Activism

Outrage sugercoated with decency

Professor Trompsky #3
Professor Trompsky, what do you think of the intellectual climate of today? There is a worrying decline of what I call the culture of wisdom. More often than not, people engaging in debates are more concerned with cementing their own argumentation, making their own narrative waterproof as it were. Instead of trying to integrate the ...
Professor Trompsky #1
Professor Trompsky, welcome to our studio. At 87, do you have any plans for retirement? Listen, the burden of the world rests on my shoulders. I can't just give up because the fragility that is slowly but certainly shutting down my body. My responsibilities are grand, and with grandure I shall go to the grave. Can ...
This image got me BANNED from Facebook
Last month I posted the above image as a commentary on a Facebook post. The image is a caricature of a campaign poster in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, on which a veiled Muslim woman and a Jew are kissing in front of the iconic Erasmus bridge. I greatly dislike the puritanical culture that Facebook imposes ...
Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees
The Refugee Convention entered into force on 22 April 1954. In the above text, we look at the word particularly. We note that it does not mean exclusively. Even if the head of the family (which we should consider an outdated term, but can still understand) has not fulfilled the necessary conditions for admission to a particular country, the Convention ...
The be-who-thy-be new age bullshit
I watched a well-intended speech today for fifteen year old level A students. The gist was that life happens according to your own internal clock, not according to the timetable imposed on us by society. It's okay not to be married at 30 or graduating after 25 or getting your first job at 27. Did ...
Clickbait: A thought about Jordan Peterson
Recently, I fell for the hype and listened to some interviews with the Canadian professor of psychology Jordan Peterson. I don't find him controversial and his appeal to a healthy debate bypassing the left-right dichotomy sounds healthy. In the videos I watched, he often stressed scientific and statistical rigor, and I like that. Jordan likes ...
Freelance bullshit jobs
I have been fascinated with anthropologist David Graeber's concept of bullshit jobs for a while. I have written a bullshit job poem and a bullshit job rap. In this video, Graeber mentions an informal poll he conducted on Twitter to classify bullshit jobs. He arrives at five categories: Flunkies.. the people sitting around doing nothing, ...
A birthday wish
One year ago, for my 38th birthday, all I could wish and hope for was the absence of toothache. Unfortunately for me, I didn't get it. 'If and only if', my daily mantra became, 'my mind is not distracted by that pain in the upper jaw, so very close to the brain, I will do ...