Getting Revenge?

Cuddling Criminals

Rhyming Revolutions

F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 1

Just watch your blood pressure

Why Restorative Justice works

Is it 1989 all over again?

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RECURRING

BACKGROUND

SHARED SCIENCE

Hundred Years of Wrath............................18

Remarkable Research...............................37

Book Reviews......................................38

Snuffed Animals

The ethics of using animals in art ..................30

Rhyming RevolutionsIs it 1989 all over again?.....................06

The Hardest Kind of Justice Restorative Justice isn’t warm and fuzzy.......33

Getting Revenge?Just watch your blood pressure...........10

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Credits

Editor-in-ChiefAnouk Vleugels

Executive EditorMark Fonseca Rendeiro

Editorial Elke Weesjes

DesignMichelle Halcomb

Marketing DirectorRyan McLay

Acknowledgements:Rianne Groen

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Questions and suggestionsSend an e-mail to redactie @united-academics.org

Address Warmoesstraat 149, 1012 JC Amsterdam

Websitewww.united-academics.org

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Second theme in our seven-sin series: wrath. A hard one; wrath. Although it stars in pretty much every book ever writ-ten and every film ever made, nobody really knows what it means. It has something to do with anger, something to do with God, and something to do with vengeance. Since we thought anger is kind of vague and God just not that interest-ing, we decided to go with vengeance.

Anyone who ever felt harmed in some way –someone cut in front of you, someone stole your wallet or someone broke your heart- will recognize the desire for vengeance. However, plotting revenge is one thing, acting upon it is something else. Is it really worth the trouble?

According to evolutionary biologists, it is. Without revenge our species would never have evolved to its current form. By showing the world you’re not to be messed with, you will save yourself from any future harm. Good news for you, even bet-ter news for your future offspring. From a medical point of view however, revenge is not recommended. It will raise your heart rate, drive your blood pressure through the roof, and compromise your immune system.

So, suppose, you are at the store. You are waiting in line, ready to pay for your groceries, when someone cuts in front of you. Do you have a medical history? Just suppress your anger and count to ten. Healthy as a horse? Don’t hesitate to take ac-tion. Your future children will be thankful.

Anouk Vleugels Editor-in-Chief United Academics Magazine

Wrath

EDITORIAL

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CALL FOR ARTICLESBIOGRAPHIES AND BOOK REVIEWS

March 2011: ‘Students in Revolt’

UAJSS is a refereed online journal which publishes new research by post-graduate and post-doctoral academics.

Deadline: 18th of March

See our journal for submis-sion guidelines

Email: elke.weesjes@united-academics.org

www.united-academics.org

urnalof Social Sciences

F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 1

Antony Hegarty: A transgender voice - Kathleen A. Stephenson

Biographical representations of Reagan's childhood - Roger Johnson

Work in Progress: Explaining media personalization of politics - Lutz Hofer

Biography: Anarchist theorist Gustav Landauer - Oscar Broughton

Interview: Josje Damsma on Dutch National Socialism

urnalof Social Sciences

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In her recent Volkskrant article on the revolu-tion in Egypt, journalist Nausicaa Marbe drew a parallel between the current situation in the Middle East and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. “The facts and emotions of the Egyptian revolution change at a staggering speed. That is how it was in 1989 in Eastern Europe and this is how it is now in the Arab world. No live reporting or tweets from the seething crowd can begin to describe how

the Egyptians feel right now. And I speak from experience; in 1989 I was among the crowd in Revolution Square in the Romanian city of Timisoara.” Marbe concludes that there are many similarities between 1989 and 2011. She’s not alone on that, in the international media, many have drawn the same parallel, especially since the exit of Egyptian president Mubarak on the 11th of February. The Pittsburg Tribune stated that ‘in the annals of modern history, the Egyptian revolution now shares standing with the fall of the Berlin Wall’ and over at the European Voice in Brussels reporters have been ‘pondering the lessons of 1989 for the protesters in Egypt.’ Many academics share this view; Professor Lucan Way, specialist on regime development in the post-Cold War era,

thinks that the fall of communism in Eastern Europe provides important signs of what is likely to emerge from the protests in the Mid-dle East. In his article ‘What Eastern Europe teaches us about Egypt: Short term Optimism and Medium Term Pessimism,’ he argues that the Middle East in 2011 is an even better ex-ample of snowballing (i.e. the process which happened in Eastern Europe where one suc-cess of democracy in one country causes oth-

er countries to democratize), than Eastern Eu-rope was in 1989’. The comparison seems an obvious one. Nevertheless, when taking a closer look, we find that significant differences suggest that we should not be too quick to compare today’s events in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab coun-tries to the fall of the communist bloc. Mark Twain’s words “the past does not repeat itself but it rhymes,” definitely apply in this context. What we see here is not a repeat of history but a case of ‘rhyming revolutions’.

Tunisia’s Day of WrathIt all started in December 2010. The 26 year old Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi who grew up in Sidi Bouzid, a rural town burdened by

can be called a revolutionary year already; char-acterized by the political awaking of North Africa and violent suppression of the masses who crave

democracy. Revolutions which disposed the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt have shaken the Arab world and inspired protests across the Middle East and North Africa threatening the grip of long established leaders. Sounds like it is 1989 all over again, doesn’t it? Well, it is not.

