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Credit Donkey
Oct. 13, 2020
In an article about the best places to buy an engagement ring, Kelly Campbell, CSUSB professor of psychology, was asked about millennials and their preference for experiences over traditional material possessions, such as engagement rings.
“In addition to prioritizing experiences, the younger generation is also extremely socially aware. They are knowledgeable about things like the ethics or lack of ethics pertaining to the diamond industry and elect not to support people or businesses who lack ethics,” Campbell said.
“This generation is acting in alignment with what the research demonstrates: the pathway to happiness is not through material possessions but more through relationship building and doing things with those you love,” she said. “Investing in those relationships with time and memorable experiences is the way to go if the goal is to live a happy and healthy life.”
Read the whole article at "Best Place to Buy an Engagement Ring."
‘We are in a new era,’ says CSUSB professor regarding extremists
The Christian Science Monitor
Oct. 15, 2020
Brian Levin, CSUSB criminal justice professor and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, was quoted in an article about the militias that are on the rise across the nation. Events like the one in Michigan where a group of men plotted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer bring an uncomfortable question to the fore: Under what authority do private militias operate in America? And at what risk to democracy?
Many experts see a slippery slope along the line from constitutionally protected rights such as gun ownership to political violence that could threaten the nation’s democratic framework.
“The Second Amendment does allow people to associate under arms, but not as a paramilitary unit that is unvetted and does not answer to civilian government,” said Levin, an expert on extremism. “The statutes, in essence, prohibit impostering the National Guard.”
Violence this year includes what experts say is the first left-wing killing of a protester in Oregon.
“Today, we have a shift where extremists change their activities based on whether they think they are operating in some ways with some kind of relationship to the mainstream – or they’re in an insurgency against it,” said Levin. “We are in a new era.”
Read the whole article at "With militias on the rise, states boost vigilance."
CSUSB professor included in article about the online organizing behind leftist riots
National Review
Oct. 16, 2020
While the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) report documents growth among left-wing militias such as the John Brown Gun Club and the Socialist Rifle Association, Brian Levin, director of the non-partisan Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said hard-left radicals have historically been more interested in a kind of street theater that is “part extremist violence, part bohemian county fair.”
Hard-left radicals typically aren’t “into that mass-casualty stuff,” he said, but added that “when you get an arms race on one side, you get an arms race on the other side, too.”
Generally, the hard Left lacks structure, the glorification of weapons, and locations where radical members can train to use their weapons.
“The hard Left is more concerned with property damage and pyrotechnics than they are with a body count,” Levin said. “But that doesn’t mean they’ll always be that way.”
Read the whole article at "Just an ‘Idea’? Extremism Experts Explain the Online Organizing Behind Leftist Riots."
CSUSB professor comments on QAnon-linked US candidates
Al Jazeera English
Oct. 16, 2020
While it remains unlikely that current QAnon-linked candidates will have a significant effect on policy, Brian Levin, CSUSB criminal justice professor and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said their appearance on ballots across the country should be a “wake-up call.”
“I think the problem with this has been the lack of leadership in the Republican Party, with respect to really using all the means that they have to eliminate conspiracy theories and bigotry from their discourse,” said Levin.
Read the whole article at "In QAnon-linked US candidates, populism meets conspiracy."
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