Shane Ralston

Shane Ralston

Contributor

Shane Ralston is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Penn State University Hazleton. You can read many of his other articles at his academia.edu page.

Recent blog posts by this author

Social Isolation is Dangerous to Democracy

How many times have you attended a city council meeting? A school board meeting? Participated in a regional commission to address a social problem? Run for public office? Some of us are politically engaged. But most of us are not. Is a vibrant...

College 'Diversity Council’ Posts Fake Racist Flyers, Stoking Fear and Sparking Outrage

At Gustavus Adolphus College, the Diversity Leadership Council (DLC), with the help of several student-led social justice groups, decided to try a social experiment. They posted fake flyers with racially provocative messages on the theory that they...

College Prof Says he was Fired for not Dumbing Down his Course

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) recently released a report about a community college professor who was terminated for maintaining high academic standards for his students. The higher ed institution was the Community College...

3 Ways to Spot an Ideologue

In 1960, Daniel Bell’s book The End of Ideology was published. In it, he declared what “sensible” people like himself already knew: Ideological commitments are mere barriers to social progress. Incremental improvements in technology,...

The Foundation of Neil Gorsuch’s Judicial Philosophy

Listening to Diane Feinstein’s grilling of Neil Gorsuch during the recent Senate judicial nomination hearings, you might have noticed a question about the Supreme Court nominee’s opposition to euthanasia or mercy killing. Gorsuch confesses that he...

Americans Slip in Global Happiness Survey. But What is 'Happiness'?

The 2017 World Happiness Report, a list of 155 countries ranked according to multiple measures of personal and collective welfare, was recently released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a United Nations initiative. According...

David Cay Johnston: Journalism a Bastion for 'Trust Fund Kids'

In a recent Salon.com interview, investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston declared that the real problem with today’s journalism is not ideological bias or fake news. Instead, it’s the myopia journalists suffer from as a...