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TORONTO, June 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -McLean & Company, one of the world's leading HR research firms, has unveiled key details about its upcoming two-day HR event, Signature 2022. Last held in 2019, Signature is the long-awaited conference for HR leaders seeking to build flourishing cultures and organizations in the new hybrid reality.

With the overarching theme of "Shaping Thriving Workplaces," nine highly anticipated keynotes, two panel discussions, five rapid-fire sessions, and two peer-to-peer roundtables will focus on the four major trends identified in the firm's 2022 HR Trends Report.These include:

Recruitment & Retention

The New World of Work

DEI After the Tipping Point

Skills in the Age of Change

Aligning with these current trends in the HR industry, event organizers have announced a non-exhaustive list of impressive speakers for Signature 2022. Along with David Usher,founder of Reimagine AI and frontman of beloved Canadian rock band Moist, delivering his exclusive keynote Creative Thinking: The Power to Navigate Disruption, Signature attendees can look forward to the following top 10 talks and events from well-known industry experts:

Tchernavia Rocker, Chief People and Administrative Officer at Under Armour, will help kick off the event with her dynamic keynote Leading With Purpose Through Crisis, Geopolitics, Culture Wars, and the Unknown Shaped by Fire, examining the critical efforts of HR leaders in a working world riddled with complex external challenges.

As employee burnout continues to plague industries far and wide, its resolution too often falls on the individual. Kelly Berte, Director, HR Research & Advisory Services at McLean & Company, will deliver the timely and relevant keynote Escape the Burnout Cycle: Thinking and Acting Differently as an Organization, inspired by the latest burnout researchfrom McLean & Company.

On the notable topic of culture, Michele Campion, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), ESAB, will explore best practices in creating an impactful and intentional culture in her keynote session, Shaping a Culture Through Purpose and Values.

The current era of work demands real commitment and care from HR professionals. Phil Dana, CHRO, AskBio, will investigate the gritty details of HR work with his talk "In the Trenches" With a Current CHRO Phil Dana @ AskBio.

A strong, vibrant, and inclusive culture is more important now than ever before, which has sparked insights from Stephen Childs, CHRO for Panasonic Automotive, on culture creation and management from a leadership ownership perspective in the Cultivating a Culture of Belonging From the Top Down keynote.

Janet Clarey, Director, HR Research & Advisory Services at McLean & Company, will highlight how an internal talent marketplace has the potential to fundamentally change how an organization of any size grows and moves talent to simultaneously meet employee needs and strategic priorities in the must-hear keynote Creating Your Internal Talent Marketplace: It's Not Just a New Piece of HR Technology.

Katrona Tyrrell, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Orangetheory Fitness, will advocate for a strong organizational core in her keynote Orangetheory's Focus on Building Core Strength Through Job Architecture and Compensation Philosophy.

Attracting and retaining talent are top considerations for many HR professionals today. Gloria Pakravan, Senior Director, Talent Management at University Health Network, will talk talent acquisition and retention within budget constraints in Engaging & Retaining Talent When Financial Incentives Aren't an Option: The UHN Journey.

Hybrid work has become the new normal for many industries. While it brings opportunities for improved work-life balance, it also presents unique challenges for workplace culture. To address these challenges, LynnAnn Brewer, Director, HR Research & Advisory Services at McLean & Company, will lead the CHRO Panel Discussion: Managing Culture Proactively in Hybrid Environments with panelists Melkeya McDuffie, CHRO for Clean Harbors; Jenn Bouyoukos, Chief Talent & Culture Officer at Yorkville University Toronto Film School; and Kelly-Ann Cordner, CHRO for SMS Equipment Inc.

