Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

An immodest proposal on guns

Blinn Combs, a philosopher-turned-lawyer in Texas, posted the following on Facebook and kindly gave permission to share it here:

Please, for the love of sanity, please stop saying conciliatory shit to people who'd just as soon see your children gunned down at school.

 

We ABSOLUTELY DO NOT HAVE two radical fringe extremes in what passes for the gun debate. We have one party dominated by absolute lunatics who've been pushing for years toward a lawless, dystopian, gun-infested, violence-saturated state.

 

And we have a feckless opposition party that demands ineffective, mindless half-measures. No matter what those feeble-minded fools in the democratic party say, they'll be painted by the lunatics on the other side as gun-banning anti-American radicals.

 

The problem is that we do absolutely need actual radicals. Actual living, breathing, and most of all THINKING people to demand actual, radical change, just to bring us into minimally civilized alignment with the rest of the world. We must stop endless, stupid debates about the meaning of the Second Amendment. The Heller decision should have signaled the end of polite debate, because it was and is a total farce.

 

But whatever Blackstone or Jefferson or Madison said, we need urgently to recognize that the 2nd Amendment was--and was understood to be at its drafting--a reactionary farce that died within a decade of its birth, and now lies rotten in its grave, hauting us as the ground of a right-wing death pact. There's a reason that only one other country in the benighted world has anything like it--Mexico. And they quite rightly read it as compatible with having all of one heavily-regulated state-owned gun story in the entire country. But we've long-since passed the point where such reasonable means are sufficient. We should, by all means, organize to repeal the 2nd Amendment. But here's what we should also do:

 

Adam Gopnik on American's gun insanity, back in 2012

Still true, and I suspect will still be true ten years from now:

After the Aurora killings, I did a few debates with advocates for the child-killing lobby—sorry, the gun lobby—and, without exception and with a mad vehemence, they told the same old lies: it doesn’t happen here more often than elsewhere (yes, it does); more people are protected by guns than killed by them (no, they aren’t—that’s a flat-out fabrication); guns don’t kill people, people do; and all the other perverted lies that people who can only be called knowing accessories to murder continue to repeat, people who are in their own way every bit as twisted and crazy as the killers whom they defend. (That they are often the same people who pretend outrage at the loss of a single embryo only makes the craziness still crazier.)

The Australian federal election

The "Liberal" party (the party of the right, although as we 've noted before, they're basically Democrats in U.S. terms) was roundly defeated, while a Labor Prime Minister was elected, albeit without a majority in the legislature.   The Greens and the "Teal Independents" both showed an increased share of the vote, allegedly reflecting increasing anxiety about climate change.  (Of course, if Achen & Bartels are right, this explanation is too simple.)   At a time when some countries (the U.S., the U.K., Poland, Hungary) are veering to the right, it's nice to see another veering to something resembling the left.

A propos nothing...

...but the Internet threw this at me, and I must say it's very weird!  Bottom line:  do not forage for mushrooms, ever.

Adolph Reed on "antiracist" politics: neither left, nor egalitarian, nor democratic

His latest here; an excerpt:

The class character of antiracist clientelism is even more transparent than its fin-de–siècle progenitor’s. Its proponents can defend the assertion that racism is the fundamental determinant of life chances for black Americans only via a sleight-of-hand that divests slavery and Jim Crow of their historical specificity as discrete systems of economic and social relations and construes them as almost incidental extrusions of a transcendent racism or white supremacy or, even more tendentiously, in a devil theory positing that all human history has been driven by an ontological anti-blackness. Having transmogrified material social relations into attitudes, putative evidence that such attitudes persist supports assertions that “nothing” has changed since 1619 or 1919.18 It is telling that commitment to that argument subordinates providing concrete causal accounts of how current inequalities are thereby produced and reproduced to taxonomizing apparent racial disparities as instances of the workings of trans-historical racism or white supremacy. This perspective minimizes the significance of political-economic changes since 1965, including deindustrialization, the panoply of regressive policy developments associated with neoliberalization, and the significance of the marked increases in occupational, income, and wealth stratification among African Americans.19 The point of this politics is not to identify and pursue strategies to attack inequalities or injustices affecting black Americans but to make certain that they are understood as stemming from an evanescent racism. An implication is that only inequalities that can be attributed to specifically racial sources are a proper matter for concern. Combined with the central focus on addressing racial disparities within the existing capitalist class hierarchy, those characteristics of contemporary antiracism underscore the extent to which it is a class program.

