Scientific terminology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_terminology

Scientific terminology is the part of the language that is used by scientists in the context of their professional activities. While studying nature, scientists often encounter or create new material or immaterial objects and concepts and are compelled to name them. Many of those names are known only to professionals. However, due to popularization of science, they gradually become part of common languages. Several categories of scientific terminology can be distinguished.

New concepts

Those are specific notions and terms, e.g.,

• nanoarchitectonics,
• spintronics - a neologism meaning "spin transport electronics",
• spinplasmonics, which are often not yet big enough to create a new field of science. Arguably, introducing many of those terms is unnecessary and can be considered as an attempt to produce something "new", if not scientifically then at least in words.

New materials

The increasing focus of science on technological applications results in extensive search for new materials having unusual or superior properties. Their names can be categorized into new substances (nanotubes, etc.) and registered trademarks and brand names, such as Teflon. Trademarks and brand names are vast fields on their own and are not covered in this article.

New techniques and devices

Unlike laser and SQUID, many names of the new devices and techniques are commonly used in full spelling, e.g., scanning tunneling microscope, etc. Some devices like transistor, magnetron, etc., have integrated into our life so much that their names are no longer considered terminology and are rather neologisms.

Alternative meaning of common words

SIESTA, SQUID and SHRIMP are acronyms distinguished from siesta, squid and shrimp by capitalization. However, there are pairs of scientific terminology and common words, which can only be distinguished by context. Representative examples come from particle physics where certain properties of particles are called flavour, color, but have no relation to conventional flavor and color. Another famous example is frustration used to describe ground state properties in condensed matter physics, and especially in magnetic systems.

Composite words

Recent scientific activity often creates interdisciplinary fields, for which new names, classified into portmanteau words or syllabic abbreviations, are often created by combining two or more words, sometimes with extra prefixes and suffixes. Examples of those – biotechnology, nanotechnology, etc. – are well known and understood, at least superficially, by most non-scientists.

Elementary particles, quasiparticles and chemical elements

Progress of particle physics, nuclear physics and atomic physics has resulted in discoveries of new elementary particles and atoms. Their names – quark, gluon, lepton, graviton, neutrino, Higgs boson, mendelevium, etc. – are traditionally given by those people who first discovered them and often include surnames of classical scientists. Fundamental particles are particles that are not made up by any other particles, such as a quark.

Another group of physics terminology terms, exciton, magnon, phonon, plasmon, phason, polaron, roton etc., refers to quasiparticles – quanta of corresponding excitations (spin, heat, plasma, polarization waves), which do not exist separately and were imagined by theoretists to consistently describe properties of solids and liquids.

Most relevant terminology can be found in the following Wikipedia articles and their links:

• Discoveries of the chemical elements
• Elementary particle
• Quasiparticle
• List of quasiparticles
• Subatomic particle

(The word plasmon was well-known around the 1900s for a proprietary dried milk manufactured by the International Plasmon Company, which was added to a number of products to make Plasmon Oats, Plasmon Cocoa, and Plasmon Biscuits. Plasmon Biscuits were a popular snack used by Ernest Shackleton in his Antarctic Expedition of 1902.)

Classical and non-vernacular terms and expressions

In modern science and its applied fields such as technology and medicine, a knowledge of classical languages is not as rigid a prerequisite as it used to be. However, traces of their influence remain. Firstly, languages such as Greek, Latin and Arabic – either directly or via more recently derived languages such as French – have provided not only most of the technical terms used in Western science, but also a de facto vocabulary of roots, prefixes and suffixes for the construction of new terms as required. Echoes of the consequences sound in remarks such as "Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it." (referring to it being a hybrid word).

A special class of terminology that overwhelmingly is derived from classical sources, is biological classification, in which binomial nomenclature still is most often based on classical origins. The derivations are arbitrary however and can be mixed variously with modernisms, late Latin, and even fictional roots, errors and whims. However, in spite of the chaotic nature of the field, it still is helpful to the biologist to have a good vocabulary of classical roots.

Branches of science that are based, however tenuously, on fields of study known to the ancients, or that were established by more recent workers familiar with Greek and Latin, often use terminology that is fairly correct descriptive Latin, or occasionally Greek. Descriptive human anatomy or works on biological morphology often use such terms, for example, musculus gluteus maximus simply means the "largest rump muscle", where musculus was the Latin for "little mouse" and the name applied to muscles. During the last two centuries there has been an increasing tendency to modernise the terminology, though how beneficial that might be is subject to discussion. In other descriptive anatomical terms, whether in vertebrates or invertebrates, a frenum (a structure for keeping something in place) is simply the Latin for a bridle; and a foramen (a passage or perforation) also is the actual Latin word.

All such words are so much terminology. It does not much matter whether modern users know that they are classical or not. Some distinct term is necessary for any meaningful concept, and if it is not classical, a modern coinage would not generally be any more comprehensible (consider examples such as "byte" or "dongle"). Another modern use of classical language however, is the subject of often acrimonious debate. It is the use of foreign or classical (commonly Latin) expressions terms, or "tags", where it would be possible to use the vernacular instead. This is common in everyday speech in some circles, saying "requiescat in pace" instead of "rest in peace" might be pretension or pleasantry, but in law and science among other fields, there are many Latin expressions in use, where it might be equally practical to use the vernacular. Consider the following discussion of the Latin term "sensu".

