Courtney Milan: I just saw someone say that people didn’t know about power dynamics 20 years ago and… just checking here… Are you high? That was the goddamn twenty-first century.

I just saw someone say that people didn’t know about power dynamics 20 years ago and… just checking here… Are you high? That was the goddamn twenty-first century.

My parenthetical in my throwback book review for the Michigan Law Review continues to remain relevant.

So this is your reminder: Some people think they can GET AWAY with things. This does not mean they are unaware that it is wrong. It just means they think the rules don’t apply to them.

Every second kid I teach

...when do they think Bill Clinton was president?

Or, even before that, the entire situation with Anita Hill.

Something something Jack Kennedy?

George Washington's dentures made from slave teeth. Thos Jefferson's house slaves who were also his children. We could go back millennia.

Also “don’t fuck your employees” feels like a much older, much more obvious ironclad rule

I guarantee you that anyone who's ever been on the oppressive end, knew about power dynamics. They may not have used that exact term but they knew what it was.

People who were on the oppressing end knew it, too. That's why they always are so good at picking the right kind of person to do it to.

Yep, absolutely

Feel like people are going to be saying this in the year 2060. "That was 2040. People didn't understand power imbalances back then"

They absolutely will do that. Without question.

What the fuck. Also, if it’s about the situation I’m thinking of, it happened again in the past five years and we sure as fuck knew then.

This is like what someone else wrote with extreme confidence for publication today, about how for most of human history, we were resigned to being ruled by kings & fine with that. Uh. Power dynamics, unknown to children of parents until…*checks notes **…somehow it came to my attention. I am smart.

So many asterisks. Dammit, phone, why did you let me do that.

Many historians would like a word

There were entire story arcs on Friends about that shit.

Look, people just mysteriously picked people who were less powerful than they were to ask to do things they would never have asked of their equals, just somehow, really weird how that just kinda happened./s

Wasn't there some big deal that happened 248 years ago today that was based on (a particular set of) power dynamics?

this is not how I would describe it tbh

(Ed bummed silently.)

I was making a mediocre 4th joke.

Clinton-Lewinsky was a scandal for this reason. She was an adult with no power or experience compared to the President.

Exactly. Lewinsky is the only decent human in that mess.

we also lit our homes with tallow candles

Uphill, against the wind and the blinding snow, both ways!

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