Can we understand the dynamics of far-right extremism without understanding far-right extremists? Probably not; it seems clear we need to have a much more "micro" understanding of the actors than we currently have if we are to understand these movements so antithetical to the values of liberal democracy. And yet there isn't much of a …
Can liberal political philosophy support anti-racism?
John Rawls and Philip Pettit agree about the idea that a liberal democracy depends on the idea that all citizens have equal liberties, rights, worth, and dignity. Therefore they also agree that social and legal arrangements that are incompatible with equal rights, equal liberties, and equal dignity are illegitimate. They disagree in some details about …
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A political philosophy for an inclusive multicultural democracy
We might say that a political philosophy is a formulation of the normative ideals that the philosopher holds to be primary in implementing the moral and social facts of "assemblages of free individuals in society, with conflicts of interest and belief". How should such a society be organized? What values should it aspire to realize …
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The consequences of a trillion dollars
Many thoughtful people in the US are concerned about the effects that the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law will have on poor people in many states who are currently enrolled in Medicaid health coverage. KFF has put together a comprehensive analysis of the implications of this omnibus act for Medicaid patients here. I asked Gemini for a summary …
Caillebotte’s silences
Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877. Artist Gustave Caillebotte. A current exhibition of the paintings of Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) at the Art Institute in Chicago is quite remarkable. It demonstrates the eye, the hand, and the sensibility of this great late-Impressionist painter. But the exhibition is remarkable in another way as well: there is almost no …
Real multicultural democracies
Chicago is a highly diverse city, and it is a good example of life in a multicultural democracy. The image above is a photo of the crowd on Navy Pier on a recent Saturday summer evening. According to local estimates, as many as 120,000 people visit Navy Pier on a Saturday night, and it is …
Ethnography of high-energy physics
MICE, Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment, team at the facility during construction at STFC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, 11th February 2015. The experiment is designed to demonstrate the concept of ionisation cooling of muons to maximise the number of muons available for acceleration, storage and the eventual production of neutirnos in a Neutrino Factory. Science proceeds through …
Artificial intelligence tools for historians
Historical research may seem to be a field in which AI tools will be especially useful. Historians are often confronted with very large unstructured digital collections of documents, letters, images, treaties, legal settlements, contracts, and diplomatic exchanges that far exceed the ability of a single human researcher to sift and analyze for valuable historical insights. …
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Stock ownership as system-wide exploitation?
A prior post made an effort to gain greater analytical clarity concerning the unfairness involved in the separation between the "one percent" economy and the rest of us. In what ways is the wealth owned by the super-billionaires an "unfair" extraction from the rest of US society? How can we account for the very rapid …
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A new form of exploitation
Much thinking about economic justice for working people has been framed by the nineteenth-century concept of “capitalism”: owners of enterprises constitute a minority of the population; they hire workers who represent the majority of the population; wages and profits define the distribution of income throughout the whole population. This picture still works well enough for …
Understanding Society 