Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

In reply to mlyoung57. Well, that’s one possibility, but it leaves the possibility I raised on the table. Sometimes there is no clear-cut aggressor in a conflict, but sometimes there is. Whether rightly or wrongly, the conventional wisdom holds t…

In reply to boydstun. Thanks for your comment. We’re clearly agreeing on a lot. I think in a way you stumble on the explanation for why non-technical staff have the attitude you find problematic. Take a job with the following features: The job i…

In reply to RR. Well, the essay was about the abolition of the blasphemy laws, not their origins. I don’t dispute that the Islamic character of the Pakistani regime is to blame for the existence of its blasphemy laws. But it wasn’t necessar…

[…] “Academic scholars working on Hurston tend to be baffled by her politics. Again and again in the academic literature on Hurston, one finds some version of the puzzled question ‘Why does she seem so sensibly left-wing on some issues and …

You do write well and I enjoyed your article up to the point it made me angry. Such a long article, so many vignettes of the well-educated and powerful and yet not one mention of the real reason and background of the blasphemy law in Pakistan. Not eve…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. And yes, you’re absolutely right, the issues with reservations are the same. Treating people like shit has consequences for the victor as well as the victim, and it’s a pity the world’s great powers haven&#8…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. The moderate right here is in favour of alcohol and welfare spending restrictions and the like. Which do work, up to a point, but to some extent deprive people of agency. The left tend to see that as a restriction of human ri…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. In many conflicts, there is no clear-cut illegitimate initiator of aggression (violence, hostility, etc.) – if for no other reason than that it is not clear just what constitutes initiation or aggression (especially in messy …

Irfan, everything you said about speech in business is true in my experience. That is, concerning large firms. In the small firms, my experience was that you just don’t have, e.g., meetings asking employees to vent their criticisms. I do not have…