Latin, its current relevance or convenience

There is no definite limit to how sophisticated a level of Latin may be brought to bear in conventional scientific terminology; such convention dates back to the days when nearly all standard communications in such subjects were written in Latin as an international scientific lingua franca. That was not so long ago; from the latter days of the Roman empire, Classical Latin had become the dominant language in learned, civil, diplomatic, legal, and religious communication in many states in Europe. Even after Latin had lost its status as a vernacular, Medieval or Late Latin increasingly became the de facto lingua franca in educated circles during the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire. The peak of the dominance of Latin in such contexts probably was during the Renaissance, but the language only began to lose favour for such purposes in the eighteenth century, and gradually at that. The presence of Latin terms in modern writing is largely the residue of the terminology of old documents.

The expression of fine distinctions in academically correct Latin technical terminology may well help in conveying intended meanings more flexibly and concisely, but the significance of the language need not always be taken seriously. An inspection of any collection of references will produce a range of very variable and dubious usages, and often a great deal of obsessive dispute. In contrast, the authoritative glossary attached to the textbook on Biological Nomenclature produced by the Systematics Association displays a very dismissive attitude to the question; for example, the only relevant entries it presents on the subject of the term sensu are:

sens. str.: see s.s.

sens. lat.: see s.l.

sensu amplo: see s.l.

s.l., sens. lat., sensu lato : Latin, in the broad sense; i.e. of a taxon, including all its subordinate taxa and/or other taxa sometimes considered as distinct.

s.s., sens. str., sensu stricto : Latin, in the strict sense, in the narrow sense, i.e. of a taxon, in the sense of the type of its name ; or in the sense of its circumscription by its original describer ; or in the sense of its nominate subordinate taxon (in the case of a taxon with 2 or more subordinate taxa) ; or with the exclusion of similar taxa sometimes united with it.

Such entries suggest that the Systematics Association is not concerned with hair-splitting in the use of the Latin terms.

In informal or non-technical English, to say "strictly speaking" for sensu stricto and "broadly speaking" and so on is valid. Even in formal writing, there is no formal requirement to use the Latin terms rather than the vernacular.

Valid reasons for using these Latin or partly Latin expressions are not points of pretentiousness; they include:

• Tradition: Where the terms and their abbreviations have been used formally for generations and appear repeatedly in records and textbooks in fixed contexts, it can be cumbersome and confusing to change unexpectedly to more familiar English or other vernacular.
• Precision: Vernacular expressions that most nearly correspond to these terms in meaning, might also be understood in subtly or even crashingly misleading senses, whereas the Latin terms are used according to strict conventions that are not easy to mistake in professional circles familiar with the usages.
• Efficiency: Not only are these terms compact (even in comparison to say, broadly speaking and strictly speaking) but in the proper contexts they lend themselves to understandable abbreviation as s.s. and s.l., better than the most compact vernacular expressions. In much the same way, think of etc or &c; practically everyone knows what those mean, and uses them unthinkingly, even people who do not know that they are abbreviations for et cetera or even et caetera, or that those mean "and the rest" in Latin. Even monoglot laymen would not usually trouble to write "and so on" instead of etc.

Acronyms

A good example is the word laser, an acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation", and therefore all its letters should be capitalized. However, because of frequent use, this acronym became a neologism, i.e., it has integrated into English and most other languages. Consequently, laser is commonly written in small letters. It has even produced secondary acronyms such as LASIK (Laser-ASsisted in Situ Keratomileusis). A related acronym and neologism maser (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) is much less known. Nevertheless, it is commonly written in small letters. On the contrary, acronym SPASER (Surface Plasmon Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) is capitalized.

Many scientific acronyms or abbreviations reflect the artistic sense of their creators, e.g.,

• AMANDA – Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array, a neutrino telescope
• BLAST – Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope
• COMICS – COoled Mid-Infrared Camera and Spectrometer
• FROG - Frequency-resolved optical gating
• MARVEL – Multi-object Apache Point Observatory Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey, a NASA-funded project to search for exoplanets
• METATOY – METAmaTerial fOr raYs – a material that changes the direction of transmitted light rays
• PLANET – Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork, a program to search for microlensing events
• SCREAM – Single Crystal Reactive Etch And Metallization, a process used in making some microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)
• SHRIMP – Sensitive High-Resolution Ion MicroProbe
• SIESTA – Spanish Initiative for Electronic Simulations with Thousands of Atoms (siesta = afternoon nap in Spanish)
• SPIDER – Spectral Phase Interferometry for Direct Electric-field Reconstruction
• SQUID – Superconducting Quantum Interference Device,

etc. (see also List of astronomy acronyms).

"Polish death camp" controversy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Polish_death_camp%22_controversy

This article is about the controversy over the use of the term. For the camps in question, see German camps in occupied Poland during World War II.

All of the Nazi extermination camps operated on the territory that is now Poland, although Nazi concentration camps were built in Germany and other countries.

The terms "Polish death camp" and "Polish concentration camp" have been controversial as applied to the concentration camps and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany in German-occupied Poland. The terms have been criticized as misnomers. The terms have occasionally been used by politicians and news media in reference to the camps' geographic location in German-occupied Poland. However, Polish officials and organizations have objected to the terms as misleading, since they can be misconstrued as meaning "death camps set up by Poles" or "run by Poland". Some Polish politicians have portrayed inadvertent uses of the expression by foreigners as a deliberate disinformation campaign.

While use of the terms was widely considered objectionable by Poles, an Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance in 2018 generated outrage, both within and outside Poland. The law criminalized public statements ascribing, to the Polish nation, collective responsibility in Holocaust-related crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, or war crimes, or which "grossly reduce the responsibility of the actual perpetrators". It was generally understood that the law criminalized use of the expressions "Polish death camp" and "Polish concentration camp".

