In Christopher Hitchens’s interview with EconTalk about his book Why Orwell Matters, Hitchens praises George Orwell on his “plain honest speech, transparent political positions, detestation for euphemism and falsification” and argues (1:00:54~):

The job of the intellectual, the so-called public intellectuals as we are now for some reason doomed to call it, is or ought to be to say something along the following lines: “It’s more complicated than that… You mustn’t simplify this… There’s more complexity to the subject.” That’s what an intellectual should be doing to public discourse, one thinks. But then there are occasions when it seems to me that the reverse is the case. That actually what the really thoughtful person should be saying is actually: “It’s simple! Do not make complexity here, where none is required.”

You can listen to the above quote (and a bit extra) straight from Hitchens below:

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What an excellent point. Often I find myself exasperated with commentary on the internet which frequently represents the extreme and the childish, with no indication of understanding or nuance. The short-form of the blog only exacerbates the problem. It is almost enough to abandon the enterprise altogether. But all hope for public discourse on the internet is not lost! The point made by Hitchens, that sometimes things are just that simple tempers my irritation. It is a useful aphorism to keep bias in check.

Of course, the problem remains of proper application. The non-complexity argument cannot be used for every issue, and one must recognize its misuse and call it out. Truly complex issues should be handled in other forae, such as academic journals or conferences. But there are issues that can be broached in shorter formats. For example issues of morality or principle. Abandoning relativism, properly defining terms and being transparent in speech (as Orwell advises in his classic essay Politics of the English Language) should lead to clearer understanding in general. Casting off complexity is not drawing an arbitrary line in the proverbial sand (eg. moralizing), but stripping away the unwarranted and getting at the core of an argument. Often simple is not easy, and complexity is used to obfuscate. Nobody ever said being a public intellectual would be easy.

Listen to the entire Christopher Hitchens interview with EconTalk.

The last map showed America’s dominance in winning Nobel Prizes. Via Bill Petti on Twitter comes today’s map showing book bans and challenges by state in America over the past three years. Is your state on the list?

Some of the banned books include Grendel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, The Golden Compass and Hoops. According to the BBC bans on 3,736 books and other print materials have been requested since 2001. The most banned book is the one about the gay penguins.

I think it would be appropriate to quote one of America’s most famous pieces of literature:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Book banning is sad behaviour, and I am by no means saying it only happens in the US. freedomtoread.ca maintains a list of over 100 books and magazines that have been challenged in Canada over the decades. Wikipedia comes to the rescue with a massive list of books banned by governments from around the world. Is your country on it?

Luckily, no Robert Kaplan books are on any of the lists.

A victory over linguistic oppression:

Yesterday a three-person panel charged with examining the program recommended that it be terminated and the university took immediate action. The panel’s report was critical of the way the program was introduced to the Kingston campus and how it was implemented. Although panel members said they found no evidence of “snooping,” by those involved in the program, they expressed “strong reservations about unsolicited interventions into the lives of students.” They questioned who should have the power to decide what remarks are offensive and how they should be corrected.

Queen’s silences campus language-police program Globe and Mail

Once again the Internet throws a spanner in the works for 20th century, nation-based legal frameworks.

UK ISPs Filtering Access to Wikipedia
ZDNet is reporting that six British ISPs are filtering access to Wikipedia as a result of the site being added to the Internet Watch Foundation after accusations that it is hosting what some consider child pornography.

The filtered content involves the controversial 1970s record album cover from the German band Scorpions that features a naked prepubescent girl. The album, Virgin Killer, was banned in many countries when it was released until a replacement cover was created.

Unfortunately the filter has some side-effects. Besides not being able to see filtered content, all user traffic is given a single IP address per proxy. Since Wikipedia blocks vandals by IP address, if one person is blocked, everyone on that ISP is blocked. If one person on each of the six ISP’s are blocked, everyone in Britain (except those using BT apparently) will be unable to contribute to Wikipedia. Users are getting the following message when attempting to edit:

“Wikipedia has been added to a Internet Watch Foundation UK website blacklist, and your Internet service provider has decided to block part of your access. Unfortunately, this also makes it impossible for us to differentiate between different users, and block those abusing the site without blocking other innocent people as well.”

Registered users are still able to edit.

