Christopher Frey
@FreyChristopher
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Living a human life. E.B. McFarlin Chair in Philosophy @utulsa . Lesser half to @jennfrey .
Tulsa, OK
Joined June 2009
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SEVENTEEN
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I need to find out just how much Aristotle she knows
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So my university’s president just resigned, its provost just left to take a job elsewhere, and we haven’t replaced the dean of the college of arts and sciences who stepped down last year. We are about to achieve the utopia of a university without administrators.
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No, you're right twitter. I should never tweet anything this vulgar.
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I went on a small rant about why the “recent” movie Troy is awful. My students noted its release date, 2004, was before any of them were born.
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My yearly reminder that this was my cover letter for academic jobs, that with few exceptions this is perfectly sufficient, and it’s awful that job candidates now have to write dozens of tailored cover letter essays
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Just don’t get this common take. Want to read Aristotle’s Metaphysics? Ok. It’s pretty hard. I’ve been thinking about it over 20 years, know the Greek, and have read a mountain of secondary lit. I could guide you through and answer any questions you have? “No, I’m good” 🤷♂️
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This guy’s really got his finger on the pulse of American philosophy departments.
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Aristotle anticipating the complaints against analytic philosophy:
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In your charity, please pray for my wife Jennifer (
@jennfrey
) who is in the ER and may need to be admitted to the hospital.
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@CSMFHT
Pliny the Elder believed a blood vessel connected the eyes to the stomach. His evidence? Whenever someone’s eyes are ripped out of their heads, they invariably vomit.
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Twitter coming in strong for papal resignations. Big B XVI fans! 😂😂😂
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Socrates was very sorry and said he’d never question people again in his well known work, the Apology.
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FB marketplace for the win!
(An absolute steal. It’s amazing what people will get rid of for pennies on the dollar.)
This is less than half of Aquinas’ collected works and they already require a new bookcase.
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In related news, I have accepted a position as the McFarlin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa. 🎉
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I’ve been teaching Plato’s Theaetetus the last couple of weeks. It’s remarkable how much of the history of the philosophy of perception, up to and including the state of the art, is just a recapitulation what’s in this dialogue.
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The poverty line in the USA for a family of 3 is $21,960. If you make the fed. min. wage of $7.25, you would have to work 52 60(!)hr weeks to make $22,620. The argument for raising it isn’t economical, it’s moral. It’s unjust to have to work this much to barely escape poverty.
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When I was a grad student I failed the baseball team’s star pitcher for egregious cheating (he just turned in an entire paper he found online without changing a word). By the end of the day the coach and the athletic director called to yell at me. Student lied to them and 1/
Not in the book:
When in college I made the Dean’s List and was Academic All-SEC.
3.2 GPA.
Rarely went to class, took my tests, sometimes.
I was actual MVP of the SEC Tournament and we actually won the conference and conference tournament.
I left school, and the program
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Our 4yo won’t stop screaming “Everything dies!” at her brother’s soccer game. I think this reflects well on our parenting.
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Bad intro to philosophy class: How do we know we aren't currently dreaming?
Aristotle: shut up
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Today is the day that I finally paid off all of my student loans. I am 42 years old. 🤷♂️
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So I expressed one of my views in a room full of some of the world’s most distinguished Thomists and the topic of discussion is now what kind of heretic I am precisely. So everything is going well.
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Epistemology? No thank you. I’m just going to keep on saying true and interesting things. But if you guys want to figure out how I’m able to do it, I won’t stop you.
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Yesterday, after the midterm in my Plato class, a student gave me a compliment that may be entirely novel: “I’ve been here four years, and that was the most well designed exam I’ve ever taken. It was a joy to work through it.”
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I’ve never taken even one course in pedagogy. But they somehow let me teach college students! Who knows how I’m able to do it
RIP my mentions, but seriously…what makes anyone believe they’re qualified to homeschool their kids K-12?
it’s not as if teaching a) isn’t age-, grade-, and subject-specific; and b) requires a college degree in pedagogy
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I finally got to meet and had a lovely dinner with Cornel West. We talked about Hempel, Vlastos, Lewis, Irwin, and Pittsburgh philosophy. From now on, I will only respond to “Brother Chris.” Sorry, those are the rules.
