According to John Stuart Mill, in a liberal democracy all is permitted save what is prohibited. And what can be prohibited must be demonstrably harmful. But what’s meant by harm? It can’t be just a setback of interests. Your opening a coffee shop across the street from mine might set my interests back considerably, and … Continue reading THE HARMS RACE
Why My Colleagues are Idiots
INTER-GENERATIONAL JUSTICE
Dr. Doolittle can talk with all the animals. I can only talk with my dog. Still, I can testify - because she’s assured me of this - that she doesn’t think of me as belonging to a different species. She thinks of me, and of my wife, and of our two cats, as belonging to … Continue reading INTER-GENERATIONAL JUSTICE
GENOCIDE
We’re told that the meaning of a word is its use. Alright then, let’s see how the word is used. By genocide is meant the killing of a people. Well, not quite. Suppose a plague had killed off the Amalekites before the Israelites had got to them. Would that have been a genocide? Clearly not. … Continue reading GENOCIDE
TRAVIS PATRON AND BERNIE FARBER
The application of Travis Patron’s newly minted Canadian National Party for tax-deductibility status, and the opposition to that status from Bernie Farber’s Canadian Anti-Hate Network, is the perfect test-case for just how far the rest of us are prepared to go in our tolerance of intolerance. But that said, that’s not what I find most … Continue reading TRAVIS PATRON AND BERNIE FARBER
THE RHETORICIAN AND THE PHILOSOPHER
A Janus word is one that means one thing but also its opposite. Example: sanction. There are word-pairs that sound like they mean the opposite but don’t, like flammable and inflammable. And then there are word-pairs that sound like they mean the same thing but mean the opposite. Example: disgruntled and gruntled. Who’d have thought … Continue reading THE RHETORICIAN AND THE PHILOSOPHER
HOW TAKING THE GENDER-NEUTRAL PRONOUN SERIOUSLY PROVES POLYTHEISM
"For God so loved the world that they gave their only begotten son that whosoever believeth in them should not perish but have everlasting life." – John 3:16
THE BDS MOVEMENT AND THE SHUNNER’S DILEMMA
Since I’m old enough to remember the Peloponnesian Wars, I can certainly remember that it wasn’t Canadians refusing to buy South African wine that brought an end to Apartheid. It was that Apartheid was no longer sustainable on its own terms. I suspect the same is true today with the hope that the Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) … Continue reading THE BDS MOVEMENT AND THE SHUNNER’S DILEMMA
WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE
Not unlike the Indigenous Studies Department, Women and Gender Studies at the University of Lethbridge makes no bones about its commitment to social justice. But on its website it also promises that its students “will develop critical thinking skills”. By this I take it to mean the skill required to critique patriarchy. Fair enough. But … Continue reading WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE
INDIGENOUS STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has argued that a university can task itself to seeking the truth, or to promoting social justice, but not both. Why? Because the truth is sometimes incompatible with the promotion of social justice. A university that tries to have it both ways is going to fail at both, and as … Continue reading INDIGENOUS STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE
CALLING OUT CODE-CALLING
I’m not sure it’s anything new, so I’ll just say there’s a particular effective but pernicious ploy in popular argumentation that I’m going to call ‘code-calling’. For example, during the 2016 Presidential campaign Americans were told that accusing so-and-so of holding “New York values” is code for Jewish values, and so calling out one’s use … Continue reading CALLING OUT CODE-CALLING
