Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Scaramucci on Trump

He's another New York "trash talker" (recall), and he's quite funny now that he openly hates Trump; an excerpt:

[L]et me explain to you why he’s not a racist, ’cause this is very important. He’s actually worse than a racist. He is so narcissistic, he doesn’t see people as people. He sees them as objects in his field of vision. And so therefore, that’s why he has no empathy. That’s why he’s got his thumb up in the air when he’s taking a picture with an orphan. That’s why when someone’s leaning over the desk and asks [Nobel Prize–winning human rights activist Nadia Murad], “Well, what happened to your family members?”—they were murdered—he just looks at her and says, “Okay, when are we getting coffee here?”

You know, he doesn’t look at people—and by the way, if you and I were in his field of vision and he had a cold and the two of us had to die for him to get a Kleenex, you’re fucking dead. I mean, there’s no chance. You understand that, right?

"Experts" in slashing state budgets and increasing human misery

Instructive about these venal characters, who destroyed Kansas, and are now destroying Alaska.

(Thanks to Bennett Gilbert for the pointer.)

Rituals of childhood and the institutionalization of mass shootings in America

Observations from sociologist Kieran Healy (Duke).

Tuvel-style mobbing comes to sociology: young Marxist sociologist pens critque of Black Lives Matter and its academic reception...

...and is now being pilloried because--you guessed it--he's white, didn't cite scholars of the preferred identity, etc. etc. etc.  The peer-reviewed article is here and the "open letter" of defamation is here.  (For those who don't recall the spectacular misconduct by some feminist philosophers in the Tuvel case, see here and here.) Black Lives Matter identified a real phenomenon--police violence--and then consistently misdiagnosed it, as Adolf Reed has written (and we've noted before).

Bayard Rustin, where are you when we need you?

Sociologists need to speak out, as so many philosophers did in the Tuvel case.

(Sorry I can't write more about this outrageous case now, but as noted a few days ago, I'm a bit overwhelmed.)

ADDENDUM:  The journal is standing by the article, as it should.

Mark Twain on the Internet

"A lie can travel around the world while the truth is just putting on its shoes."

--Mark Twain

"A lie can travel around the world while the truth is just putting on its shoes."

--Mark Twain

Twitter is not the real world, an ongoing saga

Twitter is the only place where people think that the bloggers at the trashy on-line tabloid Above the Law are (a) reliable, and (b) authorities.  When I tell this to my legal practitioner and legal academic friends, most can't believe it's true!

UPDATE:  Since most of my readers do not use Twitter, I realize the latter was a bit opaque--sorry!  Briefly, one of the dopey bloggers at Above the Law was mocking me last week for allegedly thinking I could copyright my tweets so no one can retweet them, and then other people retweeted his mockery.  This would have been silly, but it had nothing to do with the issue I was raising.  What was omitted is that my Twitter account is protected (i.e., only approved followers can see my tweets--much better, I must say!); when your account is protected, not even your followers can retweet anything you post to your account.  Yet someone then among my followers was taking screen shots of my tweets, and then reposting them elsewhere and sending them to non-followers--which defeats the point of protecting the tweets, of course.   The Twitter terms of service do not directly address the status of protected tweets, but one extreme possible solution, suggested by my lawyer (who is an actual lawyer specializing in intellectual property and defamation for 25 years, not a failed lawyer like the ones at Above the Law), was to register the copyright for the protected tweets.  Not worth the trouble, obviously, and in any case the problem has been solved by other means since.   What's amazing is that even nominally adult tenured faculty--like Jacob Levy (McGill) and Kate Manne (Cornell)--retweeted the Above the Law nonsense (Manne makes a particular fool of herself with her commentary).  I'm not sure what explains their gullibility:  malice?  stupidity?  both?  Oh well.

ANOTHER:   One might have hoped Prof. Manne would have learned something about the risk of relying on out-of-context snippets from a protected Twitter account, but it appears not yet.  In any case, I hope she can  get over her obsessive Twitter vendetta against me (of which the above was but one example over the last few weeks) and move on to more productive activities.  (I do regret my choice of language on Twitter, but the fact is she has been retweeting insults, lies and mockery of me for several weeks now.  Since I don't know her, I am wondering what would explain this weird behavior.)

