It’s not a taboo unless it’s also a taboo to question the taboo. I get that. But it’s not a violation of a law or a rule or a policy to question that law or rule or policy. If you… Read More ›
Month: October 2020
OF TREAT AND REGARD
Most of my students are white, middle class, and sexually vanilla. So this hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m sure it’s just around the corner. Something I say is going to make a student ‘uncomfortable’, because it challenges some… Read More ›
HOW TO BE BOTH PRIVILEGED AND WOKE
For some time now I’ve been standing back and keeping bemused score on the latest salvos in the Great Cancel War, a war that’s been going on since even before we emerged from the cave. Sometimes it’s been about sedition,… Read More ›
A MEDITATION ON COMPLEASANCE
The majority view is that global warming is real. The minority view is that it’s not. The majority view is that masks save lives. The minority view is that they don’t. Since nothing in my own behaviour hangs on who’s… Read More ›
EATING BREAKFAST TOGETHER
A considerable portion of our brains is dedicated to recognising faces at a distance because our most dangerous predators are others of our species. That friend-or-foe protocol atrophies when we become habituated to living in civil society. But put a… Read More ›
COMPELLED SPEECH
Cf. the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, the idea driving the current culture wars is that language controls thought, and thought controls behaviour. So he who controls the words we speak controls the world. And, of course, he who controls the world controls… Read More ›
RACE RELATIONS IN CANADA
Okay, let’s settle this business once and for all. When Europeans came to this continent, and as their settlements crept west, they discovered the land was already occupied. Seeing this – and had they been as ‘woke’ as some of… Read More ›
THE N-WORD AND GENOCIDE
I’m jealous. I write over 200 blog entries trashing everything from Black Lives Matter to trans-activism to indigenous land claims to Israeli Apartheid to … And what do I get? Nothin’! Frances Widdowson, a tenured professor at Mount Royal University… Read More ›
GOOD DAYS AND BAD
Let’s face it. Some days are better than others. Some days are better than most. And then there are those days, with apologies to Anselm, “the better of which cannot be conceived”. One such for me was last Thursday. It… Read More ›
WHITE FRAGILITY
White Fragility? Read it? Hell, I haven’t even blogged on it yet! Let’s fix that right now. I’m not sure what colour I am. I’m lighter than most brown people, but I’m darker than some blacks. But whatever colour I… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 