Allyship requires real action and intention and plays a crucial role in today's workplace. Cinnamon Clark, Practice Lead, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Services at McLean & Company, will guide panelists Heather Hardinger, System Director, DEI / Chief Diversity Officer at CoxHealth; Delphia Howze, Chief Inclusion Strategy Officer for the University of Tennessee System; and Patricia Lacey, Talent and Leadership Development Manager/DEI Lead, Red Stripe, a Heineken company, through theirinsights on allyship in the CDO Panel Discussion: Allies Where Are You?

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Jennifer Rozon, Division President of McLean & Company, shares the following insight on the return of Signature:

"Our dynamic lineup of keynote speakers exemplifies the diversity of today's modern hybrid workplace and the crucial role HR plays across every organization. The no-sponsor policy of this year's event will provide a safe and authentic environment for HR leaders to connect, network, and gain insight from the practical tools and resources they need to excel in the rapidly changing world of work."

The in-person conference will take place from September 20th to 21st, 2022, at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. View the full conference agenda here.

Register for Signature 2022 here.

To learn more about McLean & Company or to download all the latest research, visit hr.mcleanco.com and connect viaLinkedIn and Twitter.

About McLean & Company Through data-driven insights and proven best-practice methodologies, McLean & Companyoffers comprehensive resources and full-service assessments, action plans, and training to position organizations to meet today's needs and prepare for the future.

McLean & Company is a division of Info-Tech Research Group.

Media professionals are encouraged to register for McLean & Company's Media Insiders program for more research and insights. This program provides unrestricted, on-demand access to HR, IT, and software industry content, as well as subject matter experts from a group of over 200 research analysts. To apply for access, contact pr@mcleanco.com.

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Speakers - Signature (CNW Group/McLean & Company)

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This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

What norms should govern jokes in our society? What, if anything, makes a joke harmful? What harm, if any, is there in punishing people for jokes or chilling the expression of jokes? How has humor improved your life? Have jokes ever made your life worse? Extra credit for responses that are funny, but dont refrain from unfunny responses.

Send responses to conor@theatlantic.com or reply to this email.

Last year, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, in Washington, D.C., proposed to honor the comedian Dave Chappelle, a former student and donor, by naming its performing-arts theater after him. Then Chappelle released a comedy special that included jokes about trans people, rendering him problematic in the eyes of many progressives, including some students at his alma mater. As those jokes became enmeshed in the culture wars, the renaming ceremony was postponeduntil this week, when Chappelle surprised an audience gathered for the occasion by explaining that, for now, the venue will be named the Theater for Artistic Freedom and Expression. His name will be added later, but only if and when the school community is ready for it.

My colleague David Frum, who attended the event, offered this interpretation of Chappelles message:

Freud observed that the psychological function of humor is to allow the expression of thoughts that formal society normally forbids. In American myth, the soldiers of World War II were heroes, the Greatest Generation. On The Phil Silvers Show of the 1950s, those soldiers were shown as lazy and venal. In sophisticated comedy, comedians play with the tension between formal and informal beliefs, and Chappelles is very sophisticated comedy. The function of humor as a release from the forbidden thought explains why some of the most productive sources of jokes are authoritarian societies, because they forbid so much. In the squares of Moscow today, protesters physically reenact an old Soviet joke, demonstrating with blank signs because Everybody already knows everything I want to say. That same function of comedy explains why woke America is the target of so much satirical humor today, because so much of wokeness aspires to forbid.

When Chappelle deferred adding his name to the theater of the school to which hed given so much of himselfnot only checks, but return appearanceshe was not yielding or apologizing. He was challenging the in-school critics: You dont understand what I donot my right to do it, but the reason it matters that I exercise that right. Until you do understand, you cannot have my name. Someday you will understand. You may have it then.

