Friday

Narcissist Ziyad Marar Defends College Shriekers by Dissing "Reason" and Free Speech

The Pontification of Ziyad Marar on Social Justice

I just bumped into this quietly nasty piece by a pseudo-intellectual Englishman named Ziyad Marar. He's a publisher in the UK, having moved there from Iraq at age ten. Apparently looking to get some attention, he seized on the opportunity earlier this year to play counterpoint on the matter of The Shrieking Girl of Yale.

It's hard for me to communicate just how despicable and oily I find this man, Ziyad Marar, but his "reason" is my "unreason" and his freedom to speak belongs not just to him but to me also. So let's jolly well go forward!

Marar begins his passionate defense of The Shrieking Girl of Yale with an attack on reason and free speech as epitomized by none other than Thomas Jefferson. According to Ziya Marar, it's all just relative. Even "reason" in his mind becomes the "unreason" of today. Therefore, The Shrieking Girl was perfectly reasonable in Marar's mind? Judge for yourself by his own speech. I've added some comments in parens. I'm sorry, but I can't help it. It's just such bullshit:

"Dominant voices (you mean the prof being bullied?) have long defended the established views of their time (he was doing no such thing) on the grounds that they are rational and dispassionate (this is a narcissist projection--they're simply saying the principles of free speech are best), and this general point is particularly apt in the “coddling” debate. Critics of today’s students sometimes cite (very rarely if ever) Thomas Jefferson’s statement at the founding of the University of Virginia: “This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” Yet it is easy to forget that the reason of one age was another age’s unreason (Says who? Another narcissist projection by Marar) – and that the content of rational-seeming positions (including truths held to be self-evident by the slave-owning Jefferson) can change dramatically thanks to activists (like the Shrieking Girl? An activist???) who struggle against those with more power (like the bullied prof over the issue of Halloween costumes? The "power" to defend the free speech of Halloween costumes?)."

and further:

"The irrational, the unreasonable and the uncomfortable are often the only weapons available to the powerless. This is not to laud all unreasonable ideas, but it is to say that we would do better to ask who has the power before judging too quickly."

Who has the power? If you watch the damn video, Mr. Ziyad, you will see that all the power belonged to The Shrieking Girl. She and her "powerless" friends were utterly bullying a hapless professor who was simply trying to calm things down and "reason" with them--or should I say, "unreason" with them? And let's not forget that your Marar-dubbed "powerless" students, all of whom are privileged to be in the 1% of the 1% and attend Yale University! Who are you kidding? So yes, ask who has the power? The prof's wife who wrote an email asking people to stay calm and be tolerant on Halloween, or The Shrieking Girl and her bullying social justice warriors who seized on the phony issue and shrieked like mad harpies at her husband who was trying to offer explanation?

Btw, at least a couple of intelligent readers stopped by to counterpoint Marar.

Reader's comments (2)

#1 Submitted by Scholar on January 15, 2016 - 12:31pm

Hmmm........except that the starting point of all this kerfuffle was the professor's partner sending out an email suggesting that the authority to decide whether a Halloween costume is offensive should be in the hands of the student body, not the university administration. Shrieking Girl was arguing against this, thus taking the strange position of deliberately seeking to be powerless.

#2 Submitted by joeditemer on May 27, 2016 - 2:04am

"Who has the power?" is indeed the right question. Now that Nicholas Christakis was forced to resign his position, while the girl who shrieked at him was not, is it clear who has the power?

Oh, Look, it's Ziyad Marar Talking About Freedom of Speech and Bullying!!
I find it excessively odd that a Brit who snidely knocks Jefferson, while siding with The Shrieking Girl of Yale and her pack of free-speech "cry bullies," appears to support the need for free speech when he's back home.

Was his article just his way of sneakily thumbing his nose at the American power mongers on Yale's campus?

Only the pseudo-intellectual narcissist Ziyad Marar knows for sure.

Some links to this "man":

Ziyad Marar, Global Publishing Director SAGE -- 'Implementing Finch ...

▶ 13:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C73V8q8ZWtw

May 22, 2013 - Uploaded by SAGE

Presentation given by Ziyad Marar as part of the two-day conference organised by the Academy of Social ...

The IPG Annual Spring Conference 2015: Ziyad Marar - YouTube

▶ 2:16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zeaomhppw4s

Mar 17, 2015 - Uploaded by Independent Publishers Guild

This video is about The IPG Annual Spring Conference 2015: Ziyad Marar.

