Josh Hochschild
@JoshHochschild
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Philosophy, liberal arts, and Catholic higher ed. Co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction.
Emmitsburg, MD
Joined August 2011
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An uncommon but always valuable skill is spotting frauds.
Yuval Noah Harari: we have no idea what to teach young people that will still be relevant in 20 years
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@e_j_barnes
Part of a panel discussion, I moved my chair back, a leg slipped off the raised platform, and I fell on the floor.
The topic of the panel was “dignity”.
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Fertility is not a disease.
Pregnancy is not a medical condition.
Abortion is not health care.
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Imagine if small farmers could put warning labels next to processed foods at the supermarket
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I’d like an expert on fascism and language to explain how Western journalists would come to call “fascist” a platform that explicitly REJECTS the subordination of personal, family and religious identity to political & financial interests.
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A Catholic college president told me he’ll survive the “demographic cliff” by being “welcoming.”
Does he have a strategy to reach homeschool networks?
“No”
Classical schools?
“No”
Students keen on liberal arts?
“No”
Faithful families?
“We don’t want Latin Mass types.”
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A couple observations after a week in Spain:
Food (bread, meat, cheese, wine) is so much better, at a fraction of the US cost, that I truly don’t understand the economics of it. Can someone explain?
Books are produced to high standards (design, binding), esp. academic books
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Comfortable, private, self-determined.
The euthanasia pod is the opposite of the cross.
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The great Monsignor John Wippel, longtime professor of philosophy at the Catholic University of America, passed away this morning.
Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine
Et lux perpetua luceat ei:
Requiescat in pace.
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Nassim Taleb's recent attack on psychology and IQ "science" emerged too late for me to work into this essay, but it could be easily incorporated. If his campaign surprised you, politically or intellectually, maybe this will help.
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“Do you have any classroom technology needs?”
Why yes, a large round wooden table surrounded by sturdy wooden chairs, in a high-ceilinged room with deep-welled windows.
“Anything else?”
A chalkboard on one wall, and chalk. No monitors, no screens, no fluorescent lights.
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This story of an IVF doctor, observing the effect of the technology on character, deserves to be better known
Excellent presentation by Sr. Renée Mirkes on the moral psychology of using IVF (at the Fellowship for Catholic Scholars convention in DC this weekend).
For a clear and footnoted version of the argument see this July essay online
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This is an outstanding book.
It serves as an excellent survey/commentary of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
What makes it an original contribution is a persuasive case that *piety* (supposedly a missing from NE) is NE’s central virtue, woven throughout Aristotle’s account.
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Wittgenstein’s ruler: the measurer is really the measured.
Wittgenstein’s ladder: ideas that truly advance your thinking are transcended and no longer valuable after you advance.
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Have been reading a review copy of Wendell Berry’s forthcoming The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice. (At 500+ pp, his longest non-fiction book?)
Every page, every paragraph, something quotable. All the themes of his career. This is his magnum opus.
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When I describe to my students what it took to plagiarize before the internet—go to library, identify relevant books, read enough to find useful passages, copy them by hand—they think I am describing research.
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I'm very grateful to
@nntaleb
for sharing generously with my class today. I don't know if many academics are assigning these works yet, but students found Skin in the Game and Principia Politica engaging reads which help integrate ideas from across disciplines. Thank you Maestro!
Thanks to a VIP special guest for dropping in the Thinking Politically seminar today!
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Medieval mosaic depicting Jesus chastising a disciple for talking on his cellphone.
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Here's what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assigned in social philosophy at Moorehouse.
Reading such texts is more radical today than in 1961.
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How to read Plato
Here are some basic principles for interpreting Socratic dialogues.
(Intended for new readers of Plato, perhaps useful to experienced readers too.)
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C-
Good effort. Your writing is mature & you've taken on some big, important questions. Maybe the topic was too ambitious? Some of the philosophers you are engaging can be hard to understand. I look forward to having you in metaphysics class next semester!
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Young people are often aware that they need help with “mental health” but conceiving of problems in terms of “mental health” often inadvertently distracts from the concrete things that foster mental health: community, friendship, conversation, prayer, connection, purpose…
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Have people forgotten that Roberts once switched his vote on a major opinion the night before it was issued? They didn’t even have time to properly edit the minority language into majority language before it was published.
