johnbrittingham.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

There’s this wild thing that happens in philosophy (and I suspect is also in other disciplines) where you are encouraged to go into newer territory or more extremes of thought but you end up coming back to the basics like lying is wrong and treat people as ends and not means.

submitted 4 hours ago • 1 comment

There is entirely too much Rousseau in public discourse these days. I swear the next 4 years are gonna turn me into a Rawlsian.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Good morning specifically to Canadians who play hockey and also who think imperialism is bad.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

submitted 2 days ago • 24 comments

Do we have a bat-signal for the wendy's social media person? Also this looks like a very cool and important job for someone with a comms background.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Executive orders are not laws. The Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom has started Executive Power Watch, which includes breakdowns of Trump's EOs on education, what they do and don't mean ,and how to resist. More at the link: academicfreedomontheline.substack.com/p/how-should...

submitted 3 days ago • 5 comments

The lab group of Prof. Melissa Bop, Penn State University, is doing a research study on cargo bike users in North America. If you are a cargo bike user and have a minute to take the survey they’d love to hear from you: pennstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... @cathytuttle.bsky.social

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

Really hoping more philosophers read this one. A grad school classic. It is needed now maybe more than ever. Disciplinary histories are more helpful than you might imagine. nupress.northwestern.edu/978081014607...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

I am not, by disposition, a very patriotic person. Especially as a proud Boricua. But the amount of PBS documentaries, historical dramas, and podcasts I’ve taken in about the founding of the US over the past month would make Stephen Ambrose blush.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

on the mount rushmore of sickos.jpg

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Crash Course is right there. It's not hard to learn things.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

I am biased cause I work at a Community College but I will tell you that my experience has been that CC folks are deeply rooted in their communities and brave as hell. Clear as day about what a public good is. More of this please.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

The thing about being a phenomenologist is that you're always like this but your sentences are like "the being-sense of the world inquire into concreteness of being and also its modes of givenness." And all the major texts were touched by either WW1 or WW2.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Im rewatching the HBO John Adam’s series and two things really stick out: I can’t think of anyone more perfect as Adams than Paul Giammatti And director Tom Hooper shoots this like a comedy which only makes Giammatti’s Giammatti-ness more pronounced.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

It is a profound shame that the most boring people on the planet have drained the revolutionary vitality out of liberal thought to use it as a cudgel to wield against college students that annoy them.

submitted 7 days ago • 10 comments

on the one hand, you really don't want doofuses running the government. on the other hand, having one actual genius surrounded by doofuses is how you got Robert Moses.

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

I’m on the green line and there’s a dude w/ the Marx-Engels reader, a lady reading about the French Revolution, and at least 5 visibly Union folks. I’d say it’s the start of a vibe shift but this is Boston.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Tonight! Higher ed workers are mobilizing against myriad political attacks. Want to get involved? Tonight (2/13) at 8pm ET we're hosting a National Strategy Call, during which we will discuss upcoming strategies and actions. Join us! us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

I found this a really helpful explainer on what is happening, why opposition is taking the shape that it is, and what to do about it. www.vox.com/politics/399...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Relistening to the French Revolution season of Revolutions podcast for no reason whatsoever. Man, the second estate really didn't want to be taxed at all. I wonder how that will turn out for them.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Some guys really have that "we've tried nothing and nothing worked" energy. Plenty of midwest dems who don't go "they're a supermajority so we can't do anything" when facing even worse numbers.

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

Its amazing how many of the oligarchs trying to rule the U.S. are basically trying to speed run the Bowser plot from the Mario Movie.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Look, sometimes people are chosen for leadership because they are good at fundraising.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

I think there are some folks who got a lot of money and decided that rather than funding libraries and hospitals and the arts, they decided “I cannot be wrong” and chose to pay as much as they needed to keep that the case of only for themselves.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

US science funding getting gutted right when I’m about to teach Aristotle? Glad I’m not teaching Hobbes this semester.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

When you let someone with lots of plans and no real fidelity to anything except the ideas in their own head get into government and start messing with stuff… …that’s how you get Robert Moses

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

I'm gonna have to go back to teaching Locke and Rousseau aren't I?

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

There's this Alexander Pope poem that has floated in and out of my life, often said by now-former profs. who would use it as a reminder and it is worth thinking about today. "A little learning"

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

I got accepted to a conference in Puerto Rico in April. Anyone who knows me knows how big of a deal getting to go back to the island of mi gente is for me. I haven't been since I was 9. And now, if you're in the US is it even safe to fly...anywhere?

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

Today is a good day to read “Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism” by Emmanuel Levinas. Some paragraphs are just too real these days

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Just tried to call MA senators and both voicemail boxes are full (DC office) so good job folks. Let's keep it up.

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Me, IRL: “I’m taking my professor hat off for the moment and putting my fellow student loan recipient hat on and telling all of you that it might be a good idea to download your information…Now let’s talk about the Socratic dialogue where he’s sentenced to death for thinking differently”

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Americans have been told for years that the bigger their car, the safer they'd be in a crash. Now, new research shows that's no longer necessarily true — and it's time to end the SUV arms race and start investing in more meaningful safety strategies.

submitted 18 days ago • 4 comments