The Campaign for Social Science/ Ziyad Marar - YouTube

▶ 2:11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHXMdKeO71w

Feb 10, 2011 - Uploaded by CfSocialScience

The Campaign for Social Science launch at the House of Lords. January 2011.

How to pronounce Ziyad Marar (Arabic/Iraq) - PronounceNames.com ...

▶ 0:28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YVB79AT0ck

Jul 16, 2014 - Uploaded by Pronounce Names

Audio and video pronunciation of Ziyad Marar brought to you by Pronounce Names (http://www ...

Ziyad Marar of SAGE: INDEX on CENSORSHIP AWARDS 2011 ...

▶ 5:49

www.dailymotion.com/video/x327n2h

Aug 19, 2015

Ziyad Marar of SAGE: INDEX on CENSORSHIP AWARDS 2011.

ZIYAD AVDENTURE - YouTube

▶ 0:04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcOzcbMs5II

Mar 26, 2016 - Uploaded by Ziyad Nation

ZIYAD AVDENTURE. Ziyad Nation ... Ziyad Marar, Global Publishing Director SAGE -- 'Implementing Finch ...

'New Scholarly Moves in the Social Sciences' - YouTube

▶ 12:33

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sv9zks10aM

Oct 12, 2011 - Uploaded by rivervalleytv

Ziyad Marar Deputy Managing Director and Executive Vice President /Global Publishing, SAGE Publications ...

Ziyad Marar - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2NwF0R5vAfnJqTJ4MOzNjw

Remove all; Disconnect. Watch Queue. Queue. __count__/__total__. Ziyad Marar. SubscribeSubscribedUnsubscribe 25. Loading... Loading... Working.

ziyad given - YouTube

▶ 0:03

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP6zvOEbcK0

Sep 5, 2009 - Uploaded by fariss17safi

Abul-Layth Ziyad ibn Saleem Qureshi 129 views. 31:34 ... Ziyad Marar, Global Publishing Director SAGE ...

Stay up to date on results for ziyad marar.

Thursday

The Real Victims of The Victim War - From the NYT

Arthur C. Brooks DEC. 26, 2015

The Incredible Shrieking
Girl of Yale University -
Victimized by Threat of
Halloween Costumes

BACK in 1993, the misanthropic art critic Robert Hughes published a grumpy, entertaining book called “Culture of Complaint,” in which he predicted that America was doomed to become increasingly an “infantilized culture” of victimhood. It was a rant against what he saw as a grievance industry appearing all across the political spectrum.

I enjoyed the book, but as a lifelong optimist about America, was unpersuaded by Mr. Hughes’s argument. I dismissed it as just another apocalyptic prediction about our culture.

Unfortunately, the intervening two decades have made Mr. Hughes look prophetic and me look naïve.

“Victimhood culture” has now been identified as a widening phenomenon by mainstream sociologists. And it is impossible to miss the obvious examples all around us. We can laugh off some of them, for example, the argument that the design of a Starbucks cup is evidence of a secularist war on Christmas. Others, however, are more ominous.

On campuses, activists interpret ordinary interactions as “microaggressions” and set up “safe spaces” to protect students from certain forms of speech. And presidential candidates on both the left and the right routinely motivate supporters by declaring that they are under attack by immigrants or wealthy people.

So who cares if we are becoming a culture of victimhood? We all should. To begin with, victimhood makes it more and more difficult for us to resolve political and social conflicts. The culture feeds a mentality that crowds out a necessary give and take — the very concept of good-faith disagreement — turning every policy difference into a pitched battle between good (us) and evil (them).

[ MORE ]

Btw, a bit of the ultimate victim, THE SHRIEKING GIRL OF YALE:

Tuesday

Enhancement Drugs at The Olympics - A View By The Moderate Voice

When you want to ruin a perfectly good trail mix, you toss in a handful of banana chips. When you want to ruin a perfectly good sports exhibition, you toss in a sample-sized cup of steroid-tainted urine.

Should we back up? Let’s back up. We’re talking about doping — a practice that continues to persist, even in a world that can no longer keep secrets. We’ve had the displeasure of seeing some of our most treasured athletes succumb — including Lance Armstrong, whose career more-or-less imploded after it was discovered that he had engaged in doping and had conspired to cover it up.

But one would hope that a high-stakes sports exhibition like the Summer Olympics — a time-honored celebration of international cooperation and friendly competition — would be a sacred place, safe from the inky shadow of foul play and the scent of tainted urine.

