Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

Yesterday, I published my take on the Sokal Squared scandal on my page at Medium , and was surprised that it got a bump from the editors, “Our curators just read your story , It’s a Publish or Perish World , that you submitted for review. Based on its quality, they selected it to be recommended to readers interested in Education across our homepage, app, topic page, and emails.”   While the recommendation immediately meant more people read my story than the one I posted a week before (six reads vs. none), what really caught me off guard was a related story I read this morning on The Daily Beast .   While I didn’t specifically cite the Quillette story referenced, I did send the link to it to my wife as an   example of my sense that the lefts’ obsession with identity was alienating people that should be politically aligned with our larger goals.   Yet, in reading the Daily Beast article, I realized I’d been hoaxed (a direct response to the Sokal Story) as well.   The story I linked to

Situation 1: I was standing in line at Whole Foods with my food lined up behind me on the conveyor belt.   A young black man got in line behind me and put his small handful of groceries behind mine.   I noticed that he didn’t use the divider between his groceries and mine, and I didn’t say anything.   Surely the clerk would notice?                 A few minutes later, the clerk had gotten to the end of my groceries and looked down at his.   “Is this yours?” she asked me.                 I shook my head and then looked back at him.   Snarkily, I said, “Almost got me to pay for your food.   Almost.”                 He laughed; I laughed; the clerk laughed.                 But as I walking out to the car, I wondered, “Why did I say that?   Why did I make that joke?   Was it because he was a young black man or a young man?” I can’t help but think that maybe I was operating on some unconscious bias, some snap judgement on him being a young black man, and his trying to pull

Disclaimer: I’m not invested in securing tenure at a university, yet I do feel that my time working on my Master’s in Rhetoric was worthwhile. While my job as a mid-level manager at a community college doesn’t require that level of education, expending the effort to work full time and study was a way to stay engaged and keep my brain active. Background: I developed a sort of discipline that sitting in front of a computer most days rewards. I read a lot; I watch documentary films and various YouTube clips a lot. And as I sort of meandered my way through understanding the larger world as presented to me via the web, I, as predicted or delivered by the  algorithm on YouTube , became exposed to a broader variety of opinions ( Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, The Ruben Report, Bret Weinstein ) than my online circle of poet and progressive friends held or posted about on other social media platforms. It lead me to the NYTimes piece on the  Intellectual Dark Web . From there it was