Month: December 2025

When people disagree on controversial issues it is not uncommon for one person to accuse another of lying. In some cases, this accusation is warranted and in others it is not. There is also some confusion about what should count as a lie.

While this might seem mere semantics, the distinction between what is a lie and what is not a lie matters. The main reason for this is that to accuse a person of lying is to make a moral charge against them. It is not merely to claim that the person is in error but to claim that they are doing something morally wrong. While some people do use “lie” interchangeably with “untruth”, there is a difference. To use an easy and obvious example, imagine a student who is asked which year the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The student thinks it was in 1944 and writes that down. She has made an untrue claim, but it would be unfair to accuse her of lying.

Now, imagine that one student, Sally, is asking another student, Jane, about when the United States bombed Hiroshima. Jane does not like Sally and wants her to fail, so she tells her 1944, though she knows it was 1945. If Sally tells another student that it was 1944 and puts that down on her test, Sally could not fairly be accused of lying. Jane, however, lied. While Sally is saying and writing something untrue, she believes the claim and is not acting with malicious intent. In contrast, Jane believes she is saying something untrue and is acting from malice. This suggests some important distinctions between lying and making untrue claims.

One obvious distinction is that a lie requires that the person believes they are making an untrue claim. Naturally, there is the practical problem of determining whether a person really believes what they are claiming, but this is not relevant to the abstract distinction: if the person believes the claim, then they would not be lying when they make that claim.

It can be argued that a person can lie even when they believe a claim, that what matters is whether the claim is true. The obvious problem is that the accusation of lying is not just a claim the person is wrong; it is also a moral condemnation of wrongdoing. While “lie” could be taken to apply to any untrue claim, there would be a need for a new word to convey not just a statement of error but also one of condemnation. Going back to the test example, it would be odd to say that a wrong answer on a test is thus a lie.

It can also be argued that a person can lie by telling the truth, but by doing so in such a way as to mislead a person into believing something untrue. This does have a certain appeal in that it includes the intent to deceive but differs from the “standard” lie in that the claim is true (or at least believed to be true).

A second obvious distinction is that the person must have malicious intent. This distinguishes untruths of movies, stories and shows from lies. When the actor playing Darth Vader says to Luke “No. I am your father.”, he is saying something untrue, yet it would be unfair to say that the actor is thus a liar. Likewise, the references to dragons, hobbits and elves in the Hobbit are all untrue, yet one should not brand Tolkien a liar for these words.

The obvious reply to this is that there is a category of lies that lack a malicious intent. These lies are often told with good intentions, such as a compliment about a person’s appearance or when parents speak of Santa Claus. As such, there are lies that are not malicious and often called “white lies.” If intent matters, then this sort of lie is much less bad than the malicious lie. They do meet a general definition of “lie” which involves making an untrue claim with the intent to deceive but the deceit is supposed to be benign. Naturally, there are those who would argue that such deceits are still wrong, even with good intentions. The matter is also complicated by the fact that there seem to be untrue claims aimed at deceit that intuitively seem morally acceptable. The classic case is, of course, misleading a person who is trying to murder someone.

In some cases, one person will accuse another of lying because the person disagrees with a claim made by the other person. For example, a person might claim that Trump wants to help average Americans and be accused of lying about this by a person who hates Trump.

 In this context, the accusation that the person is lying seems to rest on three points. The first is that the accuser thinks the person does not actually believe their claim and is engaged in an intentional deceit. The accuser also thinks that the claim is not true. The second is that the accuser believes that the accused intends to deceive and expects people to believe them. The third is that the accuser thinks the accused has malicious intent. This might be merely limited to the intent to deceive, but it typically goes beyond this. For example, Trump supporter might be suspected of employing their alleged deceit to encourage cruelty and fascism. Or maybe the person is trolling.

So, to be justified in accusing a person of lying, it needs to be shown that the person does not really believe their claim, that they intend to deceive and that there is malicious intent. Arguing against the claim can show that it is untrue, but this would not be sufficient to show that the person is lying, unless one takes a lie to merely be a claim that is not true. On this view, if someone made a mistake in a math problem and got the wrong answer, they would be a liar. What would be needed would be adequate evidence that the person is insincere in his claim (that is, they believe they are saying the untrue), that they intend to deceive and that there is some malicious intent.

Naturally, effective criticism of a claim does not require showing that the person making the claim is a liar. In fact, the truth or falsity of a claim has no connection to the intent of the person making the claim or what they believe about it. An accusation of lying moves from the issue of whether the claim is true to a moral dispute about the character of the person making the claim. It can, of course, be a useful persuasive device to call someone a liar, but by itself it does nothing to prove or disprove the claim under dispute.

Over the years I have criticized for-profit schools. As I have emphasized before, I have nothing against the idea of a for-profit school. As such, my criticisms have not been that such schools make money. After all, I buy the food I need to survive with the money I make from being a professor. Rather, my criticisms have focused on the performance of these schools as schools, with their often-predatory practices, and the fact that they rely so heavily on federal funding for their profits. This article is, shockingly enough, also critical of these schools.

Assessment in and of higher education is standard practice now. Some assessment standards are set by the federal government, some by states and others by schools. At the federal level, one standard is in the Higher Education Act and states that career education programs “must prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation.” If a school fails to meet this standard, it can lose out on federal funds such as Pell Grants and federal loans. Since schools are fond of federal dollars, they endeavor to meet this standard.

One way to qualify is to ensure students are suitably prepared. Another approach, one taken primarily by the for-profit schools (which rely heavily on federal money for their profits) has been to lobby to get the standard set to their liking.  As it now stands, schools are ranked in three categories: passing, probationary, and failing. A passing program is such that its graduates’ annual loan payments are below 8% of their total earnings or below 20% of their discretionary incomes. A program is put on probation when the loan payments are in the 8-12% range of their total earnings or 20-30% of discretionary incomes. A program is failing when the loan payments are more than 12% of their total income or over 30% of their discretionary incomes. Students who do not graduate, which happens more often at for-profit schools than at private and public schools, are not counted in this calculation.

