In a healthy relationship, ambiguity creates no stressors for the relationship. In unhealthy ones, ambiguity is intolerable.

I’m so glad you read the book! I hope you loved it. Everybody should read it, it’s a masterpiece.

If you are in the US and you are invited into a struggle session, I recommend immediately to contract a lawyer and request that the administration deal directly with your legal representative. College administrations are terrified of legal threats. I have witnessed unsavory personalities wheedle the most outrageous things out of the administration by lawyering up. Don’t say a word, don’t go to any committees, everything through a lawyer.

I understand that the events in the novel are set in Cape Town, and I don’t know how things work there. The professor in Disgrace did the next best thing to finding a lawyer. He refused to engage beyond the bare minimum. That’s always the correct behavior in any workplace spat. Whoever says the least, wins. Never ever ever do point-by-point rebuttals. Limit your responses to a difficult colleague to one sentence.

I’ve felled absolute wild beasts of prey who had made life impossible to generations of administrators before me by using this strategy. Don’t give them any time and, most importantly, any of your mental space. Pray, meditate, do whatever you need to not dwell. One sentence responses that are declarative (not questions). “I understand your position but I disagree.” “Please proceed as instructed previously.” That’s it, you are done, move on.

How does a nation-state come into existence?

A nation’s cultural elite comes together and creates the story of the nation, demonstrating that the nation existed from the earliest times it’s possible to co-opt for the story. It creates an idea of the national character and the national values. It compiles a list of cultural figures, philosophers, artists, military leaders, etc who were carriers of the national character for centuries. Different factions within the cultural elites have their own list, and they battle it out in debates. The story of the nation can be completely invented but that’s utterly beyond the point.

Then the story and the list of symbols, iconic characters and values has to be popularized. The people of the nation should develop an emotional response to this story. There should be a national archive, well-defined borders, and the symbols of the nation that appeal to all the senses and evoke an emotional response. All of this creates a feeling of “we, the people.” An imagined community of people who never met each other but feel part of the whole.

Every European nation-state went through this process throughout the 18th century and arrived in the 19th ready to become an actual nation-state. Without this process, there is no nation. Nation-building is great but it can only be done organically, from the inside. Nobody can give it to others. It’s a long, difficult process that can only be carried out by the nation itself. Any attempt to nation-build for others is doomed.

This is why all these “recognitions of Palestine” are stupid. You can’t appoint a nation into existence. We’ve seen many efforts in that direction in Africa, and they all failed. There’s nothing mysterious about nation-building. The process has been described in great detail, and it always follows the pattern I described.

The reason why Duolingo works is that they added the AI chatbot. Without it, the whole thing would be mildly useless.

The chatbot is a beaut. It was designed by people who really know how to teach languages, and I say this as somebody who has been teaching languages since age 14. I always get distracted in the midst of chatting with the bot by my admiration of how every precept of the methodology of foreign language teaching is followed.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to the chatbot in German in an empty hallway. Right at the moment when I was saying, “I prefer to order food delivery from this place because they don’t charge for rice or drinks”, the German professor from my department suddenly walked in. He never knew I could say anything in German, and this is a very random phrase to hear from your department Chair upon arrival at work. I haven’t seen him since then. He probably thinks I lost the last of my marbles and is hiding.

One of my favorite afterwork activities is I pick up Klara, we get poke bowls, bring them back to the office, and I listen to a book or do German exercises while Klara draws or plays or I set her up in our departmental movie theater.

It’s hot like the Gobi desert, and our space on campus is cool, empty, large, and quiet.

The administrators think I’m mega hard-working because I’m always here but it’s simply that I love having this gigantic space all to myself.

You hoped for a military coup and you believe it’s a good idea to express that wish in public?

The defenders of democracy strike again.

The idea that there’s a single Ukrainian who’d “fight for Zelensky” is rooted in complete misunderstanding of our national character. We have many flaws (like being too excitable, talky, and food-obsessed), but we are immune to personality cults. A Ukrainian would die of embarrassment before saying “I’m fighting for Zelensky.”

By the way, this is the reason why Ukrainians are a lot more religious than Russians. We don’t know how to worship a human being. We buckle at earthly power and only recognize the divine.

The headline is from The Telegraph, and it’s a clear instance of people projecting themselves onto a different culture.

Hey, don’t feel bad for me. At the University of Chicago, a committee was formed to ponder the following important questions:

Once again, that’s University of Chicago, a formerly highly respected institution.

On the subject of ChatGPT, I would be remiss if I didn’t try to lighten the mood with this:

The administration now tells us that we aren’t allowed to write our own welcome emails to incoming students. Instead, we must all copy-paste the same text and send it under our own names.

Do you want a sample sentence from this prefab email?

“I look forward to connecting with you and igniting your academic passion.”

Really. That’s what it says.

60% of all sentences in the email end with an exclamation mark.

And I’m supposed to send this slop under my own name.

It’s quite extraordinary that the university pays good salaries to people who are professional writers and then prohibits us from deploying this skill. For which it pays us.

I mean, I’ve already been paid. I might just as well do the work for which I’ve been paid and which can’t possibly be copy-pasting text into email. Because if it is, you’ve overpaid me to a ridiculous degree.

The welcome emails I used to send were actually pretty good. I’m a fine writer. I tailored them based on what language each student was interested in. I provided specific, useful information. And I definitely didn’t say cringe oldster shit like “ignite your passion.”

And now I’m prohibited from sending my own emails or modifying the prefab one in any way. Now every incoming student will receive the same standard and badly written message. Because that’s what people want, amirite? To be treated like identical robots. That’s totally going to make an excellent impression on today’s young people.

Not.

Leftists are total pitbulls. They have been persecuting these poor nuns for 14 years and refuse to move on:

BREAKING: In a nationwide ruling against a Trump Administration religious conscience rule, a federal district Court today ruled against the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Court sided with Pennsylvania and New Jersey in their years-long effort to force the Little Sisters of the…

— BECKET (@becketfund) August 13, 2025

These nuns care for the dying elderly. It takes a bloody maniac to hound them for a decade and a half for being Catholic and refusing to fund abortion pills.

As Curtis Yarvin says, conservatives love power like a wine snob loves alcohol. Liberals love power like an alcoholic loves alcohol.