I’ve been thinking, yes, the neoliberal administrator sucks something nasty. But on the other hand, he’s done an enormous good to our campus. Nobody cares about microaggressions, anti-racism or pronouns anymore. I have literally not heard a woke proclamation in a year. The land acknowledgements that had been adopted a few months before he arrived have been abandoned completely.
An amazing feeling of solidarity has descended on us. Everybody agrees on how much we detest this guy. It’s become extremely easy to find common ground with anybody who works on campus. An uncomfortable silence can be turned into a moment of beautiful union and camaraderie with a simple, “so, what do you think about the new guy?”
I’m starting to think that if he cures us of pronouns and land acknowledgements, maybe the budget cuts are worth it. People mess around with that stuff because they are bored. Once you have actual problems, all that silliness goes away. Nobody worries about their gender identity in Bakhmut. We don’t need to let it go that far but a little taste of real-world hardship might be useful.
Clarissa's Blog 
Unity in misery is indeed a powerful theme in human behavior which seems to have roots in emergence of cooperation in evolutionary biology. In this case it seems consistent with cooperation due to some combination of spatial selection (evolution of cooperation among individuals in populations where defectors — here your administrator, and cooperators are not distributed uniformly) and cultural group selection.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-human-sciences/article/cultural-group-selection-and-human-cooperation-a-conceptual-and-empirical-review/3BEEC0756C9D4DFA7D97A320D9D54AB3
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“Nobody worries about their gender identity in Bakhmut.”
They might after the end of the war. Seriously. Thankfully, Ukraine looks like it’s becoming more LGBTQ+ friendly in recent years:
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/ukraines-unicorn-lgbtq-soldiers-head-war-rcna31214
This is good news. Russian/Soviet homophobia is not something that Ukraine should be keeping.
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Gay people don’t particularly struggle with their gender identity. Let’s not confuse sexuality and gender.
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And you don’t think that Ukraine has any trans troops, let alone trans people in general?
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/22/i-will-not-be-held-prisoner-the-trans-women-turned-back-at-ukraines-borders
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220630-ukraine-s-trans-community-caught-in-crosshairs-of-war
https://www.openlynews.com/i/?id=f5cb8051-fd75-4420-a3c6-5e4e1f4ce2f7
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine-trans-people-war-lgbt-gender-identity-documents-hormones-zelenskyy-eu/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transgender-woman-transphobia-russia-ukraine-invasion/
https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-lgbt-refugees/trans-and-non-binary-people-trapped-in-war-torn-ukraine-idUSL5N2V61IN
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Not in Bakhmut, no. How do you imagine it? It’s hellish fighting that never stops.
But give it to the Anglo media to obsess on its favorite topic. I don’t access any of these media (Reuters is Russian propaganda, by the way), but wow, it’s extraordinary what the people who live in comfort and opulence enjoy discussing.
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These are the defenders of Bakhmut praying before going into battle:
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Oche nosh.
Probably the only thing they could possibly say that I’d recognize (apart from the gospodi pomilui), and there it is 🙂
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What exactly makes you think that Reuters is Russian propaganda? It always struck me as being rather fair and objective.
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