Every interview with Mayor Pete from South Bend rolled into one

This is funny.  The good news is, despite raising a lot of money, he can barely crack 4-5% in most polls; Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Harris dominate.

Medically-assisted dying and "suicide"

Philosopher Jerry Dworkin (emeritus, UC Davis and Illinois/Chicago) comments.

Prospect's "top 50 thinkers" in the world

What an eccentric list!  A mix of philosophers, economists, politicians, historians, activists, and others--some very good, some fashionable, some not so good.  Identity politics and "diversity" seem to have been the overriding consideration for inclusion; I didn't see any Marxists, for example.  Everyone should write in "Robert Paul Wolff" if they vote! 

Alex Gourevitch: Three facts about Trump's Presidency when it comes to foreign policy

Political theorist Alex Gourevitch (Brown) posted these interesting remarks on Facebook, and kindly gave me permission to share them here; I'll permit comments, which will be moderated as usual for relevance and substance (submit only once, they may take awhile to appear).   Herewith Professor Gourevitch:

 

So here are three facts about the Trump presidency, when it comes to foreign policy, that I think are worth thinking through.

First, in the history of the modern presidency - say FDR onward - he has been among those presidents most reluctant to use military force. There has been a lot - too much - attention to what he says, but not enough to what he does. There are very few American presidents who by their third year had not started a major war, dramatically escalated an existing one, or otherwise materially supported new, major conflicts in various countries. In terms of the actual use of force Trump is closest to Carter, Clinton first term, and Obama. And Carter and Obama were objectively constrained by Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan fallout respectively in ways that Trump is not, while Clinton was arguably more willing to send troops off in the first year (Somalia escalation, invasion of Haiti) than Trump has been during the equivalent period. There have been no new invasions of countries, no major increase in troop levels nor direct escalation of conflicts. If anything, Trump's tendency has so far been to de-escalate: threaten North Korea then walk it back and be the first President to set foot there, bomb an empty airport in Syria then move on, a half-hearted effort to stage a coup in Venezuela but again he just moves on, even Iran he calls of a strike and in the name of not wanting to kill Iranians! (Hard to imagine Hillary having said that had she been at the helm). He partially withdrew forces from Iraq more successfully than Obama. Yemen stands as a horrendous stain, but that has been more or less going along with the Obama policy he inherited, not some major escalation nor does it involve any major militarization of foreign policy generally. There is little evidence that Trump really has the stomach for a sustained, military engagement with significant casualties with anyone.

Second, the one place Trump has quite confidently sent troops - against the grumblings of the military itself - has been the border. The militarization of the border, not just the family separation stuff but the actual deployment of forces, has been, while not some radical departure from the past, a clear escalation. And there are the promised interior raids as well. He has pursued that project of militarizing the border and policing immigration with far more focus and consistency than any kind of foreign adventurism. Where the foreign affairs stuff has involved crazy tweets, full of bluster, without much follow through - to the clear frustration of the foreign policy establishment including his own neocon/warmonger advisors like Bolton and Pompeo - the control over borders has been a much more seriously pursued goal as a practical matter, not just as a matter of rhetoric.

IHE must be desperate for news...

...if they're organizing a story around tweets by random maniacs, ignoramuses, and self-promoters on Twitter.  And I say this as someone who doesn't much care for Professor Pinker!

Strategies for writing: daily doer or holiday writer?

This is interesting and perhaps useful for some readers.

Here's what happens in a country where the laws protect reputations, not defamers

Gender critical MP quickly prevails over irresponsible allegations of "homophobia" in a publication, which apologizes, pays her legal fees, and donates money to a charity of her choice.  In the U.S., she would have likely lost.

This example confirms what I said long ago:  namely, that Nathan Oseroff clearly defamed Kathleen Stock under English law, and he was fortunate she didn't pursue a remedy.  (That's in addition, of course, to abusing his role at the APA Blog and other mischief, for which he finally apologized, although his recent on-line ranting suggests that remorse was short-lived and he's learned nothing.)

(Thanks to Stefan Sciaraffa for the pointer.)

ADDENDUM:  It's hard to believe that there are disturbed people on Twitter so obsessed with me that within the hour they lash out. Anyone who has doubts about Mr. Oseroff's pattern of misconduct can follow the links.  No more needs to be said.