What comedians do is perpetually contested. The line separating good jokes from bad jokes, or people with a good sense of humor from people who are humorless, priggish, or excessively dour, is subjective. And maybe there can be no comedy without people offended by comedy. It does seem to me that the job of comedy is to offend, or have the potential to offend, and it cannot be drained of that potential, Rowan Atkinson, a.k.a. Mr. Bean, recently told The Irish Times. Every joke has a victim. Thats the definition of a joke. Someone or something or an idea is made to look ridiculous. Asked about the difference between punching up and punching down, he added, I think youve got to be very, very careful about saying what youre allowed to make jokes about What if theres someone extremely smug, arrogant, aggressive, self-satisfied, who happens to be below in society? Theyre not all in houses of parliament or in monarchies. There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.

Of course, most every comic has a different notion of what makes a good or bad joke, and in every society, the authoritarian impulse to punish bad jokes is ever presentthough the ability to satisfy that impulse waxes and wanes across eras and settings. In liberal moments and places, the consequences for a bad joke is silence, jeers, or criticism. In other eras or places, telling the wrong joke can cost you your liberty or even your life.

Western democracies remain relatively liberal, despite concerning signs. For example, last year, the BBC reported on a Canadian comic who was hauled before a Human Rights Commission and fought a 10-year legal battle over a joke. And this week, the BBC reports that the British comedian Joe Lycett was investigated by police, who asked him to explain the context of a joke after an audience member at one of his shows complained about it. Today in the U.S., we mostly mete out no punishment for jokes worse than temporary hits to ones livelihood, as when Bill Maher lost his show after the September 11 attacks, probably due in part to a controversial quip about the terrorists, and when Kathy Griffin suffered career setbacks for holding up a mock severed head of President Trump.

Of course, professional comedians arent alone in being punished for jokes.

A recent case study in journalism involves a Washington Post reporter who retweeted the joke Every girl is bi. You just have to figure out if its polar or sexual. Some argued that if the newspaper allowed an employee to retweet that joke without consequence, it would signal institutional willingness to tolerate sexism, undermining its workplace culture or the trust of female readers. The reporter was ultimately reprimanded and suspended for a month without pay.

Critics of that punishment objected for a variety of reasons. Dan Drezner was among those who found the punishment excessive, as he articulated in his final column at The Washington Post:

We live in an age in which retweeting a tasteless joke and then apologizing and deleting it 10 minutes later still winds up being on your permanent record. Not all infractions are equal, and in some cases such behavior merits serious sanctions. There is something bizarre, however, about the capricious nature of reactions and overreactions to acts that less than a decade ago would barely have merited a shrug We need a more forgiving public discourse, one in which it is possible for mistakes to be made, apologies to be sincere, criticism to be tolerated, and respect to be preserved across genuine ideological disagreements.

On the Feminine Chaos podcast, the academic Amna Khaled and the novelist and journalist Kat Rosenfield focused on what they see as problematic labor precedents such punishments set:

Khaled: There are some serious issues here. One is what kind of freedom do you have to say what you want when youre off the clock? This is tied closely to my interest in academic freedom because it is something that happens to professors all the time. What can and cant you say when youre indulging in extramural speech? Now, in this case, I think, the joke was a joke, and Im probably going to be highly unpopular for articulating this position, Im not that offended by the joke. As a woman who identifies as a feminist, yes, its a little off-color. But jokes tend to be, and thats in the nature of humor. I think the way were policing humor these days is troubling because were leaving very little room for humor to actually take root The assumption there is that hes retweeting it because hes endorsing it. But that assumption in itself makes me a little uncomfortable.

Rosenfield: Retelling a joke is such a basic human behavior. You hear a joke, you find it to be funny or provocative, or maybe you just think other people might, so you tell it to your friends. And I wonder, if the policy at Washington Post is that you cannot retell a joke in this form, are you also barred from retelling a joke in other forms? What makes it fundamentally different to retweet a joke on your Twitter feed versus be overheard telling a joke to your friends at a bar? To take it a step further, what if you are a Washington Post reporter and you do standup comedy as a hobby? What if youre writing your own material and some of it is a little off-color even though its very funny? Can your employer reasonably dictate what sort of jokes you tell on the stage because at no point are you not considered a representative of the place where you work?

