Sources From The Other Side

 

The only "trigger warning" offered.

   Sixteen Sources For Testing Civility

   Recently in the Globe & Mail an open letter, from some important people addressed to Canada's leaders, was published in which it is stated that,  "We, the undersigned, are calling on you to address urgently the rise of incivility, public aggression and overt hatred that are undermining the peace and security of Canadian life." The editorial board at the G&M followed up by noting that civility was indeed in short supply and that, as the title states, "The Defence of Civility Rests On All Of Us," (April 2, 2024.) Challenges to the current orthodoxy have declined as incivility has increased. 
   The number of sources from which we get our news and opinions has also declined. Chances are likely that you watch the CBC or CTV or read whatever is left of your local paper, or the Globe, the Star, or one of the many publications produced by Postmedia. Good, bad and interesting ideas are often found elsewhere and authors who should be read are now encountered in unlikely journals or on unknown substacks.
   A short while ago I wrote in support of "Academic Freedom & Free Speech" and provided links to campuses where there are attempts to promote intellectual openness. I will now offer some sources which can be used to test the level of toleration on a campus near you, or to test the civility of those in your intellectual circle. 
   The sources offered are not wildly provocative and the ideas presented in them are not bizarre ones, offered by the deranged to purposely encourage uncivil reactions. If you look through the descriptions for all of the sources (taken from the sources) you will find little to disagree with if you value things like common sense, freedom, justice, equality, fairness and other eternal verities. On the other hand, if you can be described as a "progressive", you are likely to disagree with most of the things found in the sources below since they can be characterized loosely as "conservative."
   Below you will find links to think tanks, organizations and journals. Many are Canadian, but two are from Australia and most deal with the debates and issues found at universities. The words related to some of the names below, signify what follows - e.g. "Heterodox", "Controversial", "History Reclaimed" and especially "Unherd." The only words of advice I offered to my granddaughter as she headed off to university was "avoid the herd of independent minds."

  Here are the sixteen sources, but I could have made it seventeen by including The Frontier Centre for Public Policy.  They provide another example of an antithetical bibliography, in that some of the ideas expressed may be new to you since they are not often found, even in rebuttals, in publications most of which simply repeat the truisms of the current orthodoxy. Prepare yourselves and watch your head. For example, among the publications mentioned in the first source, you will find an article with the title, "DEI Should DIE" (it is already on life support south of here) and a "radical" book suggesting that Canada is not a bad country in which to live and that there is much in our past that should be cherished, not cancelled. 

The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy  (CANADIAN)
"The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy is a new think tank that aims to renew a civil, common-sense approach to public discourse and public policy in Canada.
Our vision:
A Canada where the sacrifices and successes of past generations are cherished and built upon; where citizens value each other for their character and merit; and where open inquiry and free expression are prized as the best path to a flourishing future for all."

C2C Journal: Ideas That Lead   (CANADIAN) - Journal
Founded in 2007 as a print and online publication, C2C Journal is now primarily an online magazine publishing original commentaries, stories, reviews and investigative reports. Aimed at a national Canadian audience of readers interested in fresh ideas and quality writing about current political, cultural and economic issues, C2C specializes in longer form journalism that provides more substance than most mainstream news products and is more engaging than most academic journals.
     C2C’s unabashed bias is in favour of free markets, democratic governance and individual liberty. We strive for balance, fairness and accuracy in our reporting and commentary. Our mission is to explore and develop “Ideas that Lead” by encouraging writers to push boundaries, challenge orthodoxies and advance arguments rooted in the values and principles of classical liberalism and western civilization."

Canadian Constitution Foundation (CANADIAN)
"The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) is a national and non-partisan charity. We are dedicated to defending the constitutionally protected rights and freedoms of Canadians, and to maintaining Canada’s constitution, including its federal structure and division of powers, as intended in the Constitution Act, 1867.... The CCF’s primary objective is to ensure that government power does not infringe on the rights and freedoms of Canadians, or disrupt the principles of Canadian federalism. The CCF advances these objectives by promoting civic engagement, awareness, and education regarding contemporary issues and developments in Canadian constitutional law. The CCF also initiates and intervenes in high-profile court cases, where it advocates against government overreach and urges courts to adhere to the written text and scheme of Canada’s Constitution.'

