New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Brazilian music on Fridays: Luisa Maita

Busy week here, so a short BMoF. Here is Luisa Maita, one of the most remarkable female voices to have emerged in recent years in Brazil. She is also an accomplished composer, having had quite a few of her songs recorded by some 'big names'. I'm posting the song 'Lero-lero', from her first album released in 2010. It's a smooth, provocative song, with great guitar lines in the background.

More on gender and argument

Inspired by some comments of Jennifer Saul on Rebecca Kukla’s remarks concerning the “aggressive, argumentative” style in philosophy, Eric Schliesser and Catarina Dutilh Novaes here at NewAPPS have taken up the question of what I would call the character of philosophy. Does it consist in contests in which adversaries, having occupied positions, not only defend them vigorously but also attack those positions which, being contrary to their own, they take to be opposed to their own? Readers of Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors we live by will recognize here a familiar conceit: argument is war. How warlike should philosophy be?

New details on Georgia Tech outsourced education

I haven't had time to look at this in any detail, but after a quick skim, it seems that the company they are partnering with left the 'A' off their name.

Male Lactation in the History of Feminism (Diderot, De Grouchy...)

"Je sais qu'il y a eu des hommes qui ont fait jaillir le lait de leurs mamelles" [that is, "I know that there have been men who have brought forth milk from their breasts."]--Diderot (1754) Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature PENSÉES SUR L'INTERPRÉTATION DE LA NATURE, 56. [I thank Charles T. Wolfe for locating the passage; and his general insistence that Diderot (recall) ought not be neglected.--ES]

This post was inspired by reading some unpublished papers by Sandrine Berges, who is a leading authority on the political philosophy of Wollstonecraft and Sophie de Grouchy. Prof. Berges points out that in contrast to Rossseau and Wollstonecraft, De Grouchy rejects the close link between birthing and nursing in her (1797) Letters on Sympathy, which De Grouchy attached to her translation of Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments. De Grouchy's move opens up the possibility of recognizing nursing as a distinct and politically significant activity that can be valued (morally, politically, and economically) by society within the division of labor. In fact, if Diderot is right, nursing need not be a gender-specific activity. Motherhood, thus, need not confine women to domestic careers.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

THIS POST was quite welcome as I entered my second brain-numbing week of writing our annual "assessment reports" for the twelve general education classes we teach.*

I don't want to make too much of this. It could be worse. I could be gluing wet, leathery wallpaper onto crumbling cinderblocks in Brezhnev's Russia. . . 

And there's this from a December Wall Street Journal's article:

Across U.S. higher education, nonclassroom costs have ballooned, administrative payrolls being a prime example. The number of employees hired by colleges and universities to manage or administer people, programs and regulations increased 50% faster than the number of instructors between 2001 and 2011, the U.S. Department of Education says. It's part of the reason that tuition, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has risen even faster than health-care costs.

The Economist's takeaway:

That is to say, students have faced rapidly rising tuition costs not due to large increases in the cost of instruction, but mostly due to the dramatic, rapid growth of the university bureaucratic class, which offers nothing of obvious worth to the education of their universities' increasingly cash-strapped and indebted students.

According to a 2010 study on administrative bloat from the libertarian Goldwater Institute, tuition tripled from 1993 to 2007 at my own school, the University of Houston. Over that period, instructional spending per student changed not at all, while administrative spending per pupil nearly doubled. This is fairly representative of the national pattern. This seems to me to suggest that state university systems might first seek savings in leaner management before outsourcing instruction to glorified versions of YouTube. 

Obviously leaner management isn't going to happen anywhere in this country any time soon, but there's some consolation that even otherwise reliable neo-liberals realize that there might be some limit to how much of our time and wealth our overlords can hoover away from us.

[Notes:

*At some point I'll try to describe assessment processes in all of their surreality and also try to discern the effects on all of us that these various collective dishonesties this kind of bureaucratic makework requires, but right now the whole thing has made me too stupid to say anything intelligent about anything at all.]

The Harvard E-Mail Flap

A while ago, we discussed how the Dean of FAS at Harvard together with the Dean of Harvard College had searched the subject lines of emails sent by resident deans in an attempt to discover which of them had leaked information about student involvement in a cheating case, and, if so, what information had been leaked. The search occurred without first informing the resident deans.

