Mr. York offers a wonderfully vacuous standard for when employment discrimination is unjustifiable: if the basis for discrimination is both an immutable and irrelevant trait. Denying someone opportunities based on a characteristic outside his control is just fine, it seems, as is discrimination based on a trait wholly unrelated to job performance. Yet somehow these …
Author Archives: Garbanzo McArthur
Essay: Open the Door Yourself
Of all the silly rituals that govern social life, perhaps none is sillier than that of holding open doors. We all go through it several times a day: As you prepare to enter a room or building, you must quickly determine whether anyone with the same plan of entry is following at a certain undefined, …
Dissent: What’s Wrong with ‘What’s Wrong with the Internet’
Perhaps I’m one of the lucky few, but I feel relatively immune from this corrosive disease of completionism: generally, I’ll give a YouTube clip about 10 seconds to capture my interest before moving on to the next thing. I’ll give a news article or blog post a paragraph — at most — to prove itself …
Concur: The Virtue of Second Life
The great evil of the Internet, if the dissents are to be believed, lies in its opportunity for anonymity (York: “Hotgrrl81 unreservedly proclaims what real-world Jennifer Smith dares not whisper”; Benavides: “[E]xtremists can foster pernicious ideologies when not checked by . . . socially regulating ‘etiquette.’”). When we are not held personally accountable for ours …
Dissent: Consumerism does not Implicate Morality
Let’s say that in place of any harrowing revelation from the world of Indonesian forestry, Mr. Benavides’ acquaintance had let him in on a still darker secret: the owner of the antique store has an idiosyncratic policy of celebrating the sale of each Bodhidarma bust by going home and beating his wife. Would Mr. Benavides …