Purdue has an active pro-life movement on campus, which is not surprising anywhere and certainly not in a heavily-Christian red state like Indiana. Today this was chalked on the landing leading to my building, with a lot more where that came from outside and flyers making the same point inside. Though this chalking is a […]

Pause and consider this line in a very short post from Jeet Heer, sharing some videos of an interview with Vladimir Nabokov: “Parts of the show are dated: three white men sitting around a fake living room, smoking away while talking about books.” Honestly: what on earth does the reference to three white men mean, […]

The recent student protests at Yale University and the University of Missouri have provoked many fundamental questions about our universities and our political values, and rightly so. Students have demanded formal recognition and reform from university administrators, arguing that our campuses are still filled with racial inequality and discrimination. A powerful backlash has brewed, with […]

As you know, I’m part of a nascent but growing movement within the left to question the efficacy of current left political and rhetorical tactics, particularly concerning the privilege frame that now frequently seems to be the only discourse we take part in. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe privilege is real; it certainly is, […]

Over the years I’ve become used to (and associated with) a certain style of pugilistic political argument. That style is fine by me, and I think indicative of a healthy political culture. For as much as people complain about hyperpartisanship and “the state of the discourse today,” there’s no halcyon past where everyone was civil […]

Sometimes I think the slippery slope fallacy and the strawman fallacy are in a war to be the most misused. Here’s where a claim of a strawman argument is useful. You and I are arguing. I refute a point you haven’t made and don’t hold. I treat that as evidence that you’re wrong. That’s a […]

A point and then a meta-point. Got into a bit of a debate with a friend of mine recently. I was saying that the working conditions of a lot of online writers out there are unambiguously exploitative — many of them work long hours for low pay and no benefits. My friend launched into the […]

As time goes on, I’m more and more convinced that the fundamental contemporary political failing is the inability or the refusal to sort “this is true” statements from “this is good” statements. So check out this piece in Gawker by Donovan X. Ramsey, titled “White America’s Silence on Police Brutality Is Consent.” It makes a moral […]

This is a topic about which I will reliably lose my temper, so let me try to stay in control. It’s an undeniable fact that there’s a level of casual bigotry against Muslims that is permissible in our media that would not be permissible against any other group. That’s why The Atlantic can yet again publish […]