The upshot of our rather constructive discussion was that the high-ups at Harvard had over-reacted.

Yesterday, it was announced that the Dean of Harvard College, Evelynn Hammonds, is "stepping down."

Houston, we have a problem...

Surely, this couldn't happen in philosophy! [HT Kevin Vallier.]

Elsevier loves lagniappe; or, filtering out the priests

Via Stefan Heßbrüggen on Facebook, an open letter from the UBC mathematician Greg Martin tells of his resignation from the editorial board of the Elsevier production, Journal of Number Theory. In the letter Martin tells of "Elsevier’s new policy that editors would receive $60 for every article they process" for the journal. Commenters react with hilarity, knowing the kind of lagniappe (Louisiana term for "kickback") that this would motivate. 

But Martin's reaction to the apparent "bribery" this looks like brings us to the discussion below between Eric and Catarina on philosophical origin myths: are we priests or are we "knowledge-workers"?

Must Philosophy be Adverserial? (Hint: of course, not!)

Our very own Catarina has taken sides in the exchange between Rebecca Kukla (who started it in this very interesting interview), and Jennifer Saul. But in doing so, Catarina (a) endorses what I take to be a mythic origin birth of philosophy. (I hesitate to disagree with one of the great historians of philosophy of my generation!) This matters because consequently, Catarina (b) overlooks plausible alternative ways of doing philosophy available at the 'origin' of philosophy.  But even if I were wrong about (a) and (b), Catarina's argument (c) tacitly embraces optimal institutional design (whereas I am skeptical that we can attain the circumstances in which we would endorse those institutions). At one point Catarina writes:

As Rebecca points out, this argumentative model of inquiry is at the very birth of Western philosophy in Ancient Greece. Philosophy has always been a dialogue of people disagreeing with each other, and this is precisely what makes it a worthwhile enterprise. 

First, I doubt that a "dialogue of people disagreeing with each other" is "precisely what makes" philosophy "a worthwhile enterprise." I believe it's the searching after certain ends (truth, illumination, liberation, beauty, good, etc.) and the various to-be-expected by-products it generates (wonder, joy, insight, self-doubt, critical stance, etc.) that make philosophy a worthwhile enterprise. Second, Catarina endorses here an origin-myth of philosophy that is quite plausible if we focus on Platonic dialogues, but less so if we take a more expansive view of the origins of philosophy. For example,  Parminedes' poem is very philosophical (with important reflections on the nature of reason). It certainly has dialogical elements in it. But its predominant mode is a magisterial stance.

Productive adversariality and gender in philosophy

UPDATE: Rebecca Kukla further explains her position in a Facebook status update.

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Friend-of-the-blog Rebecca Kukla is the latest 3:AM Magazine interviewee. Alongside lots of interesting observations about her philosophical work, she was asked to comment on the poor gender balance in professional philosophy. Here is one of her (somewhat controversial) comments:

[L]et me go on record as saying that I think that the whole idea that women are put off by or unsuited to the aggressive, argumentative style of philosophy is crap. Discursive intensity and tenacity, a high premium on verbal sparring and cleverness, and a fundamentally critical dialogical method have been central to philosophy since its birth, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The fact is, most people, regardless of gender, find that kind of discourse difficult, overwhelming, and somewhat threatening; the Athenians didn’t crack out the hemlock for no reason. This is why most people should not be philosophers, and that’s just fine. A tiny number of women and men thrive on that kind of engagement. I think the idea that women are disproportionately bad at it or put off by it is based on anecdotes – anecdotes that are hopelessly distorted by stereotypes and biases – and not on serious evidence. 

David Wallace cited in the Guardian (hat tip Graham Harman)

Pro-philosophy piece HERE, which among other cool-making features cites official friend of the blog David Wallace.

I wish I could do more than simply appeal to authority concerning any of these issues. Last year I tried to read the two popular anti-string theory books written by phycisists Peter Woit and Lee Smolin only to realize that I'd almost certainly never know enough math to have an opinion about any of the issues they raise.

