PHILOSOPHERS' CORNER

Anti-Sacred Spaces

According to the "Blowing Off Steam" theory, rough humor—humor that deals with culturally sensitive issues in a way that bumps into or violates taboos—helps release people’s anxieties and stresses in a safe environment. Specifically, it is a release of sacred anxiety.

The Culture Wars: Phase 2?

Here is a conjecure.  We are by now deep into a new phase of the so-called "culture wars."  The current battles in the culture wars are ased partly on competing and apparently irreconcilable perceptions over the extent of what some see as genuine oppression and others see as merely so-called "oppression."  I was prompted  to this conjecture partly by recent events on various university campuses and partly by some advice I ran across on a Unitarian-Universalist website about how to be effective allies to those with marginalized ide