Co-operatives and Liberation, not necessarily in that order
Last night I attended an event which included three first nations women speaking on the topic of the Albertan Tar Sands. I did not expect to learn anything new, or for the event to be particularly ground-breaking, but I wanted to attend to show solidarity with the organizers, speakers, and because such events are often […]
Read More First Nations Women Speak about the Tar SandsA new video released by Greenpeace’s executive director, Kumi Naidoo, proposes: Our movement must be as global as the problems we seek to address. We need people organizing where these crimes are taking place. It will take an unprecedented alliance of people of all walks of life, from environmentalists to those who have never considered […]
Read More Global Warming, Global JusticeStill being quite distraught after seeing Earthlings on Wednesday, I’ve been trying hard to put the ongoing catastrophe of violence against animals into a larger moral context. It is easy to emphasize violence against animals because it is so highly cruel, and because we are so immediately present to what it produces – one can […]
Read More Chomsky on VeganismWhat do you have a right not to know? Well, certainly you have a right not to know about the things you don’t know about – right? Well, I don’t think it’s as simple as that – because one of the things we know about is our own ignorance. In short: we know about a […]
Read More What do you have a right not to know?This data from the NY times does a good job of showing how the wage share has not increased as productivity has increased. If you think labour is like any other commodity, you should wonder why the return on labour has not appreciated as it has increased in productivity. If I invested in the development […]
Read More The Wage Share: Why is Labour such a lousy investment?The failure of positive and natural law to recognize the validity of the other, or to grasp the essential differences between them with regards to the social reality of moral life, is a product of the 20th century obsession with utopia. Of course, not with literal “utopia”, i.e. an “ideal place” – which our modern […]
Read More Scientism and Positive LawThe Natural/Positive law debate appears to be about the connection between law and morality. It is often phrased “is there a necessary connection between the notion of law and morality”? The debate often appears extremely inane, partially because the terms used by both sides literally don’t mean the same thing: a traditional “natural law” theorist […]
Read More Natural vs Positive law and the Endurance of Social ValuesIt is a common religious tradition to “say Grace” before a meal. In Abrahamic religions “saying Grace” refers to thanking the supreme deity for the food, and for the dominion he has granted humans over this earth. This meaning seems outdated, however, in a time when the idea of “human dominion over the […]
Read More A Plea: Replace “Grace” with “Justice”Zizek’s critique of Starbucks is cutting: capitalism sells us, alongside the products destroying the world, products which claim to include in their consumption its repair and redemption. The truth to extract from this is deep and wide-spreading: the unjust society you live in sells you its own repair as a libidinal supplement, to subvert desires […]
Read More Beyond Charity: Zizek and the satisfaction of moral impulses in generalThis is from a recent STRATFOR intelligence report: The world is a dangerous place, and violence and threats of violence have always been a part of the human condition. Hadrian’s Wall was built for a reason, and there is a reason we all have to take our shoes off at the airport today. While there is danger in […]
Read More Stratfor and the neutrality of Imperialism
Only a Northern Song 