Retour sur le nouveau réalisme

Posted by on | culture, political philosophy, Uncategorized

Pour son cinquième anniversaire, le magazine d’art Zone Occupée m’a demandé de contribuer à son numéro thématique intitulé « Prospectives ». Comme je ne sais trop ce que l’avenir nous réserve—je n’ai même pas été capable de prédire le gagnant de la dernière campagne électorale fédérale!—, j’ai plutôt choisi de présenter une mouvance philosophique, le « nouveau réalisme », qui s’impose de plus en plus et dont notre monde a bien besoin. Le Devoir a publié une version abrégée du texte dans sa rubrique « Des Idées en revues », ainsi qu’une réplique d’André Baril. J’ai reçu des courriels de collègues séduits ou irrités par le nouveau réalisme, et le texte a suscité de nombreuses discussions sur Facebook. In fine, le plus réjouissant est sans aucun doute le fait qu’un petit texte portant d’abord sur des questions d’ontologie et d’épistémologie ait provoqué autant de réactions.

Quelques précisions sur la version du texte publiée dans Le Devoir.… Continue reading

If you want more than ambition, there is high-ambition: But what does it mean?

Posted by on | environment

From Paris

At her closing speech on December 12, Christiana Figueres, Executive Sectretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, noted that the Paris Agreement was the result of years of work. Focused work started following COP17 in Durban, giving its name to the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. In many respects the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Durban Platform (ADP) carried out the process of working on a new agreement from 2011 to 2015.

As the ADP completed its work at the end of the first week at COP21, the working draft was a patchwork of hundreds of square brackets. A sentence, a phrase, or a word put in square brackets meant that some parties wanted it in while others wanted it out. In parts of the text, not words but entire paragraphs were bracketed. This process was important, for there was a mandate to ensure that draft Agreement be truly “party-owned”.… Continue reading

Why were the COP21 negotiations in Paris so tough?

Posted by on | environment

From Paris

The Paris Agreement (full text here), adopted on December 12, 2015, was negotiated with a fear of failure looming over the delegates throughout the two-week conference. It was a difficult process with many setbacks.

The conference went on extended time until Saturday evening. The final three days were carried out almost entirely in closed meetings. Negotiators, together with the French Presidency and the UNFCCC Secretariat, worked indefatigably round the clock.

As the details of what went on in closed sessions are transpiring, it becomes clear that aspects of the draft text were being disputed until the end. According to sources, some countries were stating that they still had problems with the text as late as ten minutes before all gave their consent.

Why was it so tough?

There were many difficult issues to be resolved at Le Bourget. One of them was the question of differentiation of responsibilities.… Continue reading

The Firewall From the Other Side: The past and future of Stephen Harper’s agenda

Posted by on | Canada, politics

It didn’t take long for the new Liberal government in Ottawa to start undoing the changes Stephen Harper made to the way the country is run over his nine years as prime minister. Many of these changes were in the tone and style of governance: Trudeau unmuzzled scientists, said nice things to public servants, promised more access and openness to journalists. From coast to coast to coast, bowling scores are up sharply, and mini-putt scores are way down.

Trudeau also took a few quick steps to reverse some of Harper’s key policies. Most notably, he immediately reinstated the mandatory long-form census, barely in time for the 2016 survey. Interestingly, the minister who oversaw the cancelling of the mandatory census, Tony Clement, could not bring himself to criticize Trudeau’s move last week, saying that in retrospect “I think I would have done it differently.”  (On a related note: Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose has come out in favour of an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women.… Continue reading

Don’t settle for shallow narratives to explain NDP loss

Posted by on | Canada, elections

I published an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen explaining why I don’t think we should be satisfied with the analyses of the NDP’s underachievement in the last election. Among other things, I think that the view that one of the reasons explaining the NPD’s loss is that it was “outflanked from the left” by the LPC deserves more scrutiny. I realize that an electoral campaign is not a political philosophy seminar, but this doesn’t entail that hasty judgments should remain unchallenged. More importantly, the lessons that we will draw from the results will influence how we think about social-democracy’s prospects in Canada.… Continue reading

A Remembrance Day story

Posted by on | Canada, military

One of the things that I dislike about Remembrance Day is the ambiguity that has developed, and has in some cases been encouraged, about what exactly it is we are supposed to be remembering. When I was younger it was much more clear. Most of my uncles fought in the Second World War. The fact that they never talked about it told us most of what we needed to know, about what it had been like. My father was the youngest in his family, and so he did not have to serve. He wrote a story, however, about his older brother returning from the war. It has become a useful reminder, in our family, of what we should be striving to remember:

____________

    The Soldier

    the door of the house opened.  a man in soldier’s uniform came out and stood on the back porch.  he put his boots down one after another on the four steps and then onto the dirt path.  

… Continue reading

Newspaper editors receiving offers they can’t refuse

Posted by on | Canada, elections

An extraordinary spectacle is being played out across the land, as newspaper editorial boards are forced by their owners to endorse the Conservative Party. (As Paula Simmons put it, with regard to the Edmonton Journal’s endorsement of Harper: “And yes. Before you ask, this was a decision made by the owners of the paper. As is their traditional prerogative.”) The result has been the most tepid series of endorsements and backhanded compliments I can recall. Here is the Globe and Mail’s, which so far has attracted the most derision. Here is the Ottawa Citizen. The National Post has not released its own yet, but it looks as though they’re having to directly censor Andrew Coyne. So hard to get good help these days! You can make them say what you want, but it’s so hard to get them to sound enthusiastic when saying it.

Update: Andrew Coyne has resigned from his position as National Post opinion page editor… Continue reading

Telling women what they can wear is a sign of weakness

Posted by on | Canada, elections, multiculturalism, politics

Just when the niqab issue was starting to fade, Stephen Harper brought it up again, with his rather surprising announcement that a Conservative government would consider banning them in the public service (a position that was, not that long ago, ruled out by Tony Clement). So apparently this represents a concerted strategy, of ensuring that the election debate remain focused on the pressing issue of women wearing niqabs.

Globally, I’m not very impressed with this strategy. I think that encouraging hatred and distrust towards minority groups is not an acceptable electoral strategy. Imagine if a principal decided to promote school spirit by picking out a few kids and encouraging everyone in the school to bully them. Harper is basically doing the same thing, at the level of the entire country. As far as I am concerned, it shows him to be unfit for public office. (But hey, so does smoking crack, yet 30% of Torontonians were willing to vote for Rob Ford…) Anyhow, I’ve explained my views on that elsewhere.… Continue reading

Why We Support the NDP

Posted by on | Canada, elections

(This op-ed, signed by a group of Quebec academics–including Daniel, Patrick and me–was published in Le Devoir yesterday. As far as I know, and despite Charles Taylor’s involvement with the NDP since the 1960’s, it’s the first time in Quebec’s intellectual history that a group of scholars express support for the NDP publicly)

The vast majority of Quebec voters want a change of government in Ottawa. We are a group of academics who believe it’s time for Quebec to fully exercise its political weight in Ottawa, not just in the House of Commons, but also by voting for a party that aspires to form government.

In a first-past-the-post voting system, parties need to federate different views. It’s unrealistic to think that one party could defend all of our preferred political positions. It comes down to choosing the party that is most likely to adopt the range of policies that is closest to our values and considered judgments.… Continue reading