What lesson should universities learn from the decline of newspapers?

Posted by on | education

Just to give away the answer at the outset – I think that there is an important lesson to be learned, because the basic business model of a research university is similar to the business model of a traditional newspaper, in that it relies up the aggregation of two goods, one basically public the other basically private, along with the sale of the two as a forced “bundle.” What kills the business model is when customers figure out how to get one without the other. Thus the shopping mall killed the traditional department store by disaggregating the sale of different categories of goods. The internet is killing the traditional newspaper by disaggregating the different “sections” of the paper. The question for universities is whether they can preserve the “bundle” that they have traditionally been selling, or whether that two will inevitably be disaggregated.

So let me now take a stab at explaining what all that means.… Continue reading

In the wake of Jian Ghomeshi and #beenrapedneverreported: How do we move forward?

Posted by on | Canada, criminal justice, law, Quebec

One of the most remarkable aspects of the sordid Jian Ghomeshi story has been the ensuing explosion of women’s voices recounting episodes of sexual violence that have gone unreported. #beenrapedneverreported, a hashtag launched by my friend Sue Montgomery of the Montreal Gazette and Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star, has become a sad but necessary global phenomenon. Thousands of women from around the world have used the hashtag to share painful memories sometimes buried decades in the past.

Being able to share these painful memories has had a therapeutic function for many of these women. I can’t imagine what it must be like to go years with the pain and trauma of sexual assault compounded by the feeling that, for a variety of reasons, this pain must be kept secret.

There is undoubtedly a huge range of reasons that women choose not to report episodes of sexual assault. The majority of cases of sexual assault occur at the hands of people who are known to victims, often family members.… Continue reading

Evolution of a sound bite

Posted by on | Uncategorized

A while back, Barack Obama made a speech in which he said the following:

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me—because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t—look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own… If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Here a link to the video for anyone who wants to watch it again (Fox News ran it hundreds of times, and spent literally hours discussing its import). The quote became kind of famous, because the word “that” in the penultimate sentence is ambiguous. If you want to make sense of what Obama said, then the natural reading is that “that” refers to the “roads and bridges” of the previous sentence, making it a truism.… Continue reading

I seem to recall having written a book about this…

Posted by on | Uncategorized

This paper by Jonathan Toubol (“The Hipster Effect: When Anticonformists all Look the Same”) has been getting a lot of play yesterday and today. Setting aside all the cutesy math, the basic dynamic driving his model is, as far as I can tell, exactly the one that Andrew Potter and I described in The Rebel Sell. What I find particularly interesting is the role that delay plays in his model, since Andrew and I also argued that delayed propagation of style was a major force sustaining counterculture, again for exactly the reason that Toubol represents. This was the basis of our contention that, because cable television, and subsequently internet, significantly reduced delay in propagation, counterculture was becoming more difficult to sustain.

On his website, Toubol points out that he was not trying to make a contribution to sociological theory. So I am not faulting him in observing that there is one crucial component of the phenomenon (“anticonformists all look the same”) that he fails to explain: Why are there only two states for the population types to switch back and forth between?… Continue reading

Grandeur et misère du système québécois de services de garde à l’enfance

Contribution invitée, par Luc Turgeon, professeur adjoint à l’École d’études politiques, Université d’Ottawa

La possible modulation des tarifs pour les services de garde en fonction du revenu familial suscite la gronde. Dimanche dernier, des milliers de Québécoises et de Québécois ont d’ailleurs manifesté à travers la province pour dénoncer ce scénario présentement à l’étude par le gouvernement libéral.

Journalistes et analystes ont également critiqué avec véhémence ce projet de modulation des frais de garde. Camil Bouchard, l’un des architectes de la politique familiale québécoise, a parlé de “déconstruction tranquille” du système québécois de services de garde éducatifs. La chroniqueuse Marie-Claude Lortie a quant à elle évoqué la fin de l’universalité du programme de garderies et déploré l’intervention du gouvernement libéral dans “un système qui fonctionne”.

