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.
Category: Politics
Concerning the nature of man and the state, and how best the latter can be structured to augment the former.
Donald Sterling Should Keep the Clippers
Donald Sterling, landlord and owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, holds exceptionally repugnant moral views. In a recorded conversation with one of his girlfriends, Sterling allegedly said:
It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?
You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on [Instagram] and not to bring them to my games.
There’s nine minutes of it, if you’re bored. While at the time of writing, the recording has not yet been authenticated, it’s quite likely it will be, because Donald Sterling has a history of saying racist and sexist things. Many people are disgusted with the guy, as well they should be. Some are however calling for the NBA to force Sterling to sell the Clippers. This is a mistake. Here’s why.
Is Britain a Christian Nation?
In the United States, we’re used to hearing republican politicians claim that America is a “Christian nation”. Sarah Palin certainly said so:
What we’re not used to hearing is a British Prime Minister saying the same of the United Kingdom. Current PM David Cameron has done just that. Is his argument any good? Let’s look at it.
Clemency for Drug Offenders?
US Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that the Obama administration plans to implement new rules that would reduce sentences for thousands of nonviolent drug offenders currently in federal prisons. This new policy, combined with the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, would allow the administration to commute the mandatory minimum sentences many prisoners received under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. The new approach may feature hundreds of presidential pardons. In the meantime, congress has been considering new legislation (the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2014, still pending) that would cut the remaining minimum sentences in half. This is good policy, but it does not go far enough. Here’s why.
Jafar: Agrabah’s Atatürk
Today I’d like to turn to an old theme–the tendency for Disney movies to disparage intellectual villains in favor of physical heroes and apologize for economic and social injustice. Previously, I wrote about how The Lion King, rightly interpreted, is really about Scar’s attempt to liberate the hyenas from a racist lion oligarchy. Today I’d like to do something similar with Aladdin, reconstructing the plot so as to render Jafar the hero.
Benjamin Studebaker 