Category Archives: Palestine

The Mikie Sherrill Sweatbox

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

I saw this on Facebook just now. The “her” is Mikie Sherrill, Democratic candidate for Governor of New Jersey. To my regret, I volunteered for her 2017-2018 campaign for Congress (along with Chelsea Handler and a bunch of other idiots), and avidly promoted her here at PoT.

It reminds me of a scene in Jean-Claude Van Damme’s 1990 film, “Lionheart.” Legionnaire Lyon Gauthier is a lowly private in the French Legion, stationed in North Africa, whose brother has just been put in the hospital by a gang attack in LA. (Naturally, the family doesn’t have health insurance.) On receiving this news, Gauthier tells his Nazi commanding officer that he “needs” to see his brother in LA. The officer responds:

You need what I tell you you need. And right now, I think you need two weeks’ hard labor.

That’s what voting for Mikie Sherrill is like, except that she’d be governor for four years, not two weeks. Continue reading →

Does Heterodox Academy Practice Institutional Neutrality?

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, pedagogy

The doctrine of institutional neutrality asserts that an institution ought not to make public pronouncements on matters of public controversy. It’s promoted most vigorously nowadays by organizations like Heterodox Academy, and by the 150 or so universities that have signed on to Heterodox Academy’s campaign. This gives rise to an oddly neglected question: does institutional neutrality apply to Heterodox Academy itself? Is Heterodox Academy itself bound by the doctrine of institutional neutrality? It’s not clear how to answer this question, or whether it can coherently be answered at all. Continue reading →

The Activist As Revenue Manager

Posted on by under Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, slices of life

Between doing the numbers for Hartford HealthCare, and prepping the inventory reports for the Atlantic Health System—and blogging to excess in the middle of it all—I left the office late, got on a late train home, and once again got my ass stranded at Princeton Junction Rail Station. No sooner did I get there, but who should show up as if waiting for me but my favorite Arab taxi driver? Meaning the same guy who gave me the free ride last time.

Continue reading →

MAP Public-Facing Philosophy

Posted on by under General announcements, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

A reprise of an earlier announcement: I’ll be presenting “Academia’s Complicit Executioners: A Critique of the Kalven Committee Report” at the MAP Public Facing Philosophy conference on Saturday, September 6th. The first link above goes to a video of my talk at the Heterodox Academy conference this past June in Brooklyn. I’m hoping to have a much-expanded hard copy version of that presentation written up soon, which I’ll post here and on the MAP page. Anyone can attend the MAP conference (it’s free), but you have to RSVP. Info below, and RSVP here.

The panel goes from 12-1 pm EDT, and the Works in Progress Presentations begin at 1. Updated correction: The presentations are ten minutes each, and will be given sequentially, followed by a joint 30 minute discussion until about 2. The keynote follows that.

The contrast with Heterodox Academy is sort of amusing. For my most recent attack on institutional neutrality, go here. Continue reading →

Dreams of Death

Posted on by under Memorials and Obituaries, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, slices of life

I dreamt last night of my late wife, Alison. I didn’t see or hear her, and I was in a mostly unfamiliar place, but her presence was unmistakable. I knew that we were somewhere in Washington Heights near the George Washington Bridge, where we used to live. We were dating in the dream, not yet married, and it was late, so I’d decided to go back home. For some reason, I had to go across the street to a pay phone to call an Uber. It was midnight, but paradoxically enough both bright as noon and dark enough to obscure the way. I called the Uber guy, who was hard to hear, but he said he was coming, and there the dream ended. Continue reading →

Institutional Neutrality as Willed Collective Stupidity

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, migrant defense, moralism, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

The doctrine of institutional neutrality asserts that universities ought not to make public statements on matters of public controversy, or in its newer iterations, matters of public controversy not “directly” related to “their core mission of teaching and research.” One exception, present from the start, is what I call the self-defense exception. In the words of the Kalven Committee Report:

From time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values.

More crisply: if a threat arises to the “core mission” of the university, every threatened university is morally obligated to respond in a non-neutral fashion. Continue reading →

No Such Thing as a Free Ride?

Posted on by under Palestine, slices of life

I’ve just worked a fifteen hour day. I want it all to end. I want to end it all.

I take the 8:54 train out of Metropark, hoping to get to Princeton Junction in time to catch the 9:25 bus into town. I’m in luck. We get in at 9:24.

Just as we get there, the son-of-a-bitch bus driver pulls away. In other words, he sees a whole trainload of commuters come in, then leaves a minute early. I curse as I watch him go, sympathizing briefly with every terrorist who’s ever lived. Continue reading →

Those Who Forget the Past

Posted on by under Memorials and Obituaries, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

“Starve away.”–Randy Fine

“We must be able to will that a maxim of our action become a universal law: this is the canon of moral appraisal of action in general.” —Immanuel Kant

“The Jews, unable to leave the City, were deprived of all hope of survival. The famine became more intense and devoured whole houses and families. The roofs were covered with women and babies too weak to stand, the streets full of old men already dead. Young men and boys, swollen with hunger, haunted the squares like ghosts and fell wherever faintness overcame them. To bury their kinfolk was beyond the strength of the sick, and those who were fit shirked the task because of the number of the dead and uncertainty about their own fate; for many while burying others fell dead themselves, and many set out for their graves before their hour struck.” Continue reading →

The Final Solution Is Here

Posted on by under activism, Memorials and Obituaries, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

I am, as I write this, sitting in a quiet air-conditioned room in a comfortable, modern library. The window to my right looks out on a bright, sunlit plaza. The plaza hosts a series of high end restaurants, each of which is set up for outdoor dining, with umbrellas to ward off the sun and heaters to keep out the chill. There are maybe a couple of dozen people out there enjoying the warmth of the evening. In observing this scene, a non sequitur of a thought occurs to me. Five thousand seven hundred miles away, a genocide is taking place. People are being starved, shot, and bombed to death with obscene abandon. The contrast is so stark as to be surreal. And yet it’s real. Continue reading →