Author Archives: Irfan Khawaja

The Antidote to Civilization

Posted on by under Palestine

Whatever you think or say, don’t tell me that Israel or the United States represent a “civilization” I’m obliged to respect. If the video below shows us the price of “civilization,” then civilization is morally indistinguishable from “savagery”—just more expensive, more comfortable, and more effective at mass extermination.

Civilization can only be distinguished from savagery when it forswears the methods of savagery. Unfortunately, our civilization thrives on the dogma that it’s too exalted a thing to incur such an obligation. The result is a “civilization” that claims to take its bearings from Mt Olympus or Mt Sinai, but ends up wallowing in the sewer. Not a pretty sight. But don’t look away.

Princeton University USG Referendum Question #5: Divest

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, ethics, Fatwas, General announcements, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

Referendum Question #5 of Princeton University’s forthcoming Undergraduate Student Government elections. Scroll down (you may have to click “download”) for a PDF with the wording of the referendum. Kudos to these students for the work they’ve done on this. If only I could vote on it, but I’m 33 years too late.

donotabstain

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No Questions, No Justice

Posted on by under slices of life

I have no interest in professional sports, much less boxing, much less the life and times of Mike Tyson. So I have nothing of substance to say about his recent bout with Jake Paul or much of anything else about him, but I was stopped short by a sleeper of a Mike Tyson story, his interview with Jazlyn “Jazzy” Guerra, a thirteen-year-old online journalist (scroll all the way down for it). Continue reading →

The Hard Domination of Everyday Life

Posted on by under Health Care Series, libertarianism, MTSP Discussion: Philip Pettit's Republicanism

In a bunch of recent posts (here, here, and here), I’ve been piling on employment-at-will, mostly from the perspective of the aggrieved employee. Employment-at-will, I’ve argued, has problematic consequences for employees who are terminated at will, without cause. Terminations-without-cause incentivize arbitrary, unaccountable exercises of power in the labor market of the sort aptly described as “dominations” by Philip Pettit in his account of republican freedom.

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It Tolls for Thee, You Idiot

Posted on by under Election 2024

Election Night, 2024
Princeton, New Jersey
9 pm

As we watch the US election results shamble their way onto our screens, it’s amusing to think that we’ve spent a year or more fixated on the spectacle of two pieces of moral trash engaged in a long, unsavory job interview. Ironically, the result will be a hire and possibly a termination that blurs the distinction between at-will and for-cause. Whoever wins or loses this thing, can anyone really say why? Continue reading →

A Vote for Harris is a Vote for Genocide

Posted on by under Election 2024, Fatwas, Palestine

For the last year, Kamala Harris’s more aggressive defenders have wielded a particular rhetorical weapon against Jill Stein voters like me: A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump. I’m a little late to the party in saying this, but there’s an obvious retort to them worth repeating ad nauseam: A vote for Harris is a vote for genocide. Call it Stein’s Maxim.

Stein’s Maxim retort has two advantages over theirs. For one, it hits a lot harder. For another, unlike theirs, it’s true.

Taken at face value, “A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump” is flat-out nonsense. A vote for X is a vote for X, not for someone else on the ballot. If I vote for X, and you accuse me of voting for Y, the obvious objection arises: if I had wanted Y to win, I could have voted directly for Y, yet I didn’t. So how could my voting for X be a vote for Y? It obviously can’t be an intended vote for Y. The only intended vote for Y is an actual vote for Y. Continue reading →

The Soft Domination of Everyday Life

Posted on by under cancel culture, ethics, moralism, MTSP Discussion: Philip Pettit's Republicanism, slices of life

Consider this post an unplanned addendum to my earlier series on domination and at-will employment.

A friend of mine just got “fired”–you’ll see in a minute why the word is in scare quotes–and we’re disagreeing about what it all means. Naturally, I thought I’d share tidbits of our discussion here. My friend blames himself; I blame his employer. Which of us is right? I’ll give you an impeccably impartial account below; you decide. Then feel free to chime in either way.

Let’s call my friend “Claude.” Claude was caught vaping on the job. There’s no explicit rule in his company’s handbook against vaping on the job. It’s simply understood that “one does not vape on the job.” It’s not clear why this is so. “It is what it is.” Argument is not invited, and evidence is not required. We all know evil when we see it. Continue reading →