市原市の白金小学校はフィリピン人の親を持つ児童が６０人余り通っていて、日本人の児童の提案で台風による大きな被害を受けたフィリピンを支援しようと２０日から募金活動が始まりました。
すばらしい！
すばらしい！
すばらしい！
Massachusetts High School Forfeits Football Season Over Racist Graffiti
Nov. 19, 2013
By ALYSSA NEWCOMB
via GOOD MORNING AMERICA
母親が白人、父親が白人と黒人とハーフの高校のアメフト選手の家に、われわれのチームにニガーは要らない、とスプレーで落書きされた、と。シーズンの残りの試合について出場停止にすべきではないか、と。
Nov. 19, 2013
By ALYSSA NEWCOMB
via GOOD MORNING AMERICA
A racial slur spray-painted on the house of a Massachusetts high school football player has prompted school officials to forfeit the remainder of the season as federal and local officials investigate the perpetrator behind the graffiti.
Isaac Phillips, 13, who is in eighth grade but plays on the Lunenburg High School football team, said when members of his family went outside Friday morning they found a racial slur tagged across its property.
"Knights don't need n******," the graffiti said. Blue Knights is the team's nickname. Lunenburg is located 55 miles northwest of Boston.
The teenager's mother is white. His father is half black.
"I don't really understand why someone would even do something like this," Phillips told ABC's Boston affiliate WCVB-TV. "I have two younger brothers and another sister. This is our house, this is where we live. Eventually, they're going to see it."
The graffiti happened on the same day that Phillips said his cleats were thrown in a trash can and the tires on his bicycle were slashed in the school parking lot.
母親が白人、父親が白人と黒人とハーフの高校のアメフト選手の家に、われわれのチームにニガーは要らない、とスプレーで落書きされた、と。シーズンの残りの試合について出場停止にすべきではないか、と。
Serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin prepares to die
See show times »
AC360
By Kyung Lah, CNN
November 19, 2013 -- Updated 2326 GMT (0726 HKT)
ユダヤ人、黒人、そして、有色人とつきあう白人を憎み、22人射殺した、白人至上主義の連続殺人犯の死刑が執行される、と。
キャンラーがインタビューしている。彼女はきわどいの好きですね。
See show times »
AC360
By Kyung Lah, CNN
November 19, 2013 -- Updated 2326 GMT (0726 HKT)
"I felt like I was at war. The survival of the white race was at stake," he says. Franklin compares himself to a U.S. soldier in Vietnam, trained to be a sniper in the war. The enemy, he explains, were Jews, blacks and especially interracial couples. "I consider it my mission, my three-year mission. Same length of time Jesus was on his mission, from the time he was 30 to 33."
Do you think you're a hero to those hate groups?
"Well that's what they tell me," he says, finally laughing. "I'd rather people like me than not like me, like most people. I'd rather be loved than hated."
Even if they are hate groups? "Yeah, and they're not the only ones who love me, though. There a lot of Jews who love me, too."
"I saw that interracial couple he had, photographed there, having sex," he says. Franklin is referring to the December 1975 issue of Hustler that featured several photos of a black man with a white woman. "It just made me sick. I think whites marry with whites, blacks with blacks, Indians with Indians. Orientals with orientals. I threw the magazine down and thought, I'm gonna kill that guy."
