Category: Politics
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Foucault famously proposed that biopolitics – the power to foster life, or allow it to die – tended to produce its own outside in the form of state racism: not only might life be allowed to die, but there might be those who must die, literally or metaphorically, so an inside “we” could live. That…
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Leiter's post-mortem is worth reading, as is the analysis he links to by Ian Kerr. If Trump does what he ran on (and what in his speech last night he said he wants to do: build infrastructure. And really, he's right that our infrastructure is a national embarrassment), it's going to be very interesting to…
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This piece is in response to the discussion over at Daily Nous here. You should read it first; I’m posting here partly because what I’ve got to say is longer than would reasonably fit into a comment, and partly because I want to think a bit about how difficult the question of whether to launch…
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For those who haven’t been following the news, there was a police shooting in Charlotte the night before last. The facts of the case are still being investigated: the police claim that the black man who was shot had a gun; his family says he had a book. I’m not sure the distinction matters, as…
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I am not the first to say this (I believe Habermas critiqued opinion polls in Theory of Communicative Action, though I bet he didn’t use the Foucauldian language I’m about to), but I live in what is now considered a “purple” state, which means my vote might actually matter, and so I am inundated with…
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There are a couple of emerging narratives about Donald Trump. One is that he is the unreconstructed id of middle-aged, white American men who were left behind by the economy. They aren’t quite sure who they’re mad at, but the list probably includes everybody who doesn’t look like them, women in general, and all those…
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Several folks in last night's Republican presidential debate, including Marco Rubio, apparently decided to use philosophy as a foil for some of their typically ridiculous claims about education. In response, lots of people are citing an average salary for people working as professional philosophers — sometimes attributed to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — north…
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By Roberta Millstein Philosophers, and many thoughtful people more generally, pride themselves on having a healthy skepticism toward claims made by the media, by politicians, by scientists – by pretty much anyone. And rightly so. Many issues are complex and have not just two sides, but multiple sides. One ought not accept proffered claims without…
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By: Samir Chopra Last Friday (July 31st) my wife, my daughter, and I were to fly back from Vancouver to New York City after our vacation in Canada's Jasper and Banff National Parks. On arrival at Vancouver Airport, we began the usual check-in, got groped in security, and filled out customs forms. The US conducts all customs and passport…
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