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corruption and suffering from an unemploy-ment rate estimated at 30%. Bouazizi couldn’t find a regular job and was reduced to selling fruit and vegetables on the street in Sidi Bouz-id. It was the only way he could support his mother and siblings to make some money to support his mother and siblings. On the 17th of December police confiscated his wares be-cause he didn’t have the funds to bribe police officials to allow his street vending to continue. Bouazizi went to the local governor to complain about the way he was beaten up and humili-ated by the police officer in charge. The gover-nor refused to see him. Subsequently Bouazizi doused himself in paint thinner in front of the governor’s office and set himself alight. He died 18 days later. Bouazizi’s protest sparked riots in Sidi Bouzid over unemployment and corrup-tion. Protests became widespread and moved to the capital Tunis. The anger and pressure became so intense that President Ben Ali fled

Tunisia on the 14th of January 2011, ending his 23 year dictatorship. With the sudden breakdown of author-ity in Tunisia last month, followed by a revo-lution in Egypt this month and uprisings in Libya, Yemen, Algeria, Syria and Lebanon, the snowball effect has well and truly started in the Arab world. These recent developments demonstrate how the collapse of authoritari-anism in one country can have a huge impact on the stability of nearby regimes. For those who were around in the late eighties, this all seems familiar. In 1989, Poland was the first Eastern-Bloc country to get rid of its Soviet-dominated government. The Polish Solidarity labour movement led by Lech Wałęsa achieved major political reforms, and free elections were held in 1989. The aforementioned snowball

effect followed and after Poland, revolutions followed in Hungary, East-Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. The last-named was the only Eastern-Bloc country to over-throw its communist regime violently. Albania and Yugoslavia abandoned communism be-tween 1990 and 1992, whilst the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991.

Snowball effectWill the snowball effect also continue through-out the Middle-East? No, says the Dutch politi-cal scientist and Middle-East expert Paul Aarts. “The revolution in Egypt and Tunisia will not spread to the Gulf states. Because of higher subsidies and a milder form of repression it is unlikely that these states’ regimes will fall.” Aarts explains that research has shown that repression in one-party systems (like in Yemen and Syria) is greater than in monarchies like Jor-

dan and Saudi-Arabia. These monarchies have the financial means to keep people quiet. This doesn’t mean there isn’t any protest in these countries – in Jordan demonstrations and self-immolations have taken place and people are protesting in Bahrain as we speak – but these protests will not accumulate into revolutions according to Aarts. “In the Gulf States govern-ments seem to be able to anticipate unrest, more so than in Egypt and Tunisia. For exam-ple, in Jordan the government will respond by lowering prices of basic products and other measures will be taken to avoid revolutions.” He was not just the leader of the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union, but also of the Warsaw Pact military bloc in Eastern-Eu-rope. Socialist states like Poland, Romania, Bul-garia and Hungary were both politically and

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policies of glasnost and perestroika, meaning openness, non-violence and reform. He urged

his Eastern European counterparts to follow suit, whilst allowing these nations to deter-mine their own internal affairs. The fact that Moscow would not use any force to suppress protests in neigbouring countries - like it had done in 1956 and 1968 in Hungary and Czecho-slovakia – allowed the rise of popular upheav-als in these countries.

Arab solidarityJournalist Dirk Wanrooij, who was in Cairo dur-ing the Egyptian revolution, explains that unlike Eastern-Europe the Arab world is not a homog-enous region with one political ideology. “Some countries are one party systems (military or clerical dictatorships), others are monarchies, some are economically stable, others struggle with widespread poverty and unemployment. In wealthier monarchies the people’s protests have a political nature whilst in Egypt and Tu-nisia the main incentive for people to dem-onstrate is these countries’ dire economical situation.” Wanrooij notes that an important difference between countries in this region is that some of these nations have strong ties

with foreign powers and others don’t. ”In Bah-rain for example, political leaders are backed

financially by the US, which makes it more difficult for the protest-ers to achieve the same as the Tunisian people.” In spite of all these differences, countries in the Middle East have one main thing in com-mon; whereas revolu-tions in Eastern Europe were almost instigated by the Soviet Commu-nist party, Arab leaders refuse to give up with-out a fight. According to Wanrooij the wide-spread suppression of

protests has a unifying effect. “It is striking that, in spite of regional differences, people in the Arab world feel united in their struggle; there is a real sense of solidarity, which to my knowledge was less visible in Eastern Europe.”

Democratize without foreign helpThe Eastern European History expert, Dr.Raymond Detrez, who works at the Univer-sity of Ghent, notes that the European Union served as a clear model for what the future could hold for Eastern Europe after they had ridden themselves from their nondemocrat-ic leaders. “The democratization, liberaliza-tion and privatization of Eastern-Europe took place under direction of the European Union.” Detrez argues that this is a significant differ-ence between the situation of 1989 and 2011. “I don’t think that the European Union feels called upon to do the same in North-Africa or the Middle-East. The EU can’t offer any per-spective in this context. Which leaves the Arabcountries without a model; countries like Egypt will have to democratize on their own.” Detrez explains that the introduction of a democratic

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system in Eastern-Europe wasn’ complicated, although he does admit that initially these de-mocracies didn’t function properly. The eco-nomical transition, on the other hand, was quite problematic. ”The privatization of these countries’ economies was difficult and the so-cial consequences of this transition were se-vere.” In Eastern-Europe average standards of living registered a catastrophic fall in the early 1990s and only began to rise again to-wards the end of that decade. Today there are still certain areas where populations are poorer than they were in 1989.