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We won’t stop until every Greek letter gets its own class of men.
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We didn’t fire a tenured professor, we fired some atoms arranged tenured-professorwise.
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I have tenure. I could just stop everything I’m doing and read nothing but Borges and Kafka for a few years and see what happens. But I don’t. Strange.
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Fascists are only caused by fascists, who, in turn, are caused by further fascists until you reach the Prime Fascist, the unmoved mover of all fascism.
I’ve always found the idea exasperating. Why would fascism grow automatically out of a set of economic conditions? Why would certain political ideas form magically when material conditions look a particular way? Fascism is caused by fascists, converting people with their ideas!
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I’m begging opponents of teleology to read, like, anything Aristotle says. For your own sakes. This kind of ignorance is just embarrassing.
Rejecting teleology is essential to a humanist ethic. The idea that humans are “meant for” something, or that our faculties are designed with some “Purpose”, tends to be incredibly limiting and leads to inhumane outcomes. We have no Purpose and we are not designed “for” anything.
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This is the funeral we held for Felix Angelo last year after Jen miscarried. I held his small yet recognizable body in my hands, and I did and do believe he was living a human life before he died. This isn’t a statement of a political view. It is a denial that I am a liar.
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Hume’s Treatise page 1: here’s a universal principle on which everything that follows depends.
Hume’s Treatise page 5: huh. There’s a counter example to my universal principle. Well, anyway, let’s just keep going.
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Me: Do you have a plan for your dissertation?
My students: “I’ve got concepts of a plan”
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said it was legit. When I gave the evidence to the coach, his anger was redirected in real time. “I’m going to murder that kid.” 🤷♂️
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The universe isn't real. Experiments show us that its not being real is real.
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In seminars, whenever a philosopher we were reading appealed to their intuitions in an argument, Mark Wilson would rub his stomach and say “that feels good in my belly.” This has stuck with me and I think we should all adopt this alternative expression.
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I've been on six search committees for academic jobs. My advice for applicants: (1) find an ox (2) carve out the thigh bones and wrap them in a double layer of fat (3) burn them on cleft sticks as an offering to famous Hephaistos, lame in both feet. Repeat as necessary.
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Anscombe lists 20 theses commonly held by analytic philosophers that are “inimical to the Christian religion.” That’s not itself a reason to reject them, but she thinks they can all be rejected on purely philosophical grounds. How many do you accept?
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So if we’re in the business of banning things from being taught in schools now, I nominate the following lesson my kindergartner received last year:
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It doesn’t matter how good your ends are, if you are open to achieving them “by any means necessary” you are committed to evil.
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So
@stjohnscollege
is a pretty remarkable place. They have roughly 500 undergrads, but filled a 100+ capacity lecture room on a Friday evening to hear about de Anima and stayed to ask questions for two (!) hours. I can't think of many other places where this would happen.
Giving a lecture this evening at St. John’s College: “Aristotle on the Impossibility of Defining Life”. Super excited.
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So much of my thread is professors who seem to loathe their occupation, field, and academia more generally. I still think philosophy is pretty awesome. There’s too much amazing work to get through. I enjoy research/writing/publishing. My students are great. I like my job.🤷♂️
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This is so clearly illegal it won’t last. So why do it? What could it achieve beyond enraging your political opponents?
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I sent the first paper I published to the top journal in my field and it was accepted straightaway without any revisions. “This isn’t as bad as people say” I thought foolishly. It’s been 15 years, and this has never happened again. The gods frown upon such hubris.
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When I was walking in Rome by myself with the 6 kids, a woman came out and asked in astonishment: "how many mothers?" When I said just the one, she dragged several people out of her business to marvel at the man who was taking care of 6 kids that he had with one woman.
When we lived in Rome, Italians treated our big family like royalty. We got bumped to the head of every line, people would stop us all the time to say how beautiful our family was, lots of smiles and approval. It's a very family friendly mostly childless city.