Khaled: What kind of power are we giving these organizations and institutions where we work? Are they beginning to own our time and what we can say when were not at work? It has the potential to become highly authoritarian in terms of watching over what people can say. That doesnt bode well for us ... Im not saying were there yet, but broadly, were beginning to display signs of authoritarian social policing, which is troubling to me. I come from a place back in Pakistan where this is the norm and it doesnt go down well, ever.

This week, two other journalists I read and like personally, Matt Yglesias and Taylor Lorenz, had a social-media interaction about a joke that helped me clarify some of my own thinking. Yglesias tweeted, Some personal news: I have contracted the novel coronavirus. Frankly, I think the virus should respect Fathers Day more than this. FYI, all future typos are due to long Covid.

Lorenz replied, Im glad its a joke for u Matt and that youre lucky enough to get access to great care, but for those who have had their lives destroyed by the virus and who have had loved ones die from or suffer w/ LC its not funny. Hope you can have a little more empathy, especially today.

In my estimation, joking about something serious, even something deadly, doesnt at all imply a belief that the thing in question is a joke or that one has a lack of empathy for those affected by it; the impulse to humor often reflects a deep recognition of a subjects cosmic awfulness. (Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you, David Gerrold writes. Be grateful if it happens in that order. I laughed, and not because I take hardship or death lightly.)

Were the intent behind humor always understood, some who presently take offense at some jokes might feel less aggrieved. Still, I found it very human for Lorenz to react as she did. Even those of us who use humor to deal with dark parts of life are, in some tough moments, in no mood for jokes. Being immunocompromised years into a pandemic may be such a moment for Lorenz. Sometimes, the best resolution to a joke controversy is more grace for all involved, rather than treating mere disagreement as a national scandal.

Regardless, I found the ensuing commentary useful. The Twitter user @historyboomer reacted by writing, If someone makes a joke you think isnt funny, ignore it. As he sees it, There is harm in an overly censorious attitude that is too willing to see jokes as harmful. To which the journalist Issac J. Bailey responded, If someone makes a joke you think is harmful, dont ignore it. Following along, I thought, Neither of you is quite right. If someone makes a joke that you think is harmful, neither presume your thought is correct nor do nothing. Take an additional analytic step: See if youre able to identify any actual, specific harm of significance that the joke caused any actual person. Jokes can and do cross that threshold. But many jokes dubbed harmful do not meet it. People are just offendedbut with mere offense, the case for attacking jokesters is weak, so harm is invoked. I suspect people would talk past one another less in controversies over jokes if claims about harms a joke purportedly caused were specific and falsifiable.

Among scholars, the execution of Socrates is typically regarded as suboptimal. Responding to the firing of Joshua Katz from Princeton, Nadya Williams, an ancient-history professor at the University of West Georgia, invokes the philosophers fate to argue that todays right and left should unite in canceling intellectuals for character flaws:

For decades, Socrates was the leading public intellectual in Athens, grooming students to be thoughtful and engaged citizens. In the process, he was also grooming them in other ways, sleeping with at least one of themAlcibiades. Ultimately, the results of Socratess teaching were decidedly problematic. His students went on to overthrow the Athenian democracy twice in the final decade of the Peloponnesian War.

And so, when the Athenians put Socrates on trial in 399 B.C.E. on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth, it seems that they were judging, more than anything, his character.

Specifically, seeing the fruits of his teaching in his students, the Athenians saw his character as dangerous to the democracy. Socratess defense in the process, about the high quality of his scholarship as the gadfly stinging Athenians into thinking more deeply, sounded as tone-deaf to those Athenians who voted to condemn him as Katzs own words ring now to some. Cancellations of public intellectuals are never random. They represent a character judgment that should unite the left and the right, so-called liberals and conservatives, those who espouse a faith and those who live with a secular compass.

