Contra Trump
危邦不入
亂邦不居
The rubric of this miniseries on the crisis in American higher education comes from a famous passage in The Analects of Confucius:
子曰：篤信好學，守死善道。危邦不入，亂邦不居。天下有道則見，無道則隱。邦有道，貧且賤焉，恥也；邦無道，富且貴焉，恥也。
— 論語．泰伯
Translated by Simon Leys as:
The Master said: “Uphold the faith, love learning, defend the good Way with your life.… Read
A Glum Convergence — Donald J. Trump & Xi Jinping
Contra Trump
你儂我儂
Peter Hartcher is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Australia. He interviewed me about how Donald Trump’s America is becoming more like Xi Jinping’s China.… Read
Market Tides and Shifting Political Sands in Higher Ed
Contra Trump
秀才遇到兵
In ‘The brutes have entered the grove’, the first part of this cycle of essays on the crisis in American higher education, we featured a plea for unity by Professor James A.… Read
‘The brute has invaded the grove’ — Trump-era universities & the echoes of China
Contra Trump
政治掛帥
In recent years, the gunpowder stench of militant ideology has become stronger. It reeks of a trend to ‘impose discursive hegemony’, although in reality it is a perverse use of the public to impose ideological punishment.… Read
T2 — two months, twenty-two cartoons
Contra Trump
‘It was one thing to anticipate this prolonged political moment; it has been, these past weeks, quite another to live it’, wrote David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, in early March 2025.… Read
TDS Down Under — Drongology and the Conga Line of Suck-holes
Contra Trump
TDS
In February 2003, Mark Latham, the leader of the Labor Party opposition in the Australian parliament, said that a government delegation visiting US President George W. Bush in Washington was ‘a conga line of suck-holes on the conservative side of Australian politics.’… Read