I’m not sure that academia attracts heresy. Rather I suspect it’s tenure that generates it. In fact since we’re all, by definition, catholic, without the threat of hell – or in our case unemployment – we’d probably all think unclean thoughts. Some heretics become more notorious than others. Noam Chomsky and Jordan Peterson have made … Continue reading SAFE SPACES
HYMIE RUBENSTEIN
From a guy named Hymie Rubenstein, what would we expect? If the ‘Rubenstein’ isn’t a dead giveaway, surely the ‘Hymie’ is the clincher. An accountant, probably, but certainly a nebbish, right? Well, apparently not. As it happens Hymie Rubenstein is a retired professor of cultural anthropology from the University of Manitoba. And – if I’m … Continue reading HYMIE RUBENSTEIN
PUSHBACK
There are no Italian restaurants in Italy. They’re just restaurants. Similarly, until the late Sixties there was no ‘conservative’ radio. There was just radio. The conservative media became ‘conservative’ only when the mainstream turned to the left. As a result, a few years ago the ‘right’ was as radical as the left was back in … Continue reading PUSHBACK
LESS IS MORE
If you want to know whether you’ve been reporting or commenting, count your adjectives and adverbs. The most effective commentary comes across as reporting, because it lets the facts speak for themselves. If they can’t, and so they have to be supplemented to be saying anything, then by whatever it is with which you’re supplementing … Continue reading LESS IS MORE
STATUTORY RAPE AND CHILD SOLDIERS
For most of human history young men were expected to go to war at about the same age that young women were expected to become mothers, probably within about a year of their first period. Were our ancestors just mistaken? And if so, about what? Or is it that twelve-year-olds today aren’t as mature as … Continue reading STATUTORY RAPE AND CHILD SOLDIERS
THE HARMS RACE
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
THE MSSING SUBJECT ARGUMENT
Let me repeat, for the 108th time, that I’m not pro-Life. As I‘ve labored to make clear, I’m anti-Life. I want a world consisting of nothing but inanimate objects. But I have to admit that pro-Lifers have at least one argument going for them, were they savvy enough to deploy it. And that’s the oddity … Continue reading THE MSSING SUBJECT ARGUMENT
QASEM SOLEIMANI AND 2020
I’m beginning to suspect that, given who he’s likely to be up against in November, Trump is going to be re-elected in 2020. But as one of his advisers – and I guess in a sense I am, since I know he’s an avid follower of this blog – just to be on the safe … Continue reading QASEM SOLEIMANI AND 2020
INDIGENIZATION
George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm that “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” He could’ve written as readily that we’re all victims, but some of us are more victims than others. Your ancestors were placed in residential schools. Mine were gassed there. A thousand of your mothers and sisters … Continue reading INDIGENIZATION
TRUTH versus RECONCILIATION
The truth-value of an utterance – for example that I’m going to die on such and such a date – is very often at odds with (what J.L. Austin called) its perlocutionary value – what it does for the speaker and/or listener. As it happens my affairs are in order, so if you happen to … Continue reading TRUTH versus RECONCILIATION
