A life in words

  • A false dichotomy

    Objective and subjective are the same thing. Somehow. But we all default to dualism – it’s very hard to actually conceive of how the material and experiential worlds are equivalent since, of course, it’s one of the great unsolved problems of our time. That laughter can be provoked by manipulating a certain location in the…

  • Philosothought

    The acknowledgement of difference is the first step on the path to the integration of difference. Those who discriminate must resemble the thing they discriminate against at least enough to recognize it. To pattern match, the system must somehow embody the pattern. The seed of overcoming discrimination is present within the discrimination itself.

  • ‘they’ is not a drop-in replacement for ‘he’ and ‘she’, but we could use one

    Singular usage of ‘they’ is well-established in English, going back centuries. Depending on your exposure to it, you may yourself use it regularly, as I happily do. It’s great having a single word that can refer to individuals whose gender is unclear or unspecified. However, gender-neutral ‘they’ and its friends ‘them’, ‘their’, and ‘theirs’, do…

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech … Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know. … A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their freedom of speech. … Freedom of speech is ever the symptom, as well as the effect of a good government. … Guilt only dreads liberty of speech, which drags it out of its lurking holes, and exposes its deformity and horror to daylight.Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood no. 8, 1722 (orthography and spelling modernized)