“Totalitarianism, Enlightenment Philosophy and Werewolves with Andrea Cremer - Huffingtonpost.com” plus 2 more

Totalitarianism, Enlightenment Philosophy and Werewolves with Andrea Cremer - Huffingtonpost.com
UNESCO Drops Support for Iran's Philosophy Day Events - Voice of America
Cyber Command puts its philosophy into action - FCW.com

Totalitarianism, Enlightenment Philosophy and Werewolves with Andrea Cremer - Huffingtonpost.com

Posted: 13 Nov 2010 02:20 PM PST

I have a confession: I'm 32 years old and I read a young adult novel about werewolves.

I'm not afraid to admit this, because Andrea Cremer writes with an accomplished and intelligent voice that won't give adult readers headaches. Cremer's Nightshade is a smart blend of romance, action, philosophy, and pagan witchcraft. And, yes, high-schoolers shape-shifting into wolves.

Instead of tip-toeing around tough issues, she tackles them head-on. "I know how to talk to students," Cremer, who teaches "at a very nice liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota," blogged. "I have a Ph.D. in history and I understand the ways in which violence, religion, and sexuality have shaped societies... These subjects shouldn't be avoided or hidden. They need to be discussed."

Cremer recently spoke with me about Nightshade, which debuted on The New York Times Bestseller list in October.

***

Huffington Post: Ren, Nightshade's resident bad boy, obviously cares for his fiancée Calla (the series' heroine). This makes it hard to dislike him, even as he takes full advantage of the sexual double standard and fools around with other girls on the side.

Andrea Cremer: Ren has issues, serious issues that will be revealed in the coming books of the series. I agree that he's likable, and incredibly desirable, but I do think the fact that Ren has so many fans bespeaks to a tendency that the bad boy can be redeemed or changed whereas a fallen woman is always fallen.

HP: What does it say about us as a society that we're so eager to forgive the bad boy for his sins (i.e. he's just being a "player"), but would be quick to disown a woman who exhibited the same behavior?

AC: It's the 21st century and young women are still very much in the shadow of a Madonna/whore complex. That double standard was something I wanted to bring out starkly in the series because I find it so deeply troubling. A young woman's sexual awakening shouldn't be something she is ashamed of or punished for. It still appears to be the case that when it comes to sex a large swath of the population believes "boys will be boys" but girls have to be "responsible" - which boils down to girls carrying the social and physical burden of sex and its consequences without being given any space in which to understand their sexuality in a positive and accepting away.

HP: The werewolf regime that Calla and her friends serve under is fairly totalitarian, which might be a foreign concept (literally and figuratively) to modern day American teenagers. Did you have any concern that young adults in the US wouldn't be able to identify with the characters' struggles?

AC: I wasn't worried about young adults being able to relate to oppression - it's simply a matter of scale. At age 14 you can feel utterly oppressed by a curfew or limited phone time. It may seem flip to compare that to a totalitarian regime but I think, particularly for teens. it's easy to understand what it would be like, and how unfair it would feel, to have your choices limited. Our mantra in American culture (whether it's true or not) is that the benefit of living here is the freedom to be or do whatever your dream is. The thought that the pursuit of happiness could be removed is very frightening and something that resonates no matter what your understanding of historical totalitarianism is.

HP: Not only does Thomas Hobbes's philosophical ideas influence Nightshade, but Hobbes himself actually plays a role in the back story. Why Hobbes?

AC: My research [as a professor] focuses on the intersection of violence, gender/sexuality, and religion in the early modern period. I've always been drawn to competing Enlightenment philosophies about the state of nature. Hobbes offered a rather dark path into a plot that debates fate versus free will as his idea of a "war of all against all" posits that humans are inherently violent and societal order only results from coercion.

HP: I can't think of a single book or television series whose ending has universally pleased all of its fans. Harry Potter, Twilight, LOST, Seinfeld, or The Sopranos--there's always some amount of grumbling. Is this something you're conscious of while writing the finale to your trilogy?

AC: I do think that, as an author, you have to let go of the hope that the ending will please everyone. It's impossible to please everyone. I knew how the trilogy would end when I started writing it. For me it was the only way it could end. I hope that most readers will find that the conclusion resonates with them.

HP: And if it doesn't?

AC: If it doesn't, I hope they don't chase me down with pitchforks and torches!

***

Wolfsbane, the second book in the Nightshade trilogy, will be released next July.

Thomas Hobbes Image: Public Domain.

Follow Andrew Shaffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/andrewtshaffer

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UNESCO Drops Support for Iran's Philosophy Day Events - Voice of America

Posted: 10 Nov 2010 09:23 AM PST

VOA News 10 November 2010

UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France (file photo)

Photo: AFP

The United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization has withdrawn its support for events Iran is organizing to mark World Philosophy Day later this month.

Western diplomats said Tuesday that a 2008 agreement for Iran to host this year's events became extremely controversial given Tehran's record of repression and censorship following last year's disputed presidential election.

Diplomats and rights groups pointed to the arrests and deportations of notable Iranian academics after the election and to evidence the philosophy event is being run by harder-line voices in the Iranian system.

A number of academics vowed to boycott the program, scheduled for November 21-23, and European nations, joined by the United States, urged UNESCO's new director-general, Irina Bokova, to cancel the event.

New restrictions on Iranian university curricula in a number of fields - including law, political science and philosophy - as well as concerns about possible barriers to public access for the event also influenced Western critics.

Paris-based festivities marking Philosophy Day - designed to promote philosophic dialogues and exchanges - are expected to go ahead as scheduled on November 18.

Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.

Cyber Command puts its philosophy into action - FCW.com

Posted: 09 Nov 2010 03:58 PM PST

Cyber Command puts its philosophy into action

2010 marked by creation of command, major milestones in network defense

The establishment of a Cyber Command (Cybercom) this year — delayed nearly a year by congressional resistance in approving the nomination of Army Gen. Keith Alexander as its commander — marks an important milestone for the Defense Department's cyber operations, according to observers in the security field.

Although the efforts of the individual services to transform their cyber defense and operations structures have been under way well before the beginning of 2010 — including the 24th Air Force, the cyber component of the Air Force's Space Command, which achieved full operational status Oct. 1 — the establishment of Cybercom at Fort Meade, Md., raises the visibility and emphasizes the importance of cyber as a domain for all of DOD.

That domain extends beyond the boundaries of DOD's networks. "Cyberspace has become a critical enabler for all elements of national and military power," Alexander said in a June 3 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "As President Obama's national security strategy states, our digital infrastructure therefore is a strategic national asset. And protecting it, while safeguarding privacy and civil liberties, is a national security priority."

The challenge of that task was illustrated early in 2010 in dramatic fashion. Aurora, a highly sophisticated cyberattack on a number of technology-related companies, resulted in the theft of intellectual property and precipitated a standoff between Google and the Chinese government. The attack was highly advanced and targeted — much like the sort of threat DOD faces every day, said David Marcus, director of security research at McAfee. The attack was traced to two universities in China, though government officials denied involvement.

"The bad guys have really stepped up their game," Marcus said. "Aurora's a really great example of it." The attack used a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer that didn't have a readily available fix, he said. It targeted people who were most likely to have high-value information on their computers.

The attackers did "a high level of target profiling and social engineering," Marcus said. "That's what we see with targeted attack these days — they've done so much profiling [of targeted people] and set up work that they're essentially assured of at least a level of success when they launch their attack."

Philosophy

Saturday, November 13, 2010