The amendment also prohibited use of the expression "Polish concentration camp" in relation to camps operated by the Polish government after the war on sites of former Nazi camps. In a court case in January 2018, Newsweek.pl was sentenced for referring to the Zgoda concentration camp, operated by Polish authorities after World War II, as a "Polish concentration camp".

In 2019, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland ruled that the fragments of the amendment relating to the terms "Ukrainian nationalists" and "Eastern Lesser Poland" were void and non-binding.

Historical context

Main articles: The Holocaust in Poland, Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), List of Nazi concentration camps, and German camps in occupied Poland during World War II

Borders of Polish areas before and after 1939 and 1941 invasions

Czesława Kwoka, a Polish Catholic girl, 14 when she was murdered by the Nazi Germans at Auschwitz. 230,000 children, most of them Jewish, were murdered in the German camp.

During World War II, three million Polish Jews (90% of the prewar Polish-Jewish population) were killed due to Nazi German genocidal action. At least 2.5 million non-Jewish Polish civilians and soldiers perished. One million non-Polish Jews were also forcibly transported by the Nazis and killed in German-occupied Poland. At least half of 140,000 ethnic Poles deported died in the Auschwitz camp alone.

After the German invasion, Poland, in contrast to cases such as Vichy France, experienced direct German administration rather than an indigenous puppet government.

The western part of prewar Poland was annexed outright by Germany. Some Poles were expelled from the annexed lands to make room for German settlers. Parts of eastern Poland became part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine and Reichskommissariat Ostland. The rest of German-occupied Poland, dubbed by Germany the General Government, was administered by Germany as occupied territory. The General Government received no international recognition. It is estimated that the Germans killed more than 2 million non-Jewish Polish civilians. Nazi German planners called for "the complete destruction" of all Poles, and their fate, as well as that of many other Slavs, was outlined in a genocidal Generalplan Ost (General Plan East).

Historians have generally stated that relatively few Poles collaborated with Nazi Germany, in comparison with the situations in other German-occupied countries. The Polish Underground judicially condemned and executed collaborators, and the Polish Government-in-Exile coordinated resistance to the German occupation, including help for Poland's Jews.

Some Poles were complicit in, or indifferent to, the rounding up of Jews. There are reports of neighbors turning Jews over to the Germans or blackmailing them (see "szmalcownik"). In some cases, Poles themselves killed their Jewish fellow citizens, the most notorious examples being the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom and the 1946 Kielce pogrom, after the war had ended.

Poles publicly hanged by the Germans for helping Jews in hiding, Przemyśl, 6 September 1943

However, many Poles risked their lives to hide and assist Jews. Poles were sometimes exposed by Jews they were helping, if the Jews were found by the Germans—resulting in the murder of entire Polish rescue networks. Possibly a million Poles aided Jews; some estimates run as high as three million helpers. Poles have the world's highest count of individuals who have been recognized by Israel's Yad Vashem as Righteous among the Nations — non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination during the Holocaust.

Analysis of the expression

Supporting rationale

Defenders argue that the expression "Polish death camps" refers strictly to the location of the Nazi death camps and does not indicate involvement by the Polish government in France or, later, in the United Kingdom. Some international politicians and news agencies have apologized for using the term, notably Barack Obama in 2012. CTV Television Network News President Robert Hurst defended CTV's usage (see § Mass media) as it "merely denoted geographic location", but the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ruled against it, declaring CTV's use of the term to be unethical. Others have not apologized, saying that it is a fact that Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Chełmno, Bełżec, and Sobibór were situated in German-occupied Poland.

Commenting upon the 2018 bill criminalizing such expressions (see § Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance), Israeli politician (and later Prime Minister) Yair Lapid justified the expression "Polish death camps" with the argument that "hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered without ever meeting a German soldier".

Criticism of the expression

Opponents of the use of these expressions argue that they are inaccurate, as they may suggest that the camps were a responsibility of the Poles, when in fact they were designed, constructed, and operated by the Germans and were used to exterminate both non-Jewish Poles and Polish Jews, as well as Jews transported to the camps by the Germans from across Europe. Historian Geneviève Zubrzycki and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have called the expression a misnomer. It has also been described as "misleading" by The Washington Post editorial board, The New York Times, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, and Nazi hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff. Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem described it as a "historical misrepresentation", and White House spokesman Tommy Vietor referred to its use a "misstatement".

Abraham Foxman of the ADL described the strict geographical defence of the terms as "sloppiness of language", and "dead wrong, highly unfair to Poland". Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Adam Daniel Rotfeld said in 2005 that "Under the pretext that 'it's only a geographic reference', attempts are made to distort history".

Public use of the expression

As early as 1944, the expression "Polish death camp" appeared as the title of a Collier's magazine article, entitled "Polish Death Camp". This was an excerpt from the Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski's 1944 memoir, Courier from Poland: The Story of a Secret State (reprinted in 2010 as Story of a Secret State: My Report to the World). Karski himself, in both the book and the article, had used the expression "Jewish death camp", not "Polish death camp". As shown in 2019, the Collier's editor changed the title of Karski's article typescript, "In the Belzec Death Camp", to "Polish Death Camp".

Other early-postwar, 1945 uses of the expression "Polish death camp" occurred in the periodicals Contemporary Jewish Record, The Jewish Veteran, and The Palestine Yearbook and Israeli Annual, as well as in a 1947 book, Beyond the Last Path, by Hungarian-born Jew and Belgian resistance fighter Eugene Weinstock and in Polish writer Zofia Nałkowska's 1947 book, Medallions.

A 2016 article by Matt Lebovic stated that West Germany's Agency 114, which during the Cold War recruited former Nazis to West Germany's intelligence service, worked to popularize the term "Polish death camps" in order to minimize German responsibility for, and implicate Poles in, the atrocities.

