If you think about it – my advice is don’t – the lion’s share of our lives are lived not in the world but in our heads. By this I don’t mean the now banal observation that our experiences of the world are mediated by the structure of the mind. Rather I’m talking about stuff that’s already in there.
And some of what’s in there is what we mean by our fantasies. What makes something a fantasy, as distinct from, say, a speculation, is that we know it’s something that won’t come true. I won’t be given an experimental airplane that will cross the Pond in three hours. I won’t be able to cause my enemies a writhing death by simply wishing it upon them. And so on.
Most of our fantasies we keep to ourselves. And for good reason. But albeit privately, fantasies tell us things about ourselves. Perhaps the most important things. They tell us about our values. And, in case they’re not always the same thing, about what we value. And these may be, in fact they’re likely to be, very much at odds with what we publicly claim to value.
So I wonder. I wonder how many people are publicly woke but privately fantasising about what it would be like if we could once again tell a joke. “No,” you say, “by your own definition that’s not a fantasy, it’s a speculation.” To which I reply, “In saying this, are you speculating or fantasising?”
Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Social and Political Philosophy, Why My Colleagues Are Idiots
Paulosophical Vimplications 
1) Apropos my reference to anonymous reporting in the previous comment:
Marinovic, Iván and John Ellis. “DEI Meets East Germany: U.S. Universities Urge Students to Report One Another for Bias,” Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Opinion, April 6, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/snitches-get-sheepskins-as-colleges-train-student-informants-dei-east-germany-bias-protected-class-f941ee11, accessed April 7, 2023.
2) Some humour is construed a “microaggression.” More about microaggressions:
“Micropedia,” EDI & & Microaggressions: Keeping an Eye on EDI Blog Post, https://wordpress.com/post/keepinganeyeonedi.ca/2101
Jussim, Lee. “The Dubious Science of Microaggressions,” Unsafe Science, Substack, June 12, 2022, https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/the-dubious-science-of-microaggressions, accessed April 6, 2023.
Cantu, Edward and Jussim, Lee, Microaggressions, Questionable Science, and Free Speech (February 1, 2021). Texas Review of Law & Politics, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3822628, February 1, 2021, accessed April 6, 2023.
Abstract: The topic of microaggressions is hot currently. Diversity administrators regularly propagate lists of alleged microaggressions and express confidence that listed items reflect what some psychologists claim they do: racism that is, at the very least, unconscious in the mind of the speaker. Legal academics are increasingly leveraging microaggression research in theorizing law and proposing legal change. But how scientifically legitimate are claims by some psychologists about what acts constitute microaggressions? The authors—one a law professor, the other a psychologist—argue that the answer is “not much.” In this article, the authors dissect the studies, and critique the claims, of microaggression researchers. They then explore the ideological glue that seems to hold the current microaggression construct together, and that best explains its propagative success. They close by warning of the socially caustic and legally pernicious effects the current microaggression construct can cause if academics, administrators, and the broader culture continue to subscribe to it without healthy skepticism.
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