However, if one believed that, one would come away disappointed.

A World Leader in Dishonesty

Let’s start with Russia. Russia’s track and field team has been summarily banned from the upcoming Rio Olympics — the first such sanction in many decades. The last time a similar penalty was levied against an entire nation’s sports team, the year was 1960, and the nation was East Germany.

So what’s happening with Russia? It began with reports published by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which alleged that a far-reaching and state-sanctioned doping scheme had undermined the results of the 2008, 2012 and 2014 Games. But while the specter of doubt has hung over Putin’s Russia for many years, it was only in the last seven months or so that things took a darker and more decisive turn.

When the dust finally settled, we were left with a handful of shameful details:

• Russian athletes had been provided with a three-drug cocktail, complete with liquor chasers.
• The Russian Federal Security Force was found to have made a habit of threatening or blackmailing drug testers.
• Russia had apparently successfully enlisted the assistance of some of the less honest authorities to manipulate tests by swapping out tainted urine and destroying other urine samples entirely.

Like so much else that goes on in the upper echelons of Russian leadership, Russia’s efforts in these most recent Olympic Games is half bluster and half smoke and mirrors.

[ MORE FROM MODERATE VOICE ]

Monday

A Must See: Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia Meet To Discuss "Feminism"

CHS: I gave a lecture at Oberlin and Georgetown a year ago, and they organized safe spaces for students who were “triggered” — a Philosophy professor was going to induce PTSD. What they objected to is that I might have some ideas that invalidate their experience.

CP: They’re institutionalizing neurosis.

CHS: It’s absolutely true!

CP: That’s what they’re doing. It’s absolute madness.

CHS: And have you heard the phase, the ‘fashion on campus’ now is called, ‘intersectional feminism’, and it’s supposedly very progressive and it’s going to take feminism to a place where it is taking into account women with multiply marginalized identities, on and on. But all of the women — the practitioner — seem to meet at the intersection of propaganda and neurosis and rage. And they’re bullying people.

[ more ]

CP: That’s what education has come to. Absolutely. The definition down is “therapeutic resorts.”

CHS: Oh yes! And they have “feelings circles;” they have reflection journals. It’s this odd mix of therapy and anger — the word for this style of activism is ‘cry bullies’ because they’re both victim and victimizer.

That’s the new style of campus intersectionality. They actually do to other people what they claim was done to them. They treat people, they objectify and they stereotype and they demonize and then they try to get these people punished.

[ more ]

Mattress Girl Emma Sulkowicz NOW Award, Copulates for The Sake of Art, and As Usual, Displays her Tireless Narcissism

An excellent talk on the narcissist smear campaign and the manipulations used to gain sympathy and followers by becoming a victim. This bears watching in order to get a different viewpoint on the facts regarding the actions and words of Emma Sulcowicz in the context of her life following the breakup between she and her old boyfriend who she later accused of physical assault and rape.

I thought that if you deny, disparage, or otherwise attempt to negate another human being's opinion while making direct reference to their skin color, you are a racist. Am I right? It's almost comical to see Emma Sulkowicz throw the racist card when it suits--a juvenile way of avoiding the issue and labeling the messenger. It's also fascinating to see how she's evolved her victim status to such a fine edge that even broaching the subject of healing with an unsuitable phrase is potentially an act of violence. So much for ascending from victim to survivor. Of course, the survivor rung is in the future. Emma has only to reinvent herself again into a state of "survivor art." Oh, and btw, Emma doesn't have a problem with white women giving her awards or praising her, just so long as no one suggests she actually transcend and grow as a woman.

Fascinating. Sulkowicz has declared an indefinite victim status. How long can she play it out, you ask? Her "fear" must be validated. But what is she still afraid of? She doesn't say. And of course, she pats herself on the back at the end. She did it "my way" and the "unexpected right thing." What could that be? Lugging a mattress across campus for the camera? Nevertheless, she has attained the moral high ground as both victim and self-righteous being.

Who can doubt her?

In this context, any ostensible ascendance from victim status, especially at this time, is not a good idea. The victim has become inextricable from the art, and the art forever fused with the victim.