Now what?For North-African countries, according to Detrez, the imple-mentation of a demo-cratic system will be the biggest challenge, but on the bright side; they will not encoun-ter the same problems on an economic level as Eastern-Europe, be-cause they have a free market economy rather than a planned economy. Nevertheless these countries need to reform their current sys-tems. Their economies need to benefit every-one and not just a small elite, royal family or foreign investor. The implementation of a fair economical system will take a considerable amount of time. In the meantime demands for higher wages and better conditions will con-tinue. From his experiences in Egypt Wanrooij predicts a certain level of disintegration. “In Egypt people from different economical, reli-gious and political backgrounds were united in a short term goal: the exit of Mubarak. This goal was achieved and now we see people who were previously united disintegrate into

small groups with different demands for the future. People return back to their own group so to speak. The protest has moved from Tah-rir square into the factories where the work-ing class continue their fight for higher wages. This is where the confrontation between dif-ferent groups is now taking place. The con-tradictions still have to take shape, a process which could result in an eruption of violence.” History sheds light on where the fu-ture might be going, nevertheless we should

be cautious comparing a current situation to past events when there are more differences than similarities. Studying Eastern European revolutions and their aftermath does not pro-vide us with any answers about the near fu-ture of countries like Egypt and Tunisia. Actu-ally comparing 1989 to 2011 undermines the uniqueness of the revolutionary phenomenon in North Africa and the Middle East and is as such counterproductive. Once we recognize the truly remarkable and exceptional nature of the recent revolutions we can start to spec-ulate about the future of these countries.

By Elke Weesjes

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The desire for revenge is omnipresent. Ranging from small nuisances -someone cuts in front of you while you’re waiting in line- to unspeakable grief -someone kills your spouse during a suicide attack: when you feel you’ve been wronged, you want to settle the score. Uplifting? Yes. Healthy? No.

NeurologyEvolutionary Biology

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The desire for revenge is omnipresent. Ranging from small nuisances -someone cuts in front of you while you’re waiting in line- to unspeakable grief -someone kills your spouse during a suicide attack: when you feel you’ve been wronged, you want to settle the score. Uplifting? Yes. Healthy? No.

MedicineNeurology

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For centuries, people have perceived the desire for revenge to be a disease. Resembling a nasty infection, it spreads through our veins and forces us on a path of destruction. From the per-spective of natural selection however, revenge is what makes the world go ‘round.

According to evolutionary psychologist Michael Mc-Cullough, author of Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Revenge Instinct, humans were designed by the simple forces of natural selection to have a taste for revenge, when harmed. Therefore we shouldn’t think of revenge as a disease, but as a survival mech-anism which is cross-cultural and diachronic. “Basically, there are three reasons for re-venge,” McCullough explains. “First, revenge de-ters people from harming you a second time. So it serves as a lesson: don’t repeat this in the future, or be ready for retaliation. Second, by getting even at someone who harmed us, we can establish a reputa-tion for ourselves. Third parties will know you’re not to be messed with, which lessens the chance they will harm you a first time. Finally, revenge stimu-lates cooperation among humans. The institutions we use to enforce cooperation today, like prisons and courts, obviously weren’t available in our dis-tant past. Back then, the use of punishment within a group was necessary to avoid ‘free rides’; people who benefit from joint efforts, without contributing themselves.”

Mafia birdsEvidence supporting the idea of revenge as a evolu-tionary mechanism can also be found in the animal kingdom . One of the most compelling examples of animal retaliation is shown by certain kinds of birds, known as avian brood parasites. These birds use a

Evolutionary biology

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host (another bird, either of the same or dif-ferent species) to incubate their eggs and raise their young for them. The hosts get nothing in return. Why do they cooperate? Ecologists Jeffrey Hoover and Scott Robin-son investigated the interaction between the brown-headed cowbird, a brood para-site, and its host, the warbler. Their conclu-sion: the brown-headed cowbird exhibits mafia-like behavior, threatening the warbler into submission. In their experiment, the re-searchers manipulated ‘ejection’ (by remov-ing the cowbirds’ eggs from the hosts’ nests) and cowbird access (some nests were made

accessible to the cowbirds, others were not). The authors found that 56 % of the ‘ejection’ nests which were accessible, were raided by the cowbirds, in comparison to 6 % of ‘ ac-ceptance’ nests. The number of young pro-duced by the hosts that ejected eggs dropped 60% compared to those that accepted the cowbird eggs. “Losing all offspring during a breeding season,” McCullough explains, “is obviously a giant evolutionary problem for these host birds. The options for warblers aren’t good and bad; the options are bad and worse. Therefore they accept their parasites’ eggs and the system is perpetuated.’

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If revenge were a purview of the morally depraved, we would find the desire for revenge coming from a dark, sick place in our minds. Instead, brain evidence shows that plotting revenge activates the ‘pleasure’ part of the brain. In comparison: a junkie who’s about to get a fix shows similar brain activities.