Should this ethos ever prevail, I will switch positions to defund the academy.

Thanks for your contributions. I read every one that you send. By submitting an email, youve agreed to let us use itin part or in fullin the newsletter and on our website. Published feedback may include a writers full name, city, and state, unless otherwise requested in your initial note.

Excerpt from:
When the Punishment Doesn't Fit the Joke - The Atlantic

Jesse Powell, a founder and the chief executive of Kraken, one of the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchanges, recently asked his employees, If you can identify as a sex, can you identify as a race or ethnicity?

He also questioned their use of preferred pronouns and led a discussion about who can refer to another person as the N word.

And he told workers that questions about womens intelligence and risk appetite compared with mens were not as settled as one might have initially thought.

In the process, Mr. Powell, a 41-year-old Bitcoin pioneer, ignited a culture war among his more than 3,000 workers, according to interviews with five Kraken employees, as well as internal documents, videos and chat logs reviewed by The New York Times. Some workers have openly challenged the chief executive for what they see as his hurtful comments. Others have accused him of fostering a hateful workplace and damaging their mental health. Dozens are considering quitting, said the employees, who did not want to speak publicly for fear of retaliation.

Corporate culture wars have abounded during the coronavirus pandemic as remote work, inequity and diversity have become central issues at workplaces. At Meta, which owns Facebook, restive employees have agitated over racial justice. At Netflix, employees protested the companys support for the comedian Dave Chappelle after he aired a special that was criticized as transphobic.

But rarely has such angst been actively stoked by the top boss. And even in the male-dominated cryptocurrency industry, which is known for a libertarian philosophy that promotes freewheeling speech, Mr. Powell has taken that ethos to an extreme.

His boundary pushing comes amid a deepening crypto downturn. On Tuesday, Coinbase, one of Krakens main competitors, said it was laying off 18 percent of its employees, following job cuts at Gemini and Crypto.com, two other crypto exchanges. Kraken which is valued at $11 billion, according to PitchBook is also grappling with the turbulence in the crypto market, as the price of Bitcoin has plunged to its lowest point since 2020.

Mr. Powells culture crusade, which has largely played out on Krakens Slack channels, may be part of a wider effort to push out workers who dont believe in the same values as the crypto industry is retrenching, the employees said.

This month, Mr. Powell unveiled a 31-page culture document outlining Krakens libertarian philosophical values and commitment to diversity of thought, and told employees in a meeting that he did not believe they should choose their own pronouns. The document and a recording of the meeting were obtained by The Times.

Those who disagreed could quit, Mr. Powell said, and opt into a program that would provide four months of pay if they affirmed that they would never work at Kraken again. Employees have until Monday to decide if they want to take part.

On Monday, Christina Yee, a Kraken executive, gave those on the fence a nudge, writing in a Slack post that the C.E.O., company, and culture are not going to change in a meaningful way.

If someone strongly dislikes or hates working here or thinks those here are hateful or have poor character, she said, work somewhere that doesnt disgust you.

After The Times contacted Kraken about its internal conversations, the company publicly posted an edited version of its culture document on Tuesday. In a statement, Alex Rapoport, a spokeswoman, said Kraken does not tolerate inappropriate discussions. She added that as the company more than doubled its work force in recent years, we felt the time was right to reinforce our mission and our values.

Mr. Powell and Ms. Yee did not respond to requests for comment. In a Twitter thread on Wednesday in anticipation of this article, Mr. Powell said that about 20 people were not on board with Krakens culture and that even though teams should have more input, he was way more studied on policy topics.

People get triggered by everything and cant conform to basic rules of honest debate, he wrote. Back to dictatorship.

The conflict at Kraken shows the difficulty of translating cryptos political ideologies to a modern workplace, said Finn Brunton, a technology studies professor at the University of California, Davis, who wrote a book in 2019 about the history of digital currencies. Many early Bitcoin proponents championed freedom of ideas and disdained government intrusion; more recently, some have rejected identity politics and calls for political correctness.