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“The history of philosophy is the lingua franca which makes communication between philosophers, at least of different points of view, possible. Philosophy without the history of philosophy, if not empty or blind, is at least dumb.” -- Wilfrid Sellars
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I must be a radical outlier. On the whole, I loved grad school. I learned more than any other time in my life. Was taught by brilliant profs. Had endless discussions with other amazing students. Tons of fun times. Made life long friends. Great city. Met my wife. Would do it again
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Most questions to which we are told to “follow the science” are not scientific questions. These decisions are neither themselves scientific nor determined by science alone; they are prudential/political decisions. (Which should be informed by science-of course!-and much besides.)
"Follow the science" does not, in fact, mean the follow the science. Instead, it's become a way to stifle debate and enforce authority. And this will have profound, long-lasting effects on our country, well after this pandemic ends, if it ever does
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Pro-lifers are feeling jilted. But this is the least surprising thing ever. There’s no position or constituency that Trump wouldn’t abandon if he thinks doing so will benefit him personally.
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U Chicago’s acceptance rate in 2006 was 38%. In 2020 it was 6%. How? By intentionally convincing hundreds of students with no real chance of acceptance to apply. And up the rankings they go!
Free application
No test scores
Drum up applications
Reject more students
Get lower acceptance rate
Become “more elite”
—> don’t fall for the myth that a low acceptance rate means it’s a better college
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So it turns out people know less about Natural Law theory than the very little they know about CRT. Maybe everyone should take a break from the discourse and read a book or two.
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So my son’s teacher not only requires that I sign their classroom rules/expectations document (normal) but also demands a picture of me reading it as proof (insane). Is it appropriate for me to be flipping off the teacher in this picture?
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Since Aristotle on natural slavery is the philosophy twitter topic of the day, I thought I'd say something about his actual argument (and some of the reasons why it's wrong). I take his argument to be (roughly) this: 1/
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The losers of every war: “Well, at least we largely kicked their ass.”
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If I ever ended up defending the murder of disabled children and having sex with pigs, I’d reevaluate my first principles.
Q: You posted an article indicating that sexual intercourse with animals is morally permissible. You've also in the past published a book arguing for veganism.
That being the case, is it your official position that eating animals is not okay but having sex with them is?
A: I
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When I say “objectively good/bad” I mean what is beloved by all the gods. No further questions please.
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This may be the best author’s foreword to a philosophical manuscript ever.
A bit long for Twitter, but well worth the couple of minutes it would take to read it.
(From Takatura Ando, Aristotle’s Theory of Practical Cognition)
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95% of analytic philosophers who complain about how analytic philosophers write still write exactly like analytic philosophers.
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The Martyrs of Toulouse. You might think that being beheaded would prevent you from attending vespers, but you’d be wrong.
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If you can’t do the one thing I’m moderately good at, quit philosophy.
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socrates: How many rich fat guys could a professional boxer beat up at the same time?
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Tired: Only MDs are doctors.
Wired: Only Ph.D.s are doctors.
Inspired: Only 36 people are doctors.
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Just got my copy of the Critical Guide to Aristotle’s De Anima. Lots of great stuff in here.
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When I teach Metaphysics Lambda next week, I’ll be sure to do so in a way that simultaneously emulates the 20 students’ diverse future careers.
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This is less than half of Aquinas’ collected works and they already require a new bookcase.
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I was a programmer for a couple years after undergrad. CEO of the company hired tons of philosophers. His reasoning: “I can teach a monkey how to code; what I need is people who can think”
@eyeslasho
Guarantee a computer science major would be able to fully understand philosophy with no issue but no philosophy major would be able to understand computer science
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Nope. It was 1am and
@jennfrey
was very sick. I was taking care of her. I came to the realization that I wanted to take care of her always. I sat down on the bed next to her and asked immediately after this moment of clarity.
Married Twitter, did your partner get down on one knee to propose? Does that actually happen IRL?
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If you want to reject the claim that this indictment is political, you should probably avoid the suggestion that getting what you want politically would make it go away.
MSNBC’s Maddow suggests DOJ could do quid pro quo with Trump, dropping charges if he leaves 2024 race
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In last 3 days I’ve gotten 5 emails about my students testing positive for COVID, 4 about contact quarantines, and an especially distressing email that one of my student’s fraternity brothers committed suicide. I can’t just pretend that things are ok; feeling bleak and powerless.
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I'm spending today writing about Aquinas while listening to Shostakovich's string quartets. On days like this, it's hard to deny that I've managed to secure a pretty nice life for myself.
