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
Auschwitz
ISRAEL’S NEW NATION STATE LAW
Like the proverbial boiling of the frog, it always starts with an imperceptible change in temperature. And every change thereafter is just as imperceptible. If you worry it’s the thin edge of some mephistophilian wedge, you’re an alarmist. You’re awfulizing. What we’re doing bears no relation to what you’re fretting about. Nothing in the Nuremberg … Continue reading ISRAEL’S NEW NATION STATE LAW
WHAT IS HOLOCAUST DENIAL?
“I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy.” In case you’re not old enough to remember, it’s an Eric Clapton song from 1974. “Yes we killed millions of Jews during the war, but not only Jews.” “Yes we killed millions of Jews, but it was spontaneous, not systematic.” “Yes we gassed them, … Continue reading WHAT IS HOLOCAUST DENIAL?
HOLOCAUST DENIAL AND ANTI-SEMITISM
Down the hall and around two corners, I have a colleague named Tony Hall. I say ‘colleague’, but only in the sense that we’re both tenured professors at the same university. I teach in the Philosophy Department; he’s a one-man show in a program he calls Globilization Studies. Tony’s an affable enough fellow, but he’s … Continue reading HOLOCAUST DENIAL AND ANTI-SEMITISM