Mass media

On 30 April 2004 a Canadian Television (CTV) Network News report referred to "the Polish camp in Treblinka". The Polish embassy in Canada lodged a complaint with CTV. Robert Hurst of CTV, however, argued that the term "Polish" was used throughout North America in a geographical sense, and declined to issue a correction. The Polish Ambassador to Ottawa then complained to the National Specialty Services Panel of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. The Council rejected Hurst's argument, ruling that the word "'Polish'—similarly to such adjectives as 'English', 'French' and 'German'—had connotations that clearly extended beyond geographic context. Its use with reference to Nazi extermination camps was misleading and improper."

In November 2008, the German newspaper Die Welt called Majdanek concentration camp a "former Polish concentration camp" in an article; it immediately apologized when this was pointed out. In 2009, Zbigniew Osewski, grandson of a Stutthof concentration camp prisoner, sued Axel Springer AG. The case started in 2012; in 2015, the case was dismissed by Warsaw district court.

In the 16 November 2009 edition of Maclean's magazine, the journalist Kathie Engelhart in an article about John Demjanjuk called him a man who had been mistaken for "a notorious sadist at Poland’s Treblinka death camp", spoke about " “Poland’s Treblinka death camp", and stated that Demjanjuk had "served at three Polish camps" as a guard. Engelhart's article led to a formal complaint from Piotr Ogrodziński, the Polish ambassador in Ottawa, who stated: "It’s absolutely false that Poles had anything to do with concentration camps, with the exception that they were the first prisoners".

On 23 December 2009, historian Timothy Garton Ash wrote in The Guardian: "Watching a German television news report on the trial of John Demjanjuk a few weeks ago, I was amazed to hear the announcer describe him as a guard in 'the Polish extermination camp Sobibor'. What times are these, when one of the main German TV channels thinks it can describe Nazi camps as 'Polish'? In my experience, the automatic equation of Poland with Catholicism, nationalism and antisemitism – and thence a slide to guilt by association with the Holocaust – is still widespread. This collective stereotyping does no justice to the historical record."

In 2010 the Polish-American Kosciuszko Foundation launched a petition demanding that four major U.S. news organizations endorse use of the expression "German concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland".

Canada's Globe and Mail reported on 23 September 2011 about "Polish concentration camps". Canadian Member of Parliament Ted Opitz and Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney supported Polish protests.

In 2013 Karol Tendera, who had been a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau and is secretary of an association of former prisoners of German concentration camps, sued the German television network ZDF, demanding a formal apology and 50,000 zlotys, to be donated to charitable causes, for ZDF's use of the expression "Polish concentration camps". ZDF was ordered by the court to make a public apology. Some Poles felt the apology to be inadequate and protested with a truck bearing a banner that read "Death camps were Nazi German - ZDF apologize!" They planned to take their protest against the expression "Polish concentration camps" 1,600 kilometers across Europe, from Wrocław in Poland to Cambridge, England, via Belgium and Germany, with a stop in front of ZDF headquarters in Mainz.

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage recommends against using the expression, as does the AP Stylebook, and that of The Washington Post. However, the 2018 Polish bill has been condemned by the editorial boards of The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Politicians

In May 2012 U.S. President Barack Obama referred to a "Polish death camp" while posthumously awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski. After complaints from Poles, including Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Alex Storozynski, President of the Kosciuszko Foundation, an Obama administration spokesperson said the President had misspoken when "referring to Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland." On 31 May 2012 President Obama wrote a letter to Polish President Komorowski in which he explained that he used this phrase inadvertently in reference to "a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland" and further stated: "I regret the error and agree that this moment is an opportunity to ensure that this and future generations know the truth."

Polish government action

Media

The Polish government and Polish diaspora organizations have denounced the use of such expressions that include the words "Poland" or "Polish". The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs monitors the use of such expressions and seeks corrections and apologies if they are used. In 2005, Poland's Jewish Foreign Minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld remarked upon instances of "bad will, saying that under the pretext that 'it's only a geographic reference', attempts are made to distort history and conceal the truth." He has stated that use of the adjective "Polish" in reference to concentration camps or ghettos, or to the Holocaust, can suggest that Poles perpetrated or participated in German atrocities, and emphasised that Poland was the victim of the Nazis' crimes.

Monuments

In 2008, the chairman of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (the IPN) wrote to local administrations, calling for the addition of the word "German" before "Nazi" to all monuments and tablets commemorating Germany's victims, stating that "Nazis" is not always understood to relate specifically to Germans. Several scenes of atrocities conducted by Germany were duly updated with commemorative plaques clearly indicating the nationality of the perpetrators. The IPN also requested better documentation and commemoration of crimes that had been perpetrated by the Soviet Union.

The Polish government also asked UNESCO to officially change the name "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" to "Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau", to clarify that the camp had been built and operated by Nazi Germany. At its 28 June 2007 meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee changed the camp's name to "Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940–1945)." Previously some German media, including Der Spiegel, had called the camp "Polish".

Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance

Main article: Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance

 

On 6 February 2018 Poland's President Andrzej Duda signed into law an amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, criminalizing statements that ascribe collective responsibility in Holocaust-related crimes to the Polish nation, It was generally understood that the law would criminalize use of the expressions "Polish death camp" and "Polish concentration camp". After international backlash, the law was revised to remove criminal penalties, but also the exceptions for scientific or artistic expression. The law met with widespread international criticism, as it was seen as an infringement on freedom of expression and on academic freedom, and as a barrier to open discussion on Polish collaborationism, in what has been described as "the biggest diplomatic crisis in [Poland's] recent history".