ユダヤ人、黒人、そして、有色人とつきあう白人を憎み、22人射殺した、白人至上主義の連続殺人犯の死刑が執行される、と。
キャンラーがインタビューしている。彼女はきわどいの好きですね。
動画
The Truth Behind Angora Fur
ＣＢＳ
November 19, 2013, 11:54 AM
PETA releases video of angora rabbit investigation in China
アンゴラ (繊維)
そういえば、このまえ、仏教系の新興宗教の信者に、仏教、少なくとも、出家した坊さんは、妻帯肉食は破戒でしょ、と聞いたら、感謝して食べればいい、みたいなことを言っていたので驚いたことがある。
動物の悲鳴、動物に不必要に痛みを与えることに対して、世界の目が厳しくなっていることを日本のマスコミはもっと伝えるべきだ。
とにかく、賛否両論がっていいが、国際的な問題意識を共有していくべきだ。
The Truth Behind Angora Fur
ＣＢＳ
November 19, 2013, 11:54 AM
PETA releases video of angora rabbit investigation in China
アンゴラ (繊維)
そういえば、このまえ、仏教系の新興宗教の信者に、仏教、少なくとも、出家した坊さんは、妻帯肉食は破戒でしょ、と聞いたら、感謝して食べればいい、みたいなことを言っていたので驚いたことがある。
動物の悲鳴、動物に不必要に痛みを与えることに対して、世界の目が厳しくなっていることを日本のマスコミはもっと伝えるべきだ。
とにかく、賛否両論がっていいが、国際的な問題意識を共有していくべきだ。
The catastrophic triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011 was "a warning to the world" about the hazards of nuclear power and contained lessons for the British government as it plans a new generation of nuclear power stations, the man with overall responsibility for the operation in Japan has told the Guardian.
Speaking at his Tokyo corporate headquarters , Naomi Hirose, president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the stricken Fukushima plant, said Britain's nuclear managers "should be prepared for the worst" in order to avoid repeating Japan's traumatic experience. "We tried to persuade people that nuclear power is 100% safe. That was easy for both sides. Our side explains how safe nuclear power is. The other side is the people who listen and for them it is easy to hear OK, it's safe, sure, why not?
"But we have to explain, no matter how small a possibility, what if this [safety] barrier is broken? We have to prepare a plan if something happens … It is easy to say this is almost perfect so we don't have to worry about it. But we have to keep thinking: what if …"
イギリスの原発管理者に東電が、「最悪に備えよ」と助言しているらしい。
てか、まずは、日本の廃炉作業、あるいは、国防などで、日本みずからが最悪に備えているか、どうか、それを真摯に問うべき。
江沢民氏ら元中国幹部に逮捕状…スペイン裁判所
携帯に送るヘルプ
【パリ＝三井美奈、北京＝蒔田一彦】スペインの全国管区裁判所は１９日、１９８０～９０年代、チベットでの「集団殺害」容疑で中国の江沢民ジアンズォーミン元国家主席、李鵬リーポン元首相ら元政権幹部５人に逮捕状を出したと発表した。
スペイン当局による捜査は困難とみられるが、江氏らは訪欧した場合、渡航先で身柄を拘束される可能性がある。
江氏らに対しては２００６年、スペイン国籍を持つ亡命チベット人や支援団体が、チベットで拷問や殺害など組織的な人道犯罪を行ったとして告発していた。
スペイン司法当局は、国家指導者らの人道犯罪が当時国で裁かれない場合、第三国の法廷が管轄権を持つとの立場を取る。１９９８年には、南米チリで独裁体制を敷いたピノチェト元大統領がロンドン滞在中、スペインの犯罪者引き渡し要請に基づいて英警察に逮捕された。
（2013年11月20日20時18分 読売新聞）
原理原則にしたがったまっとうな判断であろう。
日本でも告発したらどうか？
芸者イモト VS コモドドラゴン 50m走で対決！
Kimono v komodo: Woman with a slab of meat tied to her has to outrun giant lizard in bizarre Japanese TV show
Ayako Imoto is an adventurer and Japanese celebrity
The prankster performed challenge wearing a traditional Japanese kimono