It would not be difficult to characterize her entire display related to the alleged rape as an ongoing exercise in childish dishonesty and narcissism thinly disguised as activism. Not difficult at all. Here is a great timeline regarding the Emma Sulkowicz issues. Read it. Note her interactions with the university and her lack of cooperation. Her schedule just didn't match their schedule. Darn! Also, please take time to read the record of her conversations with her victim regarding their sex romps; and if you can't see dishonesty and narcissism on this page, and after watching the video recreation of her alleged rape, then IMO you have blinders on.

Here is one screenshot of the staged rape reenactment:

This is actually Emma Sulkowicz having sex with a porn actor --
complete with violence and an acting out of her distress with loud cries

I can't and won't stream her porn-ish video "art" on this blog, but you have to see this to believe it! It's simply amazing that even someone as narcissistic and dishonest and blameless as Emma Sulkowicz, trans-frankensteined by NOW and others into the perfect archetypal victim of "male power structure," willingly, and with such theatrical relish, allows herself to be "raped" on camera by a porno actor. I just never would have believed something like this, in this context, could take place, but it has. Emma did it. She found a way to launch herself into the media once again, to take center stage at all costs.

If I were ill, the sight of her copulating with this ugly bastard would make me vomit. How

Her NOW Award for Courage

can she stand to look at him much less absorb his rod?

What in living hell is wrong with this woman? What kind of dark obsession makes this possible? As a dabbler in psychology, I see the reenactment of the violent parts (the slapping and choking) as metaphor for her emotional state in reaction to her lover parting ways with her. She felt slapped and choked by his betrayal. This was translated into an act of consensual sex becoming non-consensual. What began as an act of love evolved to an act of disappointment and ugliness, precisely like the arc of her relationship with him. The act of rape accusation thus became a "wetting of the brushes" for the school art project, a necessary condition and springboard to good grades and fame.

In this context, any ostensible ascendance from victim status, especially at this time, is not a good idea. The victim has become inextricable from the art, and the art forever fused with the victim. A transcendence of the artist is therefore not only politically unwise, but artistically unwise. Not a good career move.

Her lover Paul was certainly used by her. And why not? Emma rationalizes it's all the "right thing" to do. It serves the cause, and it serves her. Paul is therefore expendable. And he did betray her, didn't he? She loved him. He spurned her.

At least he can serve a good purpose.

Observe below how the young feminist women attempt

to defend the rape video as legitimate.

________

DID ‘MATTRESS GIRL’ TELL THE TRUTH? NOT VERY LIKELY

CATHY YOUNG

At least for now, Columbia’s mattress saga is over. Emma Sulkowicz, the student who spent her final year on campus toting a mattress to protest the school’s failure to punish her alleged rapist, graduated at the end of May; so did Paul Nungesser, the accused man who says he’s the real victim.

There was more drama at graduation: Sulkowicz toted her mattress onstage in defiance of school regulations and later accused Columbia president Lee Bollinger of snubbing her. In related news, posters branding Sulkowicz a liar cropped up near the campus; Nungesser was reported cleared on the last sexual assault complaint against him, this one from a male student; and, the next day, one of his two anonymous female accusers told her story on the feminist blog Jezebel.

An attempt at summing up this messy saga and its lessons comes from Emily Bazelon via Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. Bazelon admits that l’affaire Sulkowicz drama highlights major problems with the current system of Title IX-based campus “justice”—including “utter lack of transparency,” which is not a bug but a feature of the system: federal law stringently protects the privacy of students involved in disciplinary cases. As a result, in an alleged rape case that has attracted international attention and scrutiny, we are mostly left with he said/she said accounts not only of what happened between Nungesser and his accusers, but of how the complaints were handled by the university. The records exist, including transcripts and video recordings of the hearings; but they are off-limits and likely to remain so.

Dispensing with Due Process

Bazelon believes this fiasco is a result of the current system’s growing pains—of “a transitional period in the evolution of how universities handle sexual assault.” But it’s hard to see what reforms would fix the problem. Even if school staff are better trained to investigate sexual misconduct reports—assuming that “better training” actually means more effective fact-finding, not more faithful adherence to believe-the-survivor dogma—this would not address the underlying issue: that activists like Sulkowicz want to dispense with any semblance of due process and refuse to respect any result other than culpability and punishment.

(Incidentally, while Bazelon correctly notes that “rape is extremely difficult to prosecute both effectively and fairly,” the kind of violent attack that Sulkowicz alleges—an excruciatingly painful anal rape during which she was hit in the face, choked within an inch of her life, and pinned by the arms—would be quite easy to prove, at least if promptly reported to the police. The physical evidence would have been overwhelming.)