 A program is disqualified from receiving federal funds if it fails two out of any three consecutive years or gets a ranking less than passing for four years in a row. This went into effect back in the 2015-2016 academic year.

As a matter of ideology and not fact, it is often claimed that the for-profit, private sector is inherently superior to the public sector. As with many ideologies, this does not match reality. Public higher education, which is under constant attack from the right, has been amazingly successful: 99.72% of the programs were rated as passing, 0.18% were rated as being on probation and 0.09% were ranked as failing. Private nonprofit schools also performed admirably with 95.65% of their programs passing, 3.16% being ranked as being on probation and 1.19% rated as failing. So, “A” level work for these schools. In stark contrast, for-profit schools had 65.87% of their programs ranked as passing, 21.89 ranked as being on probation and 12.23% evaluated as failing. So, these schools would have a grade of “D” if they were students. It is certainly worth keeping in mind that the standards used are the ones that the private, for-profit schools pushed for and it seems likely they would do even worse if the more comprehensive standards favored by the AFT were used.

This data indicates the for-profit schools are not as good a choice for students and for federal funding as the public and non-profit private schools. After all, using the pragmatic measure of student income relative to debt incurred for education, the public and private non-profits are the clear winners. One easy and obvious explanation for this is, of course, that the for-profit schools make a profit. As such, they typically charge much more than comparable public and non-profit private schools. Another explanation is that for-profit schools generally do a worse job preparing students for careers and with placing students in jobs. So, a higher cost combined with inferior ability to get students into jobs translates into that “D” grade. So much for the alleged inherent superiority of the for-profit private sector.

It might be objected that there are other factors that explain the poor performance of the for-profit schools that make them look better. For example, perhaps students who enroll in them differ significantly from students in public and non-profit private schools and this helps explain the difference in a way that partially absolves them. As another example, perhaps the for-profit schools just suffered from ongoing bad luck in terms of the programs they offered. Maybe salaries were unusually bad in these jobs or hiring was very weak. These and other factors are worth considering. After all, failing to consider alternative explanations would be poor reasoning indeed. I am, after all, a philosopher and not a politician or pundit. If the for-profits can explain away their poor performance in legitimate ways, then perhaps the standards would need to be adjusted to take into account these factors.

It is also worth considering that schools, public and private, do not have control over the economy. Given that short-term (1-4 year) vagaries of the market could result in programs falling into probation or failure by these standards when such programs are “good” in the longer term, it would seem that some additional considerations should be brought into play. Naturally, it can be countered that 3-4 years of probation or failure would not really be short term (especially for folks who think in terms of immediate profit) and that such programs would fully merit their rating.

That said, the last economic meltdown was somewhat long term and the next one (our bubble based economy makes it almost inevitable) could be even worse. As such, it would seem sensible to consider the broader economy when holding programs accountable. After all, even a great program cannot make companies hire nor compel them to pay better wages.

It is July 16, 2214. I am at Popham Beach in what I still think of as Maine. I am standing in the sand, watching the waves strike the shore. Sand pipers run in the surf, looking for lunch. I have a two-hundred-year-old memory of another visit to this beach. In that memory, the water is cold on the skin and there is a mild ache in the left knee, a relic of a quadriceps tendon repair. Today there is no ache. What serves as my knee is a biomechanical system free of all aches and pains. I can, if I wish, feel the cold by adjusting my sensors. I do so, and what was once data about temperature becomes a feeling in what I still call my mind. I downgrade my vision to that of a human, then tweak it so it perfectly matches the imperfect eyesight of the memory. I do the same for my hearing and turn off my other sensors until I am, as far as I can tell, merely human. I walk into the water, enjoying the feeling of the cold. My companion asks me if I have ever been here before. I pause and consider this question. I have a memory from a man who was here in 2014. But I do not know if I am him or if I am but a child of his memories. But it is a lovely day…too lovely for metaphysics. I say “yes, long ago”, and wait patiently for the setting of the sun.

 

In science fiction one form of immortality is downloading memories from an old body to a new one. This, of course, rests on the assumption that a person is their memories. Philosophers have long considered whether a person is her memories. John Locke claimed a person is their consciousness and, in a science fiction move, considered the possibility that memories could be transferred from one soul to another. While Locke’s view can be a bit confusing (he distinguishes between person, body, soul and consciousness while not being entirely clear about how memory relates to consciousness), he seems to think a person is their memory. As far back as a person’s memory goes, they go and this brings along moral accountability. Being a Christian, Locke was concerned about judgment day and needed a mechanism of personal identity that did not depend on the sameness of body. Being an empiricist, he also needed an empirical basis. Memory contained within a soul seemed to take care of both concerns.

As noted earlier, Locke anticipates the science fiction idea of memory transfer and considers the problem that arises if memory makes personal identity and if memory could be transferred or copied. His solution can be seen as a divine cheat: he claims God, in His goodness, would not allow this to happen. However, he does discuss cases in which one (specifically Nestor) loses all memory and thus ceases to be the same person, though the same soul might be present.

So, if Locke is right about memory being the basis of personal identity and wrong about God not allowing the copying of memory, then if my memories were transferred to another consciousness, then it would be me. So, in my opening story, if the being standing on the beach in 2214 had my memory from 2014, then we would be the same person, and I would be 248 years old.

David Hume, another dead British empiricist, presented a problem for Locke’s account: intuitively, people believe they can extend their identity beyond their memory. That is, I do not suppose that it was not me just because I forgot something. Rather, I suppose it was me and that I merely forgot. Hume took the view that memory is used to discover personal identity and then he went off the rails and declared it was all about grammar rather than philosophy.