It was a pretty depressing confrontation with postmodernism (as Lyotard originally defined it).

But I am very happy at least to be a live at a time where people like Wallace, who get graduate degrees both in philosophy and the field about which they philosophize, are able to thrive and (among other things) at least explain what is at stake to the rest of us.

more nice atheist news

This forthcoming posthumous book by Ronald Dworkin looks pretty cool. Amazon's description:

Dworkin joins Einstein's sense of cosmic mystery and beauty to the claim that value is objective, independent of mind, and immanent in the world. He rejects the metaphysics of naturalism--that nothing is real except what can be studied by the natural sciences. Belief in God is one manifestation of this deeper worldview, but not the only one. The conviction that God underwrites value presupposes a prior commitment to the independent reality of that value--a commitment that is available to nonbelievers as well. So theists share a commitment with some atheists that is more fundamental than what divides them. 

I think this way of looking at things might explain why religious people tend to like Christopher Hitchens (on religion) and Philip Pullman (to be fair, also an awesome fantasy writer in his own right) so much more than the other new atheists. Hitchens and Pullman are both at root deeply morally offended by religion. It's like reading someone on your own team telling you to get your act together.

Dworkin's carving of logic space leaves open the possibility of theistic naturalism. Do any philosophers of note fit there?

Paul Churchland sometimes writes perceptively that the lay-person's philosophy of mind is not strictly speaking Cartesian Dualism but rather usually better described as a kind of naturalism that includes ghostly entities (which, though very attenuated, still take up space and are causally connected to the non-spiritual world).  However, I think extending this kind of naturalism to include God would probably carry with it a pretty obnoxious version of Divine Command Theory (where might is right). Unfortunately, it's not just laypeople that subscribe to such a thing, but I don't know if any decent philosophers have argued themselves into believing it.

one nice thing amongst tragedy

Nicely done Rebecca Vitsmun and Pope Francis!

In  a message weirdly synchronous withVitsmun's "and I don't blame anybody for thanking the Lord," Vatican Radio reported the following homily that Pope Francis gave on gospel of Saint Mark:

“They complain,” the Pope said in his homily, because they say, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.” And Jesus corrects them: “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.” The disciples, Pope Francis explains, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of ​​possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong . . . Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation”

Pope Francis went further in his sermon to say:

"The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can... "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!".. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”

I realize that it is still a little bit insulting to tell an atheist not to worry because they too are redeemed. . . but, given the alternatives, it's still pretty cool.

 

Blog comments you wished you had made, vol. 4571

The key points, but do read the whole thing:

It's not helpful to make the arguments of labor’s enemies for them. So please don’t trumpet efficiency on behalf of the owners when its an argument that is almost always used as a cudgel against the rights of labor. We all know what efficiency really means: less money for labor and more for management and owners.... When management trumpets efficiency as the justification for subcontracting or any other labor practice [JP: such as changing the TT vs precarious labor ratio in HE] it's usually a front for disenfranchising labor and increasing management importance and scope.

I'm reminded of Jeff Nealon's biting and insightful "The Associate Vice-Provost in the Gray Flannel Suit" (here and here), an example of outsmarting in which he says we should welcome honest management consultants into universities, because the fat they would cut would be administration, not faculty. The trick is to find the honest management consultants!

Memorable first lines of journal articles

"LIKE MOST English philosophers (Bradley being the great exception--corrupted no doubt by Hegel), Whitehead is a pluralist, as were Occam, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Bertrand Russell."--Charles Hartshorne, "Whitehead's Revolutionary Concept of Prehension."

I advocate that the first sentence of a journal article should have a straightforward thesis statement. Even so, I grant that this rule can be trumped by aesthetic considerations. Hartshorne's line is memorable, in part, because of the unlikely nature of this set of "English philosophers" and the uncommonly, polemical nature of a parenthesis; Hartshorne also implies that pluralism is a virtue. We are immediately made to feel something is at stake in this English tradition.

Readers' nominations for even more memorable first lines of journal are welcomed.

The ultimate conspiracy secret...

