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everybody gets to use the same tools, again
Purdue has an active pro-life movement on campus, which is not surprising anywhere and certainly not in a heavily-Christian red state like Indiana. Today this was chalked on the landing leading to my...
View Articleso woke I passed right through into being unconscious again
Pause and consider this line in a very short post from Jeet Heer, sharing some videos of an interview with Vladimir Nabokov: “Parts of the show are dated: three white men sitting around a fake living...
View Articledon’t play into the conservative frame!
The recent student protests at Yale University and the University of Missouri have provoked many fundamental questions about our universities and our political values, and rightly so. Students have...
View ArticleDo you want to call out privilege, or do you want to fight the police state?
As you know, I’m part of a nascent but growing movement within the left to question the efficacy of current left political and rhetorical tactics, particularly concerning the privilege frame that now...
View Articleone rule
Over the years I’ve become used to (and associated with) a certain style of pugilistic political argument. That style is fine by me, and I think indicative of a healthy political culture. For as much...
View Articleround and round the trigger warning maypole
I got into another discussion of trigger warnings last night that really crystallized why that discussion is so immensely frustrating for me. First is the now-ubiquitous claim that trigger warnings are...
View Articlestop calling everything a strawman
Sometimes I think the slippery slope fallacy and the strawman fallacy are in a war to be the most misused. Here’s where a claim of a strawman argument is useful. You and I are arguing. I refute a point...
View Articledefining exploitation up
A point and then a meta-point. Got into a bit of a debate with a friend of mine recently. I was saying that the working conditions of a lot of online writers out there are unambiguously exploitative —...
View Articletrue vs good, again
As time goes on, I’m more and more convinced that the fundamental contemporary political failing is the inability or the refusal to sort “this is true” statements from “this is good” statements. So...
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the basic logic of bigotry
This is a topic about which I will reliably lose my temper, so let me try to stay in control. It’s an undeniable fact that there’s a level of casual bigotry against Muslims that is permissible in our...
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the Rich Uncle Pennybags test
For awhile now I’ve counseled leftists to apply the inverse of Gandhi’s famous dictum: think of the most privileged person you have ever seen, and ask if your next act will be of any threat to him. I...
View Articlethat was fast
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I am predisposed to not agree with Matt Novak’s argument that The Anti-Vaccine Movement Should Be Ridiculed Because Shame Works. I’m a big fan of Novak’s...
View Articlehe-man free speech defenders policing my speech
I’ve gotten all kinds of responses to my recent series on political correctness, but one kind stands out for its seeming attempt to exemplify irony. I’m on the record as saying that, unlike some, I...
View Article“take control” = “invoke your privilege”
Some confusing responses to my thoughts on “political correctness.” A remarkable number of people are choosing to frame their response as if I’m saying boohoo, woe is me. But that’s the opposite of...
View Articledon’t be an accelerant
So this is deeply related to the post yesterday, but it reflects on the online version of things. It’s complex and so I have to write at length, so if you don’t feel like reading a couple thousand...
View ArticleI don’t know what to do, you guys
So, to state the obvious: Jon Chait is a jerk who somehow manages to be both condescending and wounded in his piece on political correctness. He gets the basic nature of language policing wrong, and...
View Articlelisten to Adolph Reed
Here’s a really interesting conversation on the Remix with Dr. James Peterson with Dr. Adolph Reed, one of the most prescient, brilliant commentators on left-wing politics, race, and activism. I highly...
View Articleif you write “the terrorists have already won,” then the terrorists have...
Seriously: is there a more worthless cliche in our well-stocked bag of worthless cliches? It’s made a non-ironic comeback with The Interview and Charlie Hebdo, and it’s such a ponderous, self-important...
View Articleyou can only ring the bell so many times
So here’s this Gawker piece about Fred Armisen that accuses him of being a bad boyfriend. (A point he readily concedes, as it happens.) I don’t want to get into some useless, wearying discussion of...
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the dead know no privilege
One of my basic beliefs about politics is that, over a long enough time frame, all political movements become indistinguishable from the parodies their opponents make of them. So in the world of...
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