Abortion, involuntary servitude, specific performance

Philosopher/lawyer Alec Walen (Rutgers) comments.

Philosopher Erin Kelly (Tufts) wins Pulitzer Prize...

...for a co-authored biography of an African-American artist who survived the Jim Crow South.

(Thanks to Afton Greco for the pointer.)

Abortion, religion and SCOTUS, redux

A propos this, Professor Rick Garnett (Law, Notre Dame) writes:

[I]t is not clear why the claim "human fetuses are moral subjects and this fact constrains what should be done with and to them" is any more "religious", or any less "moral", than the claim "all human beings are moral equals, regardless of race, and should be treated as such in law." 

The only people who are obsessed with protecting fertilized eggs and early stage fetuses are religious people, usually of a certain orthodox variety (mostly Christian in this country).  Professor Garnett is correct that his second claim about human equality also has a religious origin, which is why Nietzsche hoped that kind of moral egalitarianism would die along with God.  Unlike Nietzsche, I'm a moral egalitarian, despite being the least religious person in every other respect:   as Nietzsche also understood (in other contexts), moral attitudes are matters of deeply ingrained habits of feeling, that easily outlast their supposed justifications.   Fortunately, the egalitarian attitudes have, so far, survived the death of God:  in that sense, moral egalitarianism has become secularized.  But the pro-embryo movement has not become secularized in that way (where are its secular adherents?  why are 99.9% of its proponents religious?), and it really defies credulity for anyone to suggest that a conservative Catholic upbringing would not produce profound antipathy towards abortion that would influence, perhaps not consciously, how a judge approaches any case that presents an opportunity to restrict its legal availability.

ADDENDUM:  Here's what conservative Catholics would really like the super-legislature to do!  I trust even Professor Garnett would acknowledge the role of religious conviction in that position.

"Abortion and Women's Rights," a 1970 film

Via Rogers Smith (Penn) on Facebook, I came across this striking, short documentary, about a past that may yet become the future in large parts of the country.

If Roe is overruled, what's next?

Illuminating discussion from law professor Michael Dorf (Cornell).

On the now likely prospect that Roe v. Wade is overruled by SCOTUS, i.e., the super-legislature

The leaked opinion overruling Roe v. Wade (1973) (and also the later Casey opinion [1992], affirming the "core" holding of Roe) written by the right-wing Catholic justice Samuel Alito of the U.S. Supreme Court was most probably leaked by an abortion opponent worried that some of the other conservative Catholics who had joined the draft of Alito's opinion (Justices Coney Barrett, Gorsuch*, Kavanaugh, and Thomas) might defect (Thomas was certainly not a risk for defecting, the others possibly).  (see Joey Fishkin [UCLA] on Twitter for this hypothesis.)   As my colleague Geoffrey Stone observed regarding a badly reasoned 2007 anti-abortion decision by SCOTUS:

What, then, explains this decision? Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Catholic. The four justices who are either Protestant or Jewish all voted in accord with settled precedent. It is mortifying to have to point this out. But it is too obvious, and too telling, to ignore.

This time around one conservative Catholic (Chief Justice Roberts) was missing, but as recent years have shown, he is nervous about the  Supreme Court being treated as the super-legislature it is.  Stone's analysis generated an uproar, but it was correct then, as it would be correct now:  someone with a conservative Catholic upbringing will of course regard abortion as verboten, and will thus find attractive--even without recognizing their real motivations--any colorable legal arguments that return the question of its permissibility to the legislative process (knowing full well, of course, that its availability will be restricted as a result).  (To understand how reactionary Justice Alito is please note that as a young alumnus in his 20s of Princeton University he joined in the early 1970s the "Conservative Alumni of Princeton," a group formed in reaction to Princeton admitting women!)

More reasons to worry about nuclear war: Russia's system for detecting attack is not as good as the American's

From the Washington Monthly:

Russia and the United States are the most heavily armed of the nine nuclear powers....But only the U.S. has comprehensive surveillance of the globe, provided by three active geosynchronous satellites, with two in reserve, whose infrared receptors can spot missile plumes. That data is supplemented by radar, which gives the U.S. the capacity to double-check that a launch has actually occurred.