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
いもと ｖｓ コモドドラゴン 動画 英語圏でウケている模様。
Kimono v komodo: Woman with a slab of meat tied to her has to outrun giant lizard in bizarre Japanese TV show
Ayako Imoto is an adventurer and Japanese celebrity
The prankster performed challenge wearing a traditional Japanese kimono
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
いもと ｖｓ コモドドラゴン 動画 英語圏でウケている模様。
障害者雇用率 今年も改善…栃木
なるほど、障碍者の法定雇用率とういのがあるのですね。
栃木県内の民間企業の今年の障害者雇用率は、調査基準となる６月１日現在で１・６８％となり、２年連続で改善したことが、厚生労働省のまとめで分かった。
ただ、障害者雇用促進法で義務づけられた法定雇用率の２・０％には及ばず、全国順位も前年と同じ４１位だった。
なるほど、障碍者の法定雇用率とういのがあるのですね。
阿比留 瑠比
4時間前 ·
産経の今年５月２３日付の「正論」欄に、現代史家の秦郁彦氏が「橋下発言の核心は謝っていない」という文章を寄せています。その中で、以下の部分をずっと原典『軍隊と性暴力』に当たりたいと思っていたので、本日は本があるはずの国会図書館に行ってきました…
現代史家・秦郁彦 橋下発言の核心は誤っていない
2013.5.23 03:21 （1/4ページ）［正論］
《慰安婦は連行せず広告で募集》
（１）は、女性たちを強制連行したか否かという争点で、橋下氏は安倍晋三内閣と同様に、今のところ強制連行の証拠は見当たらないと控えめだが、筆者は次のような理由から強制連行はなかったと断定したい。
第１に、この２０年以上にわたり数多く紹介され裁判所でも陳述された彼女たちの「身の上話」で、家族、隣人、友人など第三者の目撃証言が登場した例は皆無である。たとえ、こそ泥レベルの微罪でも「被害者」の申し立てだけで有罪と判定する例はないはずだ。
次に戦中のソウルの新聞に「慰安婦至急大募集。月収３００円以上、本人来談」のような業者の募集広告が、いくつも発見されている事実を指摘したい。日本兵の月給が１０円前後の当時、この高給なら応募者は少なくなかったろうから強制連行する必要はなかった。
ただ、フィリピンでのレイプはあったし、インドネシアでは後に軍により解放されたとはいえ、連行はあった。
朝鮮戦争やベトナム戦争中も、参戦諸国が慰安所ないし類似の施設を運営したのは、紛れもない事実だが、ここでは、最近になって明るみに出た朝鮮戦争期（５０～５３年）における韓国軍の慰安婦事情を紹介しよう。
調査したのは、宋連玉編『軍隊と性暴力』（現代史料出版、２０１０年）の第７章を執筆した金貴玉氏（漢城大学教授）で、韓国陸軍本部で１９５６年に刊行された『後方戦史（人事篇）』の記述から、軍慰安所の存在を知ったという。それによると、陸軍本部が施設を設置した理由は、軍人の士気昂揚（こうよう）、性欲抑制から来る欲求不満の解消、性病対策からだったとされる。
書類上は「第５種補給品」と呼ばれた４カ所、８９人の慰安婦に対し、５２年だけで延べ２０万４５６０回（１日当たり６・５回、時には２０～３０回）の性サービスが「強要」されたことを示す実績統計表も付されている。
ソウルの日本大使館前で毎週水曜日に挙行される慰安婦デモに同行した学生たちは、「日本を批判すると同時に、韓国人も歴史認識について反省しなければ」と発言するようになり、「韓国軍性奴隷の問題を隠し続け、今でも反省の色を見せていない」韓国の国家権力を批判する。
「韓国軍性奴隷の問題を隠し続け、今でも反省の色を見せていない」韓国の国家権力を批判する。
なぜ、米国のメディアに勤めるＮＹＴのファクラー氏やタブチ氏、ＡＰのヤマグチ氏や、ＷＳＪのハヤシ氏は韓国の学生たちのように「日本を批判すると同時に」米国の歴史認識、米軍の偽善を批判できないのだろうか、
田原総一郎ブログ
改めて言う！特定秘密保護法案をめぐる「危ない空気」とは？
投稿日: 2013年11月18日 作成者: ascom
東京
特定秘密保護法案（２） 情報は国民のものだ
朝日
特定秘密保護法案―この修正はまやかしだ
特定秘密保護法案―外交の闇を広げる恐れ
毎日
社説:秘密保護法案を問う 与党・みんな合意
毎日新聞 2013年11月20日 02時32分
必要性はあっても、議論が不十分。
改めて言う！特定秘密保護法案をめぐる「危ない空気」とは？
投稿日: 2013年11月18日 作成者: ascom
この法案の問題点は、以前にも述べた。まず対象となる「防衛」「外交」「スパイ活動」「テロ」の４分野が、きわめてあいまいなことだ。そして、秘密指定の期間の３０年も、その時点での内閣が承認すれば、自動延長できるというのも問題だ。永久に「特定秘密」とされる可能性もあるのだ。
だが何よりも問題なのは、「特定秘密」の妥当性を誰もチェックできないということだ。「特定秘密」を指定するのは行政機関だが、その判断をチェックする機能を持つ組織がない。アメリカにも同様の法律がある。最高刑も死刑と重い。一方、秘密の指定についてのチェック機関として、独立した委員会が２つ存在している。当然、日本もチェック機能を持つ組織を作るべきなのだ。
東京
特定秘密保護法案（２） 情報は国民のものだ
そもそも行政情報は国民のものである。国民主権原理が常に働いているからだ。
朝日
特定秘密保護法案―この修正はまやかしだ
特定秘密保護法案―外交の闇を広げる恐れ
秘密の範囲も秘匿の期間も、際限がなくなり、政府の閉鎖性にお墨付きを与えてしまう。
外交の記録はすべて、のちの国民の目にさらす。それは当然の前提とすべきだ。
毎日
社説:秘密保護法案を問う 与党・みんな合意
