In recent years, it has become increasingly popular among Millennial social justice activists to put trigger warnings ahead of material that might be “triggering” to a person who has had a traumatic experience or has other kinds of anxiety issues. There is a wide array of things that are deemed potentially triggering, ranging from rape scenes to war violence to alcohol use and on and on.While I sympathize with those who suffer from anxiety disorders, trigger warnings are the wrong way to solve this problem. Here’s why.
Category: Politics
Concerning the nature of man and the state, and how best the latter can be structured to augment the former.
Why Cantor Lost but Graham and McConnell Won
In the recent US primary elections, the trend has been for establishment republicans to beat Tea Party radicals. Or that was the trend, until the recent defeat of congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) at the hands of relative unknown Dave Brat. A sitting US majority leader has never before lost a primary election. This puts these two narratives into conflict–is the Tea Party on its last legs, or is it roaring back into prominence? Let’s take a look.
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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.
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.