Specialists call this verification by both satellite and radar “dual phenomenology.” The Russians don’t have it, at least not reliably. They lack adequate space-based monitoring to supplement their radar.

What they have is a “terrible and dangerous technology shortfall,” according to Theodore Postol, a professor of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT and a former scientific adviser to the chief of naval operations.

More on Russia, Ukraine and nuclear war

A propos yesterday's post, a reader sends along these quotes from "experts" about the likelihood of nuclear weapons being used--it is hardly reassuring.   This scholar warns of the dangers of using Ukraine as a "proxy war" (as the U.S. has now admitted it is doing), and also suggests that ceding Donbas is one way to minimize the risk of Armageddon:

(Thanks to S. Wallerstein for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Here's a more optimistic take, although it involves induction over a relatively short period of time and very few incidents.  But I hope he's right!

ANOTHER:  Philosopher David Wallace (Pittsburgh) writes with a useful clarification about the Democracy Now interview:

It's really time for the U.S. and NATO to stop arming Ukraine, and cede the Donbas region to Russia, as they have already ceded Crimea

The reason is simple:  we are sleepwalking into Armageddon:

Putin has broken a post-Cuba taboo on threatening to go nuclear. That, in itself, puts us in new territory. Without most people being aware of it, the world is entering its most dangerous period since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The majority under the age of 50 have grown up thinking the nuclear spectre is a relic of the last century. In the past few weeks, the prospect of a nuclear exchange has become the most live threat to this century’s peace...

If there were a 5 per cent chance of Putin detonating a battlefield nuclear weapon, the world would be at more risk than at any point in most people’s lifetimes. In the past few days, Moscow’s signalling has arguably raised the chances to one in 10. Putin described last week’s test of the Sarmat hypersonic intercontinental ballistic missile as giving the west “food for thought".... On Wednesday, Putin said: “We have all the instruments for this [responding to an existential threat to Russia] — ones nobody else can boast of. And we will use them, if we have to.” The natural response is that Joe Biden and his European counterparts have made it plain Nato will not fight in Ukraine. The west, in other words, poses no “existential threat” to Russia — its threshold for use of nuclear weapons. But that is only how the west sees it. Putin’s threats, and those of his officials, have been made in the context of claiming Russia is already at war with Nato. Russians are being told every day that they are in a fight for national survival against western-backed Nazis. This level of rhetoric exceeds anything from the cold war....

Last time I checked, this site wasn't getting many visits from the White House.  So one can only hope that sensible people in the corridors of power are weighing these catastrophic risks, but so far, there's little indication of that.

UPDATE:  More perspectives on Ukraine and the risk of nuclear war.

ANOTHER:   The original point (above) has already been made by Chomsky:

I’m not criticizing Zelensky; he’s an honorable person and has shown great courage. You can sympathize with his positions. But you can also pay attention to the reality of the world. And that’s what it implies. I’ll go back to what I said before: there are basically two options. One option is to pursue the policy we are now following, to quote Ambassador Freeman again, to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. And yes, we can pursue that policy with the possibility of nuclear war. Or we can face the reality that the only alternative is a diplomatic settlement, which will be ugly—it will give Putin and his narrow circle an escape hatch. It will say, Here’s how you can get out without destroying Ukraine and going on to destroy the world.

 

Florida man, taking advantage of new "parental rights" law, asks school libraries to remove the Bible

Exactly right:

"My objection to the Bible being in your public schools is based on the following seven points, offered for your learned consideration," Stevens wrote.

Stevens proceeded to question whether the Bible is age-appropriate, pointing to its "casual" references to murder, adultery, sexual immorality, and fornication. "Do we really want to teach our youth about drunken orgies?"

He also took issue with the many Biblical references to rape, bestiality, cannibalism and infanticide. "In the end, if Jimmy and Susie are curious about any of the above, they can do what everyone else does – get a room at the Motel Six and grab the Gideons," he wrote....

"If you want to teach morality and ethics, do you really want to turn to a book that wants you to dash babies against rocks?" he told NPR, pointing to Psalm 137:9.