The Dorchester Review (CANADIAN) - Journal

The Dorchester Review is an extraordinary feast for the open mind, a rare species nowadays! There is simply no magazine in Canada like it.

FAIR - Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (United States)

"FAIR is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing civil rights and liberties for all, and promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity.

WE SEE PEOPLE FIRST.

FAIR advances Martin Luther King Jr’s guiding principle that we should be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin.

WE PROMOTE INCLUSION FOR EVERYONE. WE MEAN EVERYONE.

FAIR defends the rights and equality guaranteed to all human beings, without exception.

WE STAND UP TO BULLIES.

FAIR advocates for individuals who are threatened or persecuted for protected speech, held to a different standard of conduct, or denied rights or access based on their perceived identity group or perspective.

WE PROMOTE DISCOURSE.

FAIR supports respectful disagreement. We believe that bad ideas are best confronted with good ideas — never with censorship, dehumanization, deplatforming, or blacklisting."

 

FIRE - Foundation For Individual Rights and Expressions (United States)

"Since its founding more than two decades ago as the "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education," FIRE has become the nation’s leading defender of fundamental rights on college campuses through our unique mix of programming, including student and faculty outreach, public education campaigns, individual case advocacy, and policy reform efforts. In 2022, FIRE changed its name to the "Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression" and announced an expansion initiative into off-campus free speech advocacy and legal defense.

Heterodox Academy (United States)

"Heterodox Academy (HxA) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit membership organization of thousands of faculty, staff, and students committed to advancing the principles of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement to improve higher education and academic research…

We see an academy eager to welcome professors, students, and speakers who approach problems and questions from different points of view, explicitly valuing the role such diversity plays in advancing the pursuit of knowledge, discovery, growth, innovation, and the exposure of falsehoods."

History Reclaimed (United Kingdom - has Canadian contributors)

Our Mission

"The abuse of history for political purposes is as old as history itself.  In recent years, we have seen campaigns to rewrite the history of several democratic nations in a way that undermines their solidarity as communities, their sense of achievement, even their very legitimacy.

These ‘culture wars’, pursued in the media, in public spaces, in museums, universities, schools, civil services, local government, business corporations and even churches, are particularly virulent in North America, Australasia and the United Kingdom.  Activists assert that ‘facing up’ to a past presented as overwhelmingly and permanently shameful and guilt-laden is the way to a better and fairer future.  We see no evidence that this is true.  On the contrary, tendentious and even blatantly false readings of history are creating or aggravating divisions, resentments, and even violence.  We do not take the view that our histories are uniformly praiseworthy—that would be absurd.  But we reject as equally absurd the claim that they are essentially shameful."

The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal (North Carolina)

"What We Are Trying to Achieve

Our goals are to improve colleges and universities, especially in North Carolina.

We want to:

Increase the diversity of ideas taught, debated, and discussed on campus;

Encourage respect for the institutions that underlie economic prosperity and freedom of action and conscience;

Increase the quality of teaching and students’ commitment to learning so that they graduate with strong literacy and fundamental knowledge;

Encourage cost-effective administration and governance."

Journal of Controversial Ideas (United States)  - Journal

"The Journal of Controversial Ideas offers a forum for careful, rigorous, unpolemical discussion of issues that are widely considered controversial, in the sense that certain views about them might be regarded by many people as morally, socially, or ideologically objectionable or offensive. The journal offers authors the option to publish their articles under a pseudonym, in order to protect themselves from threats to their careers or physical safety.  We hope that this will also encourage readers to attend to the arguments and evidence in an essay rather than to who wrote it. Pseudonymous authors may choose to claim the authorship of their work at a later time, or to reveal it only to selected people (such as employers or prospective employers), or to keep their identity undisclosed indefinitely. Standard submissions using the authors’ actual names are also encouraged.