毎日新聞 2013年11月20日 02時32分
国会での議論は不十分だ。採決を急ぐべきではない。
必要性はあっても、議論が不十分。
As Babies, We Knew Morality
New research supports the understanding that all people are born with a sense of good and bad. What does that say about altruism, community, and the capacity to kill one another?
EMILY ESFAHANI SMITHNOV 18 2013, 11:00 AM ET
これはかなりおもしろい記事だった。
But over the last decade, a growing body of evidence has challenged both the blank slate view of morality and veneer theory. Morality, it seems, is hard-wired. Chimps, who lack the tools of civilization, have the building blocks of morality and moral goodness.Primatologists like Frans de Waal, Jill Pruetz, and Christophe Boehm have shown that our closest kin in the animal kingdom, from chimps to bonobos, treat each other with empathy, compassion, and self-sacrifice. Macaque monkeys, more distant from us on the evolutionary chain than the great apes, won’t take food if doing so causes another monkey harm. Even rats show empathy. “Faced with a choice between two containers, one with chocolate chips and another with a trapped companion,” writes de Waal in his recent book about the origins of morality, The Bonobo and the Atheist, rats often choose to rescue their companions first.
In one study by Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello, a toddler was in a room with his mother when a stranger walked in with his hands full. The stranger walked over to a closet to open the door but couldn’t manage it. As this drama was unfolding, no one looked at the toddler or encouraged him to do anything. Yet about half of all of the infants tested spontaneously got up and walked over to the closet to open the door for the person in need―an all the more remarkable feat when you realize that toddlers are very reluctant to approach adult strangers at all.
“The child is a natural moralist, who gets a huge helping hand from its biological makeup,” writes de Waal in The Bonobo and the Atheist. But that helping hand from nature is rounded out by nurture. From his research on babies, conducted in the Infant Cognition Center at Yale, Bloom has come to see that we are born with this innate moral sense but that it gets fine-tuned over time through learning.
In one experiment, Bloom and his fellow researchers presented 6-and-10-month-olds with a little morality play. The babies watched as a puppet would try to push a ball up a hill. Then, the babies saw one of two things happen. Either another puppet would come along and help the first puppet push the ball up the hill, or another puppet would show up and hinder the first puppet by pushing the ball down the hill.
