacle of an unconscious sense of guilt...as the most powerful of all obstacles to recovery." For his later explicator, Jacques Lacan, guilt was the inevitable companion of the signifying subject who acknowledged normality in the form of the Symbolic order.

Alice Miller claims that "many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt, the sense of not having lived up to their parents' expectations....no argument can overcome these guilt feelings, for they have their beginnings in life's earliest period, and from that they derive their intensity." This may be linked to what Les Parrott has called "the disease of false guilt....At the root of false guilt is the idea that what you feel must be true."

The philosopher Martin Buber underlined the difference between the Freudian notion of guilt, based on internal conflicts, and existential guilt, based on actual harm done to others.

Guilt is often associated with anxiety. In mania, according to Otto Fenichel, the patient succeeds in applying to guilt "the defense mechanism of denial by overcompensation...re-enacts being a person without guilt feelings."

In psychological research, guilt can be measured by using questionnaires, such as the Differential Emotions Scale (Izard's DES), or the Dutch Guilt Measurement Instrument.

Defenses

According to psychoanalytic theory, defenses against feeling guilt can become an overriding aspect of one's personality. The methods that can be used to avoid guilt are multiple. They include:

1. Repression, usually used by the superego and ego against instinctive impulses, but on occasion employed against the superego/conscience itself. If the defence fails, then (in a return of the repressed) one may begin to feel guilty years later for actions lightly committed at the time.
2. Projection is another defensive tool with wide applications. It may take the form of blaming the victim: The victim of someone else's accident or bad luck may be offered criticism, the theory being that the victim may be at fault for having attracted the other person's hostility. Alternatively, not the guilt, but the condemning agency itself, may be projected onto other people, in the hope that they will look upon one's deeds more favorably than one's own conscience (a process that verges on ideas of reference).
3. Sharing a feeling of guilt, and thereby being less alone with it, is a motive force in both art and joke-telling; while it is also possible to "borrow" a sense of guilt from someone who is seen as in the wrong, and thereby assuage one's own.
4. Self-harm may be used as an alternative to compensating the object of one's transgression – perhaps in the form of not allowing oneself to enjoy opportunities open to one, or benefits due, as a result of uncompensated guilt feelings.

Behavioral responses

Guilt proneness is reliably associated with moral character. Similarly, feelings of guilt can prompt subsequent virtuous behavior. People who feel guilty may be more likely to exercise restraint, avoid self-indulgence, and exhibit less prejudice. Guilt appears to prompt reparatory behaviors to alleviate the negative emotions that it engenders. People appear to engage in targeted and specific reparatory behaviors toward the persons they wronged or offended.

Lack of guilt in psychopaths

Individuals high in psychopathy lack any true sense of guilt or remorse for harm they may have caused others. Instead, they rationalize their behavior, blame someone else, or deny it outright. People with psychopathy have a tendency to be harmful to themselves and to others. They have little ability to plan ahead for the future. An individual with psychopathy will never find themselves at fault because they will do whatever it takes to benefit themselves without reservation. A person that does not feel guilt or remorse would have no reason to find themselves at fault for something that they did with the intention of hurting another person. To a person high in psychopathy, their actions can always be rationalized to be the fault of another person. This is seen by psychologists as part of a lack of moral reasoning (in comparison with the majority of humans), an inability to evaluate situations in a moral framework, and an inability to develop emotional bonds with other people due to a lack of empathy.

One study on psychopaths found that, under certain circumstances, they could willfully empathize with others, and that their empathic reaction initiated the same way it does for controls. Psychopathic criminals were brain-scanned while watching videos of a person harming another individual. The psychopaths' empathic reaction initiated the same way it did for controls when they were instructed to empathize with the harmed individual, and the area of the brain relating to pain was activated when the psychopaths were asked to imagine how the harmed individual felt. The research suggests psychopaths can switch empathy on at will, which would enable them to be both callous and charming. The team who conducted the study say they do not know how to transform this willful empathy into the spontaneous empathy most people have, though they propose it might be possible to rehabilitate psychopaths by helping them to activate their "empathy switch". Others suggested that it remains unclear whether psychopaths' experience of empathy was the same as that of controls, and also questioned the possibility of devising therapeutic interventions that would make the empathic reactions more automatic.

