我们常常认为爱是一种自然而有力的东西——一种我们自发体验到的神秘感觉，深藏在我们本质自我的深处。但我们的爱，以及我们爱的能力，可能与我们的社会关系比我们所承认的要大得多。

I Am Not Your Negro, an extraordinary documentary by Raoul Peck, presents the critical relevance of James Baldwin to the violence that engulfs many African Americans today. But is it a movie made more for white liberals than for African-Americans?

Although theNational Review'sJonah Goldberg doesn't frame the aricle this way, I took his recent reflection on Milo Yiannapoulos to be primarily a matter of political courage. The transgressive former-Breitbarteditor was, to some extent, embraced by the right. While he did get people's attention, he did so in problematic ways.

At what point must we compromise political expediency for the sake of doing the right thing? How can we resist our inclination to always help our party win (for the sake of the common good, of course), even when the cost may be real human suffering?

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Do self-help books rely on a sort of magical thinking about the control we have over our lives? Do they feed into an idiosyncratic, American narcissism that prioritizes furthering our pursuits over helping others? Are they even worth reading in the first place?

In these times, in which truth and lies are nearly indistinguishable, do all intellectuals have a responsibility to devote their efforts toward directly speaking truth to power and mobilizing for social justice? Or are some exempt from this responsibility to pursue their interests wholeheartedly, regardless of whether it directly helps the people or not?

The historical injustices perpetrated against blacks on American soil span four centuries and would be impossible to quantify. Even if we think reparations are owed, it seems impossible to settle who should pay, and who should receive them. But before we give in to the impulse to throw up our hands, let’s see if we can alleviate our sense of hopelessness by distinguishing components of the challenge injustices pose—the metaphysical, epistemic, and pragmatic dimensions to the question of how to address them.

In this podcast of Free Speech Bites, Burmese comedian and filmmaker Zarganar shares his experiences of being silenced for controversial speech and explains why he sees freedom of expression as a significant issue to this day.

Despite being over forty years old, Roger Errera's interview of philosopher Hannah Arendt in theNew York Review of Booksmay be as timely as ever. Could something approaching totalitarianism be unfolding before us today—either in America or abroad? We hear echoes throughout the interview that may remind you of our current political situation.

Regardless of your political stance, there's something foreboding about the statment, "Totalitarianism begins in contempt for what you have." Her discussion of facts and lies draws parallels to fake news and declining trust in experts.

She also chimes in about history, evil, and progress: Is there any way to remove all contingency from history? Does the arc of history really bend tend towards progress?

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We are exposed to arguments in a variety of settings: in politics, the workplace, and our personal lives. But how do we distinguish between valid arguments and mere rhetorical devices?

In this episode fromWireless Philosophy, Joseph Wu explains the Straw Man Fallacy, a common form of argument that misrepresents an opponent's views. Don't let it fool you again!

Is postmodernism to blame for the current state of American politics, as philosopher Daniel Dennett claims? Or has disrespect for the distinction between truth and lies been around since before postmodernism? Should we instead be thanking postmodernism for giving us frameworks and vocabularies to make sense of current politics?