Andrew Potter

Andrew Potter: In our liberal society, gay rights will not be denied or ever turned back. It’s something any leader of Canada has to get their head around.

The issues that led to the shutdown of a Montreal highway that left drivers stranded go beyond mere political dysfunction

It’s one of the last symbols of male solidarity

Andrew Potter on how many take a great pleasure in anti-social behaviour, like rioting

The real threat is not economic decline, it’s political decay

A law professor hasn’t just excused Breivik’s actions, but actually endorsed them

Canada is neglecting the civil servants who played a key role in the mission

Happy (belated) Bastille Day, everyone. While the philosophy community is celebrating (or not) the arrival of Derek Parfit’s long-awaited two-volume work on ethics, I’ve been plowing my way through the first volume of Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order. The basic question he’s trying to answer is how any society ever made the transition from a tribal society to a modern state. It starts with chimpanzee politics, moves quickly to the state of nature and then on status seeking, so it’s basically the perfect book, thematically. I’m going to write a proper review of it soon, but one passage I came across last night was particularly interesting: it is about the particular character of the French state, pre-revolution:

The New York Times fronts today with a long piece about how changing fortunes in Mexico are affecting rates of illegal immigration into the United States. It’s not unambiguously good news, but there’s enough cognitive dissonance in the piece to keep you chewing through the weekend. Here’s the nut graph:

Andrew Potter on the ritual humiliations that come with being a politician

Obama’s drawdown announcement overshadowed an important report from Kabul

Everyone is over-thinking the Vancouver riots way too much