Sarah Braasch, bless her cotton socks, is the self-styled social justice warrior who recently got herself driven out of a doctoral program at Yale by her pitchfork-wielding fellow students, and brutally pummeled in social media, for having called the cops… Read More ›
Social and Political Philosophy
THE MONUMENTAL CRISIS
The recent spate of monument toppling in America – which has just recently made its way up into Canada – has rendered a long-standing question in social and political philosophy just a tad more urgent. What are we to do… Read More ›
OF CRIMES BY ASSOCIATION WITH CRIMES
Definitive of the Millian liberalism to which most of us purport to subscribe is the view that a) all is permitted save what is prohibited, and that b) a necessary, albeit insufficient, condition of some behavior being justifiably prohibited is… Read More ›
FAKE NEWS
What Donald Trump means by fake news is not the reporting of what’s materially false. It’s the reporting as true what only could be true. It could be true – because it would be perfectly understandable if it were –… Read More ›
DON QUIXOTE’S BLESSING
Why is it that some truths have to be learned over and over and over again? I suppose it’s because they’re just too hard to believe. I learned about fifteen years ago that many of the people I work with… Read More ›
THE HAIDT HYPOTHESIS
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has argued, quite convincingly, that a university can dedicate itself to the search for truth, or to the promotion of social justice, but not both. Truth and justice are seldom about the same thing. But when… Read More ›
THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW
We all have things we’re better off not knowing. I don’t want to know how my meat gets from field to supermarket. Others don’t want to know just how fair Fair Trade coffee really isn’t. And I’m betting you don’t… Read More ›
TRUMP, VOLTAIRE, AND EDMUND BURKE
In real estate it all comes down to location, location, location. In comedy it’s all about timing. Put the two together and that’s all that can be said about one’s own take on the world. From the here and now,… Read More ›
AN ALIEN PERSPECTIVE
Three score and eight years ago I landed on this planet, but I think it might have been from another one. I say this because I understand so little of why humans think as they do, and they seem to… Read More ›
THINGS THAT DON’T BEAR THINKING ABOUT
There are certain thought experiments that ought not to be performed. Here’s one: Does the visceral reaction we all have about the Shoah – and by ‘all’ I mean we Jews and you Gentiles alike – have a best-before date?… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 