King Laius died at the Cleft Way, where he got in the way of an emigrant to Thebes who happened also to be his son. The prophecy was that Oedipus would be the death of Laius, and it was in the name of avoiding this fate that father and son worked together to seal it. Continue Reading …
Letter to the Editor: Identity Politics and Effective Action
A listener takes on our politics and Rorty episodes.
Letter to the Editor: ‘I Don’t Think God Was Dead, Maybe He Was Just Hiding’
A letter from a listener.
PEL Live Show/Election Special at Brown University on October 27: de Tocqueville and the Problem with Democracy
Grab your hats: PEL will be doing a live recording at Brown University on October 27, 2016.
STOICON 2016 – October 15 in Manhattan
Wes Alwan will be at STOICON 2016, an annual meeting of people interested in exploring Stoicism as a philosophy of life. You should come too.
The Case for Reparation (Singular): Why Bernie Sanders Is Right
Socioeconomic policies, not symbolic gestures, are the proper means for combating racism and improving the lives of African Americans.
On Speedballing the Trump-Carson Cocktail
Two diametrically opposed factions in the Republican Id: Sleepy McSleepums (a.k.a. Ben Carson), who is like a shot of morphine straight into the cerebellum. And Donald Trump, who needs no alias because he is the most stimulating form of political snuff available without a prescription.
The Incoherence of Michael Sandel’s Critique of Liberalism
Michael Sandel is one of America’s best-known political philosophers, and helped establish his reputation with a widely respected and widely taught book, “Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.” That’s surprising, given that its central argument is based on some very obvious errors in reasoning.
Listen or Watch: Episode 116 Aftershow on Freud and Dreams
Listen to the Aftershow for Episode 116 on Freud and dreams, with Danny Lobell and Wes Alwan.
The ‘Deus’ in ‘Ex Machina’
What does the film Ex Machina have to do the deus ex machina as plot device?
The Eternal Relativism of the Freshman Mind
Is K-12 public schooling that leads to the moral relativism of college students?
How Not to Be a Public Intellectual: Amartya Sen’s Terrible Piece in the New Republic
A piece by the Nobel Prize-winning economist (and aspiring philosopher) is a strangely awful attempt by an intellectual to communicate with the general public.
Please Stop Contributing to the Publish-or-Perish Landfill
<br /> Bernard Williams was the rare academic who was also a great writer. In his review of Williams’ Essays and Reviews: 1959-2002, Paul Sagar lets academia have it: We can now see that Williams was not lazy: he spent an immense amount of time reading and thinking, and knew much beyond his own academic Continue Reading …
Why Identity Politics is Illiberal (Belly Dancing, Ctd)
In my post on the identity politics of belly dancing, in which I argued that Randa Jarrar’s recent tirade against white belly dancers must imply the moral inferiority of white women, I bypassed – because I thought it particularly weak – the notion that white belly dancing unwittingly perpetuates racist stereotypes about Arabs, even if Continue Reading …
On the Identity Politics of Belly Dancing
Novelist Randa Jarrar has been mocked – and accused of racism – for telling the world that she “can’t stand” white belly dancers. As Eugene Volokh notes, if we were to universalize Jarrar’s objections to “cultural appropriation,” then we might object to East Asian cellists or Japanese productions of Shakespeare, rather than treating the arts Continue Reading …
On Woody Allen and the Presumption of Innocence
Dear Reader: You do not know whether Woody Allen molested Dylan Farrow. You do not know this, because the only evidence you have are her accusations, his denials, and heaps of evidence that call Dylan Farrow’s account into question. Further, you are aware of or ought to be made aware of the many cases of Continue Reading …
The Priority of Justice-as-Fairness
We need rules for living together, we cantankerous human beings: this is one premise governing John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, and one that governs social contract theory in general. As chaos is the point of departure for creation myths, so conflict has been for political theory. We need rules to establish peace and order Continue Reading …
In Which Ta-Nehisi Coates Deploys a New Epithet
In his latest response to my criticisms, Ta-Nehisi Coates oddly compares Alec Baldwin to Strom Thurmond in a way that inadvertently makes my case for me. Thurmond adamantly and openly opposed desegregation and civil rights, even as the political winds were shifting the other way, while Baldwin adamantly and openly supported gay rights, long before Continue Reading …
What the Word “Bigot” Actually Means (and Why it is Important)
Update: Coates responds. I rebut. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Andrew Sullivan have both responded to my criticisms of their claim that Alec Baldwin is a “bigot” for, among other offenses, calling a photographer a “cocksucking fag.” In doing so, they resort to two tried-and-true tactics available to someone on the losing side of an argument: the first Continue Reading …
No, Alec Baldwin is Not a Bigot
Update: Coates responds here, and Sullivan here. My follow-up here. Alec Baldwin is a talented actor who also happens to be extremely intelligent, verbally dexterous, and politically active on the left. And he has a history of getting in trouble for very public (or publicized) displays of anger, once leaving a rant on his 11-year-old daughter’s Continue Reading …
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