Neuroscientist Antonio R. Damasio and his colleagues showed that subjects with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex lack the ability to empathically feel their way to moral answers, and that when confronted with moral dilemmas, these brain-damaged patients coldly came up with "end-justifies-the-means" answers, leading Damasio to conclude that the point was not that they reached immoral conclusions, but that when they were confronted by a difficult issue – in this case as whether to shoot down a passenger plane hijacked by terrorists before it hits a major city – these patients appear to reach decisions without the anguish that afflicts those with normally functioning brains. According to Adrian Raine, a clinical neuroscientist also at the University of Southern California, one of this study's implications is that society may have to rethink how it judges immoral people: "Psychopaths often feel no empathy or remorse. Without that awareness, people relying exclusively on reasoning seem to find it harder to sort their way through moral thickets. Does that mean they should be held to different standards of accountability?"

Causes

Evolutionary theories

Some evolutionary psychologists theorize that guilt and shame helped maintain beneficial relationships, such as reciprocal altruism. If a person feels guilty when he harms another or fails to reciprocate kindness, he is more likely not to harm others or become too selfish. In this way, he reduces the chances of retaliation by members of his tribe, and thereby increases his survival prospects, and those of the tribe or group. As with any other emotion, guilt can be manipulated to control or influence others. As highly social animals living in large, relatively stable groups, humans need ways to deal with conflicts and events in which they inadvertently or purposefully harm others. If someone causes harm to another, and then feels guilt and demonstrates regret and sorrow, the person harmed is likely to forgive. Thus, guilt makes it possible to forgive, and helps hold the social group together.

Collective guilt

Main article: Collective responsibility

Collective guilt (or group guilt) is the unpleasant and often emotional reaction that results among a group of individuals when it is perceived that the group illegitimately harmed members of another group. It is often the result of "sharing a social identity with others whose actions represent a threat to the positivity of that identity". For an individual to experience collective guilt, he must identify himself as a part of the in-group. "This produces a perceptual shift from thinking of oneself in terms of 'I' and 'me' to 'us' or 'we'.”

Comparison with shame

Guilt and shame are two closely related concepts, but they have key differences that should not be overlooked. Cultural Anthropologist Ruth Benedict describes shame as the result of a violation of cultural or social values, while guilt is conjured up internally when one's personal morals are violated. To put it more simply, the primary difference between shame and guilt is the source that creates the emotion. Shame arises from a real or imagined negative perception coming from others and guilt arises from a negative perception of one's own thoughts or actions.

Psychoanalyst Helen Block Lewis stated that, "The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of evaluation. In guilt, the self is not the central object of negative evaluation, but rather the thing done is the focus." An individual can still possess a positive perception of themselves while also feeling guilt for certain actions or thoughts they took part in. Contrary to guilt, Shame has a more inclusive focus on the individual as a whole. Fossum and Mason's ideas clearly outline this idea in their book Facing Shame. They state that "While guilt is a painful feeling of regret and responsibility for one's actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person".

Shame can almost be described as looking at yourself unfavorably through the eyes of others. Psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman portrays this idea by stating that "Shame is an acutely self-conscious state in which the self is 'split,' imagining the self in the eyes of the other; by contrast, in guilt the self is unified". Both shame and guilt are directly related to self-perception, only shame causes the individual to account for the cultural and social beliefs of others. 

Paul Gilbert talks about the powerful hold that shame can take over someone in his article Evolution, Social Roles, and the Differences in Shame and Guilt. He says that "The fear of shame and ridicule can be so strong that people will risk serious physical injury or even death to avoid it. One of the reasons for this is because shame can indicate serious damage to social acceptance and a breakdown in a variety of social relationships. The evolutionary root of shame is in a self-focused, social threat system related to competitive behavior and the need to prove oneself acceptable/desirable to others" Guilt on the other hand evolved from a place of Care-Giving and avoidance of any act that harms others.

