What follows might appear to be me doubling down on my pasquinading the Dean of Arts and Science at the University of Lethbridge. But it’s not. It’s just a standard exercise in the Philosophy of Language. To wit: After his… Read More ›
hate speech
JUST WALK AWAY
In Canada, the US and the Antipodes, English is the name of the language spoken by us Western settler colonialists. I accept that. So those opposed to Western settler colonialism should have no trouble accepting that the language they’re speaking… Read More ›
YOU CAN’T TRUST YOUR FEELINGS
Apparently I harbour a whole lot of hate I didn’t know about. I’d have thought hatred is a sufficiently powerful emotion that I’d feel it. But the fact that I don’t feel it doesn’t mean it’s not there. For example,… Read More ›
HOW TO SURRENDER IN THE LANGUAGE WAR
What do Edward Sapir, Benjamin Lee Whorf, George Orwell, and post-modern feminists have in common? They all triangulate on the fact that we think in words. And so if you can control what can be said, you can control what… 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 ›
THE UCP GOVERNMENT’S FREE EXPRESSION PROPOSAL
It’s rare that I find myself expressing unqualified support for a piece of legislation that the government, or so I hope, is about to enact.. But the UCP’s proposal for An Act to Protect Free Expression at Alberta’s Public Colleges… Read More ›
OF CRIMES BY ASSOCIATION WITH CRIMES
Definitive of the Millian liberalism to which most of us purport to subscribe is the view that a) all is permitted save what is prohibited, and that b) a necessary, albeit insufficient, condition of some behavior being justifiably prohibited is… 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 ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 