Linguistically fascinating: In Canadian English there are three distinct sounds – oo, ou, ow – but American English hears and speaks only two of them. Canadians say ow as in brown, ou as in house, and oo as in soon. But Americans pronounce house, south, and about more like howse, sowth, and abowt. And their […]
Canadian versus American English Read More »
We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the fifteenth: We’ve all run into teachers who think like this: There is One Truth and I am in possession of it. So important is it that students must believe it and it alone. Alternative ideas are a waste of time
Why Postmoderns Train—Not Educate—Activists [Open College transcript] Read More »
One datum. Here is Michel Foucault explaining why the proletariat engage in class warfare: “The proletariat doesn’t wage war against the ruling class because it considers such a war to be just. The proletariat makes war with the ruling class because … it wants to take power.” The Chomsky-Foucault Debate: On Human Nature That’s from
Foucault and whether postmodernism is neo-Marxist Read More »
My heart sank a little when I saw the trio come down the aisle of the airplane. A mother with two young children, and the three seats in front of me were open in a mostly filled airplane. The boy, approximately five years old, arrived first and slid his way over to the window seat.
Anecdote: How Cry-bullies and Snow-fakes Are Made Read More »
I am a member of an oppressed minority. I have known this for a long time but recently came across irrefutable evidence of the calloused underbelly of our culture’s indifference to those who are different. Click on this image to see what I mean: There it is, right in the middle of the page: Being
Against right privilege! Read More »
Why should the front of a painting be privileged over its back? Virtually all art is shown one side only — the arbitrarily chosen “front” side. Meanwhile, the “back” is consigned to obscurity and neglect. Yet there’s nothing inherently superior about the blank surface chosen to have paints bestowed upon it. It neither earned nor
Painting privilege — against “side-ism” in art Read More »
We’re now posting serially at thinkspot the transcripts of my Open College podcasts. Here’s the fourteenth: Steve Jobs’s conflictual school experiences raise a question: Did Steve Jobs fail to adapt himself to the system, or did the school system fail to fit Steve Jobs? Audio versions of the podcast are available free at my website,
Educating Entrepreneurs, Or Why Steve Jobs Hated School [Open College transcript] Read More »
1. Why does reason even matter? 2. What’s important about the Enlightenment? 3. Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” — a counter-Enlightenment subjectivism? 4. Canada and the USA as importers of ideas from Europe? 5. Common themes in Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche? 6. Subjective passionism contra liberal democracy? 7. Which groups will dominate in the conflict? 8. Why are
Canada Strong and Free Network interview — Troy Lanigan Read More »