But a further question remains. Where are the men—and, today, women—of real merit that our form of government allows to come to the fore?
Shouting someone down for speaking a thought in public effectively ends the critical discussion. There can be no further exploration of why the idea at issue is wrong, or what kernel of truth there may be therein.
Equality of opportunity is not enough, according to Rawls, and a deeper conception of fairness would entail providing everyone with equal prospects of success.
The panic over identity, in short, is being driven by the fact that the human animal has been selected for familial forms of socialization that for many people no longer exist.
Nevertheless, Drayton’s diatribe does reveal something important—not much about me, something about him, but mostly about the vices that fester in certain reaches of our universities, which serve to undermine rational dialogue and public norms of liberal civility.
The evidence that men are more violent and more criminal than women is overwhelming, and yet it doesn’t imply that all men are violent, deserve to be incarcerated, or are undeserving of our sympathy or compassion if they are imprisoned.
The rich kids at Gulliver, those who drove Range Rovers and boasted of extravagant vacations, were not black. But at Amherst, many of my new wealthy classmates were.
Listen onSpotify Nadim Kobeissi, a professor at NYU and director of a cryptography consulting firm, tells Jonathan Kay about the risks posed by Libra, Facebook’s new cryptocurrency. Professor Kobeissi recently wrote about Libra for Quillette. Image: Courtesy of Symbolic Software.
In fact, white privilege condenses the complexities of group outcomes into a simple narrative that does not help anyone.
But while other cryptocurrencies can serve to increase our personal freedom and privacy, Libra, which is scheduled for launch in 2020, likely would have the opposite effect.
A birth away from hospital can be seen as a feminist act of resistance. But it’s not a form of resistance I want to join.
If partisanship is shaping our perceptions of reality, then democratic decision-making becomes incredibly difficult.
When members of other communities are involved in mass violence, we rightfully are cautioned not to reflexively blame the community as a whole, and gaming should get the same treatment.
Just as they are doing with seemingly every obstacle in their way, Hong Kong protesters innovated around the need for a strong leader.
As chilling effects go, “I would speak out, but I don’t want to risk going to jail” is not all that different from “I would speak out, but I don’t want to risk losing my friends and my livelihood.”