When you don’t want people to hear what they’d like to hear, you tell yourself not that they’d be hurt by hearing it – after all, that would be for them to decide! – but rather that there are people… Read More ›
residential schools
WHAT NOT TO SAY WHEN …
All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. Check. All lives matter. Black lives are lives. Therefore black lives matter. Check. But if you say black lives matter, and I respond with all lives matter, I’ll… Read More ›
ON HIDING MY WISDOM UNDER A BUSHEL
Unlike my colleagues in the Philosophy Department here at the University of Lethbridge, who are clearly experts in climatology, epidemiology, the pre-contact history of the indigenous peoples of this continent, the list goes on and on … I know nothing… Read More ›
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION DAY
A couple of years ago, here at the University of Lethbridge, we went from a thirteen week semester to twelve, and so from 32.5 hours of instruction per course to 30. Much of what counts as instruction at the primary… 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 PERSONAL ECONOMICS OF TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
The notions of truth and reconciliation – from post-Apartheid South Africa to post-genocide Rwanda to post-residential schools here in Canada – have always been an oxymoron. The idea is that first we elicit a confession of wrongdoing. Next the victim… Read More ›
THE DEAN’S LETTER
On Monday, May 31, 2021, Matt Letts, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Lethbridge, sent the following missive to all members of the Faculty. Statement on Residential School News – *trigger warning* Dear… 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 ›
RACE RELATIONS IN CANADA
Okay, let’s settle this business once and for all. When Europeans came to this continent, and as their settlements crept west, they discovered the land was already occupied. Seeing this – and had they been as ‘woke’ as some of… Read More ›
HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE
Let me give you a heads up. Whatever you’re most sensitive about, I’m probably going to be insensitive to it. This is regrettable, by which is meant it’s able to be regretted, but apparently not by me. Here I offer just… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 