ANOTHER:   A couple of readers point out that Mr. Oseroff is back in self-pity mode:

The reason no one, other than members of the Twitter Red Guard, object is, Mr. Oseroff, because you're a wrongdoer, and I've exposed your malign behavior to other academics.   I have no interest in whether you stay in or leave philosophy; I do have an interest in getting you to stop your misconduct.

On justifications for inequalities in salaries

Sensible comments, as usual, from Robert Paul Wolff.

It's time to end life tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court

It sure is.  Related.

"Trump's charisma"

A bit of Weber, a bit of Freud, but an interesting take.

Happy July 4th to my American readers!

Celebrate freedom, burn the flag.

"Never Again" doesn't mean "No more exterminating Jews, but OK to exterminate anyone else"

It's hard for a sentient person to keep pace with the venal stupidity of the American right, and because I was traveling and teaching (and dealing with family emergencies!) I have not yet commented on AOC's apt description of the concentration camps on the U.S. border with Mexico as "concentration camps" and the reaction by the usual suspects to speaking truthfully...but then the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC denounced the comparison, and now Holocaust scholars have spoken out, so "God Bless Them," in the emotive sense of that language. AOC is the most brilliant user of Twitter on the nascent left in America.  And Nazis are not only German:  vide Stephen Miller.

(Thanks to Jason Stanley for flagging the response of scholars to the Holocaust Museum.)

Of course Iran wants nuclear weapons...

...any country at odds with the most dangerous nation on earth would be foolish not to want them.

The Internet: inspiration for murder

Yet one more reason the free speech norms that worked for the traditional media won't work for the cyber-world of unmediated insanity and nonsense.

Historian Richard Evans did not like historian Norman Stone's life...

...and said so in a remarkable obituary.

(Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)

Some hopeful news in American politics

Senator Elizabeth Warren is creeping up the polls, overtaking Bernie Sanders in some of them to move into second behind Biden (who is busy doing what Biden does, i.e., self-destructing with his mouth--I'd vote for Biden too at the end of the day).  On substance, Warren and Sanders are close, except Warren has clearer plans, in part because she's smarter (indeed, she's the smartest candidate in the race, by several orders of magnitude, and that includes the fake Cory Booker and the current vacuous media darling, the Mayor from South Bend).  She's also younger, and a she, and is from Oklahoma, and a better talker, and is not a "democratic socialist," which Sanders isn't either, but he stupidly claimed that label long ago and stuck with it (the difference between a "democratic socialist" and, say, Stalin, will be lost in some parts of America, hard as that may be to believe).   Warren will also do to Trump what is needed, namely, expose his vacancy and venality on the substance of what he's done and stands for.   I've given money to Senator Warren, and will do so again if the momentum continues.   I just hope that if she gets the nomination she chooses an African-American man as her running-mate, to both (1) motivate African-American voters who are crucial to any Democratic candidacy, and (2) counteract the sexism of some portion of the electorate.

150 million GBP (about U.S. two hundred million) gift for humanities at Oxford University...

...from U.S. hedge fund manager Stephen Schwarzman (who could have afforded to give a lot more!).  It will also include a new institute for the study of the ethics of artificial intelligence.  Philosopher Alan Thomas (York) summed it up well on FB (he gave me permission to quote):  "The 'ethics of AI' is about as complex as the ethics of pencils. ('Don’t stab people with your pencil!') But, you know, follow the money."

ADDENDUM:  It's a bit unclear where all the money is going--it sounds like most of it is going to a new building which will finally permit Timothy Williamson to interact easily with his colleagues in literary studies and religion!

ANOTHER:  This article tells you everything you need to know about Mr. Money Bags.

Plato's case for "political correctness"

Political theorist Johnny Thakkar (Swarthmore) comments.

The jury verdict against Oberlin, a brief comment

A number of readers have written me about this case.

Large jury verdicts for libel at the trial level are not uncommon, and are frequently overturned on appeal, as I expect this will be, on First Amendment grounds.  But the verdict about tortious interference with contract is a different matter, and that may survive.  (This is a strange tort, but plaintiffs sometimes prevail on it, with dramatic results.)  This is all unfortunate publicity for Oberlin College, of course, which has a track record of students doing foolish things.

