Christian Patriarchy

As part of my series on leaving academia: patriarchal indoctrination is widespread and has profound implications for disciplines trying to achieve diversity.

Totalitarian, patriarchal religious sects are more common than anyone wants to admit. In the US we really like to pretend that misogynistic patriarchy is a Muslim problem. We’ll sometimes mention ultra-orthodox Jews. But we really, really don’t like to acknowledge that extremism shows up in Christianity. Continue reading

Self Respect

As a trailing spouse, if I want to engage someone intellectually who is local, I have pretty limited choices. There are a few local musicians who do interesting stuff and are fun to talk to. Some of them are a little too far away to be convenient to interact with a lot but it’s great when we run into each other. Some of them have this problem with their head where they think it’s OK to wake up before the sun and that the most reasonable time to meet at a coffee shop and talk shop is when we all really ought to be in bed. Some of them I fruitfully interact with on a regular basis, but it’s not like we’re attached at the hip. So I hang out a lot with philosophers.

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Cultural Borrowing

I take a martial arts class a couple of times a week. One of the things we do in there is Kali. Most people use plain rattan sticks. Some people tape the ends so they wear out more slowly. One of the advanced students has one stick made out of a different material: maybe rubber or plastic? So most strikes sound similar but with timbral variability, then the one stick stands out when it strikes.

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