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Rereading Abolition of Man it’s obvious how unconservative and anti-humane is the slogan, “facts don’t care about your feelings.”
Feelings can and should reveal reality, and they are a sign of character. They need to be cultivated and ordered, not ignored and disparaged.
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There are tons of young, faithful Catholic PhDs and grad students in every academic field.
Main thing keeping them from establishing themselves as professors isn’t “left-wing academia.”
It’s economics, pure, and simple. Can’t support a family on an assistant professor’s salary.
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“Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.”
—St. Teresa of Avila
Anxiety weighs down the mind so as to make escape seem impossible.
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My colleague Josh Brown has a fascinating forthcoming book about Aquinas and Chinese philosophy.
Good time for the rerelease of this podcast discussion with Dr. Brown about four books of Confucianism, in the "Great Eight" series with Mount professors --
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Philosophy, Politics & Economics
College majors are overrated. I’m not sure I really believe in them in general. College students should learn how to integrate & synthesize, not isolate & specialize.
But that’s why I believe in this major — and I’m proud to be its new director.
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I wish more college students understood that within a year of graduation nobody will inquire about their grades, and within three years almost nobody will ask them what they majored in.
Typical undergraduate academic status preoccupations have very short term, if any, salience.
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Very close by, there is an amazing project, a brand new Carmelite monastery being built “to last a thousand years”. Traditional building methods, beauty in service of contemplation.
Watch and marvel.
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I think more people are waking up to the threat of technocracy.
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Wendell Berry sharply criticizes the community-eroding effects of modern universities. The irony of reading him with students is that for many, college is the most concrete instance of community they have ever experienced.
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“IQ tests measure intelligence.”
Is this:
A. True by definition?
B. True by empirical evidence?
In either case, is, this claim, “What counts as intelligence in real life is highly complex and not measured by IQ tests”
C. Intelligible?
D. Unintelligible?
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You aren’t ready for the future if you haven’t read Brave New World, Canticle for Liebowitz, Thanatos Syndrome, and That Hideous Strength.
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“Philosophy started as rejection of mythology” is the founding myth of atheist “philosophy”.
Greek philosophy was from the start an exercise in purifying, not eliminating, theological reflection
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@JeremyTate41
The letter is essentially classical and Christian humanist, in rhetoric and substance.
Try to imagine it rewritten in the language of popular secular anti-racism today. It simply wouldn’t work.
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Josef Pieper, drawing on Goethe and Jung, to describe the loss of memory in the abyss among the gadgets
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Surprised how many people think criticism of abortion rights is a “religious” view.
One could have non-religious moral objections.
One could have non-moral jurisprudential objections.
One could have extra-legal political objections.
Public ignorance is astounding.
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Insane if true.
A friend just called the Cathedral in New Brunswick, Canada. She confirmed that the Catholic Church will not administer any sacraments to the faithful unless they have had at least two COVID shots. This includes denying confession to the unvaccinated.
@JackPosobiec
@ElizabethYore
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Of all the save-the-environment lifestyle changes that could have been pushed, why is bug-eating the one gaining traction? So gross, and so little actual benefit.
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ChatGPT told me about this book I’d never heard of.
I pressed for more info and it went on for several paragraphs describing the contents of the book in extensive detail.
ChatGPT made it all up, there is no such book.
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Parents sending kids off to college: help them get *physical* books (the cultural/economic forces are overwhelmingly against this!) and encourage them to *write* in them.
Used properly, books are the most effective learning tool ever invented.
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@marlo_safi
Real phenomenon. There is a workplace version of this too, younger women sometimes discouraged by older women from having children, criticized for taking maternity leave, treated as somehow betraying a code when they make family-centered choices.
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This trend is undeniable, and likely to continue. Few colleges have digested what that means
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Blaming Marx for bad political ideas is like blaming Nietzsche for atheism.
Both were the insightful, brave culminations of a long history of departures from classical wisdom. They perceived, they didn’t originate.
If they didn’t exist, we’d have invented them by now anyway.
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Anyone interested in:
Subsidiarity
Distributism
Devolution
Federalism
Needs to read
@nntaleb
on "fractal localism":
Pamphlet on Fractal Localism is developing online....
