Discourse is at the heart of social justice: the idea human beings are not free actors in the world, but are instead constrained by language, in the form of discourses that have been established over time. And we do not create our identities fr

Racecraft: Constructing Race

Dec 17th, 2021 7m 45s

"Racism always takes for granted the objective reality of race . . . [which] transforms racism, something an aggressor does, into race, something the target is, in a sleight of hand that is easy to miss." — Karen & Barbara Fields, RacecraftRace

Witchcraft's Reason

Dec 10th, 2021 10m 3s

We need someone to blame. When something bad happens, we don't want to hear that it's because of chance or nature, because then it's meaningless. We want a social explanation. That's what witchcraft delivered for the Azande people, studied by E

What Are Social Constructions Made Of?

Dec 3rd, 2021 12m 51s

"When a dancer stops dancing, the dance is finished." - Bruno LatourWhat Latour calls "critical sociology" (an intellectual foundation of social justice) does three things. 1) It replaces the activities of real people with abstract forces from

The Invention of White Privilege

Nov 26th, 2021 7m 14s

Plantation owners in 17th century Barbados had a problem. They purchased white indentured servants and black slaves. At that time, there was little difference: life expectancy was so short that most indentured servants never saw freedom. The de

The Matrix and the Heresy of Progress

Nov 19th, 2021 13m 47s

The Matrix echoes the Gnostic heresy: the world is a prison for our souls, the creator is evil, and knowledge brings freedom. In the film, what appears to be reality is in fact an illusion created to enslave humanity. The red pill reveals the

Live Not for Others

Nov 12th, 2021 10m 2s

Affirmation is a trap. It makes us dependent, weak and unhappy.It starts in school. Some comply and are rewarded. They do well in school: but if they have come to expect praise, they may be lost or angry in lie. Others resist and are punished,

Joseph Tainter: Collapse and Complexity

Nov 5th, 2021 13m 13s

As society becomes complex, it reaches a point where the cost of coping with problems exceeds the benefits. Then, people may choose collapse as the lesser evil. But in a globalized world, no society can collapse in isolation. The alternative is

Shawshank: The Prison of Professional Life

Oct 29th, 2021 9m 38s

The lesson of The Shawshank Redemption is compliance. The film is about life, and Shawshank prison stands for the institutions to which professionals devote their careers.It seems to be a story of freedom. It is not. The film affirms a myth tha

Like Bad Parents

Oct 22nd, 2021 8m 55s

We punish adults as though they were children - in ways that don't even work on kids.We say that we are handing out "consequences" - as though we are parents and they are our children. Of course it doesn't work - no-one likes being treated that

Pandemic of Hate

Oct 15th, 2021 18m 43s

"Treat them like the plague-spreading lepers that they are. You want to be put in isolation camps? That's where this is headed, you will have deserved it, and I'm all for it."— highly up-voted comment on Reddit, September, 2021There is an epide

Fanaticism Without Faith: The Internet and the French Revolution

Oct 8th, 2021 15m 11s

"Fanaticism without faith, discipline without loyalty, excommunication without communion." Augustin Cochin.Sound familiar? The Internet is not the first time a new forum for communication turned society upside down. The French Revolution did no

Hierarchy vs Centralization: Equality Against Itself

Oct 1st, 2021 8m 53s

"Equality facilitates the exercise of power." - Mirabeau to Louis XVI, during the French RevolutionThere is no escape from organization and structure. We may try to create groups without structure, in which everyone is equal: but the result is

Lest We Be Barbarians

Sep 24th, 2021 8m 49s

"You must pick up the gun to defend civilization against barbarism. Those who pick up the gun are barbarians." — Kenneth HiteJustice is not only about punishing the perpetrator: it's about ourselves, and who we become. We are what we do, and th

René Girard: Contagion and Scapegoat

Sep 17th, 2021 11m 14s

Humans respond to plagues and social disorder with collective murder. Since antiquity, communities have chosen victims who are marginal or different. The perpetrators truly believe that the victim is guilty - a belief confirmed when the murder

René Girard: Identity and Desire

Sep 10th, 2021 10m 11s

Does desire come from within? René Girard argues no: we imitate the desires of others. We pursue the fantasy that if only we could uncover and achieve our own, authentic desires, we would be happy. In fact, our desires are copies; when we achie

Hitler's Students: Elite Overproduction Then and Now

Sep 3rd, 2021 12m 48s

When there are too many elites, chaos follows. In essence, this is historian Peter Turchin's theory of elite overproduction. Tracing the history of civilizations around the world, he finds that an oversupply of elites is one of the strongest pr

"A conscious decision": How Copyright Sold Out U.S. Industry

Aug 27th, 2021 11m 7s

"My job was to be in charge of the intellectual property policy of the United States . . . if you go to a shopping mall in this country you cannot buy anything made in the United States anymore. It all comes from China or some other place like

Hannah Arendt: Totalitarian Dreams

Aug 20th, 2021 12m 29s

Totalitarianism begins as dream. It ends in nightmare, the destruction of the individual. Hannah Arendt, a Jew who fled Hitler, analyzed the commonalities of communism and Naziism in her book, The Origins of Totalitarianism. Life doesn't make a

The Case for Social Justice

Aug 13th, 2021 10m 54s

A concise argument for the contemporary social justice movement and why it considers language fundamental. I explain the faith, but I am not a believer.

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