Art and offense at Vermont Law School

Historian Amna Khalid (Carleton) comments.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is still real

Dunning responds to critics.  Every day on Twitter confirms its existence, of course.

Front page of NYT: U.S. wants to see Russian military "weakened"

That's great, then Russia will have to rely even more on its nuclear arsenal.   I hope to God we are not sleepwalking into Armageddon.

Another university confused about its purpose: Virginia Commonwealth University

Universities exist to educate students and contribute to knowledge.  Period.  That's it.  They have to comply with various laws (e.g., Title IX, equal opportunity etc.), but their purpose is to educate and contribute to knowledge.  Their purpose is not diversity; if diversity contributed to the pedagogical function, then it deserves some consideration, but it is not the purpose of the university to promote diversity. 

VCU seems to be the latest public university falling down the "diversity" rabbit hole, going so far (at least according to this document:  Download Quest 2028 One VCU April 2022 Faculty Senate (1)) as to insert "diversity" into hiring and promotion criteria.  If so, they are asking to be sued for unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

But quite apart from the legality of all this, what is depressing is the fundamental confusion, on the part of academic leaders, about why their institutions exist.

Religious liberty claims run amok, yet again

A philosophy professor with a spurious "religious" objection to addressing students by their preferred pronouns has prevailed in his lawsuit against the university.

Meriwether sued in 2018 after he was disciplined, and a federal district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing. Then, last year a three-judge appellate panel revived the lawsuit and sent it back to the lower court, where Meriwether could have argued his First Amendment rights of free speech and religion and his 14th Amendment right to due process were violated.

 

"As part of the settlement, the university has agreed that Meriwether has the right to choose when to use, or avoid using, titles or pronouns when referring to or addressing students," the release from Meriwether's attorneys read. "Significantly, the university agreed Meriwether will never be mandated to use pronouns, including if a student requests pronouns that conflict with his or her biological sex."

 

Shawnee University called it an "economic decision."

 

"Though we have decided to settle, we adamantly deny that anyone at Shawnee State deprived Dr. Meriwether of his free speech rights or his rights to freely exercise his religion," the school's statement read.

 

A pernicious form of "cancel culture" exists...

...and thankfully the longtime feminist critic at The Nation has taken the trouble to document it, given the ostriches on the putative left who pretend it doesn't:

Gillian Philip, one of a group of writers producing popular children’s books under the pseudonym Erin Hunter, put #Istandwithjkrowling in her Twitter bio, for which she was subjected to a storm of online abuse and fired by her publisher. Whatever you may think of Rowling, Philip isn’t her. Without the security that comes with unparalleled wealth and celebrity, she’s just a person with an opinion—right or wrong, that’s what cost her her job. She now works as a truck driver.

An interview with Chomsky about Ukraine and the risk of nuclear war

Sensible, and basically the realist perspective.

(Thanks to Torbjörn Tännsjö for the pointer.)

"The End of Progressive Intellectual Life"

His narrative is somewhat selective, and self-serving, but there are clear elements of truth in this essay by Michael Lind.  An excerpt:

[I]n the third decade of the 21st century, intellectual life on the American center left is dead. Debate has been replaced by compulsory assent and ideas have been replaced by slogans that can be recited but not questioned: Black Lives Matter, Green Transition, Trans Women Are Women, 1619, Defund the Police. The space to the left-of-center that was once filled with magazines and organizations devoted to what Diana Trilling called the “life of significant contention” is now filled by the ritualized gobbledygook of foundation-funded, single-issue nonprofits like a pond choked by weeds. Having crowded out dissent and debate, the nonprofit industrial complex—Progressivism Inc.—taints the Democratic Party by association with its bizarre obsessions and contributes to Democratic electoral defeats, like the one that appears to be imminent this fall....

Close-minded intolerance on campus is largely a feature of elite U.S. colleges...

...and their well-to-do students, and not what goes on at most universities in the country.  Although I've made this point over the years, and while it's a good thing that the problem isn't widespread, that it exists at elite universities, which produce disproportionate numbers of ruling elites, is a bad thing.   Of course, none of this is as bad a thing as, inter alia, the crytpo-fascism of large swaths of the Republican Party; the continuing immiseration of the vast majority in the U.S.; the risk of nuclear war due to the mishandling of the Ukraine situation; etc. etc.

