Every more than once in a while I get to teach a course in whatever I happen to be thinking about. And so I get to con those students foolish enough to take the course into helping me think about… Read More ›
Everything You Wanted to Know About What’s Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask
A CONJECTURE ABOUT THE DANGERS OF SAFETY
My wife is a conjecturer. The one she offered me this morning – though I’m sure it was already in the ether – has three elements, and they are as follows: First, the generation of students I’m now teaching were… Read More ›
DOING THE WORK
There’s a myth being marketed – though I’m skeptical that anyone’s buying it – that those of us who are unjustly privileged able-bodied cisgendered white male settler-colonialists are uncomfortable talking about the unjust privilege of being able-bodied cisgendered white male… Read More ›
THE WORLD SINCE 1363
Whenever you’re in the moment – as distinct from what? outside of it? – it’s often difficult – no, make that impossible – to see it for what, if anything, it really means. But a moment takes its meaning from… Read More ›
IS SELF-IDENTIFICATION CRITERIAL OR MERELY EVIDENTIAL?
Here’s what I trust will be an instructive analogy. There are very few knock-down arguments in philosophy, but Plato’s Euthyphro is one of them. Does God make something good by approving of it, asks Socrates, or does He approve of… Read More ›
MAR-A-LAGO, DOBBS, AND THE UNFORESEEABLE BUT SURE-TO-BE-COMEDIC FUTURE
The raid on Mar-a-Lago has done little to dampen the conviction that there’s a deep-state conspiracy against the Donald, and one designed to ensure that the Democrats remain in power. And the Dobbs decision has motivated many women to try… Read More ›
MAGA (MAKING THE ACADEMY GREAT AGAIN)
Today I heard an account I’d never heard before. White males are losing interest in a university education because the oil patch is paying too much. So to survive universities have to attract non-whites, and to do that it has… Read More ›
PARSING THE EDI INITIATIVES
All the palaver aside, EDI is just the latest rebranding of quota hiring. Quota hiring is justified by one or both of two claims: 1) social justice requires it and/or 2) performance excellence does. Hiring a nigh-illiterate indigenous women as… Read More ›
TALK AS STUPID AS IT IS CHEAP
Just when I thought I’d plumbed the depth of Administration stupidity with my entry entitled “The Dean’s Letter”, Pamela Lindsay, my part time research assistant and full time wife – has just brought to my attention what makes Matt Letts… Read More ›
A CORRECTIVE TO THE ABORTION DEBATE
Abortion is no longer an issue in Canada, and let’s hope, touch wood, it remains that way. This is because Canada, unlike its unfortunate neighbour to the south, is a civilised country. As is most of Europe and the Antipodes…. Read More ›