The most beloved Christmas story, by people of all political persuasions: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
It's the story of a guy whose hallucinations convince him to abandon the GOP platform and he and his community live happily ever after.
The gops love it. They don't have their own version, which would be:
The inspiring tale of a hero who abuses his employee, talks shit to his nephew for being poor and to some guys who are trying to help the poor, calls the employee a thief for wanting a day off and goes home.
If I knew any Republicans well enough to talk to them about this, I think I'd start by asking them about all the good, kind and generous things they do (I don't want to assume they don't do charitable work through their church or other things that help people just because they're Republicans, that wouldn't be fair.) And then I'd ask about the Republican Party: When the Republicans come to call, do they ever draw on the good and kind and generous side of your personality, or do they restrict themselves to pushing other buttons, like hate and fear?
And then, if they were still talking to me, I'd ask them to think about what happens to a person when only the worst aspects of who they are is what's repeatedly called on, and never the best. The Republican party does YOU a disservice, because it doesn't draw on all that you are.
I love this strategy of using stories to change the focus from intentions to results. In Social Justice World we have a saying: "Intention does not equal impact." Intention matters sometimes, but impact always matters. And even when intention matters, it does not matter as much as impact, and it is not an excuse or justification for impact. One of the biggest contributors to the perpetuation of oppression is our cultural tendency to excuse even the most horrible actions if the instigator of them can convince us they meant well. The bottom line, though, is that if you truly mean well, then you will notice and acknowledge the impact of your actions, and hold yourself accountable when that impact does not align with your intentions. If we held each other to that, consistently, it would be much harder for everyone to conflate intention with impact.
This could be brilliant in a therapy session - just because we never assume the client/patient is speaking in good faith; therapy is what (could) bring the patient out of bad faith, and into a heart centered alignment with (for lack of a better term) “things as they are”. None of the haves believes anyone - even his superior self, could possibly conceive of his or her superior self as an asshole, let alone believe his/her condescension is unwelcome: noblesse obliges is like the essence of good faith for an asshole. Sorry if I am not expressing this well, I just want to say it would be difficult over a meal with celebration and alcohol to expect an asshole to get the epiphany but in therapy- this is a must to try 🙏🤞🏼💓
Incidentally, I've been estranged from my mother since the middle of the pandemic (Trump and nasty rhetoric related). Out of the blue she sent be a text to wish me Happy Birthday and that she "hopes, I am still alive."
This was while reports of Trump's "vermin" speech were still in the headlines.
Part of me wanted to reply, "I'm vermin, why would you hope for that?"
The timing may have been just a coincidence, but my spidey senses were telling me, "She KNOWS this will irritate the eff out of you on account of Trump's recent comments and she wants the engagement more than she actually wants the relationship."
I decided instead to just continue radio silence. I have SO MUCH PEACE in my life since I stopped trying to have a functional relationship with people who can't help constantly bringing dysfunction into things.
She can tell herself whatever story she likes. I'm just done forcing myself to listen.
My kids are like you, I think. I don't know for sure because they need to enforce radio silence, but I'm pretty sure that at this point if I sent either one such a text ... it would be a nice email, my generation being what it is ... I would be no better than your quote at avoiding a perceiveably sarcastic tone. So I can't send the email and I don't know what I should do instead that won't just make them more mad, because (near as I can tell) being left thoroughly alone and not hearing about it is what they want. Too bad, I was really REALLY looking forward to being Grampa and building the trans-generational heritage, but hi ho, hi ho. The kids are doing fine (near as I can tell) and there's other stuff to be spending time talent and treasure on.
Maybe it was genuine. You could be right. But for my part, there needs to be some admission that I tried to warn her this is who Trump was and now that she has seen it for herself she wants no part of it. If in fact, that is the case.
An apology perhaps, or at least some admission that something has fundamentally changed and she understands things I said to her that she just couldn’t hear before. Is she is working actively to extricate herself from the Trump cult of personality and no longer a willing foot soldier in the misinformation war that promotes right wing extremism.
I have no desire to associate with people who feel that's still an important part of their personal identity. I don’t want or need pathological liars and haters in my life.
And I know my mom, and how stubborn she is. She may not be able to say, “You were right,” or “I’m sorry.” But there needs to be some validation of the truth. I’m done living out that Catholic pattern where you keep all the secrets and hide all the sins and everyone just keeps moving through life cramming the skeletons in the closet as if everything has always been good and wonderful. The things you just sweep under the rug instead of working to clean up properly, rot the floorboards.
