Category Archives: Culture

May 23, 2013

The Victorians were smarter than us, study suggests

Posted on May 23, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The Victorians achieved so much because they were cleverer than us, a new study suggests.

Actual IQ scores from different decades cannot be directly compared

Reaction times – a reliable marker of general intelligence – have declined steadily since the Victorian era from about 183 milliseconds to 250ms in men, and from 187ms to 277ms in women.

The slowing of our reflexes points to a decrease in general intelligence equivalent to 1.23 IQ points per decade since the 1880s or about 14 IQ points overall, researchers said.

Actual IQ scores from different decades cannot be directly compared because people today enjoy better teaching, health and nutrition which would help improve their results, the scientists explained.

But the reaction times signify that the genetic component of general intelligence – which leads to the type of creativity and invention typical of the Victorian era – has been dwindling over the past century.

Dr Michael Woodley, who led the study published in the Intelligence journal this month, identified the trend by comparing reaction times from trials conducted by Victorian scientists against those carried out in recent decades.

[...]

Complete text linked here.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, History, Science

May 18, 2013

Map shows world’s ‘most racist’ countries (and the answers may surprise you)

Posted on May 18, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Jordan and India named least tolerant countries. U.S., Britain, Canada and South America are among the least racist.

Racism: This map shows the nations of the world where people have the most and least tolerant attitudes

Britain is one of the most racially tolerant countries on the planet, a survey claims.

The global social attitudes study claims that the most racially intolerant populations are all in the developing world, with Bangladesh, Jordan and India in the top five.

By contrast, the study of 80 countries over three decades found Western countries were most accepting of other cultures with Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia more tolerant than anywhere else.

The data came from the World Value Survey, which measured the social attitudes of people in different countries, as reported by the Washington Post.

The survey asked individuals what types of people they would refuse to live next to, and counted how many chose the option ‘people of a different race’ as a percentage for each country.

Researchers have suggested that societies where more people do not want neighbours from other races can be considered less racially tolerant.

The country with the highest proportion of ‘intolerant’ people who wanted neighbours similar to them was Hong Kong, where 71.8 per cent of the population would refuse to live next to someone of a different race.

Next were Bangladesh on 71.7 per cent, Jordan on 51.4 per cent and India with 43.5 per cent.

[...]

Complete text linked here.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Multiculturalism

America Needs More Free-Range Kids by John Stossel

Posted on May 18, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Grit made America great.

Are you a real man (or woman)? Do you have “grit”?

Compare yourself to the man on the $20 bill: Andrew Jackson, our seventh president.

During the Revolutionary War, Jackson volunteered to fight. He was just 13 years old at the time. The British captured him and made him a servant for British officers. When one ordered Jackson to clean his boots, Jackson refused, and the officer slashed Jackson’s hand with a sword. When Jackson became president, he showed off the scar.

Jackson had grit.

Do your kids have that much grit today? I doubt it. Parents now try to protect kids from all danger. In New York City, some won’t let teenagers go to school by themselves.

Lenore Skenazy, author of “Free-Range Kids,” thinks that’s absurd.

“Free-range kids are kids we believe in,” she told me. “They can do things on their own.”

Once she allowed her own 9-year-old to ride the subway alone. After she wrote about that, she was labeled “World’s Worst Mom.” Really. Google “world’s worst mom.” Skenazy’s name comes up.

“Free-Range Kids” promotes events like “Take Our Children to the Park and Leave Them There Day.” Skenazy says leaving kids in the park without adult supervision teaches them grit. Kids get used to bugs, rocks and a lack of constant supervision. They become leaders by discovering how to organize their own lives without parents bossing them around.

[...]

Complete text linked here.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, John Stossel

Women are more unhappy despite 40 years of feminism, claims study

Posted on May 18, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The study by the US National Bureau of Economic Research found that while post-war era happiness surveys found women were noticeable happier than men, the difference had eroded to ‘zero’.

Women are less happy nowadays despite 40 years of feminism, a new study claims.

Despite having more opportunities than ever before, they have a lower sense of well-being and life satisfaction, it found.

The study, The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, said the same was true for women of different ages and whether or not they were married or had children.

It said the results appeared surprising given that modern women had been liberated from their traditional 1950s role of housewife.

Instead, their earning power has soared, women are doing better than men in education and they are in control of decisions over whether to start a family.

The findings were released as Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Marks & Spencer, claimed that women ‘have never had it so good’.

[...]

Complete text linked here.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Economy and Debt

May 14, 2013

Shock as 84 schools have NO white British pupils at all… double the number of five years ago

Posted on May 14, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

‘The result of three million immigrants in ten years has created a huge problem for integration of the newcomers. Obviously, if there are no children of the host community in a school, the prospects of integration are close to zero.’

An Education: More than 80 state schools have no white British pupils, compared to 31 schools in 2008, Department for Education figures have revealed

More than 80 state schools in England have no white British pupils, Government figures show.

The number of such schools appears to have more than doubled over the past five years, and the findings will fuel concerns that some parts of the country are becoming increasingly segregated.

The new figures follow research showing that white Britons are retreating from areas dominated by ethnic minorities, to be replaced by immigrants and other ethnic minorities.