A lot of the big whales and big representatives now theyre trying to bury that history, Mr. Brunton said. The people who are left who really hold to that are feeling more embattled.

Mr. Powell, who attended California State University, Sacramento, started an online store in 2001 called Lewt, which sold virtual amulets and potions to gamers. A decade later, he embraced Bitcoin as an alternative to government-backed money.

In 2011, Mr. Powell worked on Mt. Gox, one of the first crypto exchanges, helping the company navigate a security issue. (Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014.)

Mr. Powell founded Kraken later in 2011 with Thanh Luu, who sits on the companys board. The start-up operates a crypto exchange where investors can trade digital assets. Kraken had its headquarters in San Francisco but is now a largely remote operation. It has raised funds from investors like Hummingbird Ventures and Tribe Capital.

As cryptocurrency prices skyrocketed in recent years, Kraken became the second-largest crypto exchange in the United States behind Coinbase, according to CoinMarketCap, an industry data tracker. Mr. Powell said last year that he was planning to take the company public.

He also insisted that some workers subscribe to Bitcoins philosophical underpinnings. We have this ideological purity test, Mr. Powell said about the companys hiring process on a 2018 crypto podcast. A test of whether youre kind of aligned with the vision of Bitcoin and crypto.

In 2019, former Kraken employees posted scathing comments about the company on Glassdoor, a website where workers write anonymous reviews of their employers.

Kraken is the perfect allegory for any utopian government ideal, one reviewer wrote. Great ideas in theory but in practice they end up very controlling, negative and mistrustful.

In response, Krakens parent company sued the anonymous reviewers and tried to force Glassdoor to reveal their identities. A court ordered Glassdoor to turn over some names.

On Glassdoor, Mr. Powell has a 96 percent approval rating. The site adds, This employer has taken legal action against reviewers.

At Kraken, Mr. Powell is part of a Slack group called trolling-999plus, according to messages viewed by The Times. The group is labeled and you thought 4chan was full of trolls, referring to the anonymous online message board known for hate speech and radicalizing some of the gunmen behind mass shootings.

In April, a Kraken employee posted a video internally on a different Slack group that set off the latest fracas. The video featured two women who said they preferred $100 in cash over a Bitcoin, which at the time cost more than $40,000. But this is how female brain works, the employee commented.

Mr. Powell chimed in. He said the debate over womens mental abilities was unsettled. Most American ladies have been brainwashed in modern times, he added on Slack, in an exchange viewed by The Times.

His comments fueled a furor.

For the person we look to for leadership and advocacy to joke about us being brainwashed in this context or make light of this situation is hurtful, wrote one female employee.

It isnt heartening to see your genders minds, capabilities, and preferences discussed like this, another wrote. Its incredibly othering and harmful to women.

Being offended is not being harmed, Mr. Powell responded. A discussion about science, biology, attempting to determine facts of the world cannot be harmful.

At a companywide meeting on June 1, Mr. Powell was discussing Krakens global footprint, with workers in 70 countries, when he veered to the topic of preferred pronouns. It was time for Kraken to control the language, he said on the video call.

Its just not practical to allow 3,000 people to customize their pronouns, he said.

That same day, he invited employees to join him in a Slack channel called debate-pronouns where he suggested that people use pronouns based not on their gender identity but their sex at birth, according to conversations seen by The Times. He shut down replies to the thread after it became contentious.

Mr. Powell reopened discussion on Slack the next day to ask why people couldnt choose their race or ethnicity. He later said the conversation was about who could use the N-word, which he noted wasnt a slur when used affectionately.

Mr. Powell also circulated the culture document, titled Kraken Culture Explained.

We Dont Forbid Offensiveness, read one section. Another said employees should show tolerance for diverse thinking; refrain from labeling comments as toxic, hateful, racist, x-phobic, unhelpful, etc.; and avoid censoring others.