Reverse discrimination

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

Reverse discrimination is a term used to describe discrimination against members of a dominant or majority group, in favor of members of a minority or historically disadvantaged group.

Affirmative action

Further information: Affirmative action

Affirmative action is a set of practices that attempts to promote diversity in areas such as employment, education, and leadership, typically by reserving some positions for people of traditionally disadvantaged groups. This may result in discrimination towards successful majority groups who have greater technical qualifications than minority applicants.

Philosopher James Rachels posited that reverse discrimination as a factor in affirmative action in the United States may disadvantage some Whites, but without it, African Americans would likewise be disadvantaged by pervasive racial discrimination in society. Critics of racial preferences in affirmative action such as William Bennett and Carl Cohen have argued that explicitly using race for the purpose of ending racial discrimination is illogical and contrary to the principle of non-discrimination. Conversely, Alan H. Goldman argued that short-term violations of such a principle could be justified for the sake of equalizing social opportunities in the longer term. Philosopher Richard Arneson argues that while a program of reverse discrimination favoring non-White candidates over White ones may violate equality of opportunity in a formal sense, it may more effectively promote substantive equality of opportunity, meaning that those with equal talent and ambition will have the same chances of success regardless of their previous (unequal) opportunities to achieve the relevant qualifications.

It is often argued by majority groups that they are being discriminated against for hiring and advancement because of affirmative-action policies. However, critics of this argument often cite the "symbolic" significance of a job has to be taken into consideration as well as qualifications.

China

See also: Affirmative action in China and One-child policy

The affirmative action of the Chinese government has been called into question, especially from the ethnic group of Han Chinese. Unfair policies on Chinese College entrance exams as well as human rights considered to be favoring the national minority have both been believed to be causing reverse discrimination in the mainland. Han chauvinism has been becoming more popular in mainland China since the 2000s, the cause of which has been attributed to the discontent towards Chinese affirmative action. The one-child policy was only introduced for Han Chinese, with minorities being allowed two or more babies.

European Union

See also: Reverse discrimination (EU law)

In European Union law, reverse discrimination occurs where a Member State's national law provides for worse treatment of its own citizens or domestic products than other EU citizens/goods under EU law. This is permitted in the EU because of the legal principle of subsidiarity, that EU law is not applicable in situations purely internal to one Member State.

India

In India, in higher education institutions and in employment by Government, 60% seats are reserved for members of socially disadvantaged castes and Economically weaker section of Forward communities. Reserved category candidates can select a position from the Open 40% also.

The poorer sections of Open/General Category has access to EWS Quota Economically Weaker Section in higher education institutions and in employment by government accounting for 10 percent of the seats. Lower Caste have 50% reservation in all government aided colleges and jobs.

In India, the term is often used by citizens protesting against reservation and quotas. In later years a "creamy layer" exception forbade reserved status to those whose parents held relatively high governmental posts.

United States

See also: Reverse racism § United States

Opponents of affirmative action in the United States use the term reverse discrimination to say that such programs discriminate against White Americans in favor of African Americans. In the U.S., affirmative action has focused on the under-representation of ethnic minority groups and women, and attempted to remedy the effects of past discrimination in both government and the business world. Historian Nancy MacLean writes that during the 1980s and 1990s, "so-called reverse discrimination occurred on an inconsequential scale". The number of reverse discrimination cases filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) doubled in the 1990s and continued to reflect a growing percentage of all discrimination cases as of 2003.

A study by S. K. Camara & M. P. Orbe collected narratives of individuals describing situations where they were discriminated against based on their majority-group status (cases of reverse discrimination). Many White respondents described discrimination based on their race, a smaller portion reported gender discrimination. A small number of heterosexuals reported experiencing discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

Colleges

White college applicants who have felt passed over in favor of less-qualified Black students as a result of affirmative action in college admissions have described such programs as "reverse discrimination". Elizabeth Purdy argues that this conception of reverse discrimination came close to overturning affirmative action during the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and '90s after being granted legitimacy by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which ruled that Alan Bakke had been discriminated against by the school's admissions program.

In 1996, the University of Texas had to defer the use of racial preferences in their college admissions after the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit barred the school from considering race in admitting students. The ruling determined that diversity in education could not justify making race-based distinctions. Hopwood v. Texas in 1996 was a lawsuit brought by four white applicants to the Texas Law School who were denied admission even though their grade point averages were greater than minority applications that were accepted. The four white students also had greater Law School Admission Test scores.

However, in Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, the Supreme Court allowed the University of Michigan Law School to continue to consider race among other relevant diversity factors. The decision was the only legally challenged affirmative-action policy to survive the courts. However, this ruling has led to confusion among universities and lower courts alike regarding the status of affirmative action across the nation.

In 2012, Fisher v. University of Texas reached the Supreme Court. The University of Texas allegedly used race as a factor in denying Abigail Fisher's application, denying her a fair review. The lower courts upheld the program, but the Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the lower courts and sent the case back to the Fifth Circuit for review.

Complaints

A draft report on claims of reverse discrimination was prepared for the United States Department of Labor in 1995. Its analysis of employment discrimination cases in federal courts between 1990 and 1994 concluded that between 1 and 3 percent involved claims of reverse discrimination; and that a "high proportion" of the claims were found to be without merit.

Newer reports by the EEOC have found that less than 10% of race-related complaints were filed by whites, 18% of gender-related complaints and 4% of the court cases were filed by men. When national samples of whites were asked if they personally have experienced the loss of job, promotion, or college admission because of their race, 2%–13% say yes.