The SAT helps low-income students in an inequitable society

This seems right:

“Not having SATs/ACT scores to consider,” MIT’s dean of admissions, Stu Schmill, wrote, “tends to raise socioeconomic barriers to demonstrating readiness for our education.” Dropping the SAT, it turns out, actually hurts low-income students, rather than helping them.

MIT’s conclusion is counterintuitive because students from richer families, on average, score higher on the SAT and other standardized tests than students from poorer ones. The correlation between family background and SAT performance is from about .25 to .40—that is, meaningful but far from perfect. Still, it’s strong enough that some researchers dismiss standardized tests as nothing more than a proxy for asking, “Are you rich?” (The ACT measures roughly the same skills as the more widely used SAT, and the arguments for and against both tests are similar.)

And now the "open letters" attacking OUP begin

Yesterday's English professor who doesn't speak English is now apparently behind this letter, whose contribution to scholarly debate and free thinking is to ask OUP for,

[A] clear and detailed account of what measures have been taken to ensure the scholarly quality of this forthcoming publication (while being mindful of the need to maintain reviewers’ anonymity), and what further steps the Press is taking to make itself accountable for the consequences of its publication should the book go forward to print. Measures the press could undertake to offset the harm done by the publication of this work might include soliciting and publishing trans-affirming scholarship by transgender authors, updating the house style guidelines to include specific guidance on language around transgender rights, donating a portion of the book’s profits to supporting transgender rights organizations, and/or developing editorial guidelines for the submission of works that challenge the human rights of any marginalized group. We recommend that these steps for accountability be undertaken in consultation with transgender rights activists and transgender scholars. We hope that this process can help guide OUP in editorial directions that affirm trangender peoples’ humanity and rights.

Of course, it is quite normal to demand that an academic press account for the publication of a book that none of the critics have read.   I do hope OUP will ignore this little tantrum by the thought police.

An interview with Adolph Reed about Jim Crow, race and class

A well-informed interviewer makes for an excellent, substantive interview.

(Thanks to Merlin Chowkwanyun for the pointer.)

On Russia and Ukraine, the perspective of a Putin adviser

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 6--ONCE AGAIN, A PRETTY INTERESTING DISCUSSION IN THE COMMENTS!

This is plausible as to Russia's view of the situation and sobering; an excerpt:

For 25 years, people like myself have been saying that if Nato and Western alliances expand beyond certain red lines, especially into Ukraine, there will be a war. I envisioned that scenario as far back as 1997. In 2008 President Putin said that if Ukraine’s membership of the alliance became a possibility then there will be no Ukraine. He was not listened to. So the first objective is to end Nato’s expansion. Two other objectives have been added: one is the demilitarisation of Ukraine; the other is denazification, because there are people in the Russian government concerned with the rise of ultra-nationalism in Ukraine to the extent that they think it is beginning to resemble Germany in the 1930s. There is also an aim to free the Donbas republics of eight years of constant bombardment....

I don’t know what the outcome of this war will be, but I think it will involve the partition of Ukraine, one way or another. Hopefully there would still be something called Ukraine left at the end. But Russia cannot afford to “lose”, so we need a kind of a victory. And if there is a sense that we are losing the war, then I think there is a definite possibility of escalation. This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest – Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of “the rest” – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war....

Metropolitan Opera bans Russian soprano for insufficiently robust condemnation of Putin

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 6--SEE THE UPDATE, FOR A CONTRARY VIEW

What a disgrace.  All those Americans who failed to denounce the criminal war of aggression against Iraq and yet are still invited to perform in their professional roles elsewhere should be up in arms!

UPDATE:  A philosopher from one of the Baltic countries writes:

I am a philosopher from Estonia and I saw your post on Netrebko (the soprano banned from Metropolitan opera in America). I almost always agree with you, but I think you are wrong on this.

Netrebko is not just some "Russian soprano". She is most recognised singer in the world. More importantly, she is known by anyone who cares to google to have acted as a willing posterchild of the Russian government for many years. She has advocated for Putin and his policies, she has publicly donated to his reelection, paraded with the separatist Donetsk flag for a global audience for many years, said in interviews that she admires Putin ("I wish I had had an affair with him") etc. etc. Do you really find it abbhorent to ask somebody with this professed views and long history to distance themselves from a genocidal tyrant before being allowed to perform? Really? (Should Leni Riefenstahl have kept her gigs in America during the world war?)

