Cf. the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, the idea driving the current culture wars is that language controls thought, and thought controls behaviour. So he who controls the words we speak controls the world. And, of course, he who controls the world controls… Read More ›
censorship
DOGWHISTLING
If I ask whether the blind date you’re setting me up with is good looking, and you answer that she has a wonderful personality, you’re not just saying something about her personality. Likewise, then, no one denies that all lives… Read More ›
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… Read More ›
DOMESTIC TERRORISM
From the beaches of Normandy to the German surrender ten months later, my father’s job was to align the turrets of hundreds of artillery pieces for the saturation shelling of the stretch about a kilometer to about three kilometers still… Read More ›
CHALLENGE versus RIDICULE
Much as I’d sometimes like to be, I’m not a knee-jerk civil libertarian. I understand that the maintenance – and before that the promotion – of a civil society sometimes requires limits to freedom of movement, of association, of expression,… Read More ›
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND THE BROMIDE
The recent spat – actually it’s turning into a spate of spats – between Donald Trump and the mainstream media, has resurrected a query I’ve had for decades. What exactly justifies freedom of the press? The standard bromide, recall, is… Read More ›
