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A Dead Philosopher Is Causing Chaos For This Couple On The /r/Relationships Subreddit

A Dead Philosopher Is Causing Chaos For This Couple On The /r/Relationships Subreddit

Why register for couples therapy when you can just submit your relationship problems for free to the subreddit /r/Relationships? Below is a tale that is definitely worth reading, but one that absolutely no one can relate to. A 33-year-old physicist is currently married to a 35-year-old academic philosopher who is infatuated with G. W. F. Hegel, a German philosopher whose work often denounced physics.

To make matters worse, her husband has replaced a photo on the background of his phone with Hegel's face, and she doesn't quite know what to do. Luckily, after this story was tweeted by the Twitter @redditships, users were able to step in and give her some excellent advice.

 

hegelianwife 16 2019-09-21 15:14:05 My husband and I are both academics. We've been married for 3 years, and been together for 6. He is an academic philosopher and I am a physicist. He has recently expressed displeasure that I've never seriously engaged with his work. Now, I've read a bit of the classics of philosophy, but my husband's work is more in what I'm told is called the "continental" tradition. Unfortunately, everything he's shown me has just seems completely insane. Here's the problem: his work apparently involves claims about physics that are just wrong, and wrong in a very embarrassing way! I'll admit, I'm a terrible person, but I had never read his thesis before. I tried reading it and it's riddled with talk about for instance the necessary relationship between matter having "extension" and possessing mass. He also talks about the "shape" of fundamental particles. This is obviously nonsensical/wrong; electrons have mass and are point particles (they don't take up space really). In the thesis and some other papers he wrote he seems to think of himself as "scientific" and a "materialist" but his entire idea of what these words mean is stuck in like, outdated 19th century ideas about atoms as little billiard balls flying around in space. I've gently tried to help him and explain how he might start to engage seriously with contemporary physics (he has never read a book on the subject and is by his own admission "bad at math"), but he just gets angry with me and explains that Hegel's system is presuppositional and the basis for all possible rational thought so there is no need at all to read other texts in the first place (I have no idea what this means). He will throw out terms like "speculative propositions" but when I ask him to explain what this means or give me examples he just starts giving me more inscrutable jargon that makes no sense. On top of that, he will repeatedly say German phrases or terms that he uses (and pronounces) incorrectly (I am a native speaker) or nonsensically. He claims to understand the language (he doesn't) and tells me that Hegel can only be understood "in the original German" but he clearly can't read the language and when I've tried to read the original texts they make even less sense. On top of this, his obsession with Hegel himself has reached the point of creepiness. At one point he literally told me that all other work either agrees with Hegel so is redundant, or disagrees with Hegel and is wrong. He keeps a framed picture of Hegel on the nightstand in our bedroom. In fact, he even changed his phone's background from a picture of me to this same picture of Hegel. I feel like I am competing with a 200 year old philosopher for my husband's attention Recently we got in a huge fight because he was trying to demonstrate an example of the Hegelian concept of the "unity of opposites" (whatever that means) by claiming that right and left hands are opposite but also identical. I told him this is just wrong and that right and left hands are not "identical" in any meaningful sense (chirality is a basic concept in geometry/group theory: left and right hands are not superimposable). He kept putting his hands together and tried to show how they were "identical" and kept failing (because they're not) and then got angry and stormed out of the house. I haven't seen him since (this was about a day ago) and texted him and haven't heard back. What do I do Reddit? Do I just let this go? It's immensely frustrating that my account of my own field is not being taken seriously. He asked me to engage with his work, so I did. But it seems like he won't repay me in kind. He has told me repeatedly that Hegel makes empirical science unnecessary and implied that my work is a waste of time and that I should just be studying German idealism instead and read people like "Fichte" and "Schelling" (who are apparently very popular in Germany but I've never heard of them). Why is it okay for him to belittle my field but I can't offer mild criticism of his? TL;DR: My husband's academic work is embarrassingly wrong and can't take any criticism.

(Source: Twitter)

Dinner must be the best

Replying to @redditships J.A.K "Let me interrupt your expertise with my confidence.

