Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Conspiracy Theories

Dr B is alleged to have used, in his academic publications, "phrases and key words" also used by a militant group, among them "inequality" and "gentrification". The police found it suspicious that meetings occurred with German activists in which the sociologists did not bring their mobile phones; the police deemed this a sign of "conspiratorial behaviour". (...) He's not actually accused of writing anything inflammatory, but seen rather to be intellectually capable of "authoring the sophisticated texts" a militant group might require; further, our scholar, "as employee in a research institute has access to libraries which he can use inconspicuously in order to do the research necessary to the drafting of texts" of militant groups, though he hasn't written any.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:31 AM

    Research is Terror, dissent is subversion, talk of inequality is incriminating, and not carrying a cellphone is evidence of a conspiracy.

    On the same day that Sennett's letter appears in the Guardian, the Berlin tabloid BZ reports that one-third of all children in the city are now living below the poverty line:

    http://www.bz-berlin.de/BZ/berlin/2007/08/22/kinderarmut-berlin-drastisch/kinderarmut-berlin-drastisch,geo=2357818.html

    (Amongst children below the age of eight, the figure has risen to 40%.)

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  2. Anonymous6:54 AM

    Can't be too careful these days

    ReplyDelete