Another stock problem with the memory account is that if memory can be copied, it can be copied many times. The problem is that what serves as the basis of personal identity is supposed to be what makes me who I am and distinct from everyone else. If what is supposed to provide my distinct identity can be duplicated, then it cannot be the basis of my distinct identity. Locke, as noted above, “solves” this problem by divine intervention. However, without this intervention there seems to be no reason why my memory of Popham Beach from 2014 could not be copied many times if it could be copied once. As such, the entity on the beach in 2214 might just have a copy of my memory, just as it might have a copy of the files stored on the phone I was carrying then. The companion mentioned in the short tale might also have those same memories, but they both cannot be me.

The entity on the beach might even have an actual memory from me, a literal piece of my brain. However, this might not make it the same person as me. To use an analogy, it might also have my watch or my finger bone from 2014, but this would not make it me.

Interestingly (or boringly) enough, the science fiction scenario really does not change the basic problems of identity over time. We must determine what makes me the person I am and what makes me distinct from all other things, be that a scenario involving the Mike from 2014 or the entity on the beach in 2214. For that entity on the beach to be me, it would need to possess whatever it is that made me the person I was in 2014 (and, hopefully, am now) and what distinguished that Mike from all other things, that is, my personness and my distinctness.

Since we do not know what these things are (or if they even are at all), there is no way to say whether that entity in 2214 could be me. It is safe, I think, to claim that if it is just a copy of something from my memories, then it is not me. At best, it would be a child of my memory. It would, as philosophers have long argued, have the same sort of connection to Mike 2014 that Mike 2014 had to Mike 2013. It is also worth considering that as Hume and Buddha have claimed, that there really is no self, so that entity on the beach in 2214 is not me, but neither am I.

Plato, through the character of Socrates, advances a classic argument against democracy. When something requires knowledge and skill, such as a medical issue, it would be foolish to decide by having the ignorant vote. The wise turn to those who have the knowledge and skill needed to make a good decision.

Political matters, such as deciding what policies to adopt for immigration, require knowledge and skill. As such, it would be foolish to make decisions by having the ignorant and unskilled vote on such matters. Picking a competent leader also requires knowledge and skill and thus it would be foolish to leave it to those lacking these attributes.

In the abstract, this argument is compelling: as with all tasks that require competence, it would be best to have the competent make decisions. There are, however, various counters to this argument.

One appealing argument assumes people have a moral right to a role in decisions that impact them, even if they are not likely to make the best (or even good) choices.  Consider, for example, something as simple as choosing a meal. Most people will not select the most nutritious or even the most delicious option, thus making a bad choice. However, compelling people against their will to eat a meal, even if it is the best for them, is morally problematic. At least when it comes to adults. Naturally, an argument can be made that people who routinely make poor health choices would be better off being compelled to eat healthy foods, which is the heart of this dispute between democracy and being ruled by those with the knowledge and skills to make better decisions.

Another approach is to use the context of the state of nature. This is a philosophical device developed by thinkers like Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau in which one is asked to imagine a world without a political system in place which is a world in which everyone is equal in social status. In this world, there are no kings, presidents, lawyers, police or other such socially constructed positions of hierarchy. It is also assumed there is nothing supernatural conferring a right to rule (such as the make-believe divine right of kings). In such a context, the obvious question is that of what would give a person the right to rule over others.

As a practical matter, the strongest would probably coerce others into submission, but the question is one of the right to rule and not a question of what people would do. Given these assumptions, it would seem that no one has the right to be the boss over anyone else, since everyone is equal in status. What would be required, and what has often been argued for, is that the consent of the governed would be needed to provide the ruler with the right to rule. This is, of course, the professed justification for political legitimacy in the United States and other democratic countries.

If it is accepted that political legitimacy is based on the consent of the governed, the usual method of determining this consent is by voting. For a country to continue as one country it must also be accepted that the numerical minority will go along with the vote of the numerical majority. Otherwise, as Locke noted, the country would be torn asunder. This is, as has been shown in the United States, consistent with having certain things (such as rights) that are protected from the tyranny of the majority.

If voting is accepted in this role, then maintaining political legitimacy would seem to require two things. The first is that there must be reliable means of assuring that fraud does not occur in elections. The United States has done an excellent job at this. While there are some issues with the accuracy of voter lists (people who move or die often remain on lists for years), voter fraud is almost non-existent, despite unsupported assertions to the contrary by Republicans.

The second is that every citizen who wishes to vote must have equal and easy access to the voting process. To the degree that citizens are denied this equal and easy access, political legitimacy is decreased. This is because those who are deterred or prevented from voting are denied the opportunity to provide their consent. This excludes them from falling under the legitimate authority of the government. It also reduces the legitimacy of the government in general. Since accepting a democratic system means accepting majority rule, excluding voters impacts this. After all, one does not know how the excluded voters would have voted, thus calling into question whether the majority is ruling or not.

Because of this, the usual attempts to deter voter participation are a direct attack on political legitimacy in the United States. These include such things as voter ID laws, restrictions on early voting, gerrymandering, unreasonable limits on polling hours, cutting back on polling places and so on.

In contrast, efforts to make voting easier and more accessible (consistent with maintaining the integrity of the vote) increase political legitimacy. These include such things as early voting, expanded voting hours, providing free transportation to polling stations, mail in voting, online voter registration and so on. One particularly interesting idea is automatic voter registration.

It could be argued that citizens have an obligation to overcome inconveniences and even major obstacles to vote; otherwise, they are lazy and unworthy. While it is reasonable to expect citizens to put in some effort, the burden of access rests on the government. While it is the duty of a citizen to vote, it is the duty of the government to allow citizens to exercise this fundamental political right without undue effort. That is, the government needs to make it as easy and convenient as possible. This can be seen as somewhat analogous to the burden of proof: it is not the obligation of the citizen to overcome burdens placed by the state; it is the obligation of the state to not impose needless burdens.

