"What this shows is that the legal right to freedom of speech is not enough. What’s also needed are colleagues who are willing to conduct themselves according to informal norms of civility and responsible, rational exchange. Clearly some colleagues are not so willing. So the question is, will middle-managers in universities—faculty and college heads—do anything to uphold norms of civility against colleagues who trample over them, or will they abrogate their civic responsibility and off-load it onto the courts? "

"There is a reason why anthropologist Joseph Henrich describes normative monogamy as “sexual egalitarianism.” It’s not that a monogamous marriage itself is unique—across the vast majority of societies, the majority of marriages have nearly always been monogamous—the key difference is primarily in the way normative monogamy acts to prevent polygyny, through social norms and legal enforcement. The main alternative to monogamy throughout history has not been an egalitarian, polyamorous free for all, but rather a relatively small number of elite males having multiple, sometimes even dozens, of wives."

"Remember that successful religious cults ask their followers to believe in spite of the evidence, not because of it.

I wish this were a caricature, but I’ve seen the pattern repeated online and on campus."

"The problem is that the expressive use of the term ‘rape culture’ is hyperbolic and possibly dangerous. Exaggerating for effect may not produce the desired result. George Orwell warned that misuse of the term ‘fascism’ would rob meaningful accusations of their power. Loose talk about rape and blanket indictments of democratic and egalitarian societies are hardly likely to contribute to serious debate and consensus-building. Bullying rhetoric is not an honourable or reliable way of addressing the problem of rape or encouraging efforts to stamp it out."

"[H]aving established that his staff had done nothing wrong did not alter Blomgren’s decision to fire them. “In this situation it doesn’t really matter that the two staff members working are not themselves racist because the call they made to deny Lillian service caused her to feel like she had been discriminated against,” his statement explained. “Sometimes impact outweighs intent and when that happens people do need to be held accountable. Since both Lillian and the clamoring public were demanding that these staff members be fired that it is what we did putting these two young women out of work.”

"Elon Musk and Pravda may yet find themselves in a similarly precarious situation. In an attempt to fix the problem of an untrustworthy media, they risk creating an uncontrollable beast of consensus-based truth."

"From a black writer, repeated expressions of unapologetic contempt for public servants who died trying to save the lives of others on September 11 are met with fawning praise from leftwing periodicals, plus a National Book Award and a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant."

"This arms race for educational credentials in most apparent in Taiwan and South Korea where college attainment has exploded in recent decades. Thirty years ago, about 20% of South Koreans had some tertiary education; today about 70% of 25-34 year olds do. Rather than unleashing extraordinary growth as a human capital model would predict, the results have been devastating to lower skilled Koreans who thought college was their ticket to a better life"

"These terms and phrases are designed to provide the left with moral high ground and to manufacture consent for extreme positions hidden behind innocent-looking façades. The moral high ground is all too frequently conceded by their less verbally dexterous opponents, who then proceed to argue on the back foot in a defensive position in which they are implicitly arguing against the side of the righteous."

"Open systems, on the other hand, are those that are ‘exposed to the elements,’ so to speak. They have no walls and are therefore essentially chaotic, with far more variables than any person could ever hope to grasp. The economy is an open system. So is climate. So are politics. No matter how much you know about these things, there is not only always more to know, but there is also an utterly unpredictable slide towards chaos as these things interact."

"“If you’re a Republican, that means you’re for free speech.”

I used to believe this. I’m not sure I do any more.

In late April, several members of the site RedState, including me, were fired en masse in a single day. It was not for poor performance; among those dismissed were some of the top page view earners, and none had published a post that had embarrassed the site in some high-profile way. We had one thing in common, and one thing only: we were all fierce and highly vocal critics of Donald Trump."

"For every person decrying the incident as evidence of systemic racism, both in Starbucks and society at large, there are others who are unable to find evidence of racial bias lying under the surface events."

"As much as I would have liked to chide them for their lack of democratic commitment, I don’t think Adler’s paper has given me a good enough reason to do so. However, it is also worth noting that, even if I’m right to be skeptical of the claim that centrists are uniquely hostile to democracy, there is also not much in the data to support the view that extremists are uniquely hostile to democracy either. Given how widespread this view seems to be, especially among centrists, I think Adler will have made a valuable contribution even if that’s all he can show. Centrists may have no reason to be embarrassed, but they also have no reason to feel superior."

"Jeet Heer reaches a new low with the accusation that Jung harbored Fascist sympathies, and does so without citing a single source. Jung excoriated fascism, Nazism and other dictatorial modes of governance and thought. Perhaps in keeping with today’s liberation from facts, this article seemed lacking in even cursory research. Heer’s statements about Jung’s political convictions are blatantly untrue and unsubstantiated. The New Republic should be ashamed of such a departure from journalistic integrity."