How To Play Games with Words Part 1: The tactics of the “woke” Critical Social Justice activist
I hope for this to be the first in a series of essays outlining a number of tactics used by the Critical Social Justice (CSJ) movement. This essay contains the…
On Humanity: Past, Present, Future
More than 300 years ago, humanity emerged from the feudal dark ages and entered the Age of Enlightenment. For the first time in human history, logic, reason, and the concept…
What Might a Liberal Diversity Training Programme Look Like?
I am often asked if I know of any liberal diversity training programmes or whether I could develop one. I know of some excellent programmes to address diversity issues that…
Educating for Politics: How Critical Social Justice Politicizes the Classroom and Indoctrinates Students
Setting the stage I think the only universally shared memory we have is the elementary school fire drill. We all remember the principal over the intercom, the loud buzzing of…
The Origins and Evolution of Critical Race Theory in Universities
Whether you’re scrolling through Twitter, listening to your favourite podcast, or sitting on Zoom for a university class, discussions surrounding race can be found everywhere. Oftentimes these are important conversations…
The Dead Hand of Daniel Brown
Hello Jen, My ancestral connection to slavery is through my grandma’s grandfather Daniel Brown (1833 – 1885). Daniel was a founding father for me and my sister and first cousins,…
The Color of Culture
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, with the help of White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo, recently released a few resources to assist conversations on race. More…
Is Academic Freedom in Crisis? A New Report Suggests the Answer is Yes.
A new report—the first of its kind—confirms that in the US, the UK and Canada, there is growing authoritarianism and political discrimination within academia. The report, Academic Freedom in…
Teaching Empowerment
The 2020–21 US academic school year has been marked by many changes. The prominence of the so-called anti-racism movement—not to be confused with simple opposition to racism—is one of the…
The Five Worst Cases of Corporate Hypocrisy
It seems that the tenets of Critical Social Justice (CSJ) theory have now seeped into every well-known organisation. Billboards, TV adverts, and even our food packaging serve to remind us…
The Social Model of Disability: A Good Idea Taken to Dangerous Extremes
Dear Editor, During 17 years of living in various institutions for the disabled, and in the 2 years since I left, certain questions have nagged insistently at me…What changes in…
On What do we Agree? Finding Ethical Consensus in the Midst of Factual Confusion.
On what do we disagree? This is a question which admits many answers. We might offer the safety of vaccines, the cause of COVID-19 or the best way to achieve…
Social Justice Cynicism
There is a type of cynicism that you cannot fight against, the sort of cynicism which makes engagement impossible. Let me give you an example by way of a hypothetical…
Can’t Beat the Real Thing: Why Liberalism is the Key to Authentic Workplace Diversity
When I was a child, I used to like watching my mom bake cookies. One day as I was watching her bake, I asked if I could help. She said…
One Man and Many Obstacles
On April 21, 2018, my black teenage daughter declared: “race is all about culture. Blackness is all about oppression. Nothing else matters.” She was fifteen years old. How could this…
The Four Fallacies of Critical Social Justice in Preventing Cultural Arguments
Critical Social Justice (CSJ) operates to maintain a single explanation for disparity in outcomes and suchlike in our societies. It asserts that the only reason fit for public discussion –…
Ten Ways Woke Ideas Spread and Stick
Ten Ways Woke Ideas Spread and Stick I’ve long been fascinated by the varied explanations of why woke ideas spread. Here are the ten that I find most compelling. There…
The Blob
There is a very old and very awful movie called The Blob. As terrible as it is (and it is really terrible) the premise of that movie provides us with…