Probably not. I just got this text message from the re-election campaign of my local state senator, Andrew Zwicker et al., a Democrat in New Jersey Legislative District 16. He asked for my vote. I made a modest counter-offer.
Continue readingAuthor Archives: Irfan Khawaja
Highway to Hellenism
From a Passover service at my synagogue: the rabbi, expounding on Exodus 33, is sent on a long digression, via a question from the congregation, to the story of Solomon’s “shamir.” The question was about “rule worship” in the Hebrew Bible. The shamir was the mythical worm or caterpillar whose mucus was used by King Solomon to build the first Temple at Jerusalem, in adherence to the divine rule that the rocks used to build the temple not be cut with iron implements. (Obviously, the shamir’s mucus is what did the cutting.)
Rabbi (sighing slightly, after a long digression from the Torah portion in front of us): So anyway, that is the story of Solomon’s shamir.
Congregant: Wow, what a story! It’s even better than Homer’s Odyssey!
Rabbi: Not really.
Chatting with Joyce Carol Oates
I guess I’m in name-dropping mode: I just had an impromptu conversation on the train platform with Joyce Carol Oates. The conversation was about the evils of New Jersey Transit. She asked why the train station’s waiting room was closed. I launched immediately into my denunciatory lecture on the immorality of NJT’s policy of closing their waiting rooms when homeless people begin to use them. This wasn’t virtue signaling. I came across like a lunatic.
She asked me if I was a professor. A whole story welled up inside me, threatening to break free. I was tempted to tell her that I used to be one, but that shit had happened, and that as a result, I no longer was, and that we now tragically had something in common.
“No,” I said. “I collect medical bills.”
Me and Bobby Anzilotti
About six years ago, in the fall of 2017, someone at Felician University called the local police to report that a member of the faculty, one Irfan Khawaja, had threatened to bring firearms to a faculty meeting later that day, with the intention of shooting it up and killing everyone there.
Soon after teaching my first class that morning, I was detained on campus by the police and taken to the police station, where I was questioned by Vincent “Vinnie” Quattrone, then the Chief of Police. Having gotten nowhere with me–I doggedly remained silent under questioning–Quattrone brought in the “big guns,” detectives from the Bergen County Prosecutors Office (BCPO) in nearby Hackensack, New Jersey. Continue reading
We Haven’t Got Words for the Pain
This essay contains spoilers throughout about John LeCarré’s novel, The Constant Gardener.
He tried to remember the phrases: pain
Audible at noon, pain torturing itself,
Pain killing pain on the very point of pain.
–Wallace Stevens, “Esthétique du Mal.”
When I was a young man, my life’s ambition was to join the U.S. Foreign Service and become a diplomat. Chastened by the first Gulf War (1990-91), which I opposed, I thought the better of my ambitions, and decided instead to become a dull but conscientious academic.
During my third and presumably final marriage (2018-2021), my wife Alison and I bought a small townhouse in rural New Jersey with a little garden plot out front. Alison had great hopes for the garden, and often expressed the wish that I would help her cultivate it. To her great sorrow and eventually mine, I never did. I was too busy being a dull but conscientious academic. Continue reading
Pedagogy of the Oppressors
From a statement by the National Association of Scholars, a right-wing lobbying group:
Just last week, Ohio State Senator Jerry Cirino introduced Senate Bill 83—also known as the Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act. This is one of many bills introduced across the U.S., both for K–12 and higher education, that are inspired by model legislation drafted by the National Association of Scholars and the Civics Alliance. In response to SB 83’s introduction, NAS promptly published an enthusiastic endorsement. SB 83 and our Model Higher Education Code provide a solid foundation upon which to rebuild Ohio’s colleges and universities, and to fight back against overreach by diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) activists. …
SB 83 would prohibit state-funded colleges and universities from requiring diversity statements for promotion, hire, and admissions, and would ban DEI concepts in classrooms and on campus. The bill would also mandate syllabus transparency and further commit to intellectual diversity and institutional neutrality. …
In a day and age where free speech is a nonstarter in higher education, legislation like SB 83 offers hope for the preservation of American ideals, as well as the restoration of institutional integrity and academic freedom.
Freedom isn’t free. There’s a hefty fucking fee.
Unsafe at any Bandwidth
No one was particularly impressed a year ago when I predicted on Facebook that if we got involved in Ukraine, we could expect Russian hackers to attack American medical facilities, with worrisome consequences. Big deal, I was told. Ukraine must be defended, and if so, such costs must be discounted.
Continue readingDriving with Thrasymachus
Woke up late this morning, so had to take an Uber to the train station. After congratulating me on my foresight for ordering a car before the rain (I had no idea it was going to rain), and complaining about the cut Uber was going to take out of the fare (almost 70%?), my driver intoned, in a Pakistani accent, “Because Irfan, let’s be clear: justice is the advantage of the stronger.” Followed by the most cogent-cynical lecture I’ve ever heard on monopolies, tax policy, and the “game changer” of coming developments in data analytics.
The book I brought to read on the train—Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christanity—now seems anemically irrelevant to the world we actually inhabit.
Have a Tough Month
All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
–Spinoza
Tonight is the first night of Ramadan–”Ramadan Eve,” in effect–the night before the Muslim month of fasting. I used to fast as a child, but lost my faith, and stopped for several decades. I started again in 2016, and intend to fast this year. I’ve journaled about Ramadan privately each year as I’ve fasted, sketching out thoughts about the significance of the month; who knows when or if I’ll commit any of it to print for public consumption. But a few thoughts seem worth posting. Continue reading
Defining “Wokeness”: Socratic Dialogues with Bethany Mandel
The Bethany Mandel “define wokeness” controversy manages to be illuminating and absurd at the same time. Mandel, for the uninitiated, is an American anti-woke polemicist who’s apparently written a book on the subject of wokeness, and generally made a sophistical career of attacking it. She was recently invited to a YouTube talk show on wokeness, and asked to define the term. Turns out she didn’t have a definition. When asked for one, she managed instead to draw an embarrassing blank on her would-be area of specialization, babble a bit, and look like an all-round idiot. Continue reading
Policy of Truth 