Mike is talking about relationships with significant age differences.

Here is what I think. The idea that a relationship is exploitative or somehow impacts agency because of an age difference is ridiculous and I don’t want to waste any time discussing it.

But a problem that actually exists is the following. Say, people meet and fall in love when one of them is 20 and another is 35. It’s all good for the moment. But in the next 10 years, the person who is 20 is going to grow a lot. And the one who is 35 is not. Yes, you can still grow at 35 or 45, blah blah. But it doesn’t happen nearly at the pace or with the intensity of what a 20-year-old experiences.

So if the goal of such couples is just to have sex and have fun, it’s going to work out fine. Probably deathly boring for the guy if he’s the one who’s 35 in the relationship (unless he’s insecure or inexperienced). But it’s not a big deal. If the woman is the one who’s 35, they will at least have the same degree of. . . erm, eagerness.

But if they start something serious, then the change of the dynamic from one between a wide-eyed silly little innocent and an experienced, knowing adult to one between two adults is going to be very harsh. The younger one will either self-infantilize or rebel.

Again, I’m talking about significant age differences only. And the difference needs to grow as the people become older. So when a 30-year-old meets a 40-year-old, that’s not a difference worth discussing because they are both adults and have stopped massively growing.

Whoever said you can’t teach beginner Spanish 100% in Spanish is wrong. Of course, half of the students drop out and go to the sections where little Spanish is spoken. But those who stay do amazing.

Is there a new trend where academic publishers seek out academics and offer to discuss possible publication of the books they are working on? And I don’t mean vanity presses, obviously. I mean very respectable publishing houses.

The way it seems to work is that authors speak at the MLA as a way of announcing what they are working on, and then publishers contact them offering to consider the publication of the book that the talk is part of.*

Since my MLA talk, I already got contacted by 3 very good publishing houses who want to publish the book that the talk came from. I always feel bad having to tell them that the book already has come out. On the positive side, all these inquiries encouraged me to start writing a prospectus for the new book**, so that’s good. I never contact publishers until I have the complete manuscript but hey, maybe it’s time to change my process and start pitching while I’m still writing. Or still thinking about writing.

*One is supposed to be working on a book at all times. All of the people in my field to whom I mentioned my recently published book immediately asked when the new one was coming out and what it was about. Even the analyst was like, “OK, so when is the new book coming out? Do you have a date of completion?” It’s like the women who bring a newborn from the hospital and everybody goes, “So? When are you going to have the next one?” I personally find it extremely invigorating when this happens (a propos the book and not the next pregnancy, obviously. At my age, nobody asks about the next pregnancy. Which makes me want to go, “And why do you keep silent, huh? Am I too old? Do I look old, huh, huh? I still have 15 years left before menopause, for your information.”)

** Good news: the book will be about nationalism. N is reading my crisis book and asks, “So what is liquid capital?” Which goes to show that I haven’t been bugging him with fluidity and the nation-state. When I explained the concept, his reaction was, “OK, so why did we support Hillary, then?”

What the author of the previous (and shockingly ridiculous) post mistook for sexual harassment is the environment of joy and excitement that accompanies the sharing and discovery of knowledge.

When, for instance, I come into my History of Latin America class, the 29 students look at me like they are in love. It’s not love of me as an individual and there’s definitely nothing whatsoever erotic about it. What the students are in love with is all of the fascinating knowledge we are discovering in class and the joy of learning and thinking.

In grad school, it’s even more intense because aside from the love of learning, students also feel love for the profession and for their future professional selves that they see in their teachers. If learning is organized correctly, the air crackles with the high voltage of ideas getting generated.

Either wilfully or out of sheer ignorance, the linked author confused this kind of intellectual excitement with erotic arousal. She isn’t totally to blame, of course, given that the degree of puritanism in our supposedly sexually liberated world is such that people seriously proclaim that “the brain is the sexiest organ of all.”

Like in the story of a comic’s failed date, people who see (or offer) such narratives as evidence of sexual harassment are grievously ignorant. And everybody seems too embarrassed to tell them how ridiculous they sound.

Is this person a lunatic or simply an opportunist? I’d love to think she’s cynically surfing the suddenly popular wave and doesn’t actually believe any of this ludicrousness. The alternative is too sad.

Hey, Rachel Maddow talked about Ukrainian politics today, and did it in a way that gladdens any Ukrainian’s heart. The screen was bursting with Ukrainian flags. I was very happy.

Of course, if this had been reported on when it was happening, many of the current problems would have been avoided.

The left’s narrative on Ukraine has made a 180° turnaround from what it was 4, 3, 2 and even 1 year ago. Thank you, President Trump for this, at least.

When students heard I’m going to become a citizen soon, they gave me a box of chocolates and signed a beautiful card. I feel very welcome.

The reason why I hate all these identity lists in politics is that they purposefully engage the emotional attachments at the core of each identity in the hopes that an emotional explosion will drown out an intellectual response to what is being said. Of course, all politics is manipulative but this kind of tired old manipulation is so transparent and so stupid that it’s time to let go of it.

I want online to look for materials on the Mexican American War to recommend to my students. One website looked promising, so I went there and started reading. And then all of a sudden I hear Pritzker’s voice booming at me from the top of the page where ads are placed. I turned the sound off because I’m at work and we can’t do political propaganda in the workplace. But I did hear most of the ad. In it, Pritzker makes it very clear that his only angle is identity politics. He goes on and on enumerating the identity categories he will help: “I will defend undocumented immigrants. . .African Americans. . . LGBT. . . women. . .” It’s a very clear and unapologetic way of saying, “If, in the light of recent developments, you expect any turnaround away from strictly identitarian talking points, then screw you.”

There is also a weird part in the ad about “Rauner says he’s not in control but I am in control.” Which is quite a tone-deaf line in view of the existing fears (as unjustified as they may be) of authoritarianism in the US.

In short, I support the party of stubborn idiots. Yippee for me.