It could be objected that I only favor easy and equal access to the voting process because I am registered as a Democrat and Democrats are more likely to win when voter turnout is higher. If the opposite were true, then I would surely change my view. The easy and obvious reply to this objection is that it is irrelevant to the merit of the arguments advanced above. Another reply is that I do accept majority rule and even if Democrats were less likely to win with greater voter turnout, I would still support easy and equal access. And would do so for the reasons given above. That is, I believe in democracy even when doing so does not enrich my bank account or get me what I want.

When I was young, I had my first out of body experience (OBE for short). While I did not know about them at the time, I later learned that my experience matched the usual description: I felt as if the center of my awareness and perception had left my body. It seemed as if I could perceive from this out-of-body location, albeit with greater vividness (retrospectively, it seemed like high definition). After that, I had OBEs from time to time, especially when I was under great stress, such as in graduate school.

When I was a kid, I only had two explanations for the experiences. One was supernatural: my soul was leaving my body. The other was paranormal: somehow, I had some special sensory ability. As I learned philosophy and science, I came up with other explanations. As a bit of fun philosophy, I’ll go through some.

When I learned about metaphysical dualism and Descartes, I had a theory that would explain my experience. For dualists, there are two types of stuff: the mental and the physical. The mind is made of mental stuff which thinks but is not extended in space. The body is made of physical stuff that does not think but is extended in space. On the dualist view, a person is their mind, and this mind somehow interacts (or syncs) with the body. Since the mind is distinct from the body, it could presumably leave and still interact (or sync) with the physical world. Roughly put, an OBE would be having the ghost leaving the shell but then returning to the l living body.

This account of the OBE does face all the challenges of metaphysical dualism and some of its own. In terms of the usual problems, there is the difficulty in proving the existence of such a mind and the classic mind-body problem of accounting for how the mind and body interact. In terms of a specific problem with dualist OBE, there is the obvious problem of how a disembodied mind would perceive the physical world without its body. If it could do this, then there would be no need for sense organs and people would not lose their senses due to damage or disease.

Another approach to the OBE experience is to make use of Occam’s Razor, which can be taken as the metaphysical principle that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. That is, if there are competing explanations for a phenomenon, then the one with the fewest posited metaphysical entities has an advantage. The principle is also applied to the number of assumptions required by explanations, and it is sometimes crudely put as the notion that the simplest explanation is best.

In the case of my OBE experiences, an application of Occam’s Razor would cut away the metaphysical account in favor of one with fewer entities or assumptions. In this case, the more economical explanation would be that my experiences were the result of unusual activity in my nervous system that created the impression that my awareness was outside my body. Since such “malfunctions” do occur without the need to postulate a wandering soul, this explanation has the most scientific appeal. It is also disappointing; like learning a magic trick is not magic, but misdirection and deceit. Fortunately, it can be fun to briefly pretend to ignore the most plausible explanation and consider some other philosophical options. After the fun is over, the most plausible explanation should, of course, be reseated on its throne.

One interesting possibility is that the mind has the capacity to receive sensory data in non-standard ways. That is, our epistemic capabilities extend beyond our sense organs, or we are someone able to acquire sensory data from an unusual perspective. OBE experiences involve, at least in my case, only sight and hearing and these involve energy. It could be imagined that the nervous system is able to shift its perception point by manipulating this energy. The easy and obvious counter to this is that studies of the nervous system would have presumably found evidence of such a strange system. Since there seems to be no biological mechanism for this, this explanation is defective.

It also fun to consider the philosophical view known as phenomenology or idealism. This view was most famously held by Berkeley.  His view made it into the popular consciousness with the question: “if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?” The answer, for Berkeley, was that there is always someone there to hear it. This someone is, of course, God and He perceives everything all the time. This might explain why when you shower, you might feel like someone is watching. 

Getting back on track, Berkeley’s philosophical view is a rejection of dualism. Unlike the metaphysical materialist who rejects the mind and accepts matter, Berkeley accepted the mind and rejected matter. For him, what we regard as physical objects are collections of ideas in minds. For example, the device that you are using to read this is not a physical machine and it is “made” of ideas. On this view, all experiences are OBE as there are no bodies in which to have experiences. However, one could have experiences as if one was outside one’s body.

Another way to look at phenomenology is to think of virtual reality. On this view reality is all virtual with no physical entities. This provides a way to explain OBEs, they could be glitches in perception. To use a video game first person shooter analogy, the game is supposed to set the camera so that it is as if you are seeing the world from the eyes of your character. This camera can glitch due to a software error, causing you to see the game world from a point “outside” your character’s head. This would be a game OBE. If phenomenology is correct, then perhaps OBEs are these sorts of glitches as the point of perception is briefly in the wrong place. Since the world is clearly imperfect, such glitches are not inconceivable. Alternatively, it need not be glitch, perhaps this sort of perceptual capability is a feature and not a bug.

While I would like to regard my OBEs as supporting metaphysical dualism (and thus the possibility of existence after death), the best explanation is the least fun, that it is a malfunction of the brain and a strange hallucination.

One long standing Christmas tradition at Fox news is perpetuating their imaginary war on Christmas. While it is not a self-evident truth that Christmas is safe in the United States, the idea that there is such a war is as absurd as the claim that there is a war on pizza. Like Christmas, pizza is liked (if not loved) by nearly everyone. While Christmas is not here year-round, during the Christmas season (which seems to be October to January) the trapping of Christmas are as ubiquitous as pizza.

A long-standing Fox tactic has been to scour the United States for the few incidents that can be cast as attacks on Christmas and then elevate them into a war. This same approach could be used to “prove” that there is a war on pizza. There are, no doubt, a few incidents that can be presented as attacks on the truth and goodness of pizza. The problem is, obviously enough, that a few isolated incidents do not constitute a war, especially when the incidents are presented in an exaggerated manner. What is ironic about Fox pushing the idea of this war is Christmas is supposed to be a time for peace on earth and goodwill towards all. As such, Fox seems to have its own perpetual war on the spirit of Christmas.