In 2004, neuroscientist Dominique de Quervain of the University of Zurich and his colleagues set up an experiment to study how a group of male participants responded to acts of selfishness. Using a positron emission tomography (PET) camera, the research-ers investigated brain activity during acts of revenge. With the help of this ‘brainscan’ technique, one can obtain rough measures of brain activity while people perform a task. Experimental economic laboratory games are particularly well-suited for the use of this method. In this particular experiment, the subjects were asked to engage in an economic game (the so-called Trust Game) with different partners. In each interaction, subjects were given a certain amount of money. They then had to decide how much of their money to pass on to the second player –the trustee, which was then quadrupled. In part two, the trustee decides how much of this to return to the first player. If trustees decided not to reciprocate, or defected, subjects could choose to administer punishment. At this point, their brains were scanned. The result showed that by punishing the defectors, a specific region of the brain called the striatum increased its consumption of oxygen (that is, was “activated”). According to the researchers, this indicates that punishing a defector activates brain regions related to feeling good about revenge rather than brain re-gions related to feeling bad about having been vio-lated. Other research suggests that seeking revenge is connected to the release of dopamine. Dopamine is commonly associated with the ventral striatum, the ‘reward part’ of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person to take action. Dopamine is released while expecting certain rewards, such as food, drugs or sex. Plotting revenge however, also does the trick. Hence the ex-pression ‘sweet revenge.’

Neurology

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If revenge were a purview of the morally depraved, we would find the desire for revenge coming from a dark, sick place in our minds. Instead, brain evidence shows that plotting revenge activates the ‘pleasure’ part of the brain. In comparison: a junkie who’s about to get a fix shows similar brain activities.

“This is an insight about hu-man nature that is uncom-fortable for most people,” McCullough notes. “ How-ever, the fact that we’re be-ing wired this way, doesn’t necessarily mean we always act upon it. “The desire for revenge is a normal human trait, which in most cases isn’t harmful to others. How-ever, when this trait is com-bined with certain ‘defects’, for example drug use or a mental disorder, it can lead to abnormal behavior. Kids entering shopping malls with guns- that kind of thing.”

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Vengeance can boost our dopamine level, ac-tivate the ‘pleasure’ spot in our brain, and leave us ecstatic for a moment. But like with any other drug, there’s always the comedown. According to the field of medicine, seek-ing revenge is not what the doctor ordered.

Medicine

Medical research on vengeance has prolif-erated over the past decade, with research-ers linking it to cardiovascular performance, nervous-system health, and immune-system function. Furthermore, the desire for revenge causes us to have poorer health habits, such as drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes, as well as with a lower level of hematocrit, meaning one has less red blood cells than usual. Kathleen Lawler-Row, who chairs the psychology department at East Carolina Uni-versity, has studied the subject for years. Her advice: don’t hold a grudge. “People who have been able to forgive show clear health benefits. Whether we’re looking at heart rate and blood pressure or whether we’re looking at the number of medicines someone is on, their quality of sleep or the number of physi-cal symptoms they report. Almost every way I’ve thought to measure it, people who have been able to think forgivingly are healthier.”

Always the parents In one of her experiments, Lawler-Row measured blood pressure and heart rate while interviewing participants about their childhood resentments. The statements “try to recall a particular time when one (or both) of your parents upset you, made you angry or annoyed, or hurt you. In your own words, please describe the experience in as much

detail as you can,” set the stage for the inter-view. After the initial description, follow-up questions were asked to clarify when the event happened, how the participant re-sponded, and to speci-fy, “what exactly was it about this experience that hurt the most?” After the interview, the participant completed a packet of question-naires regarding for-giveness, relationship closeness, and the pa-rental intrusion scale. The results showed that subjects who stat-ed being more forgiv-ing, had a lower heart rate and blood pressure. Harboring grudges on the other hand, led to illness, loneliness, and stress. Lawler-Row is not the only one advocating forgiveness. According to Michael McCullough, our ability to forgive is, just as our desire for revenge is, part of our neural wiring.

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“If you look at the same bodies of research that make revenge seem like the product of natural selection, you find that humans wouldn’t exit in their current form without the capacity to forgive. We need punishment to make cooperation happen. We also need the ability to tolerate defections.”

There’s nothing wrong with being a little vengeful. However, know when to let go. The initial feeling of euphoria after getting your revenge will fade, but a high blood pressure will not. So try to forgive every once and a while. If Jesus could do it, so can you.

By Anouk Vleugels

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“Egypt’s Day of Wrath”, journalists called the 28th of January. It was Egypt’s first day of revolution, but certainly not the first Day of Wrath.

HundredYears of

Wrath

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According to American journalist John Reed, they were “The Ten Days that Shook the World”: the October Revolution. After the

fall of Tsar Nicholas earlier that year, the Bolsheviks rushed in to fill the power vacuum: a communist nation was born. The Soviet Union which was properly installed a few months later, would last for 80 years.

1917

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In 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk brought down the Otto-man Empire and became ‘father of the Republic of Turkey.’

Ataturk´s regime converted Ottoman Turks with 7 % literacy in 15 years to a secular democratic republic with much higher literacy, emancipated its women, and gave them the right to elect and be elected. The reforms didn’t stick: Atatürk’s successors didn’t understand his need for reform and therefore refused to carry on the Revolution.