After the babies watched these scenarios, the researchers presented each puppet to the babies. They wanted to see which puppet the babies would reach for. It turns out that nearly all of the babies, no matter how old they were, reached for the nice helping puppet. But are babies attracted to goodness or are they simply repelled by meanness? To find out, the researchers introduced a third character into the mix―a neutral one who neither helped nor hindered the main puppet. Then, they let the babies choose which puppet they wanted. The babies preferred the neutral character to the mean character, and the good character to the neutral character.
That babies can make moral judgments about scenarios they have never before seen with strangers they’ve never before encountered doing things that they’ve never before seen was surprising. As Bloom said, “They can say this is the good guy and this is the bad guy and I want to help the good guy and I want to hurt the bad guy. This blows me away.”
But just because human beings are born with a moral sense doesn’t mean they are born good. “There is a moral core,” says Bloom, “but it is limited.” Like chimps, we are capable of extraordinary acts of moral goodness. Like chimps, we are capable of moral evil. “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being,” wrote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. “And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
From an early age, babies show bias to their in-group. Babies are quick to separate the social world into “us” versus “them.” For example, if a baby is raised by a woman, it prefers to look at female faces; if it raised by a man, it prefers looking at a male face; if it is raised by a caucasian, it prefers looking at white faces rather than black or asian ones, while an Ethiopian baby prefers looking at Ethiopian faces rather than those of other nationalities.
The in-group bias shows up in language too. Minutes after they are born, babies who are American prefer listening to English speakers, babies who are French prefer listening to French, and babies who are Russian prefer listening to Russian. Babies also prefer interacting with people who don’t have strange accents.
Preferring one language over another or one type of face over another may seem like two minor and innocent details. After all, babies, like the rest of us, prefer what’s familiar. What’s unfamiliar is a threat, especially to a young and vulnerable infant.
But these biases have important implications, good and bad, for morality. Your language and race are markers of your group identity. Preferring members of your in-group can come at the expense of the out-group. In a study conducted at the University of Zurich, men watched as fans of their soccer club and fans of the rival club got electrically shocked. When the fans of their own club got shocked, the men felt empathy. But when the rival club’s fans got shocked, they felt something quite different. They felt happiness. Their brain’s pleasure centers lit up.
Humans have evolved to be groupish. But our groupishness raises a puzzle for morality. De Waal says the group is the reason for morality. “Morality,” he explains, “is a system of rules concerning the two H’s: Helping or at least not Hurting fellow human beings. It addresses the well-being of others and puts the community before the individual. It does not deny self-interest, yet curbs its pursuit so as to promote a cooperative society.”
Members of other groups, i.e. strangers, inspire “fear and disgust and hatred,” as Bloom writes. When one group of male chimpanzees comes across a smaller gang, for instance, mayhem ensues. “If there is a baby in the group,” Bloom writes, “they may kill and eat it. If there is a female, they will try to mate with her. If there is a male, they will often mob him, rip flesh from his body, bite off his toes and testicles, and leave him for dead.” Human beings can be equally brutal to members of the out-group, as the history of slavery, genocide, and oppression show.
“The special bonds we have with family, friends, and community are part of what gives life meaning,” Bloom says. “But our parochial biases are also the source of great suffering―the ugly truth is that even babies and young children are not just disposed to favor those close to them, they are also prone to hate and fear those outside of their group. This is a tragic limitation in our psychologies and anyone hoping to create a better world has to work to suppress and override these nastier aspects of our natures.”
Fortunately, for most people most of the time, there is a wide chasm between impulse and action. Feeling good when a member of your out-group gets hurt, as in the study of soccer fans, is not the same as hurting that person. “In each of us,” wrote poet Robert Louis Stevenson, “two natures are at war―the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose―what we want most to be we are.”
