Author: Dan Meegan

Yes, People Are Dying. But It’s Still Okay to Worry About Your Job

Published by Dan Meegan

Amanda Marcotte is a political writer for the left-leaning website Salon, and the author of Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself. On March 24th, in the midst of national and international discussions about what governments should be doing to manage the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, she tweeted as follows: I don’t want people to die. But liberals are not helping by pressuring young people to give up jobs, savings and hope of a brighter future as if it’s a sacrifice they should make without complaint or any expectation of repayment, just because it’s the right thing to do. The conversation should solely be framed as this, “We are asking young people to give up a lot, and to save mostly older people. So how are we going to pay them back? What sacrifice will be demanded to make them whole?” I appreciate how people want to seem moral and righteous. But I want to underline the “contract” part of “social contract.” It is …

Much Ado About Free Speech: A Canadian Professor Responds

Published by Dan Meegan

Quillette contributors have done an admirable job of documenting recent cases in which free expression is no longer truly free at institutions of higher education, including in such articles as “The Free Speech Crisis on Campus Is Worse than People Think,” and “The Hysterical Campus.” But while these articles present the problem as international, they typically rely on examples sourced almost exclusively to the United States. I am a psychology professor at a large, public Ontario school, the University of Guelph, where students can choose from 40 different majors, most of which will allow enrollees to earn a bachelor’s degree without ever once hearing the word “intersectionality.” Yet based on what Canadians see in the media—not just Quillette, but also local sources—they’d be forgiven for thinking that we academics spend most of our time gazing at our navels, memorizing the latest politically correct jargon, and rooting out hate speech. I have been teaching at my university for almost 20 years, yet I cannot recall a single instance in which my students protested the expression of …