A Life of Cultural Appropriation: “The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi”
Fukuzawa Yukichi was born in 1835. When he was a young man, Japan was still a feudal society: static, rigid and almost completely isolated from the outside world, wanting nothing…
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Sowell the Cynic
In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, the eponymous king is a good and accomplished man. He saves the city of Thebes by solving the riddle of the Sphinx, the embodiment of destiny,…
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Academic Curiosity Under Threat
Desire to know why, and how, curiosity; such as is in no living creature but man: so that man is distinguished, not only by his reason, but also by this…
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“What Should School Teach?” by Alka Sehgal Cuthbert and Alex Standish
Without a more philosophically informed understanding of the broader category of education, it is harder to argue for greater professional autonomy in the face of clamorous demands that we should…
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Would Hunter S. Thompson Be Cancelled Today?
It’s a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die.—Hunter S. Thompson, Generation of Swine. The father of gonzo journalism was known for his uncompromising but…
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The Fault in Their Stars
A man can’t know where he is on the earth except in relation to the moon or a star. Astronomy comes first; land maps follow because of it. Just the…
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What Ibram X. Kendi Gets Wrong About Reparations
Prominent scholar and activist Dr. Ibram X. Kendi has claimed, “To oppose reparations is to be racist. To support reparations is to be anti-racist.” But is Kendi right? One way…
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The Microkindnesses of Larry David
Is Larry David a member of the British royal family? When Harry and Meghan sat down for their now fabled chat with the individual who expressed such interest in their…
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Is Liberalism Worth Saving?
Often, a political ideology can be justified on the basis of its principles, despite its many failings in practice. This is how Francis Fukuyama and Patrick Deneen’s interpretations of liberalism…
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Why Can’t the Right Be Cancelled?
On 10 February 2021, Gina Carano—a former MMA fighter best known for her role in the Stars Wars spin-off The Mandalorian—was dealt what looked like a death blow to her…
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The Forgotten History of African Slavery in China
In an essay for the New York Times 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones argues that the United States was “founded as a Slavocracy” and that racist ideology was the country’s “original…
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Why Art Is Not Just a Vehicle for Meaning
People have always used art to understand aspects of the past and present and conceive visions of possible futures that remain unattainable by other means. Despite this, nowadays, outside of…
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The Subject Principle in Critical Social Justice Thought
No current intellectual or social movement in the west enjoys the momentum of Critical Social Justice (CSJ). One reason for this is that people don’t understand CSJ well, and if…
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Not All Men
For Vijit and Gita Imagine if we lived in a world populated by two races of beings: one of them not only markedly physically stronger than the other but more…
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A Fairness Doctrine for the Twenty-First Century
Michael Goldhaber, who popularized the term the attention economy, said of the US Capitol insurrection: “It felt like an expression of a world in which everyone is desperately seeking their…
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We Need a New Model of Diversity
There is no doubt that US society is deeply divided along racial, ethnic and religious lines. While schools, corporations and other institutions continue to embrace much needed diversity programmes, many…
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De Jure and De Facto Censorship: Why We Need to Be Concerned About Both
The last few weeks have seen dustups over the decision by the foundation overseeing Dr. Seuss’s works (i.e. Dr. Seuss Enterprises) to cease publication of six books deemed problematic, as…
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“The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good” by Michael Sandel
You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: You are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you…
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