人間は生来、悪か、あるいは、白紙状態で、社会教育によって、道徳を叩き込んでいくとの説があるが、しかし、幼児でも、困っている人を助けたり、他人に意地悪する人よりも、困っている人を助ける人のほうが好き、という傾向を示す、という研究結果がある、と。つまり、他人に同情して、人助けをしたり、人に危害を及ぼさないといった他人の福祉を考慮する道徳は生来身についているものである、と。
だが、ウチ、ソト、意識というのも同じく生来のもので、白人に育てられれば、白人の顔を好み、黒人に育てられれば黒人、そして、英語で養育されれば、英語をしゃべっている人を好むというように、なじみのあるウチの人を好むが、奴隷などの歴史が示すように、逆にソトの人には無関心、あるいは、残酷になれるもので、例えば、味方チームのファンがショックを受けたときは、同情を示すが、敵チームのサッカーファンがショックを受けたときは、喜びをかんじている、と。
人間の悲しい性がであるが、しかし、衝動と行動の間には距離があり、ソトの敵が傷ついて、ざまあみろ、と嬉しくなるからといって、そいつを自分が苦しめる行動にでるとは限らない、と。
道徳、倫理、とは、何か、の簡単な定義、そして、日本人に対して、よく言われる、ウチ、ソト 意識がむしろ、グローバルな特徴であることが示されていて面白い、と思いました。
因みに、心理的にそのような傾向があるからといって、その傾向が正しいわけでも、そうすべき、というわけではなく、そういった傾向に抗してもすべきこと、すべきでないことあるわけですね。
ヒューマニズムなんてのも、国境、人種をこえて、ウチのなかで妥当する倫理を人間という共通性を土台にして、ソトにまで拡張しよう、ということですし、動物の権利主義というのも、痛みを感受する共通の能力を土台にして、動物の種を超えて、倫理の輪を拡げよう、という運動なわけですね。
How Many of Your Memories Are Fake?
When people with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory―those who can remember what they ate for breakfast on a specific day 10 years ago―are tested for accuracy, researchers find what goes into false memories.
ERIKA HAYASAKINOV 18 2013, 3:00 PM ET
Now, scientists have an idea of just how unreliable it actually can be. New research released this week has found that even people with phenomenal memory are susceptible to having “false memories,” suggesting that “memory distortions are basic and widespread in humans, and it may be unlikely that anyone is immune,” according to the authors of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
UC Irvine’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning, where professor James McGaugh discovered the first person proved to have Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, is just a short walk from the building where I teach as part of the Literary Journalism Program, where students read some of the most notable nonfiction works of our time, including Hiroshima, In Cold Blood, and Seabiscuit, all of which rely on exhaustive documentation and probing of memories.
In another office nearby on campus, you can find Professor Elizabeth Loftus, who has spent decades researching how memories can become contaminated with people remembering―sometimes quite vividly and confidently―events that never happened. Loftus has found that memories can be planted in someone’s mind if they are exposed to misinformation after an event, or if they are asked suggestive questions about the past. One famous case was that of Gary Ramona, who sued his daughter’s therapist for allegedly planting false memories in her mind that Gary had raped her.
Loftus’s research has already rattled our justice system, which relies so heavily on eyewitness testimonies. Now, the findings showing that even seemingly impeccable memories are also susceptible to manipulation could have “important implications in the legal and clinical psychology fields where contamination of memory has had particularly important consequences,” the PNAS study authors wrote.
All memory, as McGaugh explained, is colored with bits of life experiences. When people recall, “they are reconstructing,” he said. “It doesn't mean it’s totally false. It means that they’re telling a story about themselves and they’re integrating things they really do remember in detail, with things that are generally true.”
The PNAS study, led by Lawrence Patihis, is the first in which people with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory have been tested for false memories. Such individuals can remember details of what happened from every day of their life since childhood, and when those details are verified with journals, video, or other documentation, they are correct 97 percent of the time.
Twenty people with such memory were shown slideshows featuring a man stealing a wallet from a woman while pretending to help her, and then a man breaking into a car with a credit card and stealing $1 bills and necklaces. Later, they read two narratives about those slideshows containing misinformation. When later asked about the events, the superior memory subjects indicated the erroneous facts as truth at about the same rate as people with normal memory
“It’s so powerful when somebody tells you something and they have a lot of detail,” Loftus said. “Especially when they express emotion. To just say, ‘Oh my god it must be true.’ But all those characteristics are also true of false memories, particularly the heavily rehearsed ones that you ruminate over.
