Joseph Heath+

On becoming less full of shit

This post is inspired by a series of articles that Dan Williams wrote on the subject of “becoming less left-wing.” While I found that series interesting in several respects, it seemed to me unlikely to influence its presumptive audience, because most people on the left have no desire to become less left-wing, indeed they usually feel morally obliged to maintain their current political convictions, and are vaguely apprehensive about aging, precisely because they can see the effect that greater life experience has had on others.

Why do sociologists think that they are critical theorists?

One of the more frustrating features of American political culture is the homeostatic mechanism that appears to exist within the Democratic party, which ensures that no matter how unpopular the Republican party becomes, the Democrats will adjust their positioning in order to remain just slightly less popular.

Harari vs. Henrich

What science actually says about human evolution

Naomi Klein’s husband doubles down on public grocery stores

The road to neoliberalism is paved with good intentions

Actually, Democrats do need a Project 2029

...although maybe different from what they're doing

The Outliers

Torn between two unattractive models of human civilization

What colourblindness hath wrought

One of the more questionable trends in social justice thinking over the past decade has been the suggestion that there is something wrong with “colourblindness” as a strategy for achieving racial and ethnic integration.

Anatomy of a kvetch

It appears to be an unspoken conviction, among academics, that there is no field of study so uncool that it cannot be made at least somewhat cooler by appending the word “critical” to its title.

The prospects for left-wing populism

Consider for a moment the volume of commentary that has been dedicated to the subject of inequality – the number of articles documenting the growing chasm separating the wealth of the 1% from the rest; the number of academic papers uncovering “disparities” along every conceivable axis of human difference; the number of scholarly books written condemning global inequality, or trends in income inequality.

Are cooperatives more virtuous than corporations?

Growing up in Saskatoon during the 1970s, cooperatives were a major part of our daily lives.

Populism fast and slow

It is natural that a person who is both concerned by the rise of right-wing populism and possessed of a bookish disposition might turn to the academic political science literature in search of a better understanding of the phenomenon.

Kōhei Saitō’s tsunami of confusion

One of my favorite Star Trek: TNG episodes begins somewhat inauspiciously, with the Starship Enterprise colliding with another federation vessel, causing the dramatic explosion of both ships and the loss of all lives.

Not quite leveling down

I was saddened to note this weekend the passing of Nadir Mohamed, former CEO of Rogers Communications, and all-around Canadian worthy.

Some thoughts on violence

One of the reasons that people enjoy playing video games is that, among the entertainment options available to the average person, video games are by far the most successful at helping users to achieve a flow state. This is a relatively elusive quality, which some games possess in greater abundance than others, but which game studios know is a crucial feature of their product. Morally, however, the quest for flow generates a slight problem, which is that the challenge in many games involves shooting people, and so the flow in question can only be achieved by having the player perpetrate mass m

Illness is a social construct

Social constructivism has acquired something of a bad reputation in recent years, particularly because of the way that it has been used (and misused) in debates over sex and gender identity.

My two cents on Abundance

Like everybody and their dog, I have written a review of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance book and Marc Dunkelman’s Why Nothing Works. I did it for the journal Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, where it is unlikely to see print anytime soon, and so I posted an advance copy to my academia site (

Highbrow climate misinformation

I have a professional interest in the philosophical issues raised by the problem of global climate change.

Why philosophers hate that ‘equity’ meme

If you want to annoy your favorite philosopher, one of the best ways to do it these days is to mention the “kids standing on boxes equity meme.” To call it the bane of our existence would be something of an overstatement, but it’s certainly not making anyone’s job easier.

Observations on the U.S. constitutional crisis

I’m a bit surprised that Pierre Trudeau’s famous “sleeping with an elephant” speech has not been getting more play in recent weeks:

Moral Responsibility for Backlash

Is it a thing? Should it be?

How Steve Bannon baited the American left into overplaying its hand

Although he’s not quite finished with us yet, I think it fair to say that Steve Bannon will be remembered for two things: first, his media management strategy (“flooding the zone with shit”), and second, having popularized a Breitbart slogan (“politics is downstream from culture”) that wound up becoming the opening salvo in the U.S.

Americans enjoy conflict

I have an old friend who is a drama queen.

Key stages in the decline of academic Marxism

The fact that my previous post, on John Rawls and the death of Western Marxism, attracted several times more readers than anything I’ve previously published on Substack, forced me to acknowledge that, at a fundamental level, I have no idea what people are interested in reading these days.