Jul
20
2026

… But the Anthropologist, While Insisting She Was Not Intoxicated, Could Not Explain Her Nudity

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Megan McArdle considers The interview that exposed academia’s cluelessness. (WaPo gifted link)

The interview, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, was was with Carolyn Rouse, president of the American Anthropological Association. It was in response to a 30-page paper titled Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences, which deemed the field of anthropology "a hive of political groupthink."

The shoe, unfortunately for President Rouse, fit well. Excerpt:

“They used AI,” said the Princeton anthropology professor, apparently unaware that using artificial intelligence to survey large bodies of text is an increasingly common method in many social science fields. She rambled about a couple of passing references to Socrates as if this somehow discredited the report. (Did you know the ancient Greeks had enslaved people?) She asserted that teaching there are two sexes would be “the equivalent of turning an astronomy department into an astrology department.”

When the interviewer pushes back on that last point, she tries to dodge and weave, but has no idea what an effective dodge would be. So we end up watching an unintentional comedian take repeated pratfalls, such as suggesting that people who believe sex is binary maybe “want to kill babies that aren’t just XX presenting XX or XY presenting XY,” and that teaching that sex is binary is as inappropriate in a classroom as debating the pros and cons of interning Japanese people. Perhaps this sounds more coherent if you are fluent in Anthropologese, but to those outside the tribe? Woof.

Today's headline is a nod to that wonderful sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati.

And I am sure, with God as her witness, President Rouse thought that turkey would fly.

Also of note:

  • … but the 80-year-old Senator, while insisting … That's one possible explanation: Senate Democrat calls for Trump impeachment after election claims.

    Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) late Thursday called on Congress to impeach President Trump after the president claimed during a primetime address that forces that stole the 2020 presidential election are still at work and threaten the integrity of the 2026 midterm elections.

    Trump used words such as “rigged and stolen,” “corrupt” and “cover-up” and cited some recently declassified documents to support his alarming claims, though critics in both parties say he still failed to substantiate his central contention that U.S. elections are marred by widespread fraud.

    Wait a minute, Ed. You're claiming that lying in a speech is grounds for impeachment?

    Dude, Bill Clinton lied under oath, and he got away with it.

    Obama uttered the Politifact "Lie of the Year" on multiple occasions, and he got away with it.

    Biden lied … well, about a lot of stuff. For example, he pledged to not pardon Hunter. But he did, and he got away with it.

    So, shut up, Ed. You're drunk, and also naked.

  • … But the 80-year-old President, while insisting … That's not to let Trump off the hook for that speech. Allysia Finley has a question for you, Donald: Chinese Election Interference? What About TikTok? (WSJ gifted link)

    President Trump during his prime-night speech on Thursday broke the non-news that China has sought to interfere in U.S. elections. Xi Jinping must have chuckled at the president’s professed outrage.

    On his first day in office, Mr. Trump gave the Chinese Communist Party a license to spy on Americans and meddle in U.S. elections when he issued an executive order that suspended enforcement of a law requiring TikTok to separate from its Chinese parent, ByteDance, or be banned in the U.S.

    The TikTok reprieve may be the biggest blunder of Mr. Trump’s presidency, and it is coming back to bite him as the platform fuels the rise of socialism and opposition to the war in Iran. A recent study found that TikTok’s algorithm systemically suppressed pro-U.S. content on the war and amplified anti-U.S content. Odds of such a skew occurring by chance are about 1 in 6.5 million. Is this Beijing’s invisible hand at work? It’s impossible to know, which is the problem.

    I'm sure I don't need to point out to you, Reader, that one of the Constitutional duties of the President is to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed".

    Which Trump has failed to do in this case.

    Senator Markey, if you're still with us, this is something you could stick in your … Articles of Impeachment.

  • … But the entire membership of the Democratic Socialists of America, while insisting … Jeff Maurer has a query for you, me, and the DSA: What Do “Socialism” and “Communism” Mean to You?

    There’s a debate happening over whether Democratic Socialists of America are socialist or communist. Both DSA folks and their critics seem to agree that the distinction is important; few seem compelled to dismiss the argument as a pointless slap fight over semantics. Many DSA folks, in particular, seem to view the “communist” label as libelous right-wing slander, and I’m going to give those people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they’re not the same people who show up at DSA meetings to express their abiding love for communism.

    And now for a confession: I don’t know what the hell anyone on either side of this argument is talking about. My understanding of “socialism” and “communism” render the whole dialogue gibberish. I feel like a dog listening to a conversation between humans: I’m tilting my head and staring intently because I know that talking is happening but I’ll be damned if there are any words in there that I recognize. And my confusion only deepens when I confront the fact that I really, really, really don’t know what the hell socialism or communism have to do with Palestine.

    Jeff goes on to explicate Marxism 101 to his readers. Worth reading, even if you, like me, think DSA is the American translation of Deutscher Sturmtruppler Allgemeine.


Last Modified 2026-07-20 5:28 PM EDT