Power (international relations)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(international_relations)

In international relations, power is defined in several different ways. Material definitions of state power emphasize economic and military power. Other definitions of power emphasize the ability to structure and constitute the nature of social relations between actors. Power is an attribute of particular actors in their interactions, as well as a social process that constitutes the social identities and capacities of actors.

International relations scholars use the term polarity to describe the distribution of power in the international system. Unipolarity refers to an international system characterized by one hegemon (e.g. United States in the post-Cold War period), bipolarity to an order with two great powers or blocs of states (e.g. the Cold War), and multipolarity refers to the presence of three or more great powers. Those states that have significant amounts of power within the international system are referred to as small powers, middle powers, regional powers, great powers, superpowers, or hegemons, although there is no commonly accepted standard for what defines a powerful state.

Entities other than states can have power in international relations. Such entities can include multilateral international organizations, military alliance organizations like NATO, multinational corporations like Walmart, non-governmental organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church, or other institutions such as the Hanseatic League and technology companies like Facebook and Google.

Concepts of political power

Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall define power as "the production, in and through social relations, of effects that shape the capacities of actors to determine their circumstances and fate." They reject definitions of power that conflate power as any and all effects because doing so makes power synonymous with causality. They also reject persuasion as part of the definition of power, as it revolves around actors freely and voluntarily changing their minds once presented with new information.

Political scientists, historians, and practitioners of international relations (diplomats) have used the following concepts of political power:

• Power as a goal of states or leaders;
• Power as a measure of influence or control over outcomes, events, actors and issues;
• Power as victory in conflict and the attainment of security;
• Power as control over resources and capabilities;
• Power as status, which some states or actors possess and others do not.

Power as a goal

The primary usage of "power" as a goal in international relations belongs to political theorists, such as Niccolò Machiavelli and Hans Morgenthau. Especially among Classical Realist thinkers, power is an inherent goal of mankind and of states. Economic growth, military growth, cultural spread etc. can all be considered as working towards the ultimate goal of international power. The German military thinker Carl von Clausewitz is considered to be the quintessential projection of European growth across the continent. In more modern times, Claus Moser has elucidated theories centre of distribution of power in Europe after the Holocaust, and the power of universal learning as its counterpoint. Jean Monnet was a French left-wing social theorist, stimulating expansive Eurocommunism, who followed on the creator of modern European community, the diplomat and statesman Robert Schuman.

Power as influence

NATO accounts for over 70% of global military expenditure, with the United States alone accounting for 43% of global military expenditure.

Political scientists principally use "power" in terms of an actor's ability to exercise influence over other actors within the international system. This influence can be coercive, attractive, cooperative, or competitive. Mechanisms of influence can include the threat or use of force, economic interaction or pressure, diplomacy, and cultural exchange.

Under certain circumstances, states can organize a sphere of influence or a bloc within which they exercise predominant influence. Historical examples include the spheres of influence recognized under the Concert of Europe, or the recognition of spheres during the Cold War following the Yalta Conference. The Eastern Bloc, the Western Bloc, and the Non-Aligned Movement were the blocs that arose out of the Cold War contest. Military alliances like NATO and the Warsaw Pact are another forum through which influence is exercised. However, "realist" theory attempted to maintain the balance of power from the development of meaningful diplomatic relations that can create a hegemony within the region. British foreign policy, for example, dominated Europe through the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of France. They continued the balancing act with the Congress of Berlin in 1878, to appease Russia and Germany from attacking Turkey. Britain has sided against the aggressors on the European continent—i.e. the German Empire, Nazi Germany, Napoleonic France or the Austrian Empire, known during the Great War as the Central Powers and, in World War II as the Axis Powers.

International orders have both a material and social component. Martha Finnemore argues that unipolarity does not just entail a material superiority by the unipole, but also a social structure whereby the unipole maintains its status through legitimation, and institutionalization. In trying to obtain legitimacy from the other actors in the international system, the unipole necessarily gives those actors a degree of power. The unipole also obtains legitimacy and wards off challenges to its power through the creation of institutions, but these institutions also entail a diffusion of power away from the unipole. David Lake has argued along similar lines that legitimacy and authority are key components of international order.

Susan Strange made a key contribution to International Political Economy on the issue of power, which she considered essential to the character and dynamics of the global economy. Strange was skeptical of static indicators of power, arguing that it was structural power that mattered. In particular, interactions between states and markets mattered. She pointed to the superiority of the American technology sector, dominance in services, and the position of the U.S. dollar as the top international currency as real indicators of lasting power. She distinguished between relational power (the power to compel A to get B to do something B does not want to do) and structural power (the power to shape and determine the structure of the global political economy). Political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman argue that state power is in part derived from control over important nodes in global networks of informational and financial exchange, which means that states can "weaponize interdependence" by fighting over control of these nodes.

Power as security

Power is also used when describing states or actors that have achieved military victories or security for their state in the international system. This general usage is most commonly found among the writings of historians or popular writers.

Power as capability

American author Charles W. Freeman, Jr. described power as the following:

Power is the capacity to direct the decisions and actions of others. Power derives from strength and will. Strength comes from the transformation of resources into capabilities. Will infuses objectives with resolve. Strategy marshals capabilities and brings them to bear with precision. Statecraft seeks through strategy to magnify the mass, relevance, impact, and irresistibility of power. It guides the ways the state deploys and applies its power abroad. These ways embrace the arts of war, espionage, and diplomacy. The practitioners of these three arts are the paladins of statecraft.

Power is also used to describe the resources and capabilities of a state. This definition is quantitative and is most often used by geopoliticians and the military. Capabilities are thought of in tangible terms—they are measurable, weighable, quantifiable assets. A good example for this kind of measurement is the Composite Indicator on Aggregate Power, which involves 54 indicators and covers the capabilities of 44 states in Asia-Pacific from 1992 to 2012. Hard power can be treated as a potential and is not often enforced on the international stage.