Censorship laws are always tricky and usually end up restricting all sorts of benign activity. The universality of the Internet and its refusal to comply with the boundaries and laws of sovereign states only compounds the problem. I think the spectacular utility of the Internet should trump all prudish laws of censorship.

Related: Map of Internet censorship from The Atlantic.

…Queen’s University’s plans to hire six students as “dialogue facilitators.” Their job will be to intervene in conversations they overhear among students in dining halls and common rooms in which topics of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disability and social class are discussed. The facilitators, says Patrick Deane, the university’s academic vice-president, are supposed “to serve their peers … in difficult or sensitive discussions” and foster “a spirit of mutual respect and understanding …”

See Secret police on campus. H/T The Last Prussian.

There has been a round of religiously motivated censorship recently that I would like to draw everyone’s attention to.

First is the anti-Koran film Fitna which was pulled from LiveLeak due to threats according to the Underwire. Dan originally had the film embedded on his site when he talked about it a couple of days ago. You can still see a copy at Google Video.

Then of course is our favourite religious corporate organization, the Church of Scientology. They sued to stop the distribution of The Profit, a fictional film about a religious group that resembles the Co$. This event happened a few years ago but illegal distribution is still going on and the controversy is still active as of three days ago. Anti-Co$ hacker network Anonymous drew everyone’s attention to the film again recently. You can get the torrent at TPB (h/t DtB).

Lastly there is the PZ Myers episode last week of being expelled from Expelled. PZ is a biology prof and evolution blogger. Expelled is a creationist “documentary” about how “Big Science” shuts out the dissenting views on evolution. PZ went to a showing, was recognized while standing in line and kicked out of the theater. His three guests got in though, one of which was … wait for it … this dude! PZ blogged the incident and epic lulz ensued.

What to make of all this? Hey, the religious orgs are doing what they do: shutting people up and trying to control the message. Whether it involves litigation or violence, organized religion wants to build boundaries around the minds of believers and non-believers alike. The sad thing is that they have been surprisingly successful. However, I think this just makes them look worse in the end. I can’t wait for the day when transparency and rationality reign.

The Internet has been in a lot of headlines the past few weeks. Here is a roundup of net-related news I found interesting:

The Past

Preserving digital information for posterity is a serious problem. Getty Images has poured a lot of cash into researching ways to allow our great-great grandchildren to access the old, worn JPEGs from our modern day digital cameras. The World Wide Web History Center was recently in Canada calling for awareness.

Censorship

The OpenNet Initiative, based out of the University of Toronto, has a great interactive map detailing the pervasiveness of internet filtering on a country to country basis. A similar map was in The Atlantic Monthly this time last year.

The Wild West

On April 27th a wave of DOS attacks began flooding government, banking and media websites in Estonia. The attacks originated in Russia and were said to be in retaliation of the Soviet war memorial removed from Tallinn. This weeks Economist has a good article detailing the Estonia attacks and describing the state of flux that the field of net security is in. It cites NATO and the International Telecommunication Union as two IGOs getting ready to wade into regulating aggressive activity on the Web. The Economist also covers a number of historical state related internet-based attacks, many of which you probably never heard of.

MAD 2.0

John Robb also covered the Estonia attacks, and sees a new tool of statecraft: Mutually Assured Disruption.

In a globally competitive marketplace, ongoing disruption of a single country’s economic system can result in rapid declines in relative performance. Computer assaults can accomplish this result with a high level of deniability.

The first line of defence against this kind of attack is the market. Businesses that depend on the global communications capability of the net will be taking precautions to defend their interests, and in turn defend the economy as a whole. But there may be a role for the government to play, and John’s idea of a new MAD might be it. The disruptions John mentions should like economic warfare. But is it that simple? Last month’s attack on Estonia rendered its emergency services call number dark for more than an hour. Lives, in addition to cash, hang in the balance. This is much bigger than the market. Check it out: DHS has a division under the Office of Policy development dedicated to cybersecurity.

Words

The FT has just launched a handy new glossary of IT terms for business.

“Information warfare” is an extremely cumbersome term that doesn’t exactly describe the attacks on Estonia. DR has a list of terms used in the media recently, including one they coined themselves: Cybarmageddon!