It also explained that the company had eschewed vaccine requirements in the name of Krakenite bodily autonomy. In a section titled self-defense, it said that law-abiding citizens should be able to arm themselves.

You may need to regularly consider these crypto and libertarian values when making work decisions, it said.

In the edited version of the document that Kraken publicly posted, mentions of Covid-19 vaccinations and the companys belief in letting people arm themselves were omitted.

Those who disagreed with the document were encouraged to depart. At the June 1 meeting, Mr. Powell unveiled the Jet Ski Program, which the company has labeled a recommitment to its core values. Anyone who felt uncomfortable had two weeks to leave, with four months pay.

If you want to leave Kraken, read a memo about the program, we want it to feel like you are hopping on a jet ski and heading happily to your next adventure!

Kitty Bennett and Aimee Ortiz contributed research.

Read more:
Inside Krakens Culture War Stoked by Its C.E.O. - The New York Times

Im referring to India, a constitutionally secular nation wracked by inter-religious conflict between majority Hindus and minority Muslims (Christians have been caught in this imbroglio, too, but put that aside for the duration of this post).

Heres a recent overview of Indias situation from The Washington Post. And heres the top of that report::

NEW DELHI After a spokeswoman for Indias ruling party made disparaging remarks about the prophet Muhammad during a recent televised debate, rioters took to the streets in the northern city of Kanpur, throwing rocks and clashing with police.

It was only the beginning of a controversy that would have global repercussions.

Indian products were soon taken off shelves in the Persian Gulf after a high-ranking Muslim cleric called for boycotts. Hashtags expressing anger at Prime Minister Narendra Modi began trending on Arabic-language Twitter. Three Muslim-majority countries Qatar, Kuwait and Iran summoned their Indian ambassadors to convey their displeasure. The governments of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Afghanistan on Monday condemned the spokeswoman, Nupur Sharma, as did the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Inflammatory comments by right-wing activists and political leaders in India often make headlines and spark outrage on social media. But rarely do they elicit the kind of attention that Sharma drew in [early June], which sent her political party and Indias diplomats scrambling to contain an international public relations crisis.

Lets step back from the news coverage for a moment to consider some underlying dynamics and their impact on journalism.

Culture wars, to my mind, are, in essence, political struggles in which one group seeks to impose its values, structures, and narrative its world view, in short on another. At least, this is the way the term is used in most mainstream coverage, as opposed to the actual work of the sociologist James Davison Hunter who wrote the most influential book on this topic.

Individual and societal values drawn from religious sources provide the ammunition for clashes over gender and sexuality issues, religious tolerance and intolerance, acceptable speech, immigration and other hot-button topics spurred by todays unprecedented rate of social change.

Americans have seen how ugly culture wars can become when electoral politics are caught in its talons. Witness the vitriol that dominates the news out of Washington and various state capitals these days.

Witness the level of culture wars manipulation that occurred under ex-President Donald Trump (of course pro-MAGA conservatives will argue that progressive Democrats the problem). And witness what happened in Idaho, where 31 anti-gay demonstrators were arrested for allegedly planning to riot at a gay pride parade last Saturday. The Coeur dAlene incident underscored how dangerous Americas culture war has become and what we might expect more of.

The situation in India the worlds largest Hindu-majority nation with the third largest Muslim population after Indonesia and Pakistan is arguably even worse. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have long been accused of rallying their Hindu nationalist base by sowing, for example, Hindu fears about Muslim men seducing Hindu women.

(In truth, many Muslims seem no more accepting of Hindu-Muslim unions than are Hindus. This Hindustan Times story from May underscores this reality.)

Heres a bit more explanation from the Post piece to which I linked above.

