A Sociological Eye

[Image courtesy wayhomestudio on Freepik] Recently the news has been full of stories about politicians being outraged on behalf of Jews over the way universities are tolerating antisemitism. The top headline in the New York Times on the day I am writing this is, "As Fury Erupts Over Campus Antisemitism, Conservatives Sieze the Moment." Subtitle? "Republicans have been attacking elite universities for years. After a tense Congressional hearing last week, many on the left are joining them." This framing is extremely misleading. As someone who teaches at a large state university, let me explain. With war raging between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, many people have been protesting on behalf of Israelis and Jews, and Palestinians and Muslims, which is fine. There's also been a huge rise in hate speech directed at people on both sides, which is not. Some of this is taking place on college campuses--and college administrations have been doing little if anything to stop i...

  Look, I say this as a dad. As fathers go, I have sacrificed more than many--I'm a gestational father, who carried and delivered my kid like seahorse fathers do. I've dealt with the gauntlet of gender transition so that I can be recognized as a father, so that my kid can roll her eyes at me and say "Daa-aaaad!" when I tell a punny joke. Being recognized as a primary-parent father is important to me. But Father's Day is still an annoying holiday. Mother's Day has a grand political history. It was founded by Victorian feminist pacifists during the Civil War to demand recognition of the unpaid labor of love and care performed by women. It took hold in the imaginations of women of the time, who performed all sorts of labor as charity without pay in the 1800s and early 1900s, and wanted recognition of the vital work they did to save the lives of impoverished children, serving as an unpaid social safety net. It was a feminist holiday at root. Then it got commercial...

A Portrait of Zooey Zephyr Wow, rightwing social media bloviators are really going all in on the line that “America isn’t a Democracy! It is a Republic!” Have you seen this? I try to avoid Twitter as much as possible nowadays. Whole swaths of it used to be pretty dystopian, barely held in check by moderators. There were just some minimal rules—no hate speech, no misgendering trans people, no telling people exactly how you’d like to see them die horribly. Then Elon “I spent billions to be able to misgender my own children online!” Musk bought the place. According to him, banning hate speech is discriminating against Republicans. Evil leftists want to censor and cancel and muzzle people, but the noble right wing understands the incalculable value of there being no rules of civility! The right champions pure free speech! Tell that to Zooey Zephyr. (I collaborated with AI to make this portrait of her.) This week, Representative Zephyr was banned from the floor of the state legislature of ...

Last Thursday in Kansas City, Ralph Yarl, a Black kid of 16 who was a Science Olympiad competitor and talented marching band participant, went to pick up his little brothers. He wound up a block away from the correct address, rang the doorbell, and waited for some time. Finally an old white man, Andrew Lester, opened the main door--and immediately shot him through the glass storm door. Lester shouted, "Don't come around here no more," as Ralph staggered away with bullets in his skull and arm. Then on Saturday in Hebron NY, friends in a group of two cars and a motorcycle were driving to a party when they went up the wrong driveway. They recognized the mistake, but as they were leaving, Kevin Monahan, 65, emerged from the house and shot at the vehicles, killing a passenger in one of the cars, 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis. Reporting has focused on how Ralph and Kaylin were "good kids" who wound up at the wrong house in the sort of minor mistake we all make regul...

  When I was growing up, gathering with the Italian-immigrant quadrant of my family meant that every meal began with the same ritual: everyone present wishing the rest of the family "buon appetit'!" May you have a good appetite! May you feel hungry, find this meal delightful and satisfying, and eat well. This is a very common world practice. The French say "bon app é tit;" in Finnish it is h yvää ruokahalua;  and in Korean  맛있게 드세요 .  Why? People wish one another pleasure in a meal as a social gesture of goodwill, just as you'd wish someone a good trip when they are about to travel. It's a gesture of hospitality. And it is also a wish for health, because we must eat well to survive, and traditional societies have always had a dread, not just of famines, but of the failing individual appetite that signifies that someone they care for is ailing. Will someone please remind contemporary American doctors of this fact? Recently, there's been a lot of repor...