AAR: Buncha Pansies

Several months ago, I filed a complaint against the American Academy of Religion (AAR) with the California Civil Rights Department for violating the state’s civil rights laws. By accusing a member of a protected class (for which they provide exactly zero representation) of bullying her, AAR Executive Director Claudia Shippert showed her organization to be nothing but a bunch of fµ¢king pansies.

Pansy: from the French pansé, meaning “to think.” Also, a decorative flower.

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "Bluebeard's Wives : Study of Pansies." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1865 - 1899. Courtesy of Unsplash

Their so-called “Values” are nothing but window dressing, a façade that ultimately ain’t even worth the shit you use to fertilize your garden. “Free Inquiry” in a nation that claims to believe “freedom isn’t free” while depriving soldiers of their civil rights is not “free” in the sense of being uninhibited, it is free in the sense of entitlement.

Scholarship without accountability is the epitome of entitlement because it ignores the cost of the knowledge one claims.

Any scholar who cannot interrogate their own bias is no scholar, they are little more than a decorative flower. The AAR’s treatment of the military community, while meeting in a community of 260,000 soldiers, veterans, and Dependents, makes clear that the AAR is nothing more than a buncha fµ¢king pansies; they prefer elitist condescension over the grunt work of honest debate and genuine deliberation.

Pansies Kevin Kish (CalCivilRights Executive Director), Claudia Shippert (AAR Executive Director), and Jin Y. Park (AAR President, who chose the 2024 theme of “Violence, Nonviolence, and the Margins”).

How can academia survive if its practitioners stick their heads in the sand rather than reflect on their own shortcomings?

Maybe it can’t. And maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing, if the thing that’s broke refuses to even acknowledge it’s fallible, then maybe it wasn’t worth building in the first place… 🤷