Uncovered! [HT: Alison Peterman]

Brazilian music on Fridays: 'Eu te amo'

After posting a song from Chico Buarque’s Ópera do Malandro last week, somehow I felt like posting another song by him, so here is one of my favorites: ‘Eu te amo’, co-written with Tom Jobim (Jobim melody, Buarque lyrics), from his 1980 album Vida. It is an ultra-sad, ultra-mellow song, so you have to be in the right mood to listen to it; yet another heartbreaking break-up song. But for whatever reason, I loved this song already as a kid in the 1980s (I had the habit of listening to my parents’ records from fairly early on). The best thing about this song is the text, one of Chico’s best lyrics in my opinion, but here again something that will be ‘lost in translation’ for most of you… My favorite line: “What if in the mess of your heart, my blood missed the [right] vein and got lost”.  

The soul of man pictured

Source: Jan Comenius, Orbis pictus
(Syracuse, NY: C. W. Bardeen, 1887).

The illustration above is from Jan Comenius’ celebrated, oft-reprinted school-book. The Orbis sensualium pictus presents, in words and in pictures, “all the fundamental things in the world and all the acts of life”. In pictures because, after all, “in Intellectu autem nihil est, nisi priùs fuerit in Sensu” (a famous Aristotelian slogan). Knowing requires us to exercise our senses, perceiving by their means the differences of things, so as to lay the foundations of wisdom and right action. (Pictures, I should note, were still an expensive novelty, especially in books meant for children. Comenius had to have the Orbis printed in Nuremberg, not in Patak where he was teaching.)

This may be the worst review of 2013

Graham Oppy is "Professor of Philosophy, and Head of the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies (SOPHIS) at Monash." He is "Chair of Council of the Australasian Association of Philosophy" and "elected Fellow of the Australian Academcy [sic] of Humanities in 2009." So, I was very surprised by this unprofessional and self-absorbed review. For, he uses almost 2,000 words (out of a 2100 word review) to offer a taxonomy "not directly addressed anywhere in the work under review" in order to provide us with the mere assertion that, "while not denying that there has been an increase in serious activity in philosophy of religion, I am sceptical that there has been any movement at all in the first kind of project that I have identified." (The first project is "the 'neutral' assessment of competing worldviews in terms of global theoretical virtues -- simplicity, fit with data, explanatory scope, predictive accuracy, and the like.") Oppy then concludes with an entirely gratuitous list of authors who wrote "some outstanding chapters," including one from which he says he "learned many things that I am now pleased to know."

Let's grant that writing a review of (yet another) Handbook is no easy task; one often doesn't have space to even summarize all the chapters and, even if one did, mere summary is not the fundamental aim of any review worth having. Reviews play a crucial role in maintaining standards in a field, for explaining to the community what a book is about and at whom it is (primarily) aimed (a non-trivial issue with Handbooks), and what contributions it makes or should have made, etc. A review of a handbook also allows one to evaluate the 'state of play' in an intellectual community. There is a lot of room for different approaches to reviewing a Handbook, of course. Yet, Oppy's pontificating review does not meet the minimal standards for reviewing.

The review is a disgrace to NDPR.

Quote of the day: "Analytic philosophy, let's not go down that road"

Continuing on NewAPPS’ recent obsession with number theory, today I came across an interesting Slate article on the new proof of the ‘bounded gaps’ conjecture. The whole article is worth reading, but there is one particularly priceless quote (hyperlink in the original):

If you start thinking really hard about what “random” really means, first you get a little nauseated, and a little after that you find you’re doing analytic philosophy. So let’s not go down that road.

Why not, dear colleague?

Is the academic job-market rigged?

I have spent the past academic year applying for lecturer and reader positions in UK philosophy departments. Six years ago, when I applied for seven jobs worldwide, I quickly landed one at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Since then, the length of my CV has roughly tripled and now features 15 articles - most of them in high-ranking journals in the field - and two forthcoming books with prestigious academic publishers....Almost all my research has been produced in the eight years following my PhD: an output well above the average for someone applying for philosophy lectureships, and comparable to that of readers or professors with 15 years of experience....With this CV, I have applied for 16 jobs at top 20 UK universities. I have not been shortlisted for a single interview....

