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Category: Culture
Who is the most feminine woman you know?
A2A by Emlyn Shen. Now, I am cis. Emlyn is trans. Inspired by this tweet, pic.twitter.com/A47L9UBDtn — jordan (@redazarath) May 2, 2017 —I asked a trans friend of mine. I would have asked Emlyn herself, but she A2A’d me, so that hardly seems fair. Nick: You’ve reflected on femininity; you’d have a much better informed […]
How do you retain and instill an ethnic identity from birth when living in a foreign country?
I’m not going to speak to the details of the question, but to the general question: how to help instill your ethnic identity abroad, in a child whose identity you have some say in. (If you don’t have a direct say in it, Andrew Crawford’s answer applies: be a good role model.) Acknowledge that the […]
What’s your process for writing poetry?
Clear my head No, really clear my head Have a vague idea of what the argument is that I’m going to write Have a concrete idea of what the form is that I’m going to write in Start thinking up phrases in iambic pentameter Keep thinking up phrases in iambic pentameter Wait till my heart […]
Why do Greek parents not allow their grown children to take care of themselves?
So let me tell you an anecdote. I have a relative in Greece of roughly my age, who was studying at university away from home, 20-odd years ago. (Since “home” is a town of 7000 people with only a nursing school, that’s not hard to imagine.) Said relative at some stage took a job distributing […]
In your opinion, do most people who think they are too smart to get arrested end up getting away with their crimes?
I will instead volunteer Lt. Columbo’s opinion. From the pilot episode. You’re probably right. He sounds just too clever for us. What I mean is, you know, cops, we’re not the brightest guys in the world. Of course, we got one thing going for us: we’re professionals. I mean, you take our friend here, the […]
What’s the difference between Res extensa and Res corporea?
Not a philosopher by any stretch, but if I can decipher my Googlings of Heidegger’s interpretations of Descartes correctly: The res corporea “the bodily substance” is defined in opposition to the res cogitans “the thinking substance”. Applied to people, it is the human body as opposed to the mind. The defining attribute of the res […]
Do you think it is reasonable and useful to social justice for a white cis man to refrain from expressing his perspectives too often or too forcibly?
This is contentious, and ideological. I’ll just give my answer, as a middle-aged white cis het male. I have judgement. I have opinions. I am not disenfranchised from having opinions or judgement, simply by accident of what privilege I have inherited. I am entitled to discuss those opinions, and so long as I do so […]
Why are the Black people in America called African-Americans but we don’t have French-Americans or any other nationality Americans?
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Polish+-+American&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CPolish%20–%20American%3B%2Cc0 Am astonished that the obvious answer hasn’t been uttered yet. There was a longstanding practice in America of referring to white ethnic minorities as hyphenated Americans. (Something Teddy Roosevelt famously decried.) There were, and are, French–Americans, Italian–Americans, German–Americans, etc etc. Blacks changed their description from racial terms to a hyphenated American term in the […]
What are the biggest reasons people choose to drive into towns by car instead of using the train?
This has been an issue of contention between me and my wife. My wife would rather be in a traffic jam for 2 hours, than catch the train. I’ve been an annoyed passenger on such occasions. None of the other reasons brought up by respondents applies. So long as you are heading to the CBD, […]
Which 7 people in history would you like to high-five?
Tough question, Habib le toubib: I don’t do heroes, I like my critical faculties about me, and I’ve been jaded for a while. And of course, anyone I’d choose would be morbidly obscure anyway. … OK, challenge accepted. Hubert Pernot. The underappreciated giant of Modern Greek historical linguistics. Not a polemicist, not a tub-thumper; he […]