Karl Marx: Man of Yesterday or of Tomorrow?
I was born a year before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, which signified the end of the Cold War and our entry into the end of history. Capitalism was…
Politics
362 posts
Bridging Our Political Divide: Uncivil Agreement by Lilliana Mason. Book Review.
Over the last few years, it has become increasingly difficult to talk politics with people we disagree with. These conversations can swiftly become hostile beyond what would reasonably be expected…
Hindus Will Have Their Martin Niemöller Moment
On the balmy Saturday night of June 30th, 1934, Ernst Roehm and his lieutenants of the notorious Nazi SA Sturmabteilung, better known as the brown shirts, were sleeping soundly at…
Vox’s Double Standard For Hate
What rules govern the social acceptability of interactions between people that invoke immutable (race, gender etc.) or quasi-immutable (religion, class etc.) characteristics? How do these rules relate to serious expressions…
Don’t Let Environmentalism Turn into Anti-Capitalism (or Worse)
It’s evident that we have a problem with climate change and pollution. The world is heating up, we’re losing species, and plastics plague our oceans. These expansive problems are not…
Why I’m Leaving My Race. And Why You Should Leave Yours.
One of the more controversial pieces I’ve written critiques Ancestry DNA mania for legitimizing and exacerbating tribal thinking at a point in history when people already see reason enough to…
How the China-US Trade War Threatens Our Welfare
When it was already thought that the world had overcome the problems and consequences of the Cold War between Russia and the United States, a new confrontation arose which, although…
Identity Rules, Group Rights and the Promise of Liberalism
In nineteenth-century Japan, the Shogunate came under pressure from Western powers. One point of tension was religious freedom. Christianity had been illegal in Japan for centuries. But, with the opening…
A Stout Heart: Thomas Paine and His Legacy
Tom Paine is a paradoxical figure. He was one of the great men whose fierce scribblings made an indelible mark on the course of several major events: most notably, the…
Despite the Heartbeat Bills, America Is Becoming Less Religious
Europeans who keep a moderately close eye on American politics and culture may assume they are observing a strongly religious nation. Certainly, polls proclaiming the unsuitability of an atheist to…
There’s Little Reason to Worry About the SAT’s New Adversity Score
Last week, the College Board, the company in charge of developing and administering one of the United States’ standard college aptitude tests, known as the SAT, announced that, in addition…
A More Open Digital Democracy Could Help Overcome the Crisis of Representation
Many on both the right and the left are frustrated with the representative democracy that delegates pivotal decision-making to professional politicians. Given the technological transformation of most fields of human…
Disaster for Democracy: How The Modi Wave Has Flooded India With Fascism
“In the west, we have labels,” commented journalist François Gautier on WION TV, during a panel about the results of India’s 2019 general election. “Right, left. Far-right, far-left. We keep…
The Myth of American National Unity
Americans want unity, but achieving it requires acknowledging that we’ve never truly had it. In these politically polarized times, many Americans, regardless of their political proclivities, are in anguish over our…
The Anatomies of Two Academic Scandals
Recently, much attention has been drawn to several methodologically vacant papers in molecular and cellular biochemistry. They were all written by the same author, Dr. Yan Xin, and argue for…
Personal Narrative at the Expense of Fact: Ariel Saramandi’s Essay on the Alt Right
An earnest and moving essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books about the alt right in Mauritius is sadly plagued by lazy factual errors that undermine its intellectual integrity,…
Is Philosophy Conservative or Progressive?
In their book What is Philosophy?, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari argue that it is advisable to wait until the end of your career to ruminate on the nature of…
A Defence of Social Justice
Argue as if you are right and listen as if you are wrong.—Karl Weick It’s easy to feel agitated by the brand of Social Justice currently trending on the left,…
