Conformism
The Canadian Historical Association’s Fake 'Consensus' on Canadian Genocide
Last month, the Canadian Historical Association (CHA) issued a public “Canada Day Statement”—described as having been “unanimously approved” by the group’s governing council—declaring that “existing historical scholarship” makes it “abundantly clear” that Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples amounts to “genocide.” The authors also claimed that there
Rescuing the Radicalized Discourse on Sex and Gender: Part Two of a Three-Part Series
Our choice of words affects the way we think. That’s why we spend so much time fighting over which terms to use, whether it’s “undocumented immigrants” versus “illegal aliens,” “foetuses” versus “unborn babies,” or “militants” versus “terrorists.” In recent years, the question of word choice has figured prominently
As a Gay Child in a Christian Cult, I Was Taught to Hate Myself. Then I Joined the Church of Social Justice—and Nothing Changed
I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland, in a fundamentalist Christian community called The Lamb of God. What began in the mid-1970s as a small group of born-again hippies who played music, prayed together, and proselytized to whoever would listen about Jesus’s unconditional love and mercy, descended
Standing up to the Social-Justice Mobs Within the Jewish Community
A black and Jewish diversity officer, April Powers, recently resigned from her post at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), after a mob descended on her for not mentioning Islamophobia in a statement she’d issued about the rise in anti-Semitism. “I neglected to address
How The Intercept Abandoned Its Truth-Seeking Mission—And Lost Its Best Journalist
Journalist Glenn Greenwald shocked his global readership on Thursday, when he abruptly announced his resignation from the Intercept, the six-year-old site that became famous after publishing documents released by Edward Snowden. The incident that sparked Greenwald’s departure was the Intercept’s refusal to publish in whole an article he’
Denunciation Staged as 'Dialogue': A Review of Claudia Rankine's 'Help'
On March 10th, just days before the lockdown would shut down the theater business in New York City (and most other places), I had the opportunity to see the premier of Claudia Rankine’s new play, Help. Based in part on the acclaimed poet’s 2019 New York Times magazine
Conformity: The Power of Social Influences—A Review
A review of Conformity: The Power of Social Influences by Cass Sunstein, NYU Press, 176 pages (May, 2019) “It’s often a good idea to adopt the practices and beliefs of the people around you. For one thing, the people around you aren’t dead. If you do what they
What's the State of Free Speech on Campus? That’s the Question We Asked Canadian Academics
We are students, academics and medical science researchers at the University of Alberta. We’ve had our eye on the state of academic freedom in Canada for years, in large part due to our experiences serving on various academic-governance bodies. In mid-2017, we began to wonder if there was any
