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Personal. I was born in 1986 in northern Minnesota to one parent from a Czechoslovakian family of labor-left farmers (it is possible, as Bertrand Russell appreciated) and another from a more normal family. I moved states with the latter when I was 14, and attended a public school (in the American sense) and university in Iowa City, a Democratic outpost in the Midwest; to the right is an amusing picture from high school. As an undergrad, I acquired the name 'Kurt Ludwig Sylvan', lived in the basement of a bookshop, and worked in several bookshops, the Iowa Law Library, a Procter & Gamble factory, and the Iowa Law, Health Policy, and Disability Center. I moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey in 2008 for graduate school at Rutgers. When I wasn’t working on philosophy, I went to New York City to take bad pictures, imagining at first that it was the New York in which the Velvet Underground flourished, but eventually realizing it was instead the New York of American Psycho, except now with some of the rich kids acknowledging that it isn't hip to be square and pretending to come from the same class as Patti Smith or Joey Ramone (thereby creating a false impression of socioeconomic equality that suggests that their advantages owe to merit rather than inheritance).* Since 2014 I’ve lived in Southampton, England.
My brilliant and wonderful partner Kate Sylvan is a dual UK/American citizen who was born in Southampton (though we met in New Jersey). In late September 2016, we were thrilled to bring home our first child, Edward ('Teddy') Felix Sylvan. At present, his favorite things are bunnies, stories, imagining himself performing everyday tasks ('I'm going to Sainsbury's to pick up blueberries for baby Al'), and asking 'Why?' in odd cases which end up making me sound anti-philosophical. (Example Dialogue. Me: 'That's a chair.' Teddy: 'Why?' Me: 'It has a certain function, namely, [blah blah blah].' Teddy: 'Why?' Me: 'That is its nature.' Teddy: 'Why?' Me: 'It just is its nature.') On May 12th 2019, we had our second kid, Albert ('Al' or 'Al-bear') Ernest Sylvan. So far his favorite thing is sleeping and his least favorite thing is being changed. In due course, I'll have an equal number of pictures of him, but for now you can see one of him doing a practice smile and one of him gazing in a silly outfit. We also have a cat called Seneca from the New Jersey streets. We are trying our best not to relegate him to the margins of the household, though he has fallen to the bottom of this page. 
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*Herein lies the difference between neo-feudalism and feudalism. Feudalism seemed worse because it was transparent: social mobility was prohibited as a matter of law, and class inequality was explicitly identified with justice. Neo-feudalism arguably is worse because it is functionally equivalent to feudalism but lies about itself to make people celebrate it. Social mobility is de facto prohibited through inherited inequality in wealth and income. But it is falsely claimed that social mobility is easy-peasy as long as you're smart ('Look at me, I'm clearly just like you but I made it here...'). Hence class inequality is implicitly identified with justice by applauding those who succeed on the basis of their 'credentials' and 'competitiveness', which are inherited as in the old days. Eventually --- e.g., now --- these lies become obvious. And then...?