When a foreign army invades and occupies your country, you need to compare the short-term payoff for collaboration with the probability of being executed by the resistance, or by your countrymen if and when the occupier is driven out. Assurances… Read More ›
Everything You Wanted to Know About What’s Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask
THE FORTHCOMING FALL OF KABUL
When the Americans overthrew the Taliban in 2001 the latter were given the same advice that was given to the Vietcong when the Americans sent their ‘advisors’ into Saigon in the early ’60’s. Stay militarily relevant and wait. Fifteen years… Read More ›
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION DAY
A couple of years ago, here at the University of Lethbridge, we went from a thirteen week semester to twelve, and so from 32.5 hours of instruction per course to 30. Much of what counts as instruction at the primary… Read More ›
IN PRAISE OF COLONIALISM
There’s a German film called Run Lola Run, which explores the radically different ways things would have gone if some seemingly inconsequential happenstance had been nigh-indiscernibly different. And there’s an American Christmas classic called It’s a Wonderful Life, in which… Read More ›
THE PERSONAL ECONOMICS OF TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
The notions of truth and reconciliation – from post-Apartheid South Africa to post-genocide Rwanda to post-residential schools here in Canada – have always been an oxymoron. The idea is that first we elicit a confession of wrongdoing. Next the victim… Read More ›
CULTURAL GENOCIDE
Culture is the language you speak, the gods you worship, the food you eat, the behaviours that make you cringe, the sounds your ears recognise as pleasant and discordant. It’s where you shit, and what you do with your shit… Read More ›
GENOCIDE 101
(Note: This is the first in a series of two entries. The second will be on the meaning, if any, of cultural genocide.) Genocide is not a success term. If it were there wouldn’t be any victims left to complain… Read More ›
BREAKING NEWS IN CANADA
Some species eat their own young. So do some political parties. The Republicans in the U.S., and the Greens in Canada, are both currently engaged in devouring themselves. It’s too early to predict what will be left of the former…. Read More ›
OF DECOLONISATION AND MARRANOS
Here’s are three quick lessons, in political philosophy, in the philosophy of mind, and in the philosophy of language respectively. 1) Political behaviour is behaviour. 2) He who controls thought controls behaviour. And 3) he who controls language controls thought. … Read More ›
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
There’s probably nothing more indicative of the war between the Woke and the Pushbackers than the battle over trans athletes being allowed to compete in women’s sports. I’ve taken the side of the Pushbackers, but suppose it turns out we’re… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 