Category Archives: activism

Complicity, Neutrality, Atrocity (3/5)

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

Complicity, Exposure, and Activism

This is part 3 of a five part series. For part 1, go here. For part 2, go here.

At this point, the Stakeholders have criticized, the Institution has half-responded, and the Stakeholders have rebutted that half-response. What’s most likely to happen next is that because the Institution controls the terms of the debate, it will insist on a purely procedural discussion. The substantive issues are to be set aside as “too complex and controversial.” The issue of complicity is quickly to be submerged in a broth of procedural acids and left to corrode. The Institution, it will be repeated, must be governed in an orderly fashion—a fashion that just happens to give a systematic, unyielding presumption to stasis and the status quo, that places a nearly impossible burden of proof on anyone who seeks to change it, and that then describes doing so as a binding norm. Continue reading →

Let Them Eat Each Other

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, cancel culture, Fatwas, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post here called “Academic Hiring and Genocide,” in which I argued that genocidaires should, at the very least, be excluded from academic life, but ideally should be excluded from gainful employment itself. Whatever anyone thought of the argument, readers might have wondered about its practical relevance. “So Khawaja’s calling for the on-campus cancellation of ‘genocidaires’. Interesting vendetta, but how many genocidaires are there, anyway? And how many are actively seeking employment right now, including academic employment?” The New York Times reports that the “Defense Department [Is] to Cut Over 5,000” workers due to the Musk-Trump rampage against the “Deep State.” Could I possibly have meant them? Take a wild guess. Continue reading →

Complicity, Neutrality, Atrocity (2/5)

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, cancel culture, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

Stakeholders, Politicization, and Standing to Complain

This is part 2 of a five part series. For part 1, go here.

Background context: an institution accused of complicity in injustice counter-accuses its accusers of politicization and lack of standing.

Start with the politicization objection. The Stakeholders have two separate responses here. 

Responding to the politicization objection. First, they point out that it’s not clear that the politicization of a previously apolitical scene is necessarily objectionable. Productiveness, order, and justice are three separate values whose relative value is far from self-evident. Given this, it’s obviously not the case that the value of productiveness and order so outweigh justice as to trump it altogether. Continue reading →

Complicity, Neutrality, Atrocity (1/5)

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, cancel culture, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

Complicity and the Strategy of Evasion

Imagine that an institution (“the Institution”) maintains a set of investments in various enterprises that make a clear and demonstrable contribution to some indisputable injustice. Now suppose that a set of stakeholders (“the Stakeholders”) objects to these investments, calling on the Institution to divulge the facts in a fuller way, and demanding divestment from the clearly objectionable investments.  Continue reading →

Academic Hiring and Genocide

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, character based voting, ethics, Fatwas, Palestine

“In the literature of complaint and reform, and in the endless reports from distinguished groups identifying a crisis in some element or all of higher education in America, a key defect is often the absence of practical solutions.” 

–John V. Lombardi, How Universities Work, p. 31. 

In an essay I posted here a few weeks ago, I argued that genocidaires seeking lower-level electoral office should be denied such offices at the ballot box. The argument was framed as a response to Jason Brennan’s account of the ethics of voting, which he describes as “the ethics of voting in political contexts.”(1) Though he doesn’t quite define “political contexts,” it’s obvious enough that he means voting in democratic elections for governmental office, e.g., for U.S. President, for legislative offices, and in some cases for judicial offices, taking U.S. electoral politics as the paradigm. Continue reading →

Character-Based Voting and Genocide

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, character based voting, Election 2024, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

It’s been a while since I’ve beaten up on Jason Brennan’s “argument” against character-based voting, but I’m feeling the urge again, so here I am, hot to go.(1) The crux of Brennan’s argument is that it’s wrong to vote for political candidates on the basis of their traits of character, except when character is a predictive proxy for the policies they can be expected to enact once in office. In a formula (Brennan’s formula, made in discussion here on PoT): “policy > character.” Taken literally, the argument proscribes voting against any candidate, no matter how evil, if the evil he exemplifies is policy-irrelevant. My aim here is to add yet another counter-example to my ever-growing list of counter-examples to Brennan’s thesis, partly for the understanding it affords, and partly for the fun of it. Continue reading →

My Foreknowledge of the New Orleans Attack

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

A couple of days ago, I predicted here that a “terrorist” attack on the United States would take place. Now one has, in New Orleans. Did I have foreknowledge of this attack? I sure did. In fact, I told you what the foreknowledge was in the post itself: You can’t spend decades supporting apartheid, conquest, occupation, and genocide, then take pride in shutting down the anti-war movement, and not expect to be attacked in retaliation. That’s what Americans and Israelis did, and that’s what happened to them. What did you think was going to happen? The victims of your psychopathic depredations were going to roll over and play dead forever? Continue reading →

“False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge”

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, General announcements, libertarianism, liberty and the left, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, political philosophy

Just a reminder to anyone attending the APA Eastern in New York this January: the Molinari Society is hosting a session on “False Alternatives in the Politics of Knowledge,” Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, 4-5:50 pm, room TBA. Cory Massimino and I will be giving papers, with Roderick Long moderating and commenting. Cory’s paper is “Between Convergency and Conspiracy.” Mine is “Between Indoctrination and False Neutrality,” a defense of an advocacy-based conception of pedagogy, using the teaching I did under the Israeli occupation as a case study. For more details, click here.

On Love of Country

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, Fatwas, Memorials and Obituaries, moralism, Palestine

You’ve got to love a country where the President commutes the death sentences of 37 death row inmates, is widely praised for it, makes a pious speech about why the other three have to get the shaft for “terrorism,” and then, without a pause, continues committing genocide abroad while winning adulation for that. The part of the country fixated on the first part of that sentence is incomprehensible to the part fixated on the second, and vice versa. The day when the second group becomes large enough to be a real worry to the first is the day that we’ll witness the beginning of the end of the United States of America in the name of something better. It’s only when you grasp that the second group unapologetically wants to hasten that day that you’ll understand what the dispute was about in the first place. But believe me, we do.

Secure Your Own Homeland

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Fatwas, libertarianism, slices of life

ICE showed up at my workplace today–or rather, ICE in the guise of DHS, “The Department of Homeland Security.” The agent flashed a badge and started asking about some people with Spanish names. Did I know anything about them? I had nothing to say.

The only thing I have for ICE or DHS–the only product I can promise–is wholehearted, undying hostility. I doubt they want to hear me talk about that. So there’s nothing to say. In any case, the Homeland they’re securing isn’t mine to worry about, and the land that I live in isn’t theirs to secure. Not a promising basis for a meeting of minds–the only kind that interests me.

I opened the door this time because I didn’t know who was ringing. Next time, as far as I’m concerned, they can stand there for as long as it takes to induce someone else to open the door. I’m not the doorman. So it won’t be me.