Obama is Wrong to Consider Military Action in Iraq

The Obama administration is considering taking military action in Iraq against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a radical Sunni group that has taken up residence in the territory of both states. ISIS, also known as ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) recently seized Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Its goal is to seize Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, turning these countries into one united Islamic state. While ISIS’ goals are hostile to US interests in the Middle East (and to the interests of the various peoples they seek to rule over), the United States should take no military action against ISIS. Here’s why.

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Blog News

Apologies to readers for the dearth of posting recently–I am wrapping up the last two papers I have to write for my MA at the University of Chicago (one on inequality and democracy in the United States, the other on Aristotle and the vulgar craftsman). These papers must be completed by June 4, so by that date or before regular posting will resume. I will be spending next year waiting to hear back about PhD applications, so once these papers are finished my schedule will open up considerably and blog volume will increase. Thank you for your patience in the meantime. I appreciate all of you who take time out of your busy schedules to follow my writing.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is Wrong about Philosophy

I love Neil deGrasse Tyson. It’s absolutely wonderful to have scientists as public intellectuals, making science more comprehensible to laypeople and raising its public profile. However, in a recent podcast, Tyson dismissed the intellectual value of philosophy. Given that I do quite a bit of that here, I feel a duty to stand up for myself and for those others who take an interest in political and moral philosophy. I wish to emphasize that I’m a great fan of much of Tyson’s work, and it pains me to have to write a piece like this about something he said, but it has to be done.

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In Defense of Shailene Woodley

Actress Shailene Woodley (of The Descendants, The Spectacular Now, and Divergent fame) has recently taken a bit of flak from many practitioners of identity politics for comments she made to Time magazine about feminism. They accuse her of essentializing the feminist literature, of treating it as monolithic and failing to see the diversity of perspectives it encompasses. Their critique is too demanding and ignores something very pressing in what Woodley is saying that the feminist movement as a whole needs to take note of.

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Thomas Piketty is Not a Marxist

I subscribe to a weekly news magazine called The Week. It’s an excellent magazine highlighting the various things commentators have been saying in the popular press over the past week. In the most recent issue, however, I saw something strange. In the banner, there was a picture of Karl Marx, and the question “Is Marxism Back in Fashion?” This struck me as quite bizarre–I hadn’t seen any mention of Marx or Marxism in the last week. I turned to the relevant article and discovered that the controversy being highlighted was over Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Many commentators, particularly those writing in right-leaning publications, were referring to Piketty and his work as Marxist (for an example, see Kyle Smith’s piece in the New York Post) This apparently is so uncontroversial that The Week felt comfortable guiding people to the story with a Marx reference. I found this extremely troubling, both because Piketty is most certainly not a Marxist and because the practice of calling all those with radical left-wing views “Marxist” is an attempt to straw man those leftists and prevent people from thinking seriously about their views. I’d like to elaborate on both themes today.

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