Chinese strategists have such a concept of national power that can be measured quantitatively using an index known as comprehensive national power.

Michael Beckley argues that gross domestic product and military spending are imprecise indicators of power. He argues that better measurements of power should take into account "net" indicators of powers: "[Gross] indicators systematically exaggerate the wealth and military capabilities of poor, populous countries, because they tally countries’ resources without deducting the costs countries pay to police, protect, and serve their people. A country with a big population might produce vast output and field a large army, but it also may bear massive welfare and security burdens that drain its wealth and bog down its military, leaving it with few resources for power projection abroad."

Power as status

Definitions

Much effort in academic and popular writing is devoted to deciding which countries have the status of "power", and how this can be measured. If a country has "power" (as influence) in military, diplomatic, cultural, and economic spheres, it might be called a "power" (as status). There are several categories of power, and inclusion of a state in one category or another is fraught with difficulty and controversy. In his famous 1987 work, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, British-American historian Paul Kennedy charts the relative status of the various powers from AD 1500 to 2000. He does not begin the book with a theoretical definition of "great power"; however he lists them, separately, for many different eras. Moreover, he uses different working definitions of great power for different eras. For example

"France was not strong enough to oppose Germany in a one-to-one struggle... If the mark of a Great Power is country which is willing to take on any other, then France (like Austria-Hungary) had slipped to a lower position. But that definition seemed too abstract in 1914 to a nation geared up for war, militarily stronger than ever, wealthy, and, above all, endowed with powerful allies."

Neorealist scholars frequently define power as entailing military capabilities and economic strength.  Classical realists recognized that the ability to influence depended on psychological relationships that touched on ethical principles, legitimacy and justice, as well as emotions, leaders' skill and power over opinion.

Categories of power

In the modern geopolitical landscape, a number of terms are used to describe various types of powers, which include the following:

• Hegemony: a state that has the power to shape the international system and "control the external behavior of all other states." Hegemony can be regional or global. Unlike unipolarity, which is a power preponderance within an anarchic international system of nominally equal states, hegemony assumes a hierarchy where the most powerful can control other states.
• Unipole: a state that enjoys a preponderance of power and faces no competitor states. According to William Wohlforth, "a unipolar system is one in which a counterbalance is impossible. When a counterbalance becomes possible, the system is not unipolar." A unipolar state is not the same as an empire or a hegemon that can control the behavior of all other states.
• Superpower: In 1944, William T. R. Fox defined superpower as "great power plus great mobility of power" and identified three states, the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States. With the decolonisation of the British Empire following World War II, and then the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States has remained to be the sole superpower. China is now considered an emerging global superpower by many scholars.
• Great power: In historical mentions, the term great power refers to the states that have strong political, cultural and economical influence over nations around them and across the world.
• Middle power: A subjective description of influential second-tier states that could not quite be described as great or small powers. A middle power has sufficient strength and authority to stand on its own without the need of help from others (particularly in the realm of security) and takes diplomatic leads in regional and global affairs. Clearly not all middle powers are of equal status; some are members of forums such as the G20 and play important roles in the United Nations and other international organisations such as the WTO.
• Small power: The International System is for the most part made up by small powers. They are instruments of the other powers and may at times be dominated; but they cannot be ignored.

Other categories

• Emerging power: A transitional category in which a state or union of states is viewed as on a trajectory of increasing global influence.
• Regional power: This term is used to describe a nation that exercises influence and power within a region. Being a regional power is not mutually exclusive with any of the other categories of power. The majority of them exert a strategic degree of influence as minor or secondary regional powers. A primary regional power (like Australia) has an often important role in international affairs outside of its region too.
• Cultural superpower: Refers to a country whose culture, arts or entertainment have worldwide appeal, significant international popularity or large influence on much of the world. Countries such as China, India, Italy, Spain, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have often been described as cultural superpowers, although it is sometimes debated on which criteria this is determined. Unlike traditional forms of national power, the term cultural superpower is in reference to a nation's soft power capabilities.
• Energy superpower: Describes a country that supplies large amounts of energy resources (crude oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, etc.) to a significant number of other states, and therefore has the potential to influence world markets to gain a political or economic advantage. Saudi Arabia and Russia are generally acknowledged as the world's current energy superpowers, given their abilities to globally influence or even directly control prices to certain countries. Australia and Canada are potential energy superpowers due to their large natural resources.

Hard, soft and smart power

Main articles: Hard power, Soft power, and Smart power

Some political scientists distinguish between two types of power: Hard and Soft. The former is coercive (example: military invasion) while the latter is attractive (example: broadcast media or cultural invasion).

Hard power refers to coercive tactics: the threat or use of armed forces, economic pressure or sanctions, assassination and subterfuge, or other forms of intimidation. Hard power is generally associated to the stronger of nations, as the ability to change the domestic affairs of other nations through military threats. Realists and neorealists, such as John Mearsheimer, are advocates of the use of such power for the balancing of the international system.

Joseph Nye is the leading proponent and theorist of soft power. Instruments of soft power include debates on cultural values, dialogues on ideology, the attempt to influence through good example, and the appeal to commonly accepted human values. Means of exercising soft power include diplomacy, dissemination of information, analysis, propaganda, and cultural programming to achieve political ends.

Others have synthesized soft and hard power, including through the field of smart power. This is often a call to use a holistic spectrum of statecraft tools, ranging from soft to hard.

Religious ecstasy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Giuseppe Bazzani.

