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https://thecritic.co.uk/jargon-in-excelsis/

Weary-eyed from my day of gallery-hopping, I plucked a book at random from a shelf at the Tate Modern shop. Flicking through, I skimmed several passages, before lingering on a certain page. Amidst the dense text, the word “cisheteropatriarchal” loomed as an inconvenient obstruction.

For a while, I read the word as “shish-eteropatriarchal”, and, in my hungry state, believed that kebab shops were finally being exposed for their role in oppressing women. Shish, the patriarchy never tasted so good. Licking my lips, the word began to separate in a different way, and my mouth dried as I decoded the intended meaning.

Among many other ideas contained within Electric Dreams: Sex Robots and the Failed Promises of Capitalism — a book that contains chapters such as “Sex robots as a product of colonialist masculinity” and “Sex robots as trigger for regressive feminism” — the author, Heather Parry, deploys the term cisheteropatriarchy to demarcate the role of cis and white males in the patriarchal structure of society.

The niche subject of this book and the frankly absurd ideas it contains mean that it is unlikely to enter many homes, despite its snazzy purple cover. However, the fact that it was on sale in one of Britain’s national galleries is indicative of an endemic problem plaguing the industries surrounding culture. Political opinions are imported from the universities and prepackaged within increasingly impenetrable words, which have the dual impact of edifying theories that sparkle with phony scientism and muddying public cultural encounters.