1923

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The Spanish Revolution, a workers’ social revolution, began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and re-

sulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist and socialist orga-nizational principles. Although the socialists received help from workers all over the world, fascism led by General Franco proved to be stronger. In the aftermath of the Civil War, a conservative dictatorship was estab-lished.

1936

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Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, the German authori-ties deported or murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw

Ghetto. In response to the deportations, several Jewish underground or-ganizations decided to fight back. Although the Germans expected to end the uprising within a few days, many ghetto fighters held out for more than a month.

1943

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Hungarians from all walks of life rose up against insurmount-able odds to fight the brutal Soviet-installed Hungarian com-

munist government. Anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 Hungarian rebels and 7,000 Soviet troops were killed, thousands more were wounded, and nearly a quarter of a million left the country as refugees. Although the movement was crushed, the Hungarian Revolution was the first tear in the Iron Curtain.

1956

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In Paris in May 1968, massive confrontations between po-lice and students brought workers out on a general strike and

brought the De Gaulle administration close to the point of collapse. Al-though it resulted in a political failure for the protesters, ‘Mai 68’ had an enormous social impact. In France, it is considered to be the watershed moment that saw the replacement of conservative morality with the lib-eral morality that dominates French society today.

1968

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The Iranian people were fed up with their leader, the Shah. Despite the bloody repression, protests exploded in the work-

places, mosques, and universities. The monarchy fell on 11 February 1979 and the Ayatollah Khomeini (who lived in exile) returned to Iran and be-came head of the state. Sadly, what began as a seemingly authentic and anti-dictatorial popular revolution soon transformed into an Islamic-fun-damentalist power-grab, which led to yet another authoritarian regime.

1979

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On May 1989, nearly a million Chinese, mostly young students, crowded into central Beijing to protest for greater democracy

and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders. On June 4, however, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters. Approximately 300 of the protesters have been killed (although this fig-ure is probably much higher) and as many as 10,000 were arrested.

1989

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The May 1998 riots in Indonesia were a principal factor in the fall of President Suharto. Triggered by economic problems like

food shortages and mass unemployment, riots started by students oc-curred all over the peninsula. Tragically, the -in general more wealthy- Chinese-Indonesian people soon were made into scapegoats, resulting in massive violence against them. After Suharto’s resignation, the mili-tary appeared to remained the power for many years to come.

1998

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Economic desperation was the trigger for the peaceful up-rising that would come to be known as, “the Saffron Rev-

olution,” a series of anti-government demonstrations led by Buddhist monks. On September 27th, the uprising was beaten down by the junta. Still, The Saffron Revolution inspired a new generation of activists, both inside and country and around the world, to speak out against the Bur-mese military regime.

2007

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physics

chaos

imaging

chemistry

environmental sciences

genetics

receptors neuro science

psychology economicscomputerscience

catalystsemiconductors

lasers

geoscience

agronomy

earth science

materials

biomedicine

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In 2008 the San Francis-co Art Institute closed an exhibition earlier than planned. On display was a video piece by Adel Abdessemed, that showed six animals being bru-tally killed with a large h a m m e r .

The ethical implications of working with living an-imals in contemporary art.

S N U F F E DA N I M A L S

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Protests against the work were so vast that the exhibition was stopped after a week. Even staff members of the San Francisco Art Insti-tute were threatened by animal rights organi-zations. Although the artist had just filmed the atrocities at a Mexican farm, viewers of the video questioned what his role was in the vio-lence against animals. Artists working with living animals often arouse great outrage from organi-zations that defend animal rights. Despite protests and media attention, it seems that artists are still allowed to go a little bit further than other people in society. This is comes from the idea that art has some autonomy; we assume the artist has an ar-tistic intention. This gives art a special place within society. However, artists who use living animals in their artistic practice are often regarded as immoral. Is this immoral aspect used by the artist with an ethical goal or is it just provocation?

Goldfish pureeThat works of art making use of living animals are provocative has been proven again and again. Hermann Nitsch risked prison with his bloody rituals; Eduardo Kac bred a green glow-ing rabbit and Damien Hirst ordered a rare shark for his widely known work The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. One of the most infamous examples is the piece entitled: Helena, made by Marco Evaristti. For his exposition, Evarissti put sever-al goldfish in food processors, which were then plugged in. Just one push on the yellow button would create goldfish soup. Within the next few days, about sixteen goldfish were crushed. The protests by animal rights organizations were large, they included a few surviving gold-fish being stolen from the blenders. After two days the museum decided to pull the plug on

the exhibit. The moral dilemma Evaristti questioned here is clear. We, the audience, have power over the lives of a few goldfish. Do we let them live, or reduce them to goldfish puree? Do we need to make use of all the possibilities we have? Usually, when being in a museum, we

are not even allowed to touch the artwork. Evaristti did not aim to encourage the useless killing of goldfish. He aimed to pose a moral dilemma; an experiment involving human na-ture. Evaristti and the museum director were summoned to pay a fine, but were eventually acquitted.

Save the PetsHowever, complaints about immoral artwork can get more serious. Recently Dutch artist Tinkebell, known around the world for once having had her cat made into a handbag, had to appear in court to defend one of her works of art. In her work Save the Pets (2008), hundreds of hamsters were put in transparent plastic balls, which are produced by the pet industry. In a living room setting, she let the hamsters roll around in the gallery for three weeks. She based her work on short films she had seen on YouTube of pet owners using the plastic balls to watch their hamsters rolling around in their house. Formally accused of animal abuse, she was called to appear in court.