Critics said that the previous Labour Government’s ‘open-door’ immigration policy had created ‘huge’ problems for integration, which was now threatening the country’s social cohesion.

The Department for Education figures, revealed in a Freedom of Information request, show that 84 schools recorded last year that no pupils on their rolls were white British. Of those, 67 are primaries, eight secondaries and the remainder special or pupil referral units.

The statistics, derived from the annual school census, found that the highest concentration is in Birmingham, with 22 such schools, followed by Oldham with eight, Leicester with seven and the London borough of Tower Hamlets with six.

[...]

Complete text linked here.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Education, Europe, Immigration

May 4, 2013

The Pope and Godless Capitalism by Pat Buchanan

Posted on May 4, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

But in the late 20th century, America abandoned as “protectionism” what Henry Clay had called The American System. We gave up on economic patriotism. We gave up on the idea that the U.S. economy should be structured for the benefit of America and Americans first. We embraced globalism.

“This is called slave labor,” said Pope Francis.

The Holy Father was referring to the $40 a month paid to apparel workers at that eight-story garment factory in Bangladesh that collapsed on top of them, killing more than 400.

“Not paying a just wage … focusing exclusively on the balance books, on financial statements, only looking at personal profit. That goes against God!”

The pope is describing the dark side of globalism.

Why is Bangladesh, after China, the second-largest producer of apparel in the world? Why are there 4,000 garment factories in that impoverished country which, a few decades ago, had almost none?

Because the Asian subcontinent is where Western brands — from Disney to Gap to Benetton — can produce cheapest. They can do so because women and children will work for $1.50 a day crammed into factories that are rickety firetraps, where health and safety regulations are nonexistent.

This is what capitalism, devoid of a conscience, will produce.

Rescuers at the factory outside Dhaka have stopped looking for survivors, but expect to find hundreds more bodies in the rubble.

[...]

Complete text linked here.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Culture, Pat Buchanan, Religion

May 2, 2013

Victor Davis Hanson commentary: Our nation has developed a schizophrenic morality

Posted on May 2, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Not since the late-19th-century juxtaposition of the Wild West with the Victorian East has popular morality been so unbridled and yet so uptight. In short, we have become a nation of promiscuous prudes.

More than 500 people were murdered in Chicago last year. Yet Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel still found time to berate the fast-food franchise Chick-fil-A for not sharing “Chicago values” — apparently because its founder does not approve of gay marriage.

Two states have legalized marijuana, with more to come. Yet social taboos against tobacco smoking make it nearly impossible to light up a cigarette in public places. Marijuana, like alcohol, causes far-greater short-term impairment than does nicotine. But legal cigarette smoking is now seen as a corporate-sponsored, uncool and dirty habit that leads to long-term health costs for society at large — in a way homegrown, hip and mostly illegal pot smoking apparently does not.

Graphic language, nudity and sex are now commonplace in movies and on cable television. At the same time, there is now almost no tolerance for casual and slang banter in the media or the workplace. A boss who calls an employee “honey” might face accusations of fostering a hostile work environment, yet a television producer whose program shows an 18-year-old having sex does not. Many colleges offer courses on lurid themes from masturbation to prostitution, even as campus sexual-harassment suits over hurtful language are at an all-time high.

[...]

Complete text linked here.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Victor Davis Hanson

April 24, 2013

Americans ‘snapping’ by the millions

Posted on April 24, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Terrorism. Chaos. Fear of the future. In the age of Obama, America is undergoing a “fundamental transformation” – that much everyone knows.

But what few seem to realize about this transformation is that the sheer stress of living in today’s America is driving tens of millions to the point of illness, depression and self-destruction. Consider the following trends:

Suicide has surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of injury death for Americans. Even more disturbing, in the world’s greatest military, more U.S. soldiers died last year by suicide than in combat;

Fully one-third of the nation’s employees suffer chronic debilitating stress, and more than half of all “millennials” (18 to 33 year olds) experience a level of stress that keeps them awake at night, including large numbers diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorder.

Shocking new research from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in five of all high-school-aged children in the United States has been diagnosed with ADHD, and likewise a large new study of New York City residents shows, sadly, that one in five preteens – children aged six to 12 – have been medically diagnosed with either ADHD, anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder;

New research concludes that stress renders people susceptible to serious illness, and a growing number of studies now confirm that chronic stress plays a major role in the progression of cancer, the nation’s second-biggest killer. The biggest killer of all, heart disease, which causes one in four deaths in the U.S., is also known to have a huge stress component.

Complete text linked here.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Culture, Medical

April 17, 2013

Charlton Heston – Resisting Cultural Persecution (Video)

Posted on April 17, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Charlton Heston spoke about individual rights and freedoms, urging students to express their opinions on those rights even if their opinions were unpopular.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Charlton Heston, Culture, Free Speech, Gun Rights

April 15, 2013

In Defense of Liberty: 3 Poisonous Ideologies Destroying the West – Victor Davis Hanson (Videos)

Posted on April 15, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

He argued that the U.S. is in danger of losing the ideals of the Enlightenment due to a lack of willingness to fight for them.?”In Defense of Liberty: The Relationship Between Security and Freedom” was a lecture hosted by the Heritage Foundation.