Gulf of Oman...

...or Gulf of  Tonkin?   That's the question.  (See also.)  This is an ominous development.  So far, Trump's only redeeming attribute as the alleged President has been his aversion to military force.  Will it last?

Here's what actual harm looks like

Feminist speaker assaulted by trans person after lecture.

Twitter bans yet another gender critical feminist

This is unbelievable, especially when one remembers that serially abusive people like Rachel McKinnon still have a platform on there.   Will some journalist out there please do an expose of what's going on with Twitter and its campaign against feminists and lesbians?  Professor Lawford-Smith is one of many who have been shut down.

Lawyer Bryan Stevenson's commencement address at Penn

Law professor Robert Condlin (Maryland) sent me this video of Stevenson's address about "changing the world" (it starts at about 2 hours and 12 minutes).  It's a very powerful and essentially Christian message, although he never once mentions what would actually be required to change the world.  He does a very good job emphasizing the extraordinary mistreatment of African-Americans in this country, a useful reminder for those who think affirmative action is about "diversity" rather than justice for the victims of world-historic wrongdoing.

 

An article about Quillette at CHE

It even includes a tweet from the rabid and deranged Katja Thieme who is, unsurprisingly, still rabid and deranged!  That Quillette has enemies like that is a good sign.  I've occasionally linked to essays there, and have read some others I didn't find link-worthy, but c'est la vie.  

Every country has mental illness...

...but those that have actual gun control don't have carnage when deranged people strike:  19 attacked, only two killed, because all the attacker had were knives.  

European parliament election results in the UK

From a UK friend, this is interesting:  Pro-Brexit parties (Brexit Party and UKIP) obtained 34.9% of the vote; Anti-Brexit parties (Green Party, Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Change UK) obtained 40.4% of the vote.

HiPhi Nation episode on civil (and uncivil) disobedience by animal rights activists in Australia

Here.  I actually talked with philosopher David Killoren (Australian Catholic U) about these issues, a bit more in the abstract, quite some time ago (and not with reference to providing help for victims of malaria!). (This episode is mainly hosted by Killoren and his philosophy colleague Richard Rowland at ACU.)  Philosophers featured include Peter Singer, Kimberly Brownlee, Jeff Sebo, and Candice Delmas, among others.  One nice thing that comes out in the interview is that Singer thinks there's no alternative to capitalism!  There are also, alas, unexplored assumptions about "harm" that play a role in Killoren's arguments towards the end.

"What is a woman?"

Philosopher Kathleen Stock (Sussex) discusses the topic at Philosophy Bites.

(Thanks to S. Wallerstein for the pointer.)

Taiwan becomes the first (!) country in Asia to fully legalize same-sex marriage

A remarkable step, and also remarkable how rare this is in Asia.  The reactionary stance of so many Asian countries on this issue leads to absurd situations like this one in Japan, where a trans woman has her new gender identity recognized by law, but her marriage of 19 years may be endangered because Japan does not recognize  marriage between individuals of the same legal gender!

Hair discrimination as race discrimination

Philosopher and lawyer Nicholas Serafin (Michigan) comments.

Irish President, presenting young philosopher award: "we [do not] exist to be made useful"

The Irish President is an admirably humane person: 

Ireland needs to guard against a reengineering of the education system under the assumption that “we exist to be made useful”, President Michael D Higgins has said.

Attending the Irish Young Philosopher Awards 2019 at UCD’s O’Reilly Hall, the President said “talk of a knowledge society and the demand to enable our young people to meet its needs has at times in the discourse on education, come to dominate our view as to the ultimate aim of a secondary school education. We need to be careful”.

Alas, under capitalism, we do all exist only "to be made useful," and if we're not, we are discarded.  Some of us--in virtue of job, or wealth, or even sometimes the society in which we live--manage a partial insulation from the market's demand to deliver "value."  One may only hope that President Higgins can really make Ireland such a society.

