Status Updates From One Aladdin Two Lamps

In the Nights, as in the Arthurian legends, as in so many fairy and folk tales, women gain magical power to offset their lack of social and political power. This trope carries right through to the witch frenzy to the 16th and 17th centuries in Britain, mainland Europe, and the early American settlements. It is intimately connected to male fear of autonomous female sexuality.

The truth of the world, it’s peoples, it’s cultures, it’s art and inventions, is so much richer and more fascinating than white exceptionalism allows.

It’s an example of Science Darwin, the fieldwork, evidence-based biologist, versus Story Darwin. His discoveries are sound science. He knew that creationism was a story that needed to be rewritten, he never understood that the Boys’ Own tropes of empire were inventions masquerading as fact.