A classic example is when Breitbart and Fox  suggested that a Jewish family was responsible for the cancellation of A Christmas Carol, which was supposed to be put on as a play by students in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. While it is true the family wanted their child excused from the play, the play was cancelled for other reasons. One reason was that changes in the education requirements set by the state made it difficult for classroom time to be used to prepare for the play. This does point to a problem in public education but does not constitute a war on Christmas.

The second reason the play was cancelled was to be respectful of the cultural and religious diversity of the students. While some might be tempted to see this as a war on Christmas, being respectful of religious diversity in public schools does not constitute an attack on Christmas. One way to look at this situation in a different light is to imagine that a public school was putting on a play with religious content that you strongly disagree with. If, for example, you are not a fan of Islam, imagine that the school was putting on a play about Ramadan. Or, as another example, that the play brought back that old-time religion and glorified Saturnalia. If either of these plays were performed at a public school, Fox and Breitbart would most likely cast these incidents as evidence of the war on Christianity.

An incident in which one’s faith fails to dominate is not evidence of a war on that faith or its holiday. Rather, it just shows tolerance and respect for others. Going back to the pizza analogy, to decide to not have a strict pizza only policy for school lunches is not a war on pizza. While most people like pizza, making everyone eat it all the time is neither fair or tolerant.

Since I grew up “acting” in school Christmas plays and watching them, I do have sympathy for the view that something valuable would be lost if schools cancel their Christmas plays. One solution is to have generic holiday plays. Another is to have a diversity of plays around the holidays to expose children to diverse religious views and holidays. These options do have problems but are perhaps better than cancelling a school Christmas play. Or perhaps not.

The untruths presented by Fox and Breitbart are morally problematic, but this is compounded by the fact that it was suggested that a Jewish family was responsible for the cancellation. As would be expected, there were the usual responses to this story from the internet: calls to identify the “responsible” family and to act. As many other incidents have shown, these sorts of online attacks can quickly escalate into unrelenting harassment and worse.

This ties into a classic anti-Semitic narrative and is consistent with the safe space that Trump had created for bigotry in his first term. While people who are not Jewish or have little knowledge of history might be inclined to dismiss worries about the anti-Semitism inherent in such suggestions, this was a real problem. While it would be a slippery slope fallacy to say that this story (or other incidents) will inevitably lead to something terrible, it would also be a mistake not to be concerned about where this path leads. After all, this sort of thing has played out many times and in places and it is best to address such things when they are small. After all, it is easier to extinguish a match than a forest fire. 

It must be noted that Slate and other news sites claimed that a Jewish family fled the country out of fear they would be harmed. While the family did express concern, it is now claimed that they left for vacation. While some might be tempted to accuse Slate and others of running fake news because of their mistake, there are two easy and obvious replies. The first is that there seems to be no intent to deceive people with a claim that was known to be untrue as Slate and others presented the information available at the time. The second is that Slate and others updated the report to reflect the new and presumably correct information. Correcting errors is not something that is done in fake news.

If the error by Slate and the others was due to failing to properly investigate the claims, then they can be justly criticized for not being properly diligent. However, if the error was not due to negligence then this should be regarded as a mere mistake and one that was corrected. Slate could also be criticized for going with the original dramatic headline about the Jewish family fleeing the country; but the main criticism should still be on the error. This one error does not, obviously enough, invalidate the rest of the reporting the other claims stand or fall on their own.

While Fox News’ war on Christmas and Christianity mythology has merely been annoying and stupid in the past, but they have the potential to cause real problems in the year to come, especially with the current administration.

Terrorism, like assassination, is violence with a political purpose. An assassination might also be intended to create terror, but the main objective is to eliminate a specific target. In contrast, terrorism is not aimed at elimination of a specific target; the goal is to create fear and almost any victims will suffice.

An individual terrorist might have any number of motives ranging from the ideological to the personal. Perhaps the terrorist sincerely believes that God loves the murder of innocents. Perhaps the terrorist was rejected by someone they were infatuated with and is lashing out in rage. While speculation into the motives of such people is interesting and important, behind all true terrorism lies a political motivation, although this motivation might be on the part of those other than the person conducting the act.

While a terrorist attack can create fear on the local level by itself, terrorists need the media and social media to spread their terror on a large scale. The media is always happy to oblige. While this coverage can be defended on the grounds that people have a right to know the facts, the coverage does have some important and (hopefully) unintended consequences.

One effect of extensive media coverage is to serve as an impact multiplier. The whole world is informed of the terrorist act and the group that claims credit gains terrorist credibility and status. This improves the influence of the group and enhances its ability to recruit as the group is getting free advertising. Assuming that aiding terrorists is morally wrong, this coverage is morally problematic.

A second effect of the coverage is that it fuels the spotlight fallacy. This is a fallacy in which a person estimates the chances that something will happen based on how often they hear about it rather than based on how often it occurs. Terrorist attacks in the West are very rare and what Americans should really be worried about, based on statistics, is poor lifestyle choices that are encouraged by businesses. These include the use of tobacco, over consumption of alcohol, misuse of pain killers, eating unhealthy food and driving automobiles. Since terrorist attacks are covered relentlessly in the news and the leading causes of premature death are not, it is easy for people to overestimate the danger posed by terrorism. And underestimate what will probably kill them.

A third effect of coverage is that it can make people victims of the fallacy of misleading vividness. This fallacy occurs when a person overestimates the chances that something will occur based on how vivid or extreme the event is. While the media typically exercises some restraint in coverage, terrorism is obviously scary to most and this can cause people to psychologically overestimate the threat.

Whether a person falls victim to the spotlight fallacy or misleading vividness, the result is the same: the person overestimates the danger and is thus more afraid then they should be. This has beneficial effects for those who wish to exploit this fear.

Obviously enough, the terrorists aim to exploit the fear they create. They want people to believe that they are in terrible danger and face an existential threat. Lacking the capacity to engage in actual war, they must make use of the strategy of terror. These two fallacies are critical weapons in their war and people who fall victim to them have allowed the terrorists to win.

