One of the traditional, fundamental political divides between the left and the right has been the question of rights and ability, the question of positive rights. Conservatives have tended to endorse only negative rights, while liberals have endorsed a more expansive vision of positive rights. Healthcare is a prime example. Conservatives have long reacted to […]

Michelle Goldberg writes about the #CancelColbert fiasco and, naturally, uses it as an excuse to go after radicals, and does so, naturally, at The Nation, America’s preeminent source of bloodless, fretting progressivism. She blames the radical left for the rise of censoriousness and the focus on affective politics in the broadly defined left. It’s a classic liberal […]

I don’t want to bore you by adding too much to the #CancelColbert pile. I just want to ask this question: do intentions matter, when it comes to political speech? I ask because it seems like the current conventional wisdom on the question is schizophrenic. Many people have been arguing that intentions don’t matter, that […]

Some emailers to the Dish think that Ta-Nehisi Coates is too negative about all this race stuff. And I mean, really! What reason might we have to be pessimistic about race in America? I guess some people just have a bad attitude.

It’s a question I’ve played around with before. Generally, the response is something like “of course not, stop slandering us,” or whatever. But more and more often, I find that the answer from lefties I know in academia or online writing are answering “yes.” And that is, frankly, terrifying and a total betrayal of the […]

My various critics, enemies, and complaintents, please, use this space to make yourself heard. Don’t start on Twitter, it’s unseemly; if you aren’t willing to confront someone with your problems, you aren’t actually interested in solving them. Frankly I can’t keep track, at this point. So get in line or shut up. It’s pathetic.

Today, Hamilton Nolan argued that Twitter is public. That is true. I mean this in the old fashioned sense, that is, it accurately reflects reality. I know because I have a web browser open right now and it enables me to access public Twitter feeds. Predictably, some people are mad at Nolan, calling him condescending […]

Like many people, I was both convinced and discouraged by this recent piece by Adolph Reed. Reed is one of the most eloquent and useful commentators we have today on the left, and a credible and intelligent critic of the kind of obsessive word policing that many now mistake for left-wing politics. Similarly, I was […]

You are aware of the rules. You want people to think you’re smart, but you never want to be seen as a self-consciously intellectual. You benefited from great teachers your whole life but you represent yourself as self-taught. You loved college but you now argue that college isn’t worth it. You might have a graduate […]

People sometimes think I like fighting. I hate it. I hate every minute of it. It suits me to argue, but that doesn’t mean I like it. I probably hate it more than anybody else who writes a lot. Although I often think and say that the way we are doing all of this is […]