A proposed academic freedom law in Quebec

This sounds like the right approach:

The Quebec government says university professors should be able to use any words they deem necessary in the classroom, provided those words are used in an academic context and meet standards of ethics and science.

(Thanks to David Zimmerman for the pointer.)

Berggruen, money, and philosophy

The annual "money" issue of the New York Times (yes, they have such an issue) has a piece about the billionaire Nicholas Berggruen and his interest in philosophy.    Among the skeptics, I'm quoted, as is Ned Hall from Harvard.  (More context here.)   My suggestion was that rather than handing out million dollar checks, he could have more impact by endowing philosophy positions in different universities, but that didn't make it in.  Of course, my real view is that his wealth should be seized to meet human needs, but I figured that definitely wasn't going to make it into the "money" issue of the NYT!  (The author of this article, by the way, is author of a very funny piece on why sauvignon blanc is awful, which is why I agreed to talk to him!)

The culture and cities of octopuses

Philosopher Kristin Andrews (York/Toronto) discusses.

Sanction Russian institutions, not individuals

A statement from Russian academics at the Free University of Moscow.

More ways to support victims of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine

"Logic4Peace" is a conference raising funds for those affected by the war, partly in conjunction with this organization which provides humanitarian aid to victims.

(Thanks to Barbara Herman for the pointer.)

More on the attack on academic freedom and intellectual standards at the Royal Society of New Zealand

A propos this incident from last fall, biologist Jerry Coyne (Chicago) has the latest.  It looks like sanity is gradually prevailing.

Our Silicon Valley overlords strike again: YouTube disappears six years worth of radical commentator Chris Hedges's programs

Amazing.

Court upholds $32 million judgment against Oberlin College for tortious interference with business and defamation...

...arising from the role the college and administrators played in mobilizing and supporting student protests against a local bakery over false allegations of racial discrimination.  Perhaps this verdict will encourage more restraint on the part of righteous deans of student affairs.

Scanlon talks to Yascha Mounk about "What We Owe to Each Other"

Here.  An excerpt:

Scanlon:  I think that the largest number of people really do care about the aspect of morality that I'm talking about: that is, the ability to justify their actions to others. And I think this is illustrated by my analysis of our contemporary politics. There was a symposium on my book at the American Philosophical Association. One of the commentators was David Gauthier, a philosopher who wrote a book that was similar, but defended a much more right-wing, libertarian view. He's a friend, and he loves exaggerating. When he started, he said, “Everything in this book is mistaken. Even the title is false; we don't owe anybody anything.” That might seem to be an expression of the view that you mentioned [i.e., egoism].

"Extremism"

Philosopher Quassim Cassam (Warwick) discusses the concept in this video of a lecture in Belfast.

It looks like Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis has lost his mind

We noted early on during the Covid fiasco one of his peculiar interventions, but his latest "publication" (basically trashing his critics for having lower citation counts) is bizarre.

 

Ukrainian philosopher Yermolenko Volodymyr on living in the midst of war

A lot of very striking observations on his Twitter account, including here, here, here, and here.  (More about Volodymyr here.)

(Thanks to Anthony Couture for calling this to my attention.)

Gillman & Chemerinsky: student hecklers are bad for free speech on campus, state legislatures quite a bit worse

Exactly right.  It's no surprise that the crypto-fascists in America ignore the Repug war on academic freedom and free speech; it's more disheartening when those on the putative "left" whitewash the bad behavior by students on campus (e.g.).  As Professors Gillman and Chemerinsky write:

The student protestors and their allies would undoubtedly make the case that they are opposing truly bad ideas while the Republican legislators are opposing important ideas. But that is not how censorship works. Once one grants that administrators and other officials should have the authority to censor and punish bad ideas, there is no predicting who will be the target of such repression.

"Class struggle unionism"

This is interesting, and probably right.

Ukraine's Zelensky asks if the West is "afraid of Moscow"?

