Got Me Drove

Slavoj Žižek and Jordan Peterson, the two most prominent public intellectuals of our time, met on the stage of the Sony Centre of the Performing Arts in Toronto on April 19, 2019, to debate Marxism, capitalism and happiness in front of a sold out crowd. The resulting convergence of their positions was surprising. Slavoj Žižek and Jordan Peterson are polarizing figures by all accounts. Peterson is explicitly hated by the left, not in the least due to his suggestion that women are not qualitatively equal participants in conversation. Peterson has said that women would be happier in their traditional roles and has defended enforced monogamy to “ decrease male violence .” He has claimed that because men are unable to “control crazy women,” they cannot engage with them respectfully. Many remember his initial rise to fame based on his refusal to use gender neutral pronouns. Žižek, on the other hand, is branded as a “cultural Marxist” by the right. His defences of Marx and interp...

I can imagine that many who watched the Peterson-Zizek debate last night were disappointed. I wasn't one of them. Neither academic made "a fool" out of the other, "destroyed the other with these five simple points," or made an emotional appeal to the audience in an attempt to publicly unveil the stupidity and ignorance of the other. It was not the aggressive, confrontational bout that I presume many had hoped to see. Despite my issues with their opening statements--especially Peterson's ignorance of the historical reception of Marxism and his claim that "intellect" and capitalism could be enough to solve the ecological crisis--I have to concede that the two actually talked. They seemed to actually want to find common ground, and in fact they found a lot of it--the most disappointing of which for the audience (given the demographic and current Zeitgeist ) was most certainly the emergence of a definition happiness as grace. Performative Anti-...

Yesterday my Facebook feed was besieged by, as CBC put it, " two camps ." The pro-"Baby, It's Cold Outside" camp, and the anti-"Baby, It's Cold Outside" camp. As I am sure you have heard by now, many radio stations, including CBC, have pulled the song from rotation this holiday season. The pro-camp seems to be made up of two sub-groups (at least in my broader circles): those who take the move to be "political correctness gone too far," and—somewhat surprisingly—those who see the song as a feminist-consistent commentary on women's discourse and agency in the 1940's. The latter position maintains that the track has nothing to do with consent, and everything to do with shaming a woman for making " her own premarital sexual choices ." The anti-camp—again, I only speak from the articles and opinions shared by my peers—actually do not seem to be adopting a discourse surrounding political correctness. They...

Anyone who has lived a significant amount of time in Newfoundland and Labrador (henceforth NL) is likely to have at least one distressing, if not tragic, story about their own experience (or the experience of a loved one) with the healthcare system in this province. Sadly, most of these stories involve pain and agony, both in the immediate, temporary sense and the long-term, fatal sense. The table below, provided by  CARE , shows the provincial situation to be particularly jarring: So, NL'ers go to doctors more, yet also live much unhealthier and have more general health problems in comparison with the Canadian average. Frequent doctor visits seems to relate to a cultural issue surrounding healthcare in the province. For example, Professor at the MUN School of Medicine and kidney specialist Pat Parfrey has argued on multiple occasions that a large percentage -- up to one fifth -- of NL's healthcare budget is misused on unnecessary tests, prescriptions and proce...

I have long been skeptical of how ownership and property rights configure of our relationships to each other and to the earth we share together. It seems that when people are convinced they own something, they claim dominance over it. They can either decide to use it, exploit it, abandon it, take care of it, or love it. They can also choose whether to act morally towards it. Familiar snippets from typical disputes between neighbours run through my head: “This is my house/land and I can do what I want with it”; The notorious “Get off of my lawn!” which almost every kid has heard at least once. My ambiguous feelings about weddings due to the origins of marriage also surface when this topic is broached. Marriage began as a legal contract in which a woman and her things became the property of a man. Honestly, I squirm each time I witness the act replayed in the 21st century in which a father “gives” the bride over to her husband to be. Property largely entails a one-way relationship ...

Giorgia Davis, taken from her Facebook post Call me oblivious to popular culture, but before reading Giorgia Davies’ Facebook post blaming feminists for her job becoming redundant, I did not know who she was or what a “grid girl” is. Nevertheless, after reading her words, now shared thousands of times, I was infuriated. But not surprised. It’s an all too familiar scenario; once again, a woman divides herself from other women and villainizes “feminism” as the reason why she will no longer be able to objectify herself for profit. The issue, quickly stated, is that Formula 1 announced on last week that it would end the practice of sending models in tight clothes bearing sponsor names out onto the grid holding driver name-boards. In Davies’ own words: “‘Feminists’ .. You're not defending women.. you're actually defending women who are threatened by other women who are in a career that you know absolutely nothing about other than what you see on the exterior.” ...