“We all have narratives,” McGaugh said, explaining that people form beliefs and values, and then develop explanations within their memories for these beliefs and values. “We’re all creating stories. Our lives are stories in that sense.”
Over the years, I have interviewed witnesses of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and rushed to the scene to obtain anecdotes from witnesses from a catastrophic train crash, or the Virginia Tech shooting massacre. It makes sense that the people I spoke to would have intimately remembered such shocking, emotionally charged events. Some call this “flashbulb memory.”
Even those can be unreliable. In 1977, 60 eyewitnesses to a plane crash that killed nine people were interviewed by Flying magazine. But they had differing recollections. One of the witnesses explained that the plane “was heading right toward the ground―straight down.” Yet photographs showed that the airplane hit flat and at a low-enough angle to skid for almost one thousand feet.
There is no absolute guarantee that everything in a nonfiction narrative is the absolute truth, “but you as the writer have the obligation to get as close to the truth as you possibly can,” Meyer said, “and the only way to do that is to report the living hell out of it.”
He challenged anyone who wanted to write his or her own memoir to actually report it out and see how often they are wrong about what they remember. Some journalists have done just that, including David Carr of The New York Times, and Walt Harrington, a former reporter for The Washington Post Magazine.
Harrington, now a professor of literary journalism the University of Illinois, once said, “Truth is a documentary, physical reality, as well as the meaning we make of that reality, the perceptions we have of it.”
A true story is always filtered through the teller’s take on it.
Narrative, as Seigel explains, shapes meaning and order out of an existence that is otherwise just angst and chaos.
記憶や体験談、目撃証言があてになるとは限らない、つまり、客観的にあったことと異なる場合がある、というのはよく知られたことであるが、感情的に、詳細に証言されると信じてしまいがちだが、しかし、間違った記憶でも、本人にとっても本当にあったこととして構成されて、同じように、感情的に、詳細に証言されることもある。
それゆえに、なにが起きたかについて、歴史家はかなり慎重な手続きをとるのであるが、慰安婦報道をする英米のメディアに勤める記者たちは、裏もとらずに、参考書も読まずに、”元慰安婦のおばあさん”の悲惨な体験談を何十年後になってセンセーショナルに報道するのである。
わざと嘘をついているなどとは決して言ってはいけない。
しかし、誰のものでも、記憶というのはあいまいであり、慰安婦に同情的な研究者さえも彼女ら証言が不整合であることは認めており、現在の政治的ナラティブにそった話になってしまう可能性を排除すべきではない。
それにしても、なんで、アメリカのメディアに勤める記者たちは、米兵が搾取してきたアジア人性奴隷については沈黙を続けるのだろう？
When people with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory―those who can remember what they ate for breakfast on a specific day 10 years ago―are tested for accuracy, researchers find what goes into false memories.
ERIKA HAYASAKINOV 18 2013, 3:00 PM ET
Now, scientists have an idea of just how unreliable it actually can be. New research released this week has found that even people with phenomenal memory are susceptible to having “false memories,” suggesting that “memory distortions are basic and widespread in humans, and it may be unlikely that anyone is immune,” according to the authors of the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
UC Irvine’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning, where professor James McGaugh discovered the first person proved to have Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, is just a short walk from the building where I teach as part of the Literary Journalism Program, where students read some of the most notable nonfiction works of our time, including Hiroshima, In Cold Blood, and Seabiscuit, all of which rely on exhaustive documentation and probing of memories.
In another office nearby on campus, you can find Professor Elizabeth Loftus, who has spent decades researching how memories can become contaminated with people remembering―sometimes quite vividly and confidently―events that never happened. Loftus has found that memories can be planted in someone’s mind if they are exposed to misinformation after an event, or if they are asked suggestive questions about the past. One famous case was that of Gary Ramona, who sued his daughter’s therapist for allegedly planting false memories in her mind that Gary had raped her.
