Dismissed 2017 Quotes

Even human bones are not exempt from male-unless-otherwise-indicated thinking. We might think of human skeletons as being objectively either male or female and therefore exempt from male-default thinking. We would be wrong. For over a hundred years, a tenth-century Viking skeleton known as the ‘Birka warrior’ had – despite possessing an apparently female pelvis – been assumed to be male because it was buried alongside a full set of weapons and two sacrificed horses.11 These grave contents indicated that the occupant had been a warrior12 – and warrior meant male (archaeologists put the numerous references to female fighters in Viking lore down to ‘mythical embellishments’13). But although weapons apparently trump the pelvis when it comes to sex, they don’t trump DNA and in 2017 testing confirmed that these bones did indeed belong to a woman. The argument didn’t, however, end there. It just shifted.14 The bones might have been mixed up; there might be other reasons a female body was buried with these items. Naysaying scholars might have a point on both counts (although based on the layout of the grave contents the original authors dismiss these criticisms). But the resistance is nevertheless revealing, particularly since male skeletons in similar circumstances ‘are not questioned in the same way’.

Deniers have learned to use social media to their advantage. On Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2017, a survivor was interviewed on a BBC radio program. The producers were “shocked” by the “staggering” number of “brazen” Holocaust denial and antisemitic phone calls and social media posts they received. Though they had previously broadcast programs on the Holocaust and had received some antisemitic and denial comments, this response, one producer told me, was “unprecedented…unlike anything we have seen before.” They were so deeply unsettled that they invited me to appear on a subsequent program that addressed Holocaust denial.7 But denial is not something engaged in only by the Far Right. In many segments of the Muslim community, including among European Muslims, there is also an inclination to deny this historical reality. There are schools in Europe where teachers find it difficult to teach about the Holocaust because the students insist that it never happened, and the material the teachers present is dismissed by the students as false.

But we cannot overlook the formidable international and imperial forces arrayed against them, the scale of which has often been dismissed, and in spite of which they have displayed remarkable resilience.

Initially the common ownership theory was dismissed as a loony idea from ivory-tower economists. After all, the airline industry is infamously bankruptcy-prone and looked like poor evidence of anticompetitive behavior, overt or otherwise. Richard Branson, the billionaire entrepreneur, once joked that the best way to become an aviation millionaire was to be a billionaire and invest in an airline. However, the theory gradually started to garner attention. “Are Index Funds Evil?” was the provocative title of one piece examining the subject in The Atlantic in 2017.18

Palestinian and Israeli narratives diverge over far more than the words that are commonly used for their respective national heroes, not least over the nature of the long and unresolved struggle between them over the same small territory on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Both are reflected throughout this book. Each is authentic, even if dismissed by the other side as propaganda or lies. Neither can be ignored. The conflict between these two peoples can only be understood by paying attention to how they see themselves and their history as well as each other. Narrative, in its simplest definition, is ‘the story a nation tells itself about itself’.

Moskowitz is an unabashed defender of standardized tests and dismisses the notion that they measure only superficial test-taking skills and rote learning. “I believe well-designed standardized tests measure real learning and understanding,” she wrote in her 2017 memoir.

A trope is an attempt to simplify something inherently complex so that it will sit neatly in a basket. A reduction. It then encourages you to negativity by saying (falsely) "look, these things are all the same", again reducing them with the implication of lack of variety and encouraging a negative dismissal. Tropes are a form of stereotypes, and viewing the world as an assembly of stereotypes isn't positive or particularly useful. I've not really seen the concept used in a way that I feel adds any value. - goodreads Sep 06, 2017 09:40AM goodreads-DOT-com/questions/1163391-re-here-is-an-interesting-13-minute-talk