(Source: Twitter)

Spoiler: the husband is Mark Ronson

Daphné Swarzinsky @Daphne_488 Replying to @redditships and @Ana Mardoll | the perfect illustration to that trending sapiosexual men tweet

(Source: Twitter)

Some may think the photo proves this is fake

J&O! Ajani on-the-Spot @GuyWhoWroteThis Replying to @red ditships Everyone: "Pfah, framed picture of Hegel on the nightstand? Obviously fake!" Me, who went to grad school for philosophy and knew at least five people who did that: "This is completely accurate."

(Source: Twitter)

But many agree, Hegel has K-pop level fans

Jai @jirehnaps Replying to @JamesSharpsteen and @redditships it almost had me until i got to the framed picture of hegel 10:44 AM Sep 23, 2019 Twitter for Android 233 Likes 2 Retweets Schenck @Schenck 23h oMReplying to @jirehnaps @JamesSharpsteen and @redditships EIDMAR But that's one of the more beleivable parts. 1 28

(Source: Twitter)

We need more philosopher's on Twitter!

Sev "SFE" Wildfang 18 @sev_SFE Replying to @redditships if you think about it, according to hegel having a wife and having no wife is basically the same thing 10:43 AM Sep 23, 2019 Twitter Web App 37 Retweets 1.5K Likes RisingVoices @oftheopposition 15h Replying to @sev_SFE and @redditships Lol Pamela K. Gilbert @pgilbert142001 23h Replying to @sev_SFE and @redditships Wasn't that Schroedinger? ti1 4 38 Sev "SFE" Wildfang 3 @sev_SFE 23h idk who that is does he have a twitter t 1 3 136

(Source: Twitter)

True, I feel like being in an open relationship with a great German thinker could have been discussed before marriage

Dat Latino Guy @DatLatinoGuy15 Replying to @redditships The first mistake was dating AND marrying a philosopher

(Source: Twitter)

The existential trash can needs to be a name of a bar immediately

Elizabeth Roderick (any pronouns ok) @LidsRodney Replying to @redditships Thave known this man in all his forms They all belong in the grand existential trash can

(Source: Twitter)

love is love is love is love

Wisp @manywisps Replying to @redditships

(Source: Twitter)

You know how it goes, the louder you are, the more right you are

Abolish Pumpkin SplCE @beowulfminshew Replying to @redditships Wow! This Man Is Super Wrong But Also Very Loud So Who Knows Womanspiration- Sep 10, 2018 By: Andrew Martin SHARE:f

(Source: Twitter)

Some felt this was too intellecutually heavy to answer

Lindsay Duck @LexTheHex1 Replying to @redditships I'm too dumb for this one. IGHT IMMA HEAD OUT

(Source: Twitter)

And definitely the cause of a headache

Chachi Bobinks-Danvers @ChachiBobinks Replying to @Mandakaali and @redditships My 2.7 GPA is throbbing

(Source: Twitter)

One thing is for sure, I bet Kant KAN help you with your marriage

Candace Manriquez Wrenn @CandaceMQZ Replying to @redditships I Kant believe people actually live like this.

(Source: Twitter)

But also maybe take this drama to television where it belongs

Saint Grobian @Saint_Grobian Replying to @redditships This should be an awesome episode of House Hunters

(Source: Twitter)

Or a podcast

I've now watched Entourage 5 times. War crime. @dunkingidaho Replying to @redditships I have a solution: start a podcast, and sign a document saying that public opinion will decide which way to take these discussions. But mostly because I would love to hear these two on a podcast. Someone speaking nonsense and another person who's actually grounded in science.

(Source: Twitter)

Or listen to the tarot cards

sophie @ commissions @aflyinghamster Replying to @redditships PAA NTACIAS OUENACUPS NEHTWANE

(Source: Twitter)

And run. Or maybe just watch The Good Place

rebecca mix says drink water @wordmixrr Replying to @redditships GIRL RUN fire up the old penis flattener Global

(Source: Twitter)

Related Memes 3 total

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