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Today marks fourteen years since the passing of the great Ralph McInerny, poet, story-teller, and philosopher. For many a model of a Catholic intellectual and magnanimous man.
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Prayers from Emmitsburg on the Feast of the Holy Family, especially for those most need of consolation
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College marketing experts: “We can’t market ‘humanities,’ ‘Great Books,’ or ‘liberal education’ to digital natives.”
The internet:
1% of the world own 43% of the wealth.
1% of startups drive over 80% of returns.
This power law is even stronger with books:
1% of books contain all the important ideas.
My new lecture series will take you through the only books you'll ever need. Watch the launch trailer:
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Front porches are more than an architectural detail, they are a cultural expression, a vision of community, the living margin between the private space of family and the public space of neighborhood.
@FrontPorchRepub
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I remember when it was dangerous to suggest these things
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Cajetan's Commentary on the Summa Theologiae (translated by William Marshner)
Very excited that this is finally coming out--in multiple volumes of course
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Eleven students confirmed this Divine Mercy Sunday—two of them also baptized—at
@MSMU
’s Immaculate Conception chapel. What a blessing!!
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As C.S. Lewis observed, you don't make a friend by seeking a friend or talking about friendship. You make a friend by pursuing something valuable, with someone.
Same applies to building inclusive & equitable community. If you want them, don't seek them; seek some good, together.
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Since everyone is talking about SCOTUS, I’d just like to say he was wrong about haecceity but right about the Immaculate Conception.
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People who say physical labor isn't dignified are telling you:
(1) They haven't done much physical labor
(2) They look down on people who do physical labor
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The “uselessness” of liberal arts is often overplayed by its defenders.
Liberal arts are *more* useful than servile arts. The point is that you can’t achieve that utility by seeking it. Students only gain the power of liberal education by suspending a utilitarian intention.
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There is almost no chance that Fr. Martin is this ignorant of Catholic doctrine about the way marriages can be licit and valid without having sacramental status in the Church.
Pretty sure he strategically plays dumb to confuse low-intelligence people.
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Mortimer Adler, one of the 20th C’s most important philosophers and educational reformers, didn’t graduate from high school or college. Didn’t get an MA.
He did get a PhD, in psychology — for what he describes in his autobiography as utterly mindless & unscientific busywork.
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Important to note that this is not a “conspiracy theory”:
1. It’s empirically testable, and falsifiable
2. If true, it doesn’t hypothesize a smoky room full of bad actors. Technocrats slide into evil with “good intentions”.
1/ The Covid pandemic has been used as an opportunity for elites with particular global economic and political interests to accelerate the process of arranging the infrastructure for a new biosecurity surveillance regime.
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@murphaloid
He is not what he portrays himself to be: intelligent, literate, or concerned for his fellow man.
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Fellow book-lovers and readers, have you noticed respectable presses issuing "hardcovers" with:
* bindings glued not sewn
* low-resolution digital printing
* grey (not black) print
* subpar paper
?
Charging full hardcover price for cheap print-on-demand product is dishonest.
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What is happiness?
What is the purpose of life?
What is justice?
Who can judge?
How can we know?
Philosophy is so “useless”…
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A friend found an old volume on the shelf of a deceased relative. I’ve been helping to figure out what it is.
I’ve learned enough to find it interesting to share—and also invite Twitter for hypotheses or questions, and size up its potential interest to specialist scholars.
🧵
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Calling this “fascist” out of fear is very short sighted. It does nobody any favors long-term to associate this with fascism
This is Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
I’ve never heard any politician so perfectly explain what we’re up against and why we fight.
When you watch this video, you’ll quickly realize why the establishment is afraid of her.
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Friends and colleagues encouraged and challenged me, and editors saw potential, thank you.
I’m heartened to hear from those who say they “agree.”
But I wrote this to help make a perspective intelligible for people who disagree but want to understand.
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Great conversations on day one of
#RWRI
. Diverse news friends interested in common questions (human nature, ethics, the divine).
Confirms my sense that
@nntaleb
’s thought helps truth-seekers bridge the fragmentation of modern disciplines.
