Bad laws, political tribalism and cancel culture – philosopher Arthur Prior was describing similar things in the 1950s, and his challenge is just as relevant today.
Calling people out for problematic acts — like sexual harassment or racist comments — can lead to them being cancelled.
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Excommunicating a church member, like ‘canceling’ someone on social media, serves to cleanse the body politic of behavior deemed damaging, suggests a scholar of political theology.
Philosopher Peter Singer has helped launch a new, pseudonymous journal for the discussion of unpopular views. Will this be a boon for free inquiry, or a way for researchers to shirk responsibility?
Demonstrators gather during a peaceful protest against police brutality.
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A peace studies expert explains a technique for resolving conflict that she says is more effective and less divisive than public shaming.
In our current context of rapidly improving technology, archives and museums must constantly make tough decisions about what to keep, what to refuse or even remove.
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Media coverage of the recent Dr. Seuss controversy are rooted in both a lack of awareness of the challenges and realities of maintaining collections and a false understanding of history.
If humans only translate what it is familiar to them, something essential is lost. The art of translation requires the permission to transcend borders and make mistakes.
What to publish on incendiary issues is a complex matter, but journalists needn’t believe that not publishing, when there is a good reason, violates and inviolable right.
A collapse in political legitimacy means people think the normal rules don’t apply anymore, making the world a more difficult and even dangerous place for all of us.
A new book by participants in the controversial ‘Grievance Studies’ hoax critiques the rise of an ideology they call Social Justice Theory. But the authors overstate their case.
Online shaming leads to personal attacks and resignations, not structural change.
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Bringing change to universities needs to focus on systems, not people. Although online shaming is effective at removing people from their positions, it doesn’t change systems.
Mukbang writer and director Eliza Scanlen.
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Yes, it is important to censure harmful and offensive speech. But there are ethical costs to widening the scope of our moral outrage to viewpoints that merely differ from our own.
Calling out comments about racial diversity in the arts – like those by Josh Thomas this week – should be just the beginning of a deeper conversation about racial justice and representation.
Baruch Spinoza, one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy.
Unknown artist via Wikimedia Commons