Academics also tend to rely on hunches and gossip about who’s hot and who’s not. Hence they end up making decisions that, to an outsider, seem totally counterintuitive and self-defeating, and that breach any principle of meritocracy or fair competition. This, to me, is irresponsible and will ultimately destroy the credibility of the academy.--István Aranyosi, Times Higher Education. [HT Sandrine Berges]

It is rare that somebody publishes his grievances about the academic job-market in such a prominent place, so this is a good opportunity to open up discussion. My own view (derived from Adam Smith and experience) is that academic hiring has a lot in common with a lottery--with lots of deserving winners, but with plenty more equally deserving non-winners.  I do have some reservations about Aranyosi's argument.

Tristan Garcia's First English Language Philosophy Essay

Pretty cool articles from the most recent issue of Parrhesia. See Garcia's Crossing Ways of Thinking: On Graham Harman's System and My Own, and also Harman's response - Tristan Garcia and the Thing in Itself. 

Joe Bob says to check it out.

More Depressing Evidence of Modularity

Christ, it's depressing how smart one can be in one area while believing the most transparently idiotic things in others (especially when moral culpability is involved).

Read THIS COLUMN ("MOOC Professors Claim No Responsibility for How Courses Are Used") for yet more evidence concerning the correctness of John Calvin on innate depravity.

Even from a self-interested perspective it's risible. Just how short-termed can one's thinking be? If this continues much longer not enough of their own students are going to be able to get enough good jobs to keep the scam going.

Two new proofs in number theory

In grade school we learn how to divide one whole number by another. Sometimes nothing is left over, but often the division leaves a “remainder”. One learns to say things like “Eleven divided by five is two remainder one”. Numbers that always leave a remainder when divided by another number other than themselves or 1 are called prime. All other numbers are called composite (except 1, which is neither prime nor composite). [Updated 23 May: see below.]

On Orcs and Cultural Genocide

So Nine does not simply insist that the collective in question adds material and symbolic value to the land and is in turn shaped by its ways of dealing with the land. While land-use patterns are important, what matters is that these land-use patterns are geared towards the establishment of just communities. To illustrate, in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the evil Orcs build a sophisticated underground system of dungeons and mines in preparation for future misdeeds. When the Ents (tree-like beings that keep the forest) flood and thereby destroy these structures during the Battle of Isengard, they are disrupting established land-use patterns. But since the Orcs did not build this system to advance justice, no loss of moral value occurs.--From this review by Mathias Risse of Cara Nine, Global Justice and Territory.

 From Risse's description it is not entirely clear if the example is in Nine's book (a quick search suggests not). Let's stipulate (a) that the Ents waged a just war in self-defense and (b) that as a matter of fact the Orcs' land-use patterns do not advance justice (regardless of the Orcs' views on such matters). I am, however, troubled by the final claim that "no loss of moral value occurs." For it seems that cultural genocide is endorsed in the example. (Quite a few, unnarmed Orc laborers also die--most of the Orc warriors of Saruman were fighting elsewhere.) Here are three reasons for concern: first, we should not be blind to Tolkien's racialized stereotypes--the Orcs are dark-skinned 'others.'

Blog innovations at Brains

Self-consciously following the example of PEA Soup, our friends at Brains ("a group blog on topics in the philosophy and science of mind") have announced a redesigned website as well as "beginning next month, Brains will begin hosting three symposia each year on selected articles from Mind & Language." (Full disclosure: among the first round of commentators is our very own Mohan.) Brains is also introducing a series of Featured Scholars--an idea generously borrowed from the folk at Flickers of Freedom ("an intellectual web community animated by a shared intrigue regarding the fundamental questions of action, agency, and free will.")

"The Strangest Conference I Ever Attended"

I must confess to being jealous of all of Spiros' friends who have received the red box.

I wonder if other departments get sent so many bizarre gifts.

There was a period where the Ayn Rand Institute seemed to every month or so send us weird things like Leonard Peikoff's lectures on "logic" (Peikoff seriously maintains non-Aristotelian logic to be so obviously immoral that one cannot believe in it without deserving excommunication from the ARI). And every couple of years someone mails me their self-published novel (e.g.). And let us not forget all of those blue books by the guy with the Italian last name (Rossini? Rosmini? Rouzelati? alas, we do seem to have forgotten him), sent on by his monastary.

