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Patrick Fessenbecker @pfessenbecker.bsky.social

Missed this discourse because I had a deadline to make, but I've been kinda wondering when someone would make this argument, which has the virtue of being partially true: I do think the sciences are getting hammered because that's the best way to get at the queer theorists they really despise.

aug 28, 2025, 3:53 am • 5 0

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Patrick Fessenbecker @pfessenbecker.bsky.social

What I would say, though, is that a benefactor who is willing to bankrupt you because you're too friendly with your gay cousin is not one you can trust even if you do cut your cousin loose. One might even thank the gay cousin for revealing your benefactor's true nature.

aug 28, 2025, 3:53 am • 3 0 • view
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Patrick Fessenbecker @pfessenbecker.bsky.social

And —the false dimension of the argument — since this defunding is a way of hammering the deep-blue college towns, it was coming no matter what. There's no amount of "apolitical" research that would prevent educational polarization and thus the logic of smashing the New Havens of the world.

aug 28, 2025, 3:53 am • 3 0 • view
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Sara Straw @oneoneder.bsky.social

Also, the plain fact of the matter is a humanities professor in the field of Fuck Conservatism Studies pays for him or herself via tuition dollars, and is not dependent on the federal government in the way a physics professor is

aug 28, 2025, 4:04 am • 1 0 • view
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Sara Straw @oneoneder.bsky.social

Conservatives are hurting the physics professors because they want to and because they can, no amount of disavowing self-supporting scholars would change that

aug 28, 2025, 4:04 am • 1 0 • view