Try as it might, no constitution can include a mechanism for its own suspension, since if that mechanism were invoked it would have been constitutional to do so. That’s just a matter of logic. By contrast it’s not strictly speaking… Read More ›
Humour
CATCH 22
With the exception of my students, who’ve commented that I’m the only one still teaching philosophy rather than how to be woke, pretty much everyone at the University of Lethbridge, myself included, wants me gone. I don’t need the money,… Read More ›
TWO MINOR COMPLAINTS
The Holocaust happened. The Exodus didn’t. Exodus-denial isn’t antisemitism, so why is Holocaust-denial? It’s all about context, you say. Unlike Exodus-denial, Holocaust-denial is taken as an antisemitic trope. If a word means what it’s taken to mean, then why can’t… 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 ›
WHAT NOT TO SAY WHEN …
All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. Check. All lives matter. Black lives are lives. Therefore black lives matter. Check. But if you say black lives matter, and I respond with all lives matter, I’ll… Read More ›
ANTI-SEMITISM JUST AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE
(In my defence, my son handed me this title and then commanded me to write into it. Hence any liability is entirely his.) Growing up Jewish in western Canada, I regularly felt that I was other, but I can’t ever… Read More ›
WHY I MUST BE A WHITE SUPREMACIST
I think I must be a white supremacist. Not because I think all lives matter, contrary to what the Black Lives Matter movement thinks I ought not to think. Rather it’s because mattering requires a ‘for whom?’, and I’m highly… Read More ›
TRISTAN DA CUNHA
In this brave new world of reversing the onus, you’re a racist just in case someone says you are. After all, how can you prove you’re not a racist? In fact to protest your innocence is to confirm your guilt. … Read More ›
HUMOUR
There’s an important difference between twisted and sick. Dead baby jokes are twisted, but telling them at a SIDS funeral is sick. It might relieve the tension in the room, but I’d hold off unless you really know your crowd…. Read More ›
HELP!
Could someone please tell me what ‘decolonisation’ means? Anyone? ANYONE? The dictionary tells me it’s the process of withdrawing from a former colony, leaving it independent. So if I’m being asked to decolonise my classroom, I’m guessing I – or… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 