Loftus’s research has already rattled our justice system, which relies so heavily on eyewitness testimonies. Now, the findings showing that even seemingly impeccable memories are also susceptible to manipulation could have “important implications in the legal and clinical psychology fields where contamination of memory has had particularly important consequences,” the PNAS study authors wrote.
All memory, as McGaugh explained, is colored with bits of life experiences. When people recall, “they are reconstructing,” he said. “It doesn't mean it’s totally false. It means that they’re telling a story about themselves and they’re integrating things they really do remember in detail, with things that are generally true.”
The PNAS study, led by Lawrence Patihis, is the first in which people with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory have been tested for false memories. Such individuals can remember details of what happened from every day of their life since childhood, and when those details are verified with journals, video, or other documentation, they are correct 97 percent of the time.
Twenty people with such memory were shown slideshows featuring a man stealing a wallet from a woman while pretending to help her, and then a man breaking into a car with a credit card and stealing $1 bills and necklaces. Later, they read two narratives about those slideshows containing misinformation. When later asked about the events, the superior memory subjects indicated the erroneous facts as truth at about the same rate as people with normal memory
“It’s so powerful when somebody tells you something and they have a lot of detail,” Loftus said. “Especially when they express emotion. To just say, ‘Oh my god it must be true.’ But all those characteristics are also true of false memories, particularly the heavily rehearsed ones that you ruminate over.
“We all have narratives,” McGaugh said, explaining that people form beliefs and values, and then develop explanations within their memories for these beliefs and values. “We’re all creating stories. Our lives are stories in that sense.”
Over the years, I have interviewed witnesses of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and rushed to the scene to obtain anecdotes from witnesses from a catastrophic train crash, or the Virginia Tech shooting massacre. It makes sense that the people I spoke to would have intimately remembered such shocking, emotionally charged events. Some call this “flashbulb memory.”
Even those can be unreliable. In 1977, 60 eyewitnesses to a plane crash that killed nine people were interviewed by Flying magazine. But they had differing recollections. One of the witnesses explained that the plane “was heading right toward the ground―straight down.” Yet photographs showed that the airplane hit flat and at a low-enough angle to skid for almost one thousand feet.
There is no absolute guarantee that everything in a nonfiction narrative is the absolute truth, “but you as the writer have the obligation to get as close to the truth as you possibly can,” Meyer said, “and the only way to do that is to report the living hell out of it.”
He challenged anyone who wanted to write his or her own memoir to actually report it out and see how often they are wrong about what they remember. Some journalists have done just that, including David Carr of The New York Times, and Walt Harrington, a former reporter for The Washington Post Magazine.
Harrington, now a professor of literary journalism the University of Illinois, once said, “Truth is a documentary, physical reality, as well as the meaning we make of that reality, the perceptions we have of it.”
A true story is always filtered through the teller’s take on it.
Narrative, as Seigel explains, shapes meaning and order out of an existence that is otherwise just angst and chaos.
記憶や体験談、目撃証言があてになるとは限らない、つまり、客観的にあったことと異なる場合がある、というのはよく知られたことであるが、感情的に、詳細に証言されると信じてしまいがちだが、しかし、間違った記憶でも、本人にとっても本当にあったこととして構成されて、同じように、感情的に、詳細に証言されることもある。
それゆえに、なにが起きたかについて、歴史家はかなり慎重な手続きをとるのであるが、慰安婦報道をする英米のメディアに勤める記者たちは、裏もとらずに、参考書も読まずに、”元慰安婦のおばあさん”の悲惨な体験談を何十年後になってセンセーショナルに報道するのである。
わざと嘘をついているなどとは決して言ってはいけない。
しかし、誰のものでも、記憶というのはあいまいであり、慰安婦に同情的な研究者さえも彼女ら証言が不整合であることは認めており、現在の政治的ナラティブにそった話になってしまう可能性を排除すべきではない。
それにしても、なんで、アメリカのメディアに勤める記者たちは、米兵が搾取してきたアジア人性奴隷については沈黙を続けるのだろう？