"Transphobia"

MOVING TO THE FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 1, 2019--STILL RELEVANT, ALAS

One of the tactics for shutting down rational discussion of the gender self-ID law in the U.K. is the accusation of "transphobia."   Because I've given attention to the important and substantive views of several feminist and gay philosophers writing about this issue--perhaps most prominently, Kathleen Stock (Sussex) (e.g, here and here), but also Leslie Green (Oxford)--I'm now being accused by the usual suspects of "transphobia."  (I suspect the additional reason for the smear is that I've also been vigorous in objecting to the harassment and defamation of Professor Stock, including by many philosophy faculty and students.) 

In any case, I thought it would help to collect examples of my horrifying "transphobia" such as here and here and here.

ADDENDUM:  This new piece in New York Magazine gives a sympathetic and clear account of some of the issues being debated about sex and "gender identity."  (It uses the term "TERF," but not dismissively or as an epithet.) 

Leaving the Mormon Church

A fascinating account from philosopher Spencer Case, which sheds interesting light on the techniques of indoctrination, although they didn't work in his case.

The Onion on self-satisfied "liberals" (read: the typical illiberal "woke" member of the Twitterati)

All-too-apt:

Taking a moment to reflect on his hard-won personal accomplishment, area liberal Tom Hudson expressed relief Monday that he would never again have to engage in self-examination after finally assembling all the correct opinions....“It’s such a huge weight off my shoulders. I never have to consider my place in society or my impact on the issues ever again now that I know exactly how to present myself as one of the good guys. This feels amazing.” Hudson was then immediately and savagely attacked by his fellow liberals, who insist that his current views are nowhere near progressive enough.

This is even funnier (via Jake Wojtowicz on twitter); an excerpt:

Matthew Edwards, 41, was canceled early Friday evening after he was seen in his car singing along to “Remix to Ignition.” Mr. Edwards has not watched the R. Kelly documentary, but colleagues say he was aware of its existence and general content. He leaves behind his intersectional feminist wife Julia and two woke children....

After many close brushes with cancellation, Jeremy Warble, a 30-year-old bartender and drummer, was canceled on Friday after asking exactly zero questions on a Tinder date. Mr. Warble’s earlier, narrowly evaded cancellations include: a culturally appropriative Halloween costume, repeatedly DMing a woman without receiving a response, and a conspicuous silence on social media during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings....

On Wednesday, three-day-old Lily Hobbes became the youngest person ever to be canceled, when her father read to her from Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming and she immediately started crying....

Katharine Halloran was a well-liked medical school student at Columbia University with a lifelong passion for snowboarding. Ms. Halloran was canceled in a tragic accident on Thursday, after retweeting an article with a link to a different article by an author who once retweeted a known bigot. She is 24.

An episode of HiPhi nation on the transgender debates in the UK

[LINK FIXED]

It begins, unfortunately, with some silly sociology, which reports the breathtaking discovery (who would have guessed?) that the public is more concerned with trans women entering female-only spaces, than with trans men entering male-only spaces.   Now one might have thought everyone knew that we have sex-segregated spaces importantly, but not only, for the protection of women from men, i.e,. people with penises, because rape and sexual assault is overwhelmingly done by people with penises.   We certainly needed social "science" for that discovery! (As this first part of the show proceeds, it becomes obvious that these social "scientists" are ideologues and activists.)  The two philosophers--Holly Lawford-Smith (Melbourne) and Robin Dembroff (Yale)--come in around 18 minutes, if you want to skip ahead.

Another triumph of infantile stupidity and faux outrage, this one at Harvard...

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

...as the university caves in to calls to oust a clinical law professor from his role as head of one of the residential colleges.  Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy made all the right points about this a couple of months ago. 

UPDATE:  A NYT story with more details.   We're learning something about the hierarchy of marginalization and oppression at Harvard:   being on the "wrong side" of sexual harassment allegations trumps being African-American!   Good to know that's how the Harvard Red Guard currently thinks!

ANOTHER:  Philosopher Michelle Mason Bizri kindly shared and gave permission to post her letter to Dean Khurana at Harvard, who made the decision to remove Professors Sullivan and Robinson:

Dear Dean Khurana,

As a moral philosopher who strives to teach her students the values of seeking the truth, promoting the good, and remaining courageous in the face of those who would sacrifice both in the interests of expediency, I am appalled at your recent cowardice in failing to come to the defense of your colleagues, Professor Ronald Sullivan and Stephanie Robinson. If someone of your stature and privilege cannot be counted on to defend principles such as the constitutional right of the accused to counsel and the contractual right of professors to defend themselves against politically motivated attack, then the academy is in a sorry state, indeed. As professors, our first allegiance should be to educate those students in our care. You, Sir, have revealed yourself to be derelict in that duty. I respectfully request that you resign.