The [insult] controversy highlights one of the challenges to Indian foreign policy at a time when Modi is seeking a greater role on the world stage: Although his government has cultivated strong diplomatic ties with many Muslim nations, including both Saudi Arabia and Iran, his party has come under growing criticism for its treatment of Indias Muslim minority. It is accused by rights groups of stoking Hindu nationalist sentiment and turning a blind eye to religious violence.

India under Modi has been quite deft in dealing with the Muslim world, but this was almost inevitable, said Sumit Ganguly, a professor of political science at Indiana University. At home, a lynching takes place and Modi remains deafeningly silent. Now, he feels compelled to act because he realizes the damage abroad could be extensive. When it comes to foreign policy, the stakes are high.

The Indian government has sought to downplay a string of local religious controversies in recent months, including a ban on headscarves for female students, the razing of Muslim neighborhoods after communal clashes, and efforts by Hindu nationalists to reclaim high-profile mosques [that were once Hindu temple sites].

To better understand Indias complicated religious landscape read these two partisan pieces. The first is from an Indian Hindu perspective. The second is from a Muslim viewpoint, featured at Religion News Service.

Whats my bottom line? Governments and groups that stir conflict by focusing on religion and culture, for their own preservationist desires, are playing with fire.

Examples abound: From the American Civil War to Nazi Germany, from Israel and Palestine to Northern Irelands Protestant-Catholic troubles, to Myanmars treatment of its Rohingya Muslims and Chinas claim that its minority Muslim groups all represent a terrorist threat.

The reality is political leaders have long perhaps always used so-called culture war tactics to harden their support. Is it worse today? I cant really say.

What I can say, however, is that the deadliness of modern weaponry a category that includes the internet as well as tactical nuclear weapons raises the specter of culture wars becoming bloodier than ever. That includes the United States of America. Because were no smarter about these incessant problems than are Indians or any other of the other nationalities mentioned here.

That, dear readers, should worry you. It should also make you wonder about the responsibility journalists have in this issue.

My take is that its not enough to just regurgitate manipulative comments from leaders on both sides and then call it fair and objective journalism. I think we need context and the courage to challenge those who care more about careers than country.

Walking that path is, of course, far from easy. It has its own set of problems that are far too complex for me to detail here. But if you simply give additional serious thought to this issue, Ill consider my work here done.

FIRST IMAGE: Social-media image of protests against remarks by Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma, featured at the OpIndia commentary website.

Excerpt from:
What responsibility do journalists have when covering incendiary wars about religion and culture? - GetReligion

Being called boring by his own shadow cabinet appears to have really got under Keir Starmers skin.

The Labour leader was throwing culture references around like confetti in PMQs, one minute name-checking Obi-Wan Kenobi, the next going on about Love Island.

In truth, the jokes fell rather flat, but you could hardly fault him for effort.

But while Starmer wanted to talk about Star Wars, it was the UKs culture wars that Boris Johnson wanted to stoke.

Rail strikes, Rwanda deportation flights and Brexit were all given an airing by the prime minister, for the simple reason that he - rightly - believes they make things electorally tricky for Labour.

So next weeks planned walkout by members of the RMT are Labours strikes because the opposition cant bring themselves to criticise a trade union.

On Rwanda, the PM said Labour were on the side of the people traffickers who would risk peoples lives at sea because they criticise the governments policy of sending asylum seekers on a one-way journey to east Africa.

And on Brexit, Johnson said that given half a chance, Labour would take the UK back into the European Union. Nonsense, of course, but it plays very well in the Red Wall.

After narrowly escaping an attempt by his own MPs to turf him out office, the prime minister clearly believes that the best way to save his job is to turn politics into an Us versus Them battle.

It worked for him in 2019 and, he clearly believes, it will prove fruitful again at the next election, should he still be Conservative leader then.

Until Starmer comes up with plausible positions on the most divisive issues in British politics, Johnson is right to feel optimistic.

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Analysis: While Starmer Jokes About Star Wars, Johnson Is Stoking Up The Culture Wars - HuffPost UK