As sociologists have reminded us, race, like power, is a
relational concept. A so-called race is invariably defined in
distinction to other presumed races. Where racial reasoning and the
practice of comparison have combined in modern politics is
in...
Conventional wisdom today says that the sciences—natural,
physical, and even the quantitative social sciences like
economics—are especially good for teaching effective truth
practices. That is surely right to a degree. But just as much, we
might...
If American citizens are good democrats, they will always be
suspicious of government officials, and that will make them
receptive to the information that whistleblowers provide. But they
ought to be suspicious of whistleblowers, too. Citizens may...
Such an unanticipated change in government in the United States
for all its undoubted strength cannot, of course, alter overnight
the entire course of international relations. The overwhelming fact
is that the substance of change must answer the...
Some of the ideals of the far left are ideals that many people
still cherish—the end of exploitation, racial and ethnic equality,
the emancipation of women, national self-determination, etc.
Believing that workers should be paid more or that...
We are a nation shaped by immigrants, as the Statue of Liberty
reminds us, but now, horrifyingly, immigrants are increasingly
subjected to prejudice for both their ethnic identity and their
religion. Older and equally repellent anti-Semitism and...
This is a book about a phenomenon I call The Lament That
Shame Is Dead. The Lament is a nostalgic story of an
imagined past that represents a longing for a mythical place and
time when shame secured and regulated social life. It operates as
a...
The following text is excerpted from Our Declaration: A
Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality
(Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2014) by Danielle Allen, UPS
Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science.
I was in my final year of graduate school, writing a
dissertation on the place of persuasion in the success of
contemporary American social movements, when the nearly
two-year-long campaign for the American president who would succeed
George W. Bush...