Yours most sincerely,

Michelle Mason Bizri
Adjunct Associate Professor | Department of Philosophy
Brown University
Website: Researchers at Brown 

Associate Professor | Department of Philosophy
University of Minnesota
Website: @cla.umn.edu

AND ANOTHER:  This article suggests there may have been other factors at play in the decision to remove Professors Sullivan and Robinson; unfortunately, the Dean's statement does not shed any light on that.  As it stands, it appears the trigger for this decision was the misguided student protests.

Open letter of support for Prof. Wojciech Sadurski (Sydney)

Professor Sadurski, a leading legal theorist and scholar of constitutionalism, has been a vigorous and penetrating critic of the reactionary and authoritarian "Law and Justice" party in Poland ("PiS" is the Polish acronym); he has now become the target of both civil and criminal legal actions attempting to silence him.  The open letter is here, and they are accepting additional signatories in the comments.

Wittes on Attorney General Barr

Benjamin Wittes, of the Brookings Instiution and Lawfare, is not exactly a radical bomb-thrower, so this assessment is all the more damning.

Someone is running for President who has well-informed proposals...

...and the media can't cope, unsurprisingly.

(Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)

An illuminating analysis of what's at stake in the Supreme Court's decision to hear a case about discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity

This is a smart analysis by Linda Greenhouse, and a hopeful one.

Philosopher Sophie Allen (Keele) on Gender Critical Feminism and a recent confused critique in the popular media

This is a really good essay, heads-and-shoulders above the sneering nonsense from the "narcissistic half-wits" on social media (to borrow Professor Stock's apt description).  It's been nearly a year since I first called attention to some of Professor Stock's writing, and there has literally been only one remotely serious and (mostly) substantive response--although, to be sure, there has been a lot of hand-waving about "the literature," content-free mockery, and moral indignation at verboten thoughts.   This, in itself, is revealing:  for some reason, the opponents of Gender Critical Feminism seem unable to successfully defend their views philosophically.

Not sure which Democrat to support for President? Wall Street to the rescue!

Big players at Wall Street firms gave nothing to Sanders and Warren, but lots to Booker, Gillibrand, and Harris.  Case closed.

(Thanks to Joel Pust for the pointer on twitter.)

Some more pieces by philosophers on transgender and related issues

One by Kathleen Stock (Sussex); an excerpt:

On one hand, many women feel blindsided by the argument that trans women should be considered literal women, and question the effect of the trans movement on female sex-based rights and protections, as they have come to define them. On the other, many trans people are aghast at what they feel are attempts to block their political advancement toward equal social and legal status.....

To understand what’s at stake, it’s helpful to delineate two argumentative positions at play: (1) sex eliminationism, which argues for the abolition of the recognition of biological sex as a meaningful category; and (2) gender eliminationism, which argues for the abolition of gender. As a feminist and philosopher who finds herself stuck between these two positions and their passionate advocates, I see it as a defining challenge of our complicated modern times to carve out some pragmatic middle ground: to find a narrative and set of policies protective of both the rights of trans people in a gender-conforming society, and those of females in a misogynist society. In attempting this, we should recognize that many on both sides of the dispute share at least some common ground. Specifically, they both share a deep discomfort with the sociocultural norms and stereotypes associated with being a woman or a man. I believe that this common ground may provide some basis for rapprochement.

And another by Leslie Green (Oxford & Queen's U); an excerpt:

I had not been aware that the "American Thinker" was a racist outfit...

...until I came across this piece of craziness; an excerpt:

The Left has shown itself to be dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization itself.  We have not been faced with such an existential threat since European armies threw the Turks back from Vienna in 1529.  The fascists of the mid–2oth century, for all their loathsome policies, were not the kind of threat to the fabric of our society that we face now.  Bad as they were, they did not seek the destruction of Europeans as a people, or of European culture as a living, breathing thing.  Progressivism does.  What could be more worthy of, if you will forgive the word, "resistance"?