politics

June 11, 2023

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. “AS EVERYONE KNOWS …”

DON’T LET THE ARGUMENT TO THE HAND-WAVE WIN THE DAY Continue reading

Pam-Toons

argument, belief, cartoon, dismiss, eopistemology, fallacy, graphic, hand, hand-wave, justification, pencil, Philosophy, photo, political, politics, rhetoric, sketch, sloppy, warrant, wave
March 20, 2022

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. In Matters of Love and War — And All Matters In Between — There is No Dearth of Armchair Psychiatrists

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Pam-Toons

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February 24, 2022

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. And from this, an entire political theory.

Thomas Hobbes, A.P. Martinich and Brian Battiste, Eds, Leviathan, Broadview, 2011.Part I, Chapter XIII, 3. (p 122) Continue reading

Pam-Toons

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February 7, 2022

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Of the Right to be Right or Wrong. (With updated article, C2C Journal.)

Update : A comprehensive article on the Frances Widdowson case and the state of academic freedom in Canada, generally: Peter Shawn Taylor, “Academic Freedom vs. Wokeism: The Frances Widdowson Affair“, C2C Journal, February 2, 2022, accessed 7 February 2022. (Thank you, A.R., for bringing this article to my attention.) Frances Widdowson has been fired from Continue reading

Pam-Toons, Social and Political Commentary

academia, academic freedom, Calgary, cancel culture, censorship, Chicago Principles, FIRE, fired, Frances Widdowson, Free Expression, free speech, heterodox, indulgences, mobbing, Mount Royal University, MRU, orthodoxy, political, politics, SAFS
July 3, 2021

Thoughtlets. XLV. Theodicy revisited.

News media characteristically brings us one story after another about the kinds of things humans to do each other which are broadly characterized as ‘evil.’ And these stories tend to generate accusations of ‘evil-doers’ which are then dispatched with the speed and clamour of emergency vehicles headed to a five alarm fire. I’m not here Continue reading

Thoughtlets

discourse, emotion, evil, Mackie, media, Philosophy, politics, problem of evil, rhetoric, theodicy
April 28, 2021

Thoughlets. XLIV.

Do you ever wonder what future generations will look like? Look in a mirror. You are the future generations of those who lived before you. And do you ever wonder what future future generations will think of you and your ilk? Well, since you are a future generation, and since, cf Hume, the future resembles Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric, Thoughtlets

children, descendents, empathy, environment, fore-bearers, future, future generations, generations, hypothetical, imagination, inference, judge, life, material conditions, mirror, myth, past, Philosophy, political, politics, prediction, present, relfection, rhetoric, subsist, sustainability
April 9, 2021

Hume on Persuasion.

In On War Carl Von Clausewitz says war is a continuation of politics by other means. Or cf. Foucault, who suggests this definition might be the inverted: politics is a continuation of war by other means. My interest is in the ‘other means’, which include political rhetoric. Broadly defined, rhetoric is “the power of observing the means Continue reading

Philosophy, Political Rhetoric

aristotle, Hume, oratory, political, politics, rhetoric, Von Clausewitz, war
February 21, 2021

R.e.s.p.e.c.t. What does it mean and why should I care?

In my youth, my dad often gave me the following advice. Respect your elders, but don’t take any shit. I took Dad to mean that there is a mutual component to respect, that my respecting my elders didn’t give them license to abuse me. Even youth are due a modicum of respect. In this light, Continue reading

Political Rhetoric

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January 7, 2021

Thoughtlets. xxviii.

It’s no small annoyance whenever an interlocutor stops to evaluate whether what I have just said falls on the political left or the right. In so doing she’s pegging me to a side. And once pegged, in her mind, whether what I’ve said is likely to be true or false as indexed to whichever side, Continue reading

Political Rhetoric, Thoughtlets

barriers, critical, ideas, left, polarized, politics, right, Thinking, thought
October 31, 2020

Saturday Morning Pam-toons. Over or Under?

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Pam-Toons

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