occasional reflections on culture & politics
Sometimes, an emotional appeal may seem necessary. Human beings are emotional. There is plenty of suffering and plenty of pain in the world, and emotional reactions are to be expected. Nobody can hold in everything all the time, we are not all stoics, we cannot just be expected to endure suffering without reacting to it.… Continue reading #232: The Downside of the Emotional Appeal
Diversity work - like any form of political speech - cannot just focus on what needs to be said, it must also take into account what people are able and willing to hear. Why is that? Should we really aim to speak in a way that may limit our own expression, tone or message? Is… Continue reading #215: Commonsense Diversity
Ever since Ibram X. Kendi published his book How to be an Anti-Racist, resistance against his message has been very vocal. The main point of criticism is Kendi’s central assertion, as follows: “The opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘anti-racist.’ What's the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as… Continue reading #203: The Puzzling Resistance Against Anti-Racism
A lot of things are labeled as “woke” nowadays. Contrary to the original intention of the word itself, the very term “woke” has become a caricature, a word that is meant to now quickly dismiss whatever is termed as such. Someone is called out for what could be understood as an insensitive or insulting remark,… Continue reading #179: Ecce Homo: Wokeness Beyond Caricatures
Whoopi Goldberg said something incredibly and shockingly ignorant about the Holocaust. She revealed, in fact, how a very peculiar and narrow understanding of race in America prevents a more thorough and global discussion of difference, discrimination, ethnicity, racism and genocide in the world. It is a wide-spread problem, and it was unfortunate to see it… Continue reading #134: If People Apologize for Their Mistake, They Should Not Be Cancelled
The category of race as we know it today, especially in the American context, was established historically in order to denigrate other groups of people based on otherwise meaningless criteria for the purpose of domination and colonialism. As an ideology, it emerged as a reaction to Columbus’ arrival in America. It served the effective othering… Continue reading #127: We Cannot Overcome Racism If We Talk About “Race” all the Time
Words are easy. They are not formulas. You should just be able to read them and understand them instantly. Or so it goes. We seemingly are living in a time where all the things talked about in the humanities and the social sciences in the recent decades are finally coming to have their day in… Continue reading #79: The Need for the Public Understanding of Humanities and Social Science Theory
Monument to the Burning of Giordano Bruno at the Campo dei Fiori in Rome."A BRUNO - IL SECOLO DA LUI DIVINATO - QUI DOVE IL ROGO ARSE"("To Bruno - from the age he divined - here where the fire burned"). If a term like Social Justice has to have any meaning, it needs to solve… Continue reading #78: What Is Social Justice – and What Isn’t
Erratic Attempts 