This is really a childishly stupid thing for him to have said (right up there with loose-lips Biden calling for Putin to be removed from power).   The West is afraid of nuclear war, as everyone in their right mind should be, including Zelensky.  Surely Zelensky knows this is why he isn't getting more military help:  does he really think taunting like this helps his cause or his people?   Given that neither NATO nor the U.S. will (we hope) take any action that risks nuclear retaliation, perhaps Zelensky needs to rethink his strategy vis-a-vis Moscow?

ADDENDUM:  Greenwald on a related theme.  (Thanks to S. Wallerstein for the pointer.)

"Isolating Russia won't bring Europe peace"

Political philosopher Lea Ypi (LSE) comments.

More on Putin and Ukraine

On the earlier thread, reader Boris Dagaev posted this:

Understandably, some readers of this blog are not completely satisfied with Stanovaya's analysis, which was written for the subscribers of her Telegram channel who are familiar with her work, and thus is limited in scope.

To provide a wider historical perspective (starting with 2007), I've translated the first part of today's article by another Russian political scientist, Kirill Shamiev. I'm hoping it would clarify some coordinated strategic considerations and tactical moves made by Putin's regime over the past few years.

You can find the translation here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oUHox2ooGCkk6g3GzB69aboqUUSHiJFgEDEM8_2I3Fk/edit?usp=sharing

By contrast, Scott Sagan, a political science professor at Stanford, here presumes (but does not argue for) the "Putin is a madman" view, and its alarming implications.  (Thanks to Jeff McMahan for the pointer.)

This is a context in which it pays, as Nietzsche says, to remember that objectivity and knowledge may emerge from having "one's pro and contra in one's power, and...[shifting] them in and out:  so that one knows how to make precisely the difference in perspectives and affective interpretations useful for knowledge."  So reading these two different perspectives on Putin and Ukraine, what can we conclude?

Self-driving trucks to replace 500,000 human jobs

The latest.  These are well-paying jobs too, thanks to the Teamsters union.   As Engels observed:

[T]he perfecting of machinery is making human labor superfluous.  If the introduction and increase of machinery means the displacement of millions of manual by a few machine-workers, improvement in machinery means the displacement of more and more of the machine-workers themselves…Thus it comes about, to quote Marx, that machinery becomes the most powerful weapon in the war of capital against the working class; that the instruments of labor constantly tear the means of subsistence out of the hands of the laborer....

This isn't, as the kids say, a "bug" in capitalism but one of its essential features, which is why things can only end badly.

CORRECTION:  They were well-paying jobs, prior to deregulation of the longhaul trucking industry!

On "snitches" in academia

The always provocative Laura Kipnes (journalism, Northwhestern) comments.  She alludes, in part, to her own experience with abuse of the Title IX process.   The last story she recounts concerns a former PhD student in philosophy at Northwestern:

Not long ago I received a wrenching email from the mother of a former graduate student I’d interviewed and written about in Unwanted Advances.  He’d been swept up in the same accusation-fest on my campus that I had. In fact he’d been reported on, he told me, by some of the same people who’d gone after me (friends, he’d once thought), and been, perhaps, collateral damage in the events I was relating. The charges involved his having made drunken passes (six months apart) at two women in his circle, and being, they felt, in various ways invasive.

Iranian translator of Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" refuses award in Iran in protest of censorship

Story here; an excerpt:

An Iranian mathematician and philosoph[er]...has rejected his award for the country's book of the year "in protest at censorship" in Iran.

Kaave Lajevardi said in a post on his blog on March 15 that he informed officials of his decision after being named as the joint winner of the prize for his translation of John Locke's book "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding."

Lajevardi, who studied at the University of Toronto but returned to live in Tehran, said that while his book had not been subject to censorship, that "does not prevent me from seeing the terrible dominance of censorship in publishing" and "the violation of the civil rights of translators, authors and publishers."

"By my own decision, I do not accept this particular award in order to challenge more broadly than ever before the very common and completely irrational and possibly illegal censorship routine...of which the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance is one of the main custodians," he said in his post.

The publication of any artistic or cultural work in Iran, including books and films, is done only with the permission of the ministry or other government institutions.

(Thanks to Mousa Mohammadian for the pointer.)

Nuclear war, again

This NYT article is chilling.