If I’m going to be anti-woke – by which is meant, presumably, that I’m going to remain asleep – I suppose I should get clear about what Wokeism is. Pluckrose and Lindsay (google them) define it as reified post-modernism. That… Read More ›
Why My Colleagues Are Idiots
THE DEAL
It’s really just a Prisoners’ Dilemma. Your first choice is you get to listen to whomever you want to listen to and I don’t get to listen to whomever I want to listen to. Your second choice, and it’s my second… Read More ›
SIX TAKEAWAYS FROM THE WIDDOWSON AFFAIR
If you’ve read my penultimate entry, you’ll know that last week I invited Frances Widdowson to Lethbridge, as the first post-Covid “Guest of Dishonour” at our Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner series on Saturday, then to give two guest lectures,… Read More ›
THE WIDDOWSON AFFAIR
As many Canadians will know – but I’m not sure the story has hit the international wires – I invited a certain Dr. Frances Widdowson to give a talk at the University of Lethbridge on February 1st, on a topic… Read More ›
THE EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSITY
For most of human history – and in most parts of the world to this day – there were institutions that work like this: We tell people – priests or commissars – what to tell others, who are then sent… Read More ›
LET ME MAKE IT SIMPLE
Freedom of expression has nothing to do with your right to say what’s on your mind. If it did we could simply drive you to an empty field outside of town and pick you up an hour later. In fact… Read More ›
FOUR THINGS EDI PROPONENTS SHOULD NOT SAY
I’ve already blogged about this, but to repeat: Universities in the West are in the process of moving past their best before date. Why? Because 1) the economics of university education has changed, both in terms of a) what information… Read More ›
“PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS, AND LAW” AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE
My hypocrisy abounds. How so? Because I can no more define wokeism than the woke can define racism or indigenisation or decolonisation or any of the myriad indefinables that make up their vocabulary. What I can do, however, is ostend…. Read More ›
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 ›