Category: Leftism and Political Correctness
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Michael Walzer, “Islamism and the Left”
Very interesting. I am tempted to 'fisk' the whole of it. We'll see how far I get. In the three and a half decades since the Iranian revolution, I have been watching my friends and neighbors (and distant neighbors) on the left struggling to understand—or avoid understanding—the revival of religion in what is now called…
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The Wages of Political Correctness: A Climate of Fear
This from a graduate student whose paper I posted: Shortly after you posted my paper, I got an email from a friend who also reads your blog. My friend wondered if this was, all things considered, bad for my chances on the job market. He thinks in this age of Google searches, having my name…
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Residual Political Correctness Among Conservatives
Over at NRO, I found this in an otherwise very good column by Charles C. W. Cooke: I daresay that if I had been in any of the situations that DeBoer describes, I would have walked happily out of the class. Why? Well, because there is simply nothing to be gained from arguing with people…
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The Left’s Central Delusion
Thomas Sowell points to central planning. I would add that the 'progressive' conviction that people are basically good along with the concomitant conviction that there is no such thing as radical evil is also deeply delusional, and also dangerously delusional. Sowell also has wise things to say about 'under-representation' and 'over-representation.' Do libertarians have a…
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‘Religious Profiling’
I heard Nicholas Kristof use the phrase the other night. But is there such a thing as religious profiling? I have argued that there is no such thing as racial profiling. The gist of my argument is that while race can be an element in a profile, it cannot itself be a profile. A profile…
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Report from London
London Karl is a young Irishman living in London. I had heard that Birmingham is a 'no go' zone, so I asked London Ed about it. Ed told me that it is 80% 'no go' but that nobody would want to go there anyway: it is rainy and like Detroit. When I mentioned this to…
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Gun Control and Liberal-Left Irrationality
The quality of 'elite' publications such as The New Yorker leaves a lot to be desired these days. Adam Gopnik's recent outburst on Newtown is one more example of a downward trend: it is so breathtakingly bad that I am tempted to snark: "I can't breathe!" Could Gopnik really be as willfully stupid as the…
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A ‘Progressive’ Paradox
Leftists like to call themselves 'progressives.' We can't begrudge them their self-appellation any more than we can begrudge the Randians their calling themselves 'objectivists.' Every person and every movement has the right to portray himself or itself favorably and self-servingly. "We are objective in our approach, unlike you mystics." But if you are progressive, why…
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Michael Valle on Marxism-Leninism
Our friend Mike provides us with an accurate overview of this pernicious Weltanshauung and rightly points out that it is by no means dead but (as I would put it) enjoys a healthy afterlife in those leftist seminaries called universities, but not only there: I am convinced that ML [Marxism-Leninism] is alive and well in…
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Brian Leiter’s Christmas Present to Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins
He's baaack, bearing 'gifts.' Professor Christian Munthe has the story: Remember The September Statement from earlier this year, signed by 648 academic philosophers in North America and elsewhere against Chicago philosopher and law professor Brian Leiter's unacceptable treatment of his UBC colleague Carrie Ichikawa-Jenkins, ending in Leiter's statement of resignation from the institutional ranking operation…
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Conservative Marquette Poly Sci Prof Suspended for Blogging
Via John Pepple, I just learned that John McAdams, a tenured associate professor of political science at Marquette University, has been suspended with pay and barred from campus for criticizing a graduate student philosophy teacher who shut down a classroom conversation on gay marriage. As McAdams puts it at his weblog Marquette Warrior: It created…
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The Implicit Logic of the Draft Warren Movement
Daniel Henninger: The implicit logic of the Draft Warren movement is that after eight years of the Obama presidency, the American people want to move . . . further left. Well said, my man. And this too: Amid the recent, violent anti-police protests (whose political consequences will be real but unmeasurable), Smith College President Kathleen…
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Do Black Lives Matter?
Of course they do. All lives matter. Black lives, white lives, yellow lives, red lives, even redneck lives. And let's not forget the lives of black cops. They too matter. Did someone well-placed proclaim that black lives don't matter? Who? When? Where can I find him? All lives matter. It follows that black lives matter,…
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National Public Radio and the Tit of the State
"If the product is so superior, why does it have to live on the tit of the State?" (Charles Krauthammer) One answer is that the booboisie of these United States is too backward and benighted to appreciate the high level of NPR programming. The rubes of fly-over country are too much enamoured of wrestling, tractor…
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Is There Such a Thing as Racial Profiling?
One of the tactics of leftists is to manipulate and misuse language for their own purposes. Thus they make up words and phrases and hijack existing ones. 'Islamophobe' is an example of the former, 'disenfranchise' an example of the latter. 'Racial profiling' is a second example of the former. It is a meaningless phrase apart…