Does the Internet Still Give Us a Voice?
Photo by Markus Spiske From its birth in the mid-1990s, the web has held out the allure of individual empowerment. It spares us from having to slog to the bank to…
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The Culture of Cultural Studies: An Academic Bubble?
In his book Coming Apart, Charles Murray describes how the American upper and lower classes are increasingly living in separate cultures.
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The Head Start Myth: What We Get Wrong About the Racial Wealth Gap
Photo by Matt Lee In his book, The Souls of Black Folk, shortly after describing the abhorrent treatment of black laborers by white landowners in the late 1800s, W. E. B.…
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Writing Wrongs: Why Academics Write So Badly and How That Hurts Them
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio Exploratory Hypotheses on Discursive Non-Transparency in Research and Critical Praxis Situated Within Hegemonic, Institutional, Socio-Ideational Processes, With Implications. Academic writing is notorious for being turgid, tedious and…
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The Purity of the Shitstorm
Photo by Kat Jayne Social media is messy: a raucous collision of strident opinions, banal brunch pictures, trolls, nudes, reactionaries, revolutionaries, memes and boomers credulously reposting chain letters. This mess is…
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Objectivity and the Construction of Knowledge
Photo by Simon Migaj Objectivity is generally understood as a way to observe the world that is not influenced by the situation of the observer, such that the ideas produced reflect…
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“Shoah” and the Importance of the Palimpsest
Starting with the removal of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, a new focus on cleaning up our past has emerged in response to the death of George Floyd,…
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Religious Fundamentalism, Radical Feminism and the Undermining of Secular Values
In 2019, the religious right in America lobbied state governments to have their theological assumptions about abortion embedded in law. Several states complied, outlawing abortion under most circumstances. Likewise, in…
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Criticizing Postmodern Conservatism: A Response
My books (available here and here) on postmodern conservatism have enjoyed some interest: including, to my surprise, critical interest from conservatives and moderates. The most sustained effort was a recent…
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Choosing the Final Freedom: Suicide in the Past and Present
Photo by Mohamed Nohassi During the Second World War, my mother’s sister was a liaison officer in the resistance movement. She performed very important clandestine work. As she said herself, she…
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In the Post-Crisis World, We Need Smaller Government
We are living through an unprecedented crisis—epidemiological, economic and social. Ongoing events, according to the emerging consensus, seem to have invalidated the concept of limited government. Media headlines proclaim the…
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Hong Kong’s Future
Photo by Robert Bye If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.—George Orwell, 1984 Last November, Hongkongers got a glimpse of their future.…
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White Fragility Training and Freedom of Belief
Image by Unitarian Universalist Association I don’t believe what you believe, and I don’t have to. I defend your right to hold, express and live by your own belief system,…
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Those Who Want to Abolish the Police Are Playing with Fire
Image by Ryan Kosmides Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.—The New York Times My hometown has made global headlines recently, after the publication of the video of what can—at…
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Do Economic Racial Disparities In Canada Signify Systemic Racism?
As racial tensions rise in Canada over the police-involved death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet in Toronto and Chantel Moore and Rodney Levi in New Brunswick, protests are erupting nationwide over the…
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Notes on Jihadism: “The ISIS Reader,” edited by Haroro J. Ingram, Craig Whiteside and Charlie Winter
Islamic State (IS) has been territorially destroyed and its first leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed while cowering in a suicide vest the detonation of which killed two young children alongside…
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Police Violence and Race: Why the Data Matter and Why they Don’t
Facts don’t care about your feelings. This phrase has become the smug rallying cry of those who wave charts and graphs at people in the face of a triggered emotional…
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An Apology to JK Rowling
JK Rowling recently published an eminently reasonable, heartfelt treatise, outlining why it is important to preserve the category of woman. There’s only one thing wrong with it: it assumes a…
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