Il y a de bonnes raisons de s’opposer à la modulation des tarifs. On peut, en particulier, se questionner sur l’impact politique d’une telle approche. Est-ce que les plus riches, par exemple, voudront continuer à payer plus d’impôts s’ils doivent contribuer davantage aux services de garde?… Continue reading

Une pause–L’actualité

Posted by on | Uncategorized

Je n’ai pas contribué depuis un certain temps à IDC. J’ai commencé à bloguer sur le site Internet de L’actualité. J’ai abordé jusqu’ici des questions comme la prière à l’hôtel de ville de Saguenay, le financement des écoles privées et le dernier livre de Jean-François Lisée. Je ne sais trop ce que l’avenir me réserve. IDC est un formidable laboratoire pancanadien d’éthique et de philosophie politique appliquées. L’actualité publie du contenu de grande qualité sur son site et est une référence incontournable pour ceux qui suivent les débats politiques québécois. Je pourrai y poursuivre ma lutte pour le changement graduel qui survient au moment opportun!… Continue reading

Procurement remains an unsolved problem

Posted by on | Uncategorized

Interesting article in the Toronto Star today about projected delays in the opening of the Spadina subway extension in Toronto. It all comes down to procurement – apparently they went with the lowest bidder, as the public sector is often obliged to do, and now they are “getting what they paid for.” This really is the same-old same-old story, of how the various constraints that we the people put on elected officials create enormous barriers to rational public spending. (The media, it should be noted, is in this case a huge part of the problem. Only last year, the Toronto Star and other local media were harassing the TTC over another contract they had signed. The objections were totally procedural, there was no reason whatsoever for thinking that the contract was not, substantively, in the public interest.)

Anyhow, turning to today’s article:

“If you really are concerned about the public interest and you are truly concerned about tax dollars, you don’t look for the lowest bid, you look for the most intelligent,” said Councillor Maria Augimeri, who still chairs the Toronto Transit Commission.

… Continue reading

The war on the car continues (but how?)

Posted by on | political philosophy, public policy

Until recently, residents and visitors to Toronto have been able to observe a strange phenomenon. Right downtown, just behind the provincial legislature (here), there is a very beautiful park (called Queen’s Park). The surprising thing about this park was that, on a typical weekday during the summer, even during lunch hour, you could walk through this park and find practically nobody in it – no students from the University of Toronto, despite the fact that it is almost part of the campus, and no workers from the nearby government buildings eating lunch.

There was a simple reason for this. It all came down to urban planning – in this case, bad urban planning. Until recently, Queen’s Park was a typical example of what I tend to think of as “1960’s urban planning” — the time before people really figured out how cars work (or the way that cars affect the dynamic of pedestrian flow).… Continue reading

A quiet loss for refugees

Posted by on | Canada, criminal justice, immigration, inequality, Supreme Court (Canada)

Today the Supreme Court of Canada handed down an important decision about refugee claimants with criminal records.

Obviously, that’s a tough sell. With so many people in the world whose basic human rights are not protected by their home states (about 15 million at last count), advocating for the tiny subset of refugees who have been convicted of a crime is not easy.

The arguments in their favour, however, are familiar to us, even though they come with an echo of a kinder and gentler time. There are two principal reasons why we forgive criminals: rehabilitation and atonement. That is, our criminal justice system echoes these two ideas at many levels. A commitment to rehabilitation means believing that people can change, and can return to being productive members of society. A commitment to atonement means that we embrace that idea that those who have ‘done their time’ or ‘paid their dues’ should be free to resume their place as members of society.… Continue reading

The Ghomeshi Affair and the Ethical Power of Consent

Posted by on | Canada, culture

The internet is abuzz with reactions to Jian Ghomeshi’s dismissal from the CBC. At this point, it is unclear what exactly Ghomeshi did to whom and how whatever he did could be grounds for his dismissal. There are allegations from three anonymous women that Ghomeshi violently assaulted them during sex and a fourth claims he told her at work: “I want to hate fuck you.” Ghomeshi’s response has been to claim that the allegations of non-consensual ‘rough sex’ are false and that those making the allegations are liars. He does not dispute that he has engaged in BDSM practices with women but he insists that the activities that he has engaged in have all been fully consensual and thus are above reproach. Brenda Cossman, a professor of law at University of Toronto, has already pointed out that in Canadian law consent to violence is not always sufficient to immunize oneself against a criminal charge of assault.… Continue reading