Dad, LSU Alum, Author, “The Paradox of Democracy,” Host of The Gray Area pod. Order here! https://t.co/gfjhbiqJxx
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Jul 26, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The collapse of trust in authority is maybe the single biggest civilizational problem we face and absolutely no one has any idea what to do about it
To be clear, I say maybe the biggest problem because no solution to any other civilizational problem can be implemented at scale without sufficient trust in authority
My worries about amplification may be blurring my instincts on this, I fully admit
Jun 23, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Sharp column by @DouthatNYT that gets at something I tried to describe in my essay on Richard Rorty (posted below). Not sure it HAS to be this way, but the righteous cultural victories of the left have come at the expense of political and economic progress nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opi…
Here's the Rorty piece: vox.com/policy-and-pol…
Here's a comment from a follower defending Trump's "send her back" chant. I suspect it's a popular line of argument, and yet it gives away the whole game:
"If a person came into your home and told you how disgusting it was, would you not tell them to get out?"
(THREAD)
(2/5) The way the question is framed reveals everything you need to know about the assumptions undergirding it. It implies that @IlhanMN is a guest in the American home, an outsider, someone who is allowed to be here and thus being impolite in her criticisms.
Mar 10, 2019 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Philosophy hot take: we hate the postmodernists because they were right about the emptiness lurking beneath our entire universe of meaning. And because they offered no way out of the abyss they uncovered.
But I'm not sure we have any means of getting a grip on our current crisis if we don't accept that almost everyone lives an entirely mediated existence now. Any social theory that still presumes some tangible connection between cause and effect, reality and outcome, will fail.
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