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The Virus in France

City Journal
September 10, 2020
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France’s penchant for translating abstract ideas into practical policies often has disastrous consequences. According to Pascal Bruckner, this tendency has reached new heights during the current lockdown. Writing in City Journal, Bruckner reminds us we’re never done with history’s uncertainty, and hyper-ratiocination only means we risk being deluded by a fantasy of omnipotence.

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Writing in City Journal, Ilya Shapiro considers Canada’s expanding habit of cancelling anyone with unpopular opinions in his review of Collin May’s new book From Cancel Culture to Incarceration Culture: Prosecutorial Democracy and the Future of Cancellation. Shapiro notes the book carries “unusual immediacy” since May knows of what he writes, having lost his position as chair of the Alberta Human Rights Commission due to politically motivated complaints about a C2C Journal essay he wrote 13 years earlier. For more on May’s journey, see this C2C article.

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