We welcome submissions in all areas of academic research insofar as the topics discussed are relevant to society at large.

The Journal of Controversial Ideas is not affiliated with any institution and does not support any beliefs or doctrines other than freedom of thought and expression. It is privately funded through donations. Please consider making a donation, thereby helping us to promote free inquiry."

Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) (CANADIAN)

"Canada’s only truly national public policy think tank based in Ottawa.

MLI is rigorously independent and non-partisan, as symbolized by its name. Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier were two outstanding and long-serving prime ministers who represent the best of Canada’s distinguished political tradition. A Tory and a Grit, an English-speaker and a French-speaker, each of them championed the values that led to the creation of Canada and its emergence as one of the world’s leading democracies and a place where people may live in peace and freedom under the rule of law."

Minding the Campus: Reforming Our Universities (United States)

"When Allan Bloom wrote The Closing Of The American Mind more than three decades ago, he probably never imagined that the absence of intellectual pluralism he decried would still be upon us. There is an undeniable divide between the Academy and the larger society. The curtain that has been drawn around colleges and universities no longer protects intellectual exchange and a search for the truth. In the modern academy, many certainly do not know all of the ideas worthy of consideration.

Minding the Campus hopes to change that by fostering a new climate of opinion that favors civil and honest engagement of all ideas, offering an engaged debate for readers concerned with the state of the modern university and the society it serves. We provide a simple central resource, featuring fresh original content from professors and academics and we draw upon the best from established magazines and publications, as well as from less-visited corners, from professional journals to blogs and student publications. In connecting resources from disparate worlds, we hope to connect their readers, fostering potential for real discussion and change. A conversation about America’s Universities is needed; look for it here.

Quadrant (Australian) - Journal

"Our principal purpose is the defence of the values, practices, and institutions of a free and open society by fostering literary and cultural activity of the highest standard. In particular, we are committed to the preservation and advancement of the cultural freedom that is the distinctive component of traditional Western culture….

Quadrant publishes materials of the highest standard that seek to encompass the cultural traditions that endure within, and enrich, our civilization. The culture we defend derives from the Classical and Christian traditions of Greece, Rome and Jerusalem, as well as those of the British sceptical Enlightenment, especially the writers of eighteenth-century Edinburgh."

QUILLETTE (Australian) - Journal

Quillette is an Australian based online magazine that focuses on long-form analysis and cultural commentary. We are politically non-partisan, but rely on reason, science, and humanism as our guiding values.

Rights Probe (CANADIAN)

"The mandate of Rights Probe is to research and explain this shifting legal ground and to challenge these trends. It will defend and promote the classical liberal conception of individual rights and the rule of law, in which people have primary control over their own lives and their own decisions; and will seek to inform and assist people to resist government coercion and mob rule."

UnHerd (United Kingdom) - Journal

"When the herd takes off in one direction, what do you do?

UnHerd is for people who dare to think for themselves.

The Western world is divided and uncertain. In the realms of politics, morality, science and culture, establishment opinion is skittish, but assertive — quick to form a consensus and intimidate dissent into silence. Meanwhile, increasingly powerful anti-establishment voices are fast forming into their own tribes. UnHerd tries to do something different — and harder. We are not interested in contrarianism, or opposition for its own sake; but we make it our mission to challenge herd mentality wherever we see it. This may be to speak for people who are otherwise dismissed; to challenge lazy consensus; or to make the argument for dimensions of existence that are lost in the din. We seek out thinkers who can bring the broader wisdom of history, philosophy, science and religious thought to bear on the current moment. We try to give a platform to the overlooked, the downtrodden and the traduced; and to people and places that the world has chosen to forget. We have no allegiance to any political party or tradition. Our writers often disagree with each other. Our approach is to test and retest assumptions, without fear or favour. The effect, we hope, is to get a little bit closer to the truth — and to make people think again.