#philosophy
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When a Catholic university is cutting philosophy, language, and arts, that means people with much higher salaries than humanities professors have failed to do their jobs (likely wasting tons of money on consultants): VPs of marketing, accounting, fundraising, admissions…
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The consistently misleading
@JamesMartinSJ
(not allowing replies)
This time he leaves out that St. Thomas is stipulating a scenario in which ecclesiastical authority is in error about the true facts.
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1. It’s scandalous the draft was leaked. The leaker should be punished.
2. The draft is 3 months old and reveals little about how the court will rule.
3. Partisan outrage at the draft opinion, instead of bipartisan outrage at the leak, is a sign of an unhealthy polity.
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Sometimes businesses are run by people who don’t understand, and don’t love, what they are selling.
If that’s bad for building airplanes, imagine how bad it would be for formation in the liberal arts.
The Boeing headquarters is "an empty executive suite." Leadership is scattered around the country. They fly in for meetings on the company's private jets. And they do not love building airplanes.
A damning interview from a long-time Boeing insider:
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Arthur Holmes taught a legendary history of philosophy course at Wheaton College and I just noticed that his lectures are collected online:
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@AriSchulman
It's not really for him, it's for the rest of us. Do you think he got rich playing video games or wasting hours on Facebook?
He's rich because he knows the drug dealer's code: Don't get high on your own supply.
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This is probably meant as a rhetorical question, but it has an answer: reading.
This passage, for instance, is a good summary of an argument in Republic, Book IX— which CS Lewis knew well as a foundational text about human nature
C.S. Lewis, how did you understand human nature so well?
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This is why it is important to call BS on the fake “experts”. Those Jason Stanley-style garbage academico-journalistic pronouncements about “political rhetoric” have real-world consequences. They either know this and are lying, or they are utter idiots.
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The thoughtless cheerleading responses are almost more depressing than the news itself.
Nobody can think even a few steps ahead.
SO INCREDIBLY PROUD to share 2 HUGE updates:
1) The first baby was born using
@OrchidInc
technology — and he’s super cute 🥰
2) I tested my own embryos with Orchid — we got SO much information & l feel confident now 🚀
This is the future of how babies will be born!
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@annbauerwriter
The irony is that such training is all about creating in groups and out groups. That’s why they need to depend so heavily on stereotypes and microggressions (while pretending not to, as if it were some neutral social-scientific exercise)
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This is wrong on so many levels (it’s uncharitable, dishonest, hypocritical, dishonourable…) but it’s especially wrong from a strictly business analysis: it’s plain stupid to fret over enrollment and budgets but turn your back on a large, and growing, natural customer base.
@Sivispacem17
Perhaps, but if there are Newman Guide schools with such prejudices, at least they have the business savvy to value the guide as a recruiting tool. This president couldn’t even separate himself from his personal tastes enough to imagine the value of an untapped market.
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Whether you think philosophy is just BS or is the ultimate protection against BS has a lot to do with who introduced you to philosophy.
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For me the blessing of AI has been that it is so obviously harmful to what I do that it has helped me distill my teaching even more to the analogue basics: reading and discussion. A student told me today that our class feels like a philosophical book club. Yes!
The "let AI transform your classroom" marketing is making me very nervous, too. No, like most every academic product to come before it, yours is not going to transform anything. Don't let a tool drive pedagogy.
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An expert is someone from whom, in classical terms, a decision-maker would responsibly *take counsel*. An expert is not someone one trusts to prudently *decide*.
Expertise and prudence are most often found separately, only rarely do they coincide.
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Recent acquisition — a forgotten history of America’s 19th Platonist movement
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I’ve never been more bullish on authentic liberal education.
And it would be easier than ever to assemble a first-rate faculty who are tired of the status quo. Just sayin’.
There’s a 155 acre college campus for sale in Vermont. Minimum bid is just $3 million.
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@nntaleb
Isn’t a better analogy: your house is in the neighborhood of one gang and you hired the rival gang to protect it? Not necessarily provocation, but predictably interpreted as such.
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Mortimer Adler, How to Read a Book
What are the best books / resources on classical education?
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If you don’t understand the zeal of homeschoolers, realize:
It’s not only about successful education.
It’s about family dynamics—relations within family, and of family to world.
It’s a cultural investment and a mode of citizenship.
That’s why it’s also civil rights issue.
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