One of the strangest of all these free books has been David Birnbaum's Summa Metaphysica (parts I and II). Being myself a pluralist and in a Frankenstein dept. (for us, welded together in the dead of night with Religious Studies), I never knew whether to class the thing with Peikoff or not. One person's weirdness is another's bread and butter. Was I right to put it on my ever expanding stack of weird free books?

Well, thanks to the good folks at Bard College, it is now clear that I was. Full story HERE.

Crowd-funding Philosophy

Sometimes an idea just is in the air. Last week in the context of our blogging (originally by Dennis, then more recently yours truly, and Catarina) about the ABC conjecture our very own Dennis des Chene reminded me that the source of the most recent discussion, written by Caroline Chen, requests that "If you enjoy this story, we ask that you consider paying for it. Please see the payment section below." How many philosophers did? (I finally did in context of writing this story!) Now, Daan Oostveen, a journalist writing for a Dutch weekly, contacted me about my views on crowd-funding in philosophy. According to Wikipedia, crowd funding is a "collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations." I often write these blog posts in an espresso-bar/fashion-store that was funded in this fashion (the owners were even on Dutch TV about it).

Now, I certainly expect that (like blogging!) crowd-funding could be a viable financing model for some philosophers.  At NewAPPS we self-consciously decided not to accept advertisements, but if we had I expect we might have had some nice extra cash to fund our annual APA lunch. Crowd-funding is an especially viable funding source for non-academic (or marginal-academic) philosophers, who (a) use  performance-like or primarily digital methods. It might even help develop these fields--something I wish we could do at NewAPPS (but I have come to the conclusion we lack interest and talent in these areas). Also, for charismatic people (b) whose philosophical views and methods lean closely toward self-help/therapeutic/religious spheres/pratices crowd-funding may even be lucrative. (In Holland the glossy Filosofie Magazine has made philosophy a life-style for educated folk near retirement looking for alternatives to religion.)

University Technocrats to Scholars: Keep Books Out of your Office

The headline to this post was not written by folk at the Onion. The managers at the Free University of Amsterdam have decided that university staff have to share office-space efficiently.  This has had a surprising consequence for the theologians and philosophers (the first departments with new-look offices). As the Dutch newspaper, Trouw, reported: "bookcases are now 'something for home'; department employees have up to 3.8 meters of books per person now. In addition, there should be a common department bookcase." If you go to the official university web-page of Dutch philosopher of science, Hans Radder, one can find under "Office hours:" "We don´t have offices anymore. For an appointment, please send an email."

For folk that can read Dutch the economic sub-text of the piece in Trouw is instructive; the chair of the philosophy department, Rene van Woudenberg is, quoted as follows: "We had the choice between expensive rental spaces where people can store a lot of stuff and own books; or we could choose to spend our budget on  staff with more limited office space. We have chosen the latter. Not in an expensive new office-office, but with a renovation in the old university building, which saves a lot, because every square meter has a price." Oddly, the piece does not mention that the Free University has been notorious for its financial blunders with derivatives (see here and even here) and a considerable loss due to Icelandic investments (initially belittled by the university).

A Question of Journalistic Ethics

In Toronto, we have a mayor whom every right-thinking person abhors, and every Right-thinking person adores. But putting his policies to one side—and why would most readers of this blog really care about them?—Rob Ford has raised some questions of personal conduct recently, including alleged: grope of an opposing (female) mayoral candidate, public drunkenness, unseemly altercations with city employees and other citizens, and driving while texting.

Now, the Toronto Star (following Gawker) has published a story about an iPhone video in which His Worship (in the middle below) is seen consuming (what is supposed to be) crack cocaine. Apparently, he is incoherent during this 90-second video, and makes various racial and homophobic slurs as well. The Star would not purchase the video, which is being shopped around by an alleged drug dealer. (Gawker has now started a public appeal to raise $200,000 to purchase it.) It is still an "alleged" video. 

The question of ethics: