Pol Theory Prof @Politics_Oxford & author of Mere Civility (Harvard 2017) https://t.co/38yF4CErkn.
Essays @ NYT, Atlantic, WaPo, &c.
Writing on equality.
Sep 27, 2021 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
In honour of a new academic year:
Why I find the word 'PROBLEMATIC' problematic:
A Thread
1. What do academics mean when we say (as we so often do) that some person or statement of affairs is PROBLEMATIC?
We're not saying that it's a problem.
Rather we're saying (or suggesting) that it rests UNEASILY with--or even violates--our prior commitments.
Apr 7, 2021 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
1) Academic colleagues I otherwise admire have a tendency to, well, *sneer* when the issue of ‘viewpoint’ diversity comes up as below, especially when it comes to conservatives.
2) The well-documented dearth of conservatives in the American professoriate is presented as evidence of their intellectual inadequacies (i.e. political conservatives are "flat-earthers" who can't pass peer review)
2) I argued that critics of ‘cancel culture’ are right to worry that the right to speak one’s mind freely, without favor or fear, is under threat.
But as I explain in my 2017 Atlantic essay, cancel culture’s defenders care about free speech, too -- but as 'isegoria'.
Jul 16, 2020 • 25 tweets • 4 min read
1/ It’s also worth asking today: what exactly makes speech “free”?
2/ The sense in play in the current debate about ‘cancel culture‘ is that of parrhesia. In Greek, it means literally “saying it all”—that is, speaking one’s mind, what one likes, when one likes, and to whom.
