Public Health’s Dangerous White Lies
When the Covid pandemic first emerged in the winter of 2020, I was shocked by the level of scepticism and outright denial on my social media feeds. One of the…
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Politics
775 posts
The Pitfalls of Positive Discrimination
The notion that institutions should treat members of underrepresented identity groups more favourably or hold them to lower standards is inconsistent with the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination. It…
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Nationalism and the Left
The left has a problem with nationalism. Many on the right, and not a few on the left, at least in the US, believe that leftists are indifferent or hostile…
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Vigilance Fatigue: Why Holding Government to Account Is Becoming Increasingly Exhausting
Many people who might once have been activists now engage in political life only passively, by watching videos and reading news and commentary. Moreover, so much political commentary is produced…
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Is Liberalism Genocidal, Racist and Elitist?: A Reply to Domenico Losurdo’s Counter-History
Liberalism can refer to many things: a philosophy, a disposition, an educational style—even a brand. But it is primarily thought of as a political doctrine originating in the seventeenth century,…
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William Wanted a Doll: Not All Gender-Nonconforming Kids Are Trans
In an animated sequence of the 1974 TV special Free to Be You and Me, sung by Marlo Thomas as William and Alan Alda as his grandmother, the enlightened granny…
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China’s Uyghur Prison-State
Genocide is a crime that has recurred throughout history, but that—one would hope—enlightened humanity would have put far behind it by now. But of course this is not the case.…
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Confronting the Antisemitism on the Left
Traditionally, in the western world, it has been the reactionary, racist right, with its espousal of blood and soil politics, that has wielded the deadly weapons of antisemitism and Judeophobia,…
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In Defence of Immigrants: A Reply to Lionel Shriver
In 2009, Lionel Shriver, the American author of the award-winning novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, and columnist at the Spectator, shared a deeply felt wish. As an immigrant…
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“Can We Cope with the Complexity of Reality?” by Rolf Jucker. Review.
The title of Rolf Jucker’s newest book poses a question worth asking: we face climate change, population increases, religious and political extremism, a faltering faith in democratic institutions, and an…
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A Multicultural Psychologist’s Take on Free Speech
What is important in life? I think freedom of thought and expression must be among the top contenders. I’d like to share with you how two things contributed to this…
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On Islamic Fascism: Reflections on 9/11 Twenty Years On
Where were you on 9/11? Few events are accorded such status in public memory: there is an expectation that, if you are old enough, you will remember to the second…
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How We Chose Violence
The term violence has achieved an amusing new cultural cachet in the age of Twitter. “He woke up and chose violence” prepares us to hear a funny insult, see a…
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Patriotism: An Emotion to be Encouraged or Condemned?
I define patriotism as a sense of civic loyalty and pride, grounded in shared history, culture and interests. Nationalism has some of these qualities, but adds a sense of superiority…
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Afghanistan and the Failure of Liberal Interventionism
If the Taliban are allowed to declare victory in Afghanistan, it means what? It means they beat the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United States and the United Nations…
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Covid-19: The Serpent in a Globalized Paradise
It was once fashionable to speak of globalisation as an inexorable force. Given the promise of free trade, an unlimited labour market and, of course, McDonald’s hamburgers, it was the…
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Expertise, Trust and Partisanship
Large swaths of the American public have lost faith in experts. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted this fact: despite the expert consensus that vaccinations against Covid-19 are safe and effective,…
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Social Control and Oppression in Cuba and Venezuela
In 1999, when I was 14 years old, I visited Cuba for two weeks with my mother. In my country, Venezuela, Hugo Chavez had just been elected president for the…
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