Blog
The biggest conspiracy theories are all-consuming
This week’s antisemitism and transphobia—Trump, West, Rowling—is all connected. Donald Trump, Kanye West, J. K. Rowling are billionaires who validate their followers’ hateful conspiracy theories. Antisemitism and transphobia are linked.
Jewish and trans: Conspiracy theories won’t leave us alone
On ‘Jewish Space Lasers’ by Mike Rothschild, with my own reflections on transphobia. No one can prove anything to anyone who isn’t open to real evidence and logic, as conspiracy theorists are not. Still, pay attention to their antisemitism.
How do you know the legislation is anti-LGBTQ without reading it?
2023 was gruesomely challenging. 2024 is something else. You could try to read 20 anti-LGBTQ bills per business day. Or you could just recognize that this massive legislative campaign is anti-LGBTQ and harmful.
We are the book we’re talking about
And we are what’s at stake in truth-telling. If the interlocutor opposes me because of who I am, will they be impressed that I read a book? No. Even if it is a book they have heard of? No.
Humility: A needed balance
On early modern philosophers and online trolls. In Lewis Carroll’s ‘You Are Old, Father William,’ a young person asks: ‘You balanced an eel on the end of your nose - / What made you so awfully clever?’
What is human dignity?
Where does it come from? How do we know it exists? Does dignity need to be pinned to God, or can it have secular grounding? Is it about humility, pride, or both? What does interdependence have to do with it?
When we disagree on politics and I lose a friend
I have to be a good person, and even then, it’s up to someone else if they want to be my friend. They don’t owe me what I gave as a gift, and certainly they don’t owe me what I never gave at all.
Does ‘woke’ mean saying — or not saying — certain words?
In any case, careful speech—including refraining from speaking — can build trust. When the right wing refers to “woke,” they may want to prevent others from saying certain words—or to reserve certain words for themselves.
It’s not ‘free speech,’ it’s bigotry
If they really believe in free speech, this is how we’ll know. There are many reasons why people have prejudices and why they devote their speech to expressing bigotry. Not high on the list: commitment to free speech.