One of the ironies of terrorism is that there are American politicians who exploit the fear created by terrorists and use it to influence people for their political ends. While they do not deploy the terrorists, they benefit from the attacks as much as the masters of the terrorists do.

Not surprisingly, they make use of some classic fallacies: appeal to fear and appeal to anger. An appeal to fear occurs when something that is supposed to create fear is offered in place of actual evidence. In the case of an appeal to anger, the same sort of thing is done, only with anger. This is not to say that something that might make a person afraid or angry cannot serve as actual evidence; it is that these fallacies offer no reason to support the claim in question and only appeal to emotions.

Interestingly, terrorists like ISIS and the American politicians that exploit them have very similar objectives. Both want to present the fight as a clash of cultures, the West (and Christianity) against Islam. They both want this for similar reasons: to increase the number of their followers and to keep the conflict going so it can be exploited to fuel their political ambitions. If Muslims are accepted by the Western countries, then the terrorist groups lose influence and propaganda tools and thus lose recruits. If Muslims accept the West, then the Western political groups exploiting fear of Islam also lose influence and propaganda tools and thus lose recruits.

Both the terrorists and their Western exploiters want to encourage Westerners to be afraid of refugees coming from conflict areas in the Middle East. After all, if the West takes in refugees and treats them well, this is a loss of recruits and a propaganda loss for the terrorists.  It is also a loss for those who try to build political power on fear and hatred of refugees. 

If refugees have no way to escape conflict, they will be forced to be either victims or participants. Children who grow up without education, stability and opportunity will also be much easier to recruit into terrorist groups.  This is all in the interest of the terrorists; but also, the Western political groups who want to exploit terrorism. After all, these groups are founded on identity politics and need a scary “them” to contrast with “us.”

This is not to say that the West should not be on guard against possible attacks or that the West should not vet refugees. My main point is that overreacting to terrorism only serves the ends of the wicked, be they actual terrorists or those in the West who would exploit this terror to gain power.

https://x.com/TurningPointOU/status/1994156726225129932?s=20

As a college student, I wrote many bad papers. As a college professor, I’ve graded hundreds of bad papers. I have also observed and criticized the manufactured culture wars of the right, such as the War on Christmas and rage about made up claims about Dr. Seuss and potato themed toys. I suspected it would only be a matter of time before a badly written college paper became part of the manufactured culture war.

On November 27, 2025 the Oklahoma Turning Point USA chapter tweeted “Transgender professor fails her student for quoting the Bible in her essay.” The posts asserts,  “We should not be letting mentally ill professors around students. Clearly this professor lacks the intellectual maturity to set her own bias aside and take grading seriously. Professors like this are the very reason conservatives can’t voice their beliefs in the classroom.” Given this claim, one might expect proof of a deranged professor. Interestingly, they posted what they claim is the full text of the student’s essay as well as what they claim are the comments made by the instructor and another professor. This post has set off another battle in the culture war, with the instructor being suspended and even the governor of the state getting involved.

If you read the essay, you will see that it is objectively not very good, although I would have assigned a better score than 0/25 if only because I am a kind grader and the student clearly wrote it herself and did not turn in AI generated text. If you read the instructors’ comments, they begin by making it clear that the grade is not based on the student’s beliefs and then go through, in careful and respectful detail, why the paper did not meet the requirements of the assignment. Reading through the paper and these comments, it is evident that the paper was evaluated fairly, albeit with a lower score than I would have assigned. But my fellow professors often say that I am far too kind.

In a better world, the student would have complained to the professor and perhaps gotten a chance to revise the paper so that it completed the assignment. But we do not live in that better world. As noted above, MAGA is “losing their minds” over the paper and it is now another manufactured fight in the manufactured culture war. But what is the point of this fight?

When I went to the post on X, I was surprised to see that they posted the essay and what they claimed were the comments by the instructor. As the sometimes savage and unkind comments on X noted, the essay is not very good (but about what one would expect from a rushed assignment near the end of the semester). As the comments also correctly note, the professor did not fail the student because they quoted the Bible or because of their views. The comments make it clear that the work did not meet the requirements of the assignment, which is a legitimate basis for a low grade. In a better world, people would look at the paper and comments and conclude the obvious: the grade of zero might be a bit harsh, but the paper was evaluated on its merits. There is no injustice here beyond what every student feels exists when they do not get the grade they want. But we do not live in that better world. So here is what seems to be going on.

First, when many on the right want to create a conflict, the truth does not matter. See, for example, the absurd War on Christmas or the claim that migrants are eating cats and dogs. Based on the response from the right, they do not care whether the essay was graded fairly, and they do not care what the professor wrote. They might believe in what they regard as a deeper truth about colleges and the veracity of any particular piece of “evidence” does not matter. They might know the truth but also know that the MAGA base either will not know or care. They might also have the sincere belief that the paper is good because they agree with the content. People do, after all, fall victim to belief bias in which they think that if they agree with a claim, then the reasoning for that claim must be good. But, as I point out to my students, there can obviously be bad arguments for claims that you agree with. I use the example of the debate between St. Anselm and Gaunilo over Anselm’s ontological argument to illustrate this: Gaunilo and Anselm both believed in God, but Gaunilo was critical of Anselm’s argument. I pick this explicitly because it involves God to show that even in a religious context there can critical assessment of arguments. But to be fair, this level of critical thought is difficult and is certainly discouraged by politicians, pundits and leaders.

Second, I suspect that the person posting the essay knows that it is bad and that the comments were reasonable. While this might seem absurd, it actually makes sense. By creating controversy with a poorly written essay with reasonable comments that resulted in the instructor being suspended and garnering nationwide attention, a clear message has been sent to intimidate professors: grade in accord with our ideology or be punished.  This will, as people like to say, have a chilling effect. It also provides unscrupulous students with a tool to improve their grades and intimidate professors, which is probably intended.  It will also do students a disservice by teaching them that if they express the right ideology, they are exempt from rational assessment and consequences. Which, one suspects, is another lesson this is supposed to teach.  