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was called to appear in court. Tinkebell, us-ing her provocative work to raise attention for animal welfare, won the case. However, the same animal rights organizations she aimed to support are the ones that sued her. This is one of the difficulties of trying to raise attention for a case through provocative art. Many peo-ple have problems with the viewing of art as something else than just real life; artists such as Tinkebell are therefore often dismissed as sensational and attention seeking people.

Tattooed pigs Most people tend to care about animal wel-fare. However, throughout Western history animals have always been regarded as sub-ordinate to humans. Only in the last century, philosophers like Levinas and Derrida started thinking about the relations between humans and animals in different ways. Today our ethics have changed in favor of animals, but deciding where to draw the line when it comes to ani-mal cruelty remains difficult. One such reason could be because we do not value each ani-mal equally. Belgian artist Jan Fabre didn’t en-counter much resistance while using millions of shiny beetles for his art, whereas Wim Del-voye’s tattooing of pigs was met with disdain. Most of us simply do not grant a spider and a cow the same amount of respect. Despite this complicated relationship between humans and animals, we tend to feel aversion to artwork that shows us cruelty to-wards animals, whether this is implicit or ex-plicit. Should we accept an work of art that contradicts our moral? Art is made from an

artistic intention and therefore also requires an artistic attitude from the spectator. Be-cause of the autonomy of art, moral borders are stretched; when we as spectators see an art performance, we know we do not have to intervene, because it is art we are seeing, and not a scene in the street. But it is only natural that provocative art generates an inner resist-ance.

A good immoral work is not one that is just shocking; the shock effect rarely lasts. A good immoral work provides ongoing food for thought. By confronting us with topics we would rather avoid or ignore, artists encour-age us to think about these uncomfortable subjects. Through our own morality we can recognize the artwork as immoral and gather knowledge from it. But despite the autonomy of art, moral borders do not cease to exist. It is the responsibility of the artist to decide how far he or she can go in using animals. At the same time, the spectator also has a responsi-bility; when we watch a goldfish swim around in a food processor, it does not mean we have to push the button.

Rianne Groen is an art historian and independent curator. After re-ceiving her BA in Art History, she finished her MA in Modern and Contemporary Art at Utrecht University in April 2010. Currently she lives and works in London, where she is studying as part of the pro-fessional MA course Curating the Contemporary at London Metro-politan University in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery.

Read Rianne’s thesis

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The Hardest Kind of Justice

“Wait a minute,” I can hear you interjecting in disbelief, “We are all traumatized? A criminal has needs?” The moment you start speaking this way about crime in this world, you run the risk of being labeled weak or making excuses for criminals. Alternative justice programs are seen by many as idealist experiments that couldn’t work in a world so full of evil crimi-nals who couldn’t possibly be reformed. Yet over the past few decades restor-ative justice experiments around the world have shown there is indeed another way to approach those involved in and affected by a criminal act. In the UK for example research projects incorporating restorative justice prac-tices in dealing with criminal offenders have been very successful. One of these projects,

the Justice Research Consortium, was carried out in London, Northumbria and Thames Val-ley area. A group of adult offenders partici-pated in a so called face to face “conferenc-ing” with their victims. The crimes committed varied from robbery and fraud to rape and as-sault. The outcome was revealing; 98% of ‘con-ferences’ ended with victims and offenders reaching an agreement about how the harm could be repaired and how offenders could ad-dress their problems and move towards a fu-ture that does not involve committing crime. The results of this project showed a 27% drop in the frequency of re-offending. Because of their success rates these projects, Restorative Justice have gained attention and respect at

institutional and governmental level.

We are all traumatized. >If you live in this world, you have suffered some kind of trauma along the way. There are different kind’s of trauma, different degrees, and different ways of dealing with them, but the most important thing to acknowledge is that we all have some kind of trauma.

That is one of the basic and still not widely accepted tenants of Restorative Justice (RJ), the method of deal-ing with conflicts and crime, that takes into account the needs of both the victim as well as the offender. A method that instead of isolating the victim from the justice process, makes them a central part of it.

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Bottleneck

In countries throughout the world prisons are about to reach capacity, or more commonly, are completely overcrowded. Of those that do manage to get out of prison, in the case of the UK and the US for example, the rate of re-cidivism hovers around 50 and 60% every year since the mid-nineties. Meaning more than half of all former prisoners never get rehabili-tated, never deal with issues of responsibility, trauma and emotion. Furthermore, legal systems are flooded with cases creating a bottleneck that causes even the smallest of cases to last far longer than they should. When you add to this sit-uation the astronomical costs of the average criminal justice system, it is easy to see that increasingly, governments have reached a breaking point. On the other side of the coin are the victims. Between the judges and the lawyers the average victim has a limited role in the very trial that is supposed to provide them with some sense of resolution and justice. The trauma that comes with the pain and suffering can last a lifetime.

