Category Archives: Social Commentary

Mathematics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Heidegger

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Since we were discussing philosophy the other day, Lileks has some thoughts:

The article concerns the anti-Semitism of Heidegger, and how the publication of recent texts the philosopher intended to be the capstone of his output reveals that he didn’t have the easy, lazy cultural anti-Semitism of the era, but really, really thought hard on how the Jews were putting the stick to the decent noble Volk. Not just any kind of Jews, though: worldwide jewry! It’s the richest kind.

..Anything that starts out with “Russia and America are the same” is the product of a mind so high in the clouds it cannot tell the different between red and black ants. But while Russia did indeed have “unrestricted organization of the average man,” an inevitable consequence of the state’s politicization of the entire society, you could say Germany under Hitler had a smattering as well. Or a gerschmatturung, to use Heidegger’s word. Just kidding; he doesn’t. But the article is full of German words intended to set off a Concept, as though expressing a concept in a train-wreck of consonants makes it important. I suppose the point is to be accurate, use the terms the author uses so there can be no misunderstanding. But for my part that would require anything close to comprehension, and I cannot grasp a lot of what Heidegger is talking about, perhaps because there seems to be no point in understanding what he’s saying.

Philosophy isn’t useless, but some philosophers are. Or worse than.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Trivializing Sexual Assault

First the left went after George Will, and now they’ve chosen a really bad target: a smart law professor:

But really, all that vitriol because Dean is “not sure” that an imprecise reading of what I wrote is correct? Even if she had recounted what I wrote precisely correctly, all that vitriol because she’s “not sure” I’m right?

Nor, for that matter, does Dean ever address my point about a proposed California law providing for judging sexual assault complaints by an “affirmative consent” consent standard, but only for college students in college-run hearings; if this is a good idea, why only for this limited category of people in limited circumstances? Why not make it the legal standard for sexual assault in California? A particular scenario can’t logically change from sexual assault to non-sexual assault because it happens the day after graduation instead of the day before.

As for my broader point, that the extremely broad explicit consent standard incorrectly provided on DOJ’s website means that the vast majority of men and women in the U.S. are guilty of sexual assault, Dean doesn’t bother to disagree. Instead, the best she can muster is “I do not think we are looking at any real danger of people being marched off to death camps for kissing each other.”

That’s obviously not really the question. The question is whether you want to create a sexual assault standard that is so broad that a prosecutor (or other authority, if for example it’s a university matter) can basically punish anyone they want to, so long as someone is willing to file a complaint. And so broad, as well, that it trivializes sexual assault, in that it conflates sexual assault with things like reaching out to hold your date’s hand under the dinner table.

We need to push back against these little fascists, hard.

[Update a few minutes later[

More thoughts from Ann Althouse on “chilling” debate.