While people who voted once again for Donald Trump gave various reasons for their choice, some say they chose him because he is a businessman, and they see government as a business. While some might be tempted to dismiss this as mere parroting of political rhetoric, the question of whether the state is a business is worth considering.

The state (that is, the people who occupy various roles) does engage in some business like behavior. For example, the state engages in contracts for products and services. As another example, the state does charge for some goods and services. As a third example, the state does engage in economic deals with other states. As such, it is indisputable that the state does business. However, this is distinct from being a business. To use an analogy, most of us routinely engage in business like behavior, yet this does not make us businesses. So, for the state to be a business, there must be something more to it than merely engaging in some business-like behavior.

One approach is the legal one. Businesses tend to be defined by the relevant laws, especially corporations. As it now stands, the United States government is not legally defined as a business. This could, of course, be changed by law. But such a legal status would not, by itself, be terribly interesting philosophically. After all, the question is not “is there a law that says the state is a business?” but “is the state a business?”

To take the usual Socratic approach, the proper starting point is working out a useful definition of business. Since this is a short essay, the definition also needs to be succinct. The easy and obvious way to define a business in capitalism is as an entity that provides goods or services (which can be abstract) in return for economic compensation with the goal of making a profit.

While there are government owned corporations that operate as businesses, the government itself does not seem to fit this definition. One reason is that while the state does provide goods and services, many are provided without explicit economic compensation. Some also receive goods and services without providing any compensation to the state. For example, some corporations can exploit tax laws so they can avoid paying any taxes even while receiving government subsidies and contracts.

While this seems to indicate that the state is not a business (or is perhaps a badly run business), there is also the question of whether the state should operate this way. In his essay on civil disobedience, Henry David Thoreau suggested that people should have an essentially transactional relationship with the state. That is, they should pay for the goods and services they use, as they would do with any business. For example, a person who used the state roads would pay for this use via the highway tax. This approach does have some appeal.

One part of the appeal is ethical. Thoreau’s motivation was not to be a cheapskate, but to avoid contributing to government activities he saw as morally wrong. Two evils he wished to avoid funding were the Mexican-American war and slavery. Since the state routinely engages in activities some citizens find morally problematic (such as subsidizing corporations), this would allow people to act in accord with their values and influence the state directly by “voting” with their dollars. The idea is that just as a conventional business will give the customers what they are willing to pay for, the state as business would do the same thing.

Another part of the appeal is economic as people would only pay for what they use and many probably believe that this approach would cost them less than paying taxes. For example, a person who has no kids in the public schools would not pay for the schools, thus saving them money. There are, of course, some practical concerns that would need to be worked out here. For example, should people be allowed to provide their own police services and thus avoid paying for these services? As another example, there is the challenge of working out how the billing would be calculated and implemented. Fortunately, this is a technical challenge that existing business have already addressed, albeit on a much smaller scale. However, this is not just a matter of technical challenges.

An obvious problem is that there are people and organizations who cannot afford to pay for the services they need (or want) from the state. For example, people who receive food stamps or unemployment benefits obviously cannot pay the value for these goods. If they had the money to pay for them, they would not need them. As another example, companies that benefit from United States military interventions and foreign policy would be hard pressed to pay the full cost of these operations. As a third example, it would be absurd for companies that receive subsidies to pay for these subsidies. If they did, they would not be subsidies. The company would just give the state money to hand back to it, which would just be a waste of time. The same would apply to student financial aid and similar individual subsidies.

It could be replied that this is acceptable, those who cannot pay for the goods and services will be forced to work harder to be able to pay for what they need. Just as a person who wants to have a car must work to earn it, a person who wants to have police or fire protection must also work to earn it. If they cannot do so, then it will become a self-correcting problem as they die in fires or are killed by criminals. Naturally, the state could engage in some limited charity, much like businesses sometimes do. The state could also extend credit to citizens who are down on their luck or even conscript them so they can work off their debts to the state.

The counter to this is to argue that the state should not operate like a business because it has obligations that go beyond those imposed by payments for goods or services. The challenge is, of course, to argue for the basis of this obligation.

A second reason the state is not a business is that it is not supposed to operate to make a profit . This is not merely because the United States government spends more than it brings in, but because it does not even aim at making a profit. This is not to say that profits are not made by individuals, just that the state as a whole does not run on this model. This is presumably fortunate for the state, few other entities could operate at a deficit for so long without ceasing to be.

There is, of course, the question of whether the state should aim to operate at a profit. This, it must be noted, is distinct from the state operating with a balanced budget or even having a surplus of money. In the case of balancing the budget, the goal is to ensure that all expenditure is covered by the income of the state. While aiming at a surplus might seem to be the same as aiming for a profit, the difference lies in the intent. The usual goal of achieving a budget surplus is analogous to the goal of an individual trying to save money for future expenses.

In the case of profit, the goal would be for the state to make money beyond what is needed for current and future expenses. As with all profit making, this would require creating that profit gap between the cost of the good or service and what the customer pays for it. This could be done by underpaying those providing the goods and services or overcharging those receiving them, both of which might seem morally problematic for a government.

Profit, by its nature, must go to someone. For example, the owner of a small business gets the profits. As another example, the shareholders in a corporation get some of the profits. In the case of the government, there is the question of who should get the profit. One possibility is that all the citizens get a share of the profits, although this would just be re-paying citizens what they were either overcharged or underpaid. An alternative is to allow people to buy additional shares in the federal government, thus running it like a publicly traded corporation. China and Russia would presumably want to buy some of these stocks in the United States.

One argument for the profit approach is that it motivates people; so perhaps some of the profits of the state could go to government officials. The rather obvious concern here is that this would be a great motivator for corruption and abuse. For example, imagine if all courts aimed to operate at a profit for the judges and prosecutors. It could be contended that the market will work it out, just like it does in the private sector. The easy and obvious counter to this is that the private sector is well known for its corruption.