In the US, one major problem is the breakdown between the victim and the American criminal justice system. Dr. Howard Zehr, known as the grandfather of restorative justice, has worked within the traditional US justice system as well as on restorative justice projects throughout the world. In 1997 he was appointed by the US

Federal Court to work with victims of the Okla-homa City bombing case. It was there he expe-rienced how victims are left out of the Ameri-can criminal justice system. “The McVeigh Oklahoma City Bombing case,” Zehr recalls, “was against the government of the US. Vic-tims had to go to congress just to get the right to sit in on their own trial. That is part of the problem, how we define the wrong doing, we define it as basically against rules or laws or some central authority, and the individual harm gets left out of the process.”

Break the cycle

It becomes clear that both victims’ and of-fenders’ needs are neglected and trauma on both sides is overlooked by current systems causing further problems. It may seem obvious that trauma has an influence on an in-dividual or community of victims, what is not widely understood is that trauma impacts patterns of conflict and wrongdoing. That is to say, trauma can lead to someone harming someone else; trauma can cause someone to cause more trauma. Take the World Trade Center Attack of 2001, which killed more than 3,000 people, but also caused anger, depression, and a range of trauma for families, loved ones, and com-plete strangers/fellow citizens throughout the US. But did all these people try to understand and face their trauma in a productive or effec-tive manner? And did the method of seeking justice the government pursued, take into ac-count the needs of these traumatized victims? Zehr, who worked on a project to help com-munity leaders address these issues following Sept. 11th, explains the challenge their project faced. “After September 11th our organization was funded to start something called STAR, which was to train community leaders (and

“Vengeance leads to a cycle of vengeance, we know that, but we need to help people under-stand what their real needs are and what the most healthy ways are to address those needs.”

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now a wider group) about how trauma works not only in the individual but in society and then develop strategies to address those kinds of trauma.

Hard kind of justice

It seems understandable to address a victim’s trauma, but what about the offender’s needs? According to Les Davey, CEO of the Institute for Restorative Practice UK, RJ enables the offend-er to rehabilitate. “Labeling someone as ‘crimi-nal’ is in no one’s best interest. No evidence shows that our traditional criminal justice sys-tem –locking people up and expecting them change their behavior upon release without some kind of intervention- is successful. There-

fore we need to deal with wrongdoing in an intelli-gent manner.” Does this mean that the offender gets off light-ly? No, because RJ doesn’t aim to replace traditional criminal punishment. The meetings between victims and offenders is an addi-tion, but shouldn’t be tak-en lightly. Contrary to the

pessimistic rhetoric that still dominates the public sphere, this method is not soft but in fact, some of the most difficult for an offender to have to face. Dr. Heather Strang agrees with this. As Director of the Centre for Restorative Justice at Australian University, she knows what she’s talking about. “I can tell you as a veteran observer of hundreds of these events, that almost all offenders would tell you they would much rather face the anonymity of the courtroom than the experience of being shut in a small room with the person they have harmed in a criminal event. It is a very diffi-cult confronting experience to have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no lawyer, no social worker, no one to protect you from the kind of

anger victims can express in that setting.” While the dominant political and media discourse still tells us that considering alterna-tives to the current criminal justice system is a stupid and weak thing to do, the results of re-storative justice practices around the world tell a different story. They show that in fact, when used alongside and within the current criminal justice system, they can make a tremendous impact in improving the future for victims and offenders. They’ve also indicated important strides in reducing incarceration levels, recid-ivism, and long term trauma for victims (and offenders). The politician aiming to gain the popular vote might still tout the importance of being tough on crime, building more prisons, and putting more police on the streets, as the answer to fixing crime statistics or the justice system. But the practice restorative justice is proving there is another way beyond just lock-ing them up and throwing away the key. A way that not only looks good in terms of numbers, but that reaches out to victims who have been systematically left out of the process and left with a lifetime of trauma. There’s nothing soft about a victim and an offender coming face to face with each other, and there’s nothing weak about trying to heal a community wounded by crime. By Mark Rendeiro

“Vengeance leads to a cycle of vengeance, we know that, but we need to help people under-stand what their real needs are and what the most healthy ways are to address those needs.”

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RemarkableR e s e a r c hENVIRONMENT

Heavy rainfall is man’s own fault

Feb. 16- An increase in heavy rainfall is at least partly a consequence of human influence on the atmosphere, climate scientists report in a new study. Using a newly designed computer pro-gram, scientists investigated whether the re-cent worldwide increase of precipitation could be explained by a natural variability in the at-mosphere. The answer is no. According to the computer, the increase made sense only when the effects of greenhouse gases released by human activities were factored in. As became apparent in previous studies, the likelihood of extreme rain- or snowfall on any given day on the Northern hemisphere has increased by seven percent over the last 60 years. “What is most important about this study, is that this seven percent is well outside the bounds of natural variability,” notes researcher Francis Zwiers, who took part in the study. Although global war-ming and heavy precipitation seem to be correlated, we need still need to be careful when drawing conclusions, says climate scientist Myles Allen. “Because of the finan-cial aspect, it’s suddenly going to be in everybody’s interest to be a victim of climate change. We ur-gently need to develop the science base that can distinguish genuine impacts of cli-mate change from unfortunate consequences of bad weather.”

MEDICINE

A berry a day keeps Parkinson’s away

Feb. 13 — New research shows that people who regularly eat berries have a lower risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

During the two-year study, 50 thousand wom-en and 80 thousand men were asked to write up their fruit intake. Using this information, sci-entists calculated the intake amount of flavo-noids, an important dietary component which can be found in berries, chocolate, citrus fruits and tea.

