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Category Archives: Politics
Physician Heal Thyself
In the summer of 2014, an American scholar named Steven Salaita who was a tenured member of the faculty at Virginia Tech was beginning the process of his move to a new position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Politics
6 Comments
Trumped Up
I’m going to assume for the purposes of this essay that Clinton will win the election tomorrow. If Trump wins, a very different kind of political future stretches ahead, both for his supporters and his opponents. So, if Clinton wins, … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
13 Comments
The Soft Spot
Part of the problem in South Africa right now is that public universities all over a neoliberal world are paradoxically the most vulnerable part of an invulnerable system. This was even true in the 1960s, but it’s especially true now. … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Africa, Politics
2 Comments
One of Those Years
1848, 1914-17, 1929, 1968, 1989, in some years, a break or rupture in the sociopolitical landscape of particular places has so much resemblance to events unfolding in other places with near-simultaneity that a perception of a momentous and widespread crisis … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
8 Comments
Experts Say
It’s a small thing, but for me it sums up why I find the mainstream press wearisome, why I find the circle jerk between the conventional wisdom of reporters and the infrastructure of expertise to be another wretched exhibit in … Continue reading
Posted in Oath for Experts, Politics
1 Comment
The New Machine
I know my anxiety about this political season won’t end until November. And really not then, because I don’t want this ever to happen again. And that depends upon a Clinton Administration doing more than just maintaining the status quo. … Continue reading
The Machine of Morbius
The nettle that I do not think we can grasp easily is that Trump is not Trump for some of his devoted voters. Meaning that his actual attributes, character, quality of leadership, integrity, history, matter almost not at all. What … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
10 Comments
Change the Police
I often make an argument that we should be generous towards minor acts of professional misjudgment, particularly those caught on video, that no one deserves to have their professional future changed in an instant for a single miscalculation. However, the … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
10 Comments
Fix on Fail I: Everyday Arguments for Pluralism, Multiculturalism and Diversity
This is the first in a small series of essays about everyday forms of social reason behind commonly defended values or propositions, each of which will argue that those values are now profoundly at risk. Political elites, intellectuals, and civil … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
5 Comments
Welcome to the Skinnerdome
I think a tremendous amount of writing so far this election season about the Presidential race shows primarily that the effect of social media on public discourse is increasingly dire. Here’s the thing: I would characterize the majority of what … Continue reading