A second argument for the profit option is that it leads to greater efficiency. After all, every reduction in the cost of providing goods and services means more profits. While greater efficiency is desirable, there is the concern that costs would be reduced in harmful ways. For example, government employees might be underpaid. As another example, corners might be cut on quality and safety. The operation of for-profit prisons and universities provide tow cautionary tales about how a for-profit government would be bad for those outside the ruling class.  It can be countered that the current system is also problematic since there is no financial incentive to be efficient. An easy reply to this is that there are other incentives to be efficient. One of these is limited resources, people must be efficient to get their jobs done using what they have been provided with. Another is professionalism.

In light of the above discussion, while the state should aim at being efficient, it should not be a business.

The American anarchist Henry David Thoreau presented what has become a popular conservative view of the effect of government on business: “Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way…Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way…” While this view of the role of the state in business is often taken as gospel by conservatives, there is the question of whether Thoreau is right. While I find his anarchism appealing, there are some problems with his view.

Thoreau is right that the government can be employed to thwart and impede enterprises. To illustrate, this can be done by granting special advantages and subsidies to certain companies or industries, thus impeding their competitors. However, he is mistaken in his claim that the government has never “furthered any enterprise.” I will begin with an easy and obvious reply to this claim.

Modern business could not exist without the physical and social infrastructure provided by the state. In terms of the physical infrastructure, businesses need the transportation infrastructure provided by the taxpayers. The most obvious aspect of this infrastructure is the system of roads that is paid for by the citizens and maintained by the government (citizens acting collectively). Without roads, most businesses could not operate as products could not be moved effectively, and customers would be hard pressed to reach the businesses.

Perhaps even more critical than the physical infrastructure is the social infrastructure created by the people acting collectively and through officials. The social infrastructure includes the legal system, laws, police services, military services, diplomatic services and so on for the structures that compose the governmental aspects of society.

For example, companies in the intellectual property business (which ranges from those dealing in the arts to pharmaceutical companies) require the legal system and law enforcement. For example, if the state did not enforce drug patents, the business model of the major pharmaceutical companies would be destroyed. As another example, if the state did not protect Disney’s intellectual property, their profits would suffer.

As a further illustration, companies that do business internationally require the government’s military and diplomatic services to enable their business activities. In some cases, this involves the use of the military to serve the interest of business. In other cases, it is the less bloody hand of diplomacy that advances American business around the world.

All businesses rely on the currency system made possible by the state and they are all protected by the police. While there are non-state currencies (such as bitcoin) and companies can hire mercenaries, these options are not viable for most businesses.  All of this shows the state plays a critical role in allowing business to even exist. This can, however, be countered.

It could be argued that while the state is necessary for business (after all, there is little business in the state of nature), it does nothing beyond that and should just get out of the way to avoid impeding business. To use an analogy, someone must build the stadium for the football game, but they need to get out of the way when it is time for the players to take the field. The obvious reply is to show how the state has played a very positive role in the development of business.

The United States has made a practice of subsidizing and supporting what the ruling class sees as key businesses. In the 1800s, the railroads were developed with the assistance of the state. The development of the oil industry depended on the state, as did the development of modern agriculture. It could, of course, be objected that this subsidizing and support are bad things. But they are certainly not bad for the businesses that benefit. Elon Musk, for example, profits greatly from taxpayer money. Presumably he was so focused on cutting support for others so even more of this public money could end up in his accounts.

Another area where the state has helped advance business is in funding and engaging in research. This is often research that would be too expensive for private industry and research that requires a long time to yield benefits. One example of this is the development of space technology that made satellites possible. Another example is the development of the internet, which is the nervous system of the modern economy. The BBC’s “50 Things that Made the Modern Economy” does an excellent analysis of the role of governments in developing the technology that made the iPhone possible (and all smart phones).  Unfortunately for business, the Trump administration is (from malice or ignorance) cutting support for research.

One reason the United States has been so successful in the modern economy has been the past commitment of public money to basic research. While not all research leads to successful commercial applications (such as computers), the ability of the collective (us acting as the state) to support long term and expensive research has been critical to the advancement of technology and civilization.

This is not to take away from private sector research, but much of it is built upon public sector foundations. As is expected, private sector research now tends to focus on short-term profits rather than long term research. Unfortunately, this view has infected the public sector as well. As public money for research is reduced, public institutions seek private money, and this money often comes with strings and the risk of corruption. For example, “research” might be funded to “prove” that a product is safe or effective. While this does yield short-term gains, it will lead to a long-term disaster.

The state also helps further enterprise through laws regulating business. While this might seem like a paradox, it is easily shown by using an analogy to the role of the state in regulating the behavior of citizens.

Allowing businesses to operate with no regulation is like allowing anyone to operate without regulations. While the idea of an unregulated life might seem appealing, individuals need protection from others who might threaten their life, liberty and property. To this end, laws are created and enforced to protect people. The same applies to protecting businesses from other businesses (and businesses from people and people from businesses). This is, of course, the stock argument for having government rather than the unregulated state of nature. As Hobbes noted, a lack of government can become a war of all against all and this ends badly for everyone. The freer the market gets, the closer it gets to this state of nature  and this is well worth remembering. The ruling class controlling business does want the citizens to be in the state of nature relative to them but they want to be protected from each other and the citizens by the coercive power of the state.

It might be assumed that I foolishly think that all government involvement in business is good and that all regulations are desirable. This is not the case. Governments can wreck their own economies through corruption, bad regulations and other failures. This has happened in the past and is probably happening now.

Regulations are like any law as they can be good or bad, depending on what they achieve. Some regulations, such as those that encourage fair competition in business, are good. Others, such as those that grant certain companies unfair legal and financial advantages (such as Monsanto here), are not.

While rhetorical bumper stickers about government, business and regulation are appealing in a simplistic way, the reality of the situation requires more thought and due consideration of the positive role the state can play, with due vigilance against the harms that it can do.