Religious ecstasy is a type of altered state of consciousness characterized by greatly reduced external awareness and reportedly expanded interior mental and spiritual awareness, frequently accompanied by visions and emotional (and sometimes physical) euphoria.

Although the experience is usually brief in time, there are records of such experiences lasting several days or even more, and of recurring experiences of ecstasy during a person's lifetime.

In Sufism, the term is referred to as wajad and the experience is referred to as either jazbah (jadbah o jedbah for Maghreb) or majzoobiyat.

Context

The religious ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila of the Carmelite Order.

The adjective "religious" means that the experience occurs in connection with religious activities or is interpreted in context of a religion. Journalist Marghanita Laski writes in her study "Ecstasy in Religious and Secular Experiences", first published in 1961:

Epithets are very often applied to mystical experiences including ecstasies without, apparently, any clear idea about the distinctions that are being made. Thus we find experiences given such names as nature, religious, aesthetic, neo-platonic, etc.. experiences, where in some cases the name seems to derive from a trigger, sometimes from the over belief.

History

Ancient

Yoga provides techniques to attain a state of ecstasy called samādhi. According to practitioners, there are various stages of ecstasy, the highest being Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Bhakti Yoga in particular places emphasis on ecstasy as being one of the fruits of its practice.

In Buddhism, especially in the Pali Canon, there are eight states of trance also called absorption. The first four states are Rupa or, materially-oriented. The next four are Arupa or non-material. These eight states are preliminary trances which lead up to final saturation. In the Visuddhimagga, great effort and years of sustained meditation are practiced to reach the first absorption, and not all individuals are able to accomplish it at all.

In the Dionysian Mysteries of ancient Greece, initiates used intoxicants, ecstatic dance and music to remove inhibitions and social constraints.

Modern

Modern meditator experiences in the Thai Forest Tradition, as well as other Theravadan traditions, demonstrate that this effort and rarity is necessary only to become completely immersed in the absorptions and experience no other sensations. It is possible to experience the absorptions in a less intense state with much less practice.

In the monotheistic tradition, ecstasy is usually associated with communion and oneness with God. However, such experiences can also be personal mystical experiences with no significance to anyone but the person experiencing them. Some charismatic Christians practice ecstatic states (such as "being slain in the Spirit") and interpret these as given by the Holy Spirit. The firewalkers of Greece dance themselves into a state of ecstasy at the annual Anastenaria, when they believe themselves under the influence of Saint Constantine.

Historically, large groups of individuals have experienced religious ecstasies during periods of Christian revivals, to the point of causing controversy as to the origin and nature of these experiences. In response to claims that all emotional expressions of religious ecstasy were attacks on order and theological soundness from the Devil, Jonathan Edwards published his influential Treatise on Religious Affections. Here, he argues, religious ecstasy could come from oneself, the Devil, or God, and it was only by observing the fruit, or changes in inner thought and behaviour, that one could determine if the religious ecstasy had come from God.

St. Rose of Lima who was canonised in 1671, 54 years after her death.

In modern Pentecostal, charismatic and spirit-filled Christianity, numerous examples of religious ecstasy have transpired, similar to historic revivals. These occurrences however, have changed significantly since the time of the Toronto Blessing phenomena and several other North American so-called revivals and outpourings from the mid-1990s. From that time, religious ecstasy in these movements has been characterized by increasingly unusual behaviors that are understood by adherents to be the anointing of the holy spirit and evidence of God's "doing a new work". One of the most controversial and strange examples is that of spiritual birthing  – a practice during which women, and at times even men, claim to be having actual contractions of the womb while they moan and retch as though experiencing childbirth. It is said to be a prophetic action bringing spiritual blessings from God into the world. Many believe spiritual birthing to be highly demonic in nature and more occult-like than Christian. Religious ecstasy in these Christian movements has also been witnessed in the form of squealing, shrieking, an inability to stand or sit, uttering apocalyptic prophecies, holy laughter, crying and barking. Some people have made dramatic claims of sighting "gold dust", "angel feathers", "holy clouds", or the spontaneous appearance of precious gem stones during ecstatic worship events. Others have claimed to have received spontaneous gold tooth fillings. The Range Christian Fellowship in the conservative Australian city of Toowoomba demonstrates such displays of religious ecstasy on an almost weekly basis. In addition to all the above, worshippers there also use textile banners and during moments of religious ecstasy believe these banners carry special powers of "anointing" as a result of divinely inspired artwork.

The Ecstasy of St. Catherine of Siena by Pompeo Batoni.

In hagiography (writings about Christian saints) many instances are recorded in which saints are granted ecstasies. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia religious ecstasy (called "supernatural ecstasy") includes two elements: one, interior and invisible, in which the mind rivets its attention on a religious subject, and another, corporeal and visible, in which the activity of the senses is suspended, reducing the effect of external sensations upon the subject and rendering him or her resistant to awakening. The witnesses of a Marian apparition often describe experiencing these elements of ecstasy.

Modern Witchcraft traditions may define themselves as "ecstatic traditions", and focus on reaching ecstatic states in their rituals. The Reclaiming Tradition and the Feri Tradition are two modern ecstatic Witchcraft examples.

According to the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba, God-intoxicated souls known in Sufism as masts experience a unique type of spiritual ecstasy: "[M]asts are desperately in love with God – or consumed by their love for God. Masts do not suffer from what may be called a disease. They are in a state of mental disorder because their minds are overcome by such intense spiritual energies that are far too much for them, forcing them to lose contact with the world, shed normal human habits and customs, and civilized society and live in a state of spiritual splendor but physical squalor. They are overcome by an agonizing love for God and are drowned in their ecstasy. Only the divine love embodied in a Perfect Master can reach them."