Q&A about Academic Colleagues

I know people who do these things and they always make carveouts for their acquaintances.

“I think we should strip tenure off everybody who voted Republican in this election.”

“I voted Republican.”

“Oh! I didn’t mean you! You know I love you. I’m sure you had good reasons. I mean other people.”

These aren’t bad individuals. They do these land acknowledgements like I put on eye shadow, because I think it looks nice.

The actual real fanatics who enjoy hurting others are few. Just like women who put on eye shadow because they want to steal your husband.

Most of them are clueless and they don’t care much one way or the other. They were told that BLM posters and pronouns in signatures are the thing, so they do it.

One thought on “Q&A about Academic Colleagues

  1. Here in France, I know a number of academics. An impressive percentage of them are Aspergery types whose stated political opinions are answers to a very simple question they continually ask themselves: “What opinions are acceptable in polite society?” Then they cling to the answer as if their life depended on it, because their social and professional life depends on it. Or so they think.

    I asked one of those academics, who is a good friend of mine, if he thought that a man can become a woman, after it was mentioned in a conversation among friends that two femininists were being sued for having said just that, and could be sent to jail. He replied to me: “How could I know? There are diesel locomotives that become electrical.”

    Since he thinks that the wrong opinion could mean social and professional disaster, he’ll say absolutely anything to avoid it. The same guy says that in 1940 he would have followed General De Gaulle in London, to continue the fight against Hitler. I find that very doubtful. In 1940, polite opinion was that France was very lucky to have the collaborationist governement of respected WWI hero Marshall Pétain in Vichy, to mitigate as much as possible the impact of total defeat. To be honest, the French (even the Jews) suffered much less during WWII than countries which didn’t have such a policy, such as the Netherlands. In 1940/1941, the general opinion in occupied France was that Hitler had won and we had to live with that. General De Gaulle was officially a traitor.

    The bad thing about this kind of Aspergery academics and non-academics: Don’t count on them to help you if your opinions get you cancelled. The good thing: They’ll become friendly again in a jiffy if you win against your enemies. Just ask the Donald. And General De Gaulle before him. C’est la vie…

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