The Right says: If drugs are legal, people will shoot up, and society will go to hell. The Left says: If guns are legal, people will shoot-em up, and society will go to hell. Word-play aside, other options are possible: The authoritarians say: People can’t be trusted with either. The (true) liberals say: We can […]
Guns! Drugs! — The difference between Left and Right Read More »
Stanley Fish, postmodern provocateur, gave a talk at Indiana University when I was a graduate student there in the late 1980s. He was then working on what would become There’s No Such Thing As Free Speech, And It’s a Good Thing, Too. Fish’s theme was social construction and oppression: We all are products of our
How Randy Newman Solved Stanley Fish’s Credibility Problem Read More »
“People are scum.” “Mankind is a moral wasteland.” “I’m ashamed to be human.” Whenever cynics express themselves, I’m tempted to retort that philosophy is autobiography and they should put their claims in the first-person: “I am scum.” “I am a moral wasteland.” “I’m ashamed to be me.” A colleague once took me up on that
Why Humans are Born Fit for Freedom [Good Life series] Read More »
An ancient myth tells of a poor young man who found a magical ring. The young man’s name was Gyges. He was a shepherd, responsible for tending his village’s sheep as they grazed in the summer meadows away in the hills. His job was lonely, poorly paid, and most of the time he smelled like
Are We Too Wicked for Freedom? [Good Life series] Read More »
As with sex and money — and most of the important matters in life — many silly things are said about power. Perhaps the granddaddy of those silly things is the oft-quoted phrase, Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is an important truth that Lord Acton’s phrase tries to capture. But taken literally
Um antigo mito fala de um jovem pobre que encontrou um anel mágico. Seu nome era Giges. Ele era um pastor, responsável por apascentar as ovelhas do vilarejo enquanto pastavam nas colinas. Seu trabalho era solitário, mal pago, e na maioria das vezes, ele cheirava a ovelha. Certo dia, em uma caverna, Giges encontrou um
Somos perversos demais para a liberdade? Read More »
Our polarized academic world, combining weak understandings of sexual bio-psychology with politics. I juxtapose this piece from The New York Times, “Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm,” with this report from Britain’s The Telegraph, “‘Paedophilia is natural and normal for males’ How some university academics make the case for paedophiles at summer conferences.”
Trigger Traumatists versus Paedophiles in Academia Read More »
Two related essays worth reading at the Library of Social Science site. Both take up the biologically-collectivist Organic Theory of Society and its recent applications to politics and public policy. Gerald V. O’Brien, Ph.D., “Social Justice Implications of the Organism Metaphor.” Abstract: “The denigration of marginalized groups is frequently supported through the widespread employment of
Two essays on the organic theory of society and its uses Read More »