Cultural views

Main article: Guilt–shame–fear spectrum of cultures

Traditional Japanese society, Korean society and Chinese culture are sometimes said to be "shame-based" rather than "guilt-based", in that the social consequences of "getting caught" are seen as more important than the individual feelings or experiences of the agent (see the work of Ruth Benedict). The same has been said of Ancient Greek society, a culture where, in Bruno Snell's words, if "honour is destroyed the moral existence of the loser collapses."

This may lead to more of a focus on etiquette than on ethics as understood in Western civilization, leading some in Western civilizations to question why the word ethos was adapted from Ancient Greek with such vast differences in cultural norms. Christianity and Islam inherit most notions of guilt from Judaism, Persian, and Roman ideas, mostly as interpreted through Augustine, who adapted Plato's ideas to Christianity. The Latin word for guilt is culpa, a word sometimes seen in law literature, for instance in mea culpa meaning "my fault (guilt)".

In literature

Guilt is a main theme in John Steinbeck's East of Eden, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat", and many other works of literature. In Sartre's The Flies, the Furies (in the form of flies) represent the morbid, strangling forces of neurotic guilt which bind us to authoritarian and totalitarian power.

Guilt is a major theme in many works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is an almost universal concern of novelists who explore inner life and secrets.

In Epicurean Philosophy

In his Kyriai Doxai (Principal Doctrines) 17 and 35, Epicurus teaches that we may identify and diagnose guilt by its signs and perturbations. Within his ethical system based on pleasure and pain, guilt manifests as constant fear of detection that emerges from "secretly doing something contrary to an agreement to not harm one another or be harmed".

Since Epicurus rejects supernatural claims, the easiest way to avoid this perturbation is to avoid the antisocial behavior in order to continue enjoying ataraxia (the state of no-perturbation). However, once guilt is unavoidable, Epicurean Guides recommended confession of one's offenses as a practice that helps to purge the character from its evil tendencies and reform the character. According to Norman DeWitt, author of "St Paul and Epicurus", confession was one of the Epicurean practices that was later appropriated by the early Christian communities.

In the Christian Bible

Guilt in the Christian Bible is not merely an emotional state; it is also a legal state of deserving punishment. The Hebrew Bible does not have a unique word for guilt, but uses a single word to signify: "sin, the guilt of it, the punishment due unto it, and a sacrifice for it." The Greek New Testament uses a word for guilt that means "standing exposed to judgment for sin" (e. g., Romans 3:19). In what Christians call the "Old Testament", Christians believe the Bible teaches that, through sacrifice, one's sins can be forgiven (Judaism categorically rejects this idea, holding that forgiveness of sin is exclusively through repentance, and the role of sacrifices was for atonement of sins committed by accident or ignorance).

The New Testament says that forgiveness is given as written in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4: "3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, for that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, salvation is granted based on God's grace and forgiveness (Gen 6:8; 19:19; Exo 33:12–17; 34:6–7).

The New Testament says that, in Jesus Christ, God took upon Himself the sins of the world and died on the cross to pay mankind's debt (Rom 6:23). Those who repent and accept Christ's sacrifice for their sins, will be redeemed by God and thus not guilty before Him. They will be granted eternal life which will take effect after the Second Coming of Christ (1 Thess 4:13–18).

The Bible agrees with pagan cultures that guilt creates a cost that someone must pay (Heb 9:22). (This assumption was expressed in the previous section, "Defences": "Guilty people punish themselves if they have no opportunity to compensate the transgression that caused them to feel guilty. It was found that self-punishment did not occur if people had an opportunity to compensate the victim of their transgression.") Unlike pagan deities who demanded that debts for sin be paid by humans, God, according to the Bible, loved humanity enough to pay it Himself (Mat 5:45).