intellectual hedonism

Do you gender trans people correctly even when they're being absolutely terrible people? Do you refuse to use the r-slur against someone who suicide baited you but is neurodivergent? Do you refuse to snark at a mentally ill person who is being genuinely unpleasant, "go take your meds!"

Do you allow members of marginalized groups to be terrible people without judging their entire demographic for it? One of the most invisible yet vital forms of privilege is the right to be terrible people as an individual rather than as a group. Do you acknowledge that there are bad people in every group, that it doesn't make their group less worth fighting for? Or do you shake your head if you happen to get mistreated by some who belong to a group and insist the entire group is awful and not worth your allyship?

I recently purchased this slat back chair from an antiques mall in Maine. My hunch is that it’s an 18th-century chair, made in New England.

It has a decaying woven splint seat and part of the top slat was broken off at some point. You can see the top slat no longer has the middle rise that the two other slats have.

But the chair is still ramrod straight and just as square as can be. Its two front stretchers (the pieces that brace the legs) have a nice amount of wear on them where many many decades of sitters rested their feet.

It’s been at least three colors in its life: first blue (and possibly even green), then red, and then black. It was probably painted black around the first half of the 19th century when Hitchcock “fancy” painted chairs came into fashion. Hitchcock chairs were commonly painted with black lacquer and stenciled with gold.

This little slat back chair would have looked very old fashioned in its red paint compared to the stylish Hitchcock chairs. But instead of discarding the slat back chair, the family that owned it updated it with black paint and gold details. The chair must have meant a lot to the family for them so make such an effort.

You can see the gold detail on the beautifully turned acorn-shaped finials.

You can even see gold detailing along the tops of the slats, which tells us that the top slat must have broken before the first half of the 19th century.

Evidence that the slat back chair was well-loved can also be seen in a repair that was made to its back stretcher. When the original back stretcher broke (did it break at the same time as the top slat?), it was replaced, but it seems the family that owned the chair did not have access to a lathe, so they carved a new stretcher by hand. You can see the ridges in the wood left by the knife, compared to the smoothly turned legs and the other stretchers.

ASOIAF tiktok: omg maera and yassaerys are so cute together ! abusive grandfather/step-granddaughter is the ship dynamic of the year

ASOIAF twitter: DNI if you read books with m*rder or inc*st in them

However.

The price of the Brig seat is one third of the price of the cheapest ticket on the plane. And if someone on the plane gets rowdy and pitches a fit, they get restrained and sent to the Brig so that nobody has to Turn This Plane Around. And if you're flying Brig, you get their seat.

However.

The price of the Brig seat is one third of the price of the cheapest ticket on the plane. And if someone on the plane gets rowdy and pitches a fit, they get restrained and sent to the Brig so that nobody has to Turn This Plane Around. And if you're flying Brig, you get their seat.

like it is supposed to feel jarring and insane. it is supposed to feel like lestat has been violently submerged in modern young people trends and culture and is now repeating all the new words he learned like a beautiful fresh baby. but because the book is from 1985, all I think is oh interesting huh I didn’t know that slang term even originated in the 80s how vintage how retro how lestat wow he’s so embarrassing aw aw so cute.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

Currently, it's marking season for us in the UK. I have an exam board in four hours, in fact, which is where we all go over every profile of every student on our courses, see what results they've achieved, and work out their "decision" - if all is well, the decision is to let them continue the course, or the final degree grade calculated if they're in final year. If it hasn't gone well, the decision is about whether they get to rework the pieces that failed, resit exams, repeat the whole year, or be required to withdraw.

And, as has been the case for the last two years, the profiles are now littered with plagiarism investigations. Every one of those - every single one - will have come in as an assignment that the lecturer received, and started reading, and then with a sinking feeling thought "This isn't your work." Every one had to go to an academic misconduct hearing. Every one is an enormous draw on time and resources, including the emotional reserves of the lecturer.

And I know that's not the main issue! I know in the grand scheme of things, our feelings aren't the most important part of this equation! But as we're talking about rudeness, let me explain:

Firstly, the work itself. You begin reading, you see it's AI. Contractually, we have to read it anyway, and give feedback on why it's shit, and what makes it bad, and that is absolutely fucking soul destroying. Most students who use AI are doing so because they've managed to train their brains to find reading something boring abhorrent, and they want to skip that part; but a ChatGPT-generated report is bland, vague, and utterly devoid of any passion, insight or personality. In short, it's boring. You simply passed your boredom on to us.

Secondly, regardless of your personal feelings about the assignment, it at least had a purpose. It was there to stretch you, and make you think about the topic so you could learn about it, and to test that learning so we can all make sure you have actually learned what you need to. But the slop you handed in, that I now have to mark? What's the point? Literally what is the fucking point of me marking it? You didn't even write it. None of the feedback I'm obligated to give means anything to you. I'm marking ChatGPT, and it can't read.

Which means, not only is it fucking boring, it's actively pointless. Ask anyone in the world what a boring but pointless obligatory task does to your mood. Imagine that.

Thirdly, the misconduct hearing. Because listen, again, the lecturer's feelings here are, once again, not the main point. Students who cheat like this aren't doing so because life is hunky dory. They're stressed and overwhelmed and struggling, and they think they've found a magic way out, and so being pulled into a misconduct hearing - where the best they can hope for is to have to redo the whole piece for a capped mark, on top of all the rest of the work they have (functionally, a bonus assignment), and the worst is expulsion - is a mental breakdown-inducing experience. That, obviously, is the biggest issue.

But, the lecturers know all that, which means we know what we're triggering if we do report it. I cannot tell you how upsetting it is to receive a slop assignment, realise what it is, and then have to make the call to report it. I know damn well how upsetting that's going to be for you. I know how stressful and painful that's going to be. I know this might mean you're going to be thrown out of university. In some cases, I know it means you will be.

I know I could look the other way to spare you that

And oh, that gets tempting. When things are really bad for you, and I see you struggling, and this is your third strike; fuck me but it's tempting to pretend that I can't tell.

I cannot do that.

Which brings me to number four: the soul-bleachingly fucking horrible ordeal that is the misconduct hearing itself. Most people are non-confrontational; I'm no exception. I also simply do not enjoy a sobbing, panicking student sitting in front of me, telling me about how stressed and scared they are and how they're terrified they're going to fail. But that's how these things go.

Our most recent example is an international Masters student. I don't know the particulars for him; but I do know it's not uncommon in his part of the world for families to go into obscene debt, often to loan sharks, to send their kids to UK universities. Failure means more than just academia for him. Having to sit through him turning white and quietly begging us to give him another chance before he left in tears he tried to hide from us was, obviously, much worse for him than us; but it was honestly traumatic. Even now, two weeks later, I can't get it out of my head. There's nothing we can do; but, I feel guilty anyway. I could have looked the other way.

(It wouldn't have passed anyway. It was terrible. But at least he'd probably be allowed a resit - we're still waiting on the outcome of this one, but he may well be withdrawn)

To bring this back to the point of the post: