Losing honestly and gracefully
After election defeats, political writers are quick to explain that if only the politicians had read my book and followed my advice, things would have been different for our side.…
Robert Jensen
Why I Don’t Rely on Hope
“Where do you find hope?” “How do you sustain hope?” Those are probably the most common questions in response to more than three decades of writing and lecturing about today’s…
Still Waiting for Freedom: A Review of P. Sainath’s The Last Heroes
Here’s one possible trajectory for ambitious print journalists. After making your name with aggressive reporting at a smaller newspaper, move up the ladder until you are at a top paper…
A Practical Radical Politics
We need to be practical when it comes to politics, to work for policies that we can enact today, inadequate though they may be to answer calls for social justice…
Critiquing Transgender Theology: A review of Janice Raymond’s Doublethink
There’s a sad irony at the heart of Janice Raymond’s new book on transgenderism and feminism. After decades of research and activism, she is uniquely qualified to contribute to the…
Defining racism: Individuals and institutions, systems and structures
[An earlier version of this essay was presented to the National Conference on Racial and Social Justice on November 17, 2021.] We are at a tipping point in the racial history of…
Pornography: Doing the Worst to Women, Bringing out the Worst in Men
[This is an expanded version of testimony delivered to the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation, November 2, 2021.] My thesis: The pornography industry does the worst to…
“A Certain Terror”: A White Male Perspective on Being an Ally
Although the rather inelegant term “allyship” had not yet become part of the social-justice lexicon, I first bumped into the complexity of being an ally in 1988 when I belatedly…
Can we learn from history?
“We told you so” rings hollow. In the face of tens of thousands of lives lost, trillions of dollars spent, and countless communities destroyed, pointing out that early critics…
Restless and Relentless Minds: Thinking as a “Species out of Context”
Abstract The stability of the Earth’s ecosystems, and hence the future of the human species, depends on people recognizing and responding to multiple, cascading social and ecological crises that can…
“A simple boy from the prairie”: An interview with Robert Jensen
When a European graduate student emailed to ask if I would participate in an assignment to “do an interview with one of my favourite authors,” I said yes. My books…
Who is “we”?
Who is “we”? We humans have made a mess of things, which is readily evident if we face the avalanche of studies and statistics describing the contemporary ecological crises we face. But even with the…
What is really radical in sex/gender politics?
The political left, and much of mainstream feminism, is characterized by an analysis of how systems and institutions shape our choices, a critique of capitalist media, and a commitment to…
‘Cancel Culture’ Cannot Erase a Strong Argument
In the current squabble on the liberal/progressive/left side of the fence over so-called “cancel culture”—in which one open letter in favor of freedom of expression led to a rebuttal open…
Apocalypse, Now and Forever: Review of Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back
Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back is a thoughtful, engaging book that ends in failure. But Mark O’Connell shouldn’t take that…
Disagreeing Reasonably in a Complex World: A review of The Case Against Free Speech
The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent by P. E. Moskowitz (Bold Type Books, 2019) In my last couple years of university…
The Danger of Inspiration: A Review of On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal
Naomi Klein’s new book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, has one crippling flaw—it’s inspiring. At this moment in history, inspiring talk about solutions to multiple,…
From the Royal to the Prophetic to the Apocalyptic: The Case for a Saving Remnant
A version of this essay was presented at the “Is the Future of Agriculture Perennial?” conference, Lund University, Sweden, May 8, 2019. The royal, prophetic, and apocalyptic traditions in the Hebrew and…
The Real Difference Between Men Who Rape And Those Who Don’t
I am not as abusive as Harvey Weinstein, nor as narcissistic as Bill O’Reilly. I’m more respectful to women than Donald Trump, and not as sleazy as Anthony Weiner. Judged…
When Will The United States Transcend White Supremacy?
Now that the violence in Charlottesville has forced “white supremacy” into our political vocabulary, let's ask an uncomfortable question: “When will the United States transcend white supremacy?” My question…
Beyond ‘No’ And The Limits of ‘Yes’: A Review of Naomi Klein’s ‘No Is Not Enough’
Naomi Klein understands that President Donald J. Trump is a problem, but he is not the problem. In her new book, “No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need”,…
If We’re Honest, We All Know Trump’s America
When a local organizer for a new adult education project in Austin, Texas, asked me to teach a course on politics in January, it was tempting to focus on the…
What Is The World? Who Are We? What Are We Going To Do About It?
We are better people, individually and collectively, when we reject hubris and embrace humility, and we stand a better chance of making real progress — defined by Rowe as “whatever is conducive…
Can The United States Transcend White Supremacy?
Facing what seems like an endless stream of news about racialized conflicts and violence, many people call for us to get beyond our history and find solutions for today, concrete…
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