Ludwig Wittgenstein, arguably the most insightful philosopher of the 20th Century, made the following seemingly paradoxical (but now considered banal) observation. Pretty much everything makes sense until we try to make sense of it. So we’d have been just fine… Read More ›
colonialism
THE WORLD SINCE 1363
Whenever you’re in the moment – as distinct from what? outside of it? – it’s often difficult – no, make that impossible – to see it for what, if anything, it really means. But a moment takes its meaning from… Read More ›
“YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD. I DON’T THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS”
From the Most-Memorable-One-Liners-in-Cinema file, this one’s from The Princess Bride. And here are just some of my favourite words or phrases that don’t mean what either the speaker or the listener thinks they mean: BLACK LIVES MATTER: No one thinks all… Read More ›
IN PRAISE OF COLONIALISM
There’s a German film called Run Lola Run, which explores the radically different ways things would have gone if some seemingly inconsequential happenstance had been nigh-indiscernibly different. And there’s an American Christmas classic called It’s a Wonderful Life, in which… Read More ›
THE ONTOLOGY OF PEOPLES AND THEIR DECOLONISATION
Once upon a time there were peoples living in North America who were as different from one another as were the peoples living in Europe from one another at the same time. As in Europe, these peoples spoke different languages,… Read More ›
BLACK LIVES MATTER AND THE SJW’S DILEMMA
Here’s something I do know. As with everywhere else on the planet, there was tribal warfare in Africa long before European colonialism. What I don’t know – but I stand to be instructed – is whether that colonialism mitigated that… Read More ›
HOW TO MAINTAIN ONE’S MORAL INNOCENCE NOW THAT SILENCE IS VIOLENCE
We wouldn’t have to go back too many generations to realise that every one of us is the product of rape. That every one of us is the product of incest. That every one of us is both the descendant… Read More ›
CULTURAL APPROPRIATION (March 26, 2017)
Without social justice warriors we wouldn’t have any social justice. But every once in a while these moral crusaders get a little carried away. A case in point – well, at least on the surface – is the current crusade… Read More ›
DECOLONIZING THE CLASSROOM
Earlier this morning, Thursday, November 19, 2020, the faculty here at the University of Lethbridge received a rather puzzling missive. We’re being told that the University would like us to cooperate in “the decolonization of the classroom.” Not having the… Read More ›
THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS
When my kid was in grade seven, he was taught about the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He was not taught that the conquest of England was just another unconscionable act of Norman colonialism. There was no valourizing the victor… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 