May 298 minVivek Chibber's defense of materialism[This is a review published at H-Socialisms.] Vivek Chibber. The Class Matrix: Social Theory after the Cultural Turn. Harvard University...
Apr 89 minOn stupidity and the excesses of wokenessOne of the first laws of human existence, or at least of existence in class societies (determined by anti-human institutions that mold...
Aug 22, 202116 minEleven Theses on Socialist RevolutionThe good folks at DSA (of which I'm a proud member) were kind enough to publish the following article recently in their online...
Jul 9, 20219 minThe truth about genderSome months ago I saw Richard Dawkins recommend on Twitter a new book called The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths about Sex and...
Jun 15, 202111 minOn humans' language facultyYou may have heard of the “talking gorilla” Koko. I remember as a child reading about this fascinating creature that had been trained to...
May 25, 202112 minCritiques of Richard Rorty (and postmodernism)[Here are notes I took many years ago while reading Richard Rorty’s famous book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. As you’ll see from...
Mar 4, 20219 minPersonal reflections on anarchismAnarchism (anti-authoritarianism, love of freedom) is an essential thing, an essential guide for our thinking and action, but I have to...
Sep 8, 202021 min"Revolution in the Twenty-First Century: A Reconsideration of Marxism"[An article from several months ago.] In the age of COVID-19, it’s even more obvious than it’s been for at least a couple of decades that...
Sep 6, 202019 minJournal-notes on cognitive science [From 2015.] Reading a bunch of articles on cognitive development. A fascinating field. Interesting: Human infants who receive little...
Sep 1, 20205 minBiology and destiny[Notes from ten years ago.] I’m amazed at the extent of our culture’s cult of secrecy in matters of the body. Even in this age, people...
Aug 26, 202016 minMethodological individualism vs. holismIf you're like me and are dumb enough to take an interest in abstruse debates among social scientists, you may have heard of the "debate"...
Aug 24, 202025 minWhy I am not a Leninist (nor an anarchist)Years later, I still reproach myself for self-publishing my book on cooperatives, because that ensured it would have a limited...
Aug 22, 202023 minThe definition of knowledgePhilosophers have a tendency to treat questions that revolve around the meaning of a particular concept as if they are more substantive...
Jun 28, 20207 minOld student notes on random philosophy articlesSometimes I like to return to philosophy in order to get the sort of intellectual stimulation that reading history doesn't provide. E.g.,...
Jun 9, 20208 minOld syllabus and lecture notes[Here are some notes from the first syllabus I wrote for the U.S. History After 1865 survey course. Below them are overly ambitious notes...
Jun 6, 202016 minRambling reflections on Camille PagliaI've been reading Camille Paglia's collection of essays Sex, Art, and American Culture (1992). I disagree with a lot of Paglia's...
Jul 27, 20195 minOn the fight against misogynyAs a leftist, "I wish we could all just get along." Wouldn't that be nice? Maybe it would get boring pretty quickly. But a little less...
Jul 24, 201919 minA little misanthropy can be a healthy thingThis is from a letter Sigmund Freud wrote to his pastor friend Oskar Pfister: I do not break my head very much about good and evil, but I...
Jul 19, 20197 minA plea for honesty in discussions of sex and genderA recent article of mine, called "Political Correctness Is Getting Out of Hand," elicited some angry emails. Not from people who...
May 30, 20186 minThe individual and historyQuestions Raised by 9/11, and Their Answers [An old grad-school paper] Lawrence Wright’s book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to...