The results were remarkable. Of all the male subjects who developed Parkinson’s disease during the two years of research, the top 20 percent who consumed the most flavonoids were about 40 percent less likely to develop the condition than the bottom 20 percent o f participants who consumed the

least amount of flavonoids. Among female partici-pants, the consumption of flavonaids was not correlated with Parkin-son’s disease. However, when sub-classes of fla-vonoids were examined,

regular consumption of anthocyanins, which are

mainly obtained from ber-ries, were found to be associat-

ed with a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease in both men and women.

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GENETICS

Ecuadorian dwarfs might hold secret to longevity

Feb. 16- People living in remote villages in Ecuador have a mutation that some biologists say may shed light on human longevity and ways to increase it. Many of the villagers suffer from Laron-syndrom, a rare type of dwarfism. Since 1987, Dr. Jaime Guevare-Aguirre has stu-died a group of 99 Laron patients from this area. While compiling their health data, he no-ticed a remarkable pattern: though cancer and diabetes were frequent among people who did not have the Laron mutation, those who did almost never contracted these diseases.

Stunned by these results, Dr. Valter Longo, re-searcher on aging, decided to examine the La-ron patients’ genomes. He found that the pa-tients have a mutation in the gene that makes the receptor for growth hormones. Normally, the growth hormone makes the cells of the li-ver churn out another hormone, called or IGF-

1, this hormone is responsible for children’s growth. The Laron patients however, produce very little IFG-1. Other research done on laboratory roundworms, in which IGF-1 is also produced to facilitate growth, proved that worms which lacked the gene that makes the receptor of IFG-1, lived twice as long as normal. If these results also apply to humans, which seems very plau-sible, the Laron patients might be expected to live much longer than usual.

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Brian Greene

According to recent discoveries done by physicists and astron-omers, our universe might not be the only one out there. Certain evidence gives rise to the idea that it is part of something bigger: the multiverse.

In The Hidden Reality, theoretical physicist Brian Greene discusses all of the current hot topics in cosmology: from the quantum me-chanical to the brain, to us living in a Matrix-style computer simulation, Greene illustrates a number of possibilities for parallel universes of various kinds. These possibilities even include places where duplicates of Earth exist, to plac-es where the very laws of reality are stunningly different. String Theory, the contentious, com-plicated and convoluted mathematics that de-scribe one dimensional strings as the funda-mental building block of everything, are our tools and guideposts for exploring these possi-ble multiverses. There are many of us thinking of one version of a parallel universe theory or another, Greene notes: “If it’s all a lot of non-sense, then it’s a lot of wasted effort going into this far-out idea. But if this idea is correct, it is a fantastic upheaval in our understanding.”

Sid Mukherjee

Think of cancer as person. A hostile, complex and very per-sistent individual. Ac-cording to oncologist Sid Mukherjee, this is the best approach to understand the histo-ry of cancer. Recently, Mukerjee wrote cancer’s biography.

From the first chemotherapy developed from textile dyes to the possibilities emerging from our understanding of cancer cells, Mukher-jee leaves no stone unturned while explain-ing cancer’s life cycle and history. He touches upon some sticky misconceptions –cancer is by no means a lifestyle disease, as many peo-ple think, nor is there one cure for every kind of cancer- and he also includes the patient’s perspective in his story. The idea that cancer cells are copies of who we are is, Mukherjee emphasises, not a metaphor. “We can rid our-selves of cancer,” he concludes, “only as much as we can rid ourselves of the processes in our physiology that depend on growth; – aging, re-generation, healing, reproduction.”

BOOK REVIEWS

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos.

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Jesse Bering

Ever yelled at your computer? In The Belief Instinct, cog-nitive psychologist Jesse Bering argues that because of a lit-tle evolutionary mis-take called empathy, we humans have a tendency to attribute a conscience to non-

living things. As a result, we created God.

There is a scientific term for this way of think-ing—”theory of mind.” As a direct consequence of the evolution of the human social brain, we sometimes can’t help but see intentions, de-sires, and beliefs in things that lack conscious-ness: animals, plants, and even our furniture. After his introduction of the theory of mind, Bering then applies it to religion. “What if I were to tell you that God’s mental states, too, were all in your mind?” Bering argues that al-though it definitely had its benefits in the past, currently this persistent illusion has outlasted its evolutionary purpose. Therefore we should turn over a new leaf and start thinking of ways to escape it.

Mary Roach

Suppose you are liv-ing in a space shut-tle for six months. Gravity doesn’t ex-ist. And then… the shuttle’s toilet mal-functions. What can you do? In Pack-ing for Mars, Mary Roach investigates the most banal as-pects of life in space.

As interesting as spaceflight might be, many people are just as fascinated by the side-ef-fects of it. How do you endure living in a tiny space for months, where there’s no privacy, and more importantly, no gravity? Packing for Mars answers these questions. However, the book is not just about the gory details. Roach also studies the cultural differences which ex-ist in spaceflight, for example: in Japan, psy-chologists evaluate astronaut candidates by their ability to fold origami cranes swiftly un-der stress. There are also the extraordinary tests done by NASA, where a bone-loss-study participant was forced to lie in bed for three months to simulate the effect of weightless-ness on his skeleton. Packing for Mars is funny, sometimes even slapstick, but also genuinely interesting.

The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

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