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Far worse than allowing sports gambling is state lotteries. The state itself taking a monopoly on running numbers, the worst form of gambling there is, is beyond detestable.
There is absolutely nothing progressive about legalized online sports betting. It's libertarian bullshit that is ruining lives across the country and it has no place in any serious left agenda. Anyone pushing it is a sucker or a scumbag.
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The Anscombean Mind is a lovely collection that I'm honored to be a part of. Over 20 new articles on a wide swath of Anscombe's views by some of the best philosophers around. My contribution concerns her engagement with Aristotle's metaphysics of substance.
(link to volume below)
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Stop reading all those dumb Greek philosophers and start reading me, a not dumb person.
But there's a bigger reason why Classical Education is a sham:
2. ALL THOSE PEOPLE ARE DUMB.
All those philosophers from Greece and Rome and Cowboyland were wrong. They thought the sun revolved around the earth. They thought the moon was a star. They didn't know things.
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Top five A philosophers: Aristotle, Augustine, Averroes, Aquinas, Anscombe.
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This is Hume denying that there's any evidence that any species has ever gone extinct. Does anyone know when the reality of extinction became widely accepted?
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It’s sad to hear so many philosophers today saying they feel forced to write in a way they don’t want to. I actually like my dense boring prose.
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It's the season for my yearly plea for universities to stop demanding elaborate, tailored cover letters. This was my cover letter (2009). With few exceptions, it's all that's needed. The info you think you're getting doesn't outweigh what you are putting job seekers through.
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Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law
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My 2 favorite undergrad classes:
(1) Medieval phil (Normore). We were assigned hundreds of pages a week and I read even more on my own
(2) Phil language (Kaplan). The reading for the entire semester was the 1st page of Über Sinn und Bedeutung
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It's a bad idea to post things like without any context (which, I presume, is Socrates' discussion with Polus in the Gorgias about whether it's better to commit injustice or suffer it). Socrates' answer: (1) Both are bad and no one should want either. (2) \1
You must go back in time: would you prefer to live the life of a slave owner, or the life of a slave?
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Jen and I were helping our 8th grader with her Latin homework. Our 4 year old came in and yelled “veni, vidi, vici!” Neither of us taught her this.
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I once wrote a short review of a book about Aristotle's theory of perception for the Times Literary Supplement. To my surprise, it prompted a letter to the editor. Even more surprising is that I apparently engaged in "mystic speculation" and this "disturbed" the letter writer! 😂
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There is another Professor Christopher Frey--an engineering prof. with an endowed chair who has (co-)authored over 200 papers. I used to have a google scholar alert for my name. No more. I just can't take the daily updates of my namefellow's ever expanding cv.
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Tenure also allows one to work on significant projects that may take years to yield results without being fired for “quarterly reports” with low “merit” (defined in ways that admins can understand but fail to track much of anything).
I’ve said this before, but I don’t value tenure because it allows me to defend controversial positions. I value it because it means a new dean can’t come in and be like “You know, I think philosophers should be doing interdisciplinary work (or whatever fad). Get to it!”
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We invite students to our home all the time.
@jennfrey
was right to put friendship (amicitia) next to wisdom (sapientia) and virtue (virtus) on her honors college seal. Creating community both in and out of the classroom is a good thing for everyone.
why are you, a law school professor, having students at your ~personal private~ home in the first place
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This is accelerating, but I predicted it about a decade ago. To the right, the professoriate now has the same status as labor unions: a center of political opposition that should be stripped of power by any means. And short sighted administrations are happy to comply.
Twenty-two South Carolina state reps have pre-filed a bill to kill tenure and replace it with renewable 5-year contracts. The bill would also mandate a minimum 2-2 teaching load and a bevy of reporting requirements.
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@zenahitz
It’s like Lord of the Flies over here (i.e. the actual work of the university is proceeding unabated).
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Some philosopher's views are deeply and thoroughly wrong but they're still amazingly good philosophers (Kant). Some philosopher's views are deeply and thoroughly wrong and they're just bad philosophers (Hume). Who do you disagree with the most but still admire qua philosopher?
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Turns out my entire family has been sexually harassing me for years.
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