I have no possible idea whether your mom was being sincere or not; I can accept that she's an asshole ... for sure I can be an asshole and I'm sure my kids can throw significant parenting failures at me ... I wish they would, actually, if we can't work out a resolution at least I would have something concrete to feel guilty about. Even so, not trying to change your attitude except to accept that there's real pain on both sides. Maybe.
My main thing, my kids and as I look around many other kids, don't value that trans-generational stuff the way I want to or much at all. They think of the past as merely toxic? That would be a new thing for human society, and a big problem. Hope I get to see how the kids born in 2050 handle it (yah sure).
It seems as though you are at least willing to contend with and discuss the past in an honest and productive way, to own your part in it so to speak.
That seems like a good first step if you're ever able to get your kids back into open discussion. And I know it will be hard and probably painful to admit some past mistakes.
At one point, my husband had tried to hash out some old traumas with his parents, and he got a big old dose of gaslighting... as if the things he clearly remembers and still has the actual physical scars from never even happened. If you can't even agree on the basic facts of reality and/or the events that occurred (even though each person might have their own individualized emotional perspective), and there's no willingness for one to admit mistakes were made and someone was obviously hurt by your actions, then there's really no basis for reconciliation.
Why would you keep putting yourself in a situation with someone who is so adverse to admitting the mistakes of their past and showing any remorse, that they would rather rewrite history? You can't expect someone has learned anything from their mistakes when they constantly deny they ever even happened.
Yeah, maybe. Or maybe you didn't have to take this person's story and make it about you. Or generalize about "kids" and how they aren't a big fan of apparently everyone in previous generations because you personally do not have a good relationship with your own kids.
None of this stuff is new. You are not uniquely victimized by your children deciding to go no contact, and maybe if you tried to change your attitude and figure out why your kids did that instead of feeling sorry for yourself, you might make changes for the better.
I didn't mind so much. My post was admittedly a minor tangent from the original post. This is the way discussions work sometimes.
I just took it to be, "your Mom is probably hurting too over this." And that is probably true. I did find it helpful to think about what it would actually take on her part to bridge the gap. That I don't need to hear how much she is hurting over it too, but that she understands now why I wasn't willing to put up with the BS in the first place and doesn't want to be that person anymore.
I'm never surprised to hear that parents are hurt when their children go no contact; of course they are. But their hurt feelings are not really what's important here. You would not have been driven to this point if your parent hadn't repeatedly hurt *you* despite your asking them not to, right, despite you trying to repair the situation.
"What's happening is a critical mass of people are done putting up with abusive bullshit anymore—taking it or excusing it—and I think this seems very divisive and dangerous to people who rely on abusive bullshit for either fortune or identity."
For 40 years I’ve been pointing out to conservatives that there is no evidence of any of their ideas actually creating a better life for anyone who wasn’t born rich. The responses run from “Yeah but we need NEW thinking”* to “It’s just common sense.”
Unfortunately I think they’ve turned the corner on that. They know their “ideas” are not actually popular and never will be, and they’re just going for it anyway. Nothing is going to work on them. It is true that you never know who’s listening and who’s still on the edge. So we keep working.
*(Their ability to convince our six- and seven-figure media stars that “cutting taxes for rich people and eliminating laws they don’t like” is still a bold new idea that has never been tried remains my chief frustration with them.)
I think the root of the problem in terms of economic beliefs/policy, is that SO MANY poor people (poor whites in particular) have fallen into that trap Lyndon Johnson described so well:
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
They consider themselves temporarily embarrassed, future millionaires despite the odds being against it. In the class war, they prefer to erroneously self associate with the white (mostly male), moneyed, powered capital class and keep voting as such... when the reality is they have infinitely more in common with the large underclass of working people of all colors, creeds, and origins.
The idea that THEY are still one rung above poor minorities by virtue of White Supremacy (and/or one rung above LGBTQIA+ people and women via Christo-Fascist patriarchy) is "good enough" for most of these people. And they seem to be willfully ignorant that the people at the top of the ladder are now completely over the wall, and out of view of the rest of us, and pulling up the ladder behind them hoping the rest of the riffraff will fall off completely into the gutter where they belong.
I don’t break bread with monsters.
The most beloved Christmas story, by people of all political persuasions: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
It's the story of a guy whose hallucinations convince him to abandon the GOP platform and he and his community live happily ever after.
The gops love it. They don't have their own version, which would be:
The inspiring tale of a hero who abuses his employee, talks shit to his nephew for being poor and to some guys who are trying to help the poor, calls the employee a thief for wanting a day off and goes home.
The end.
It's 10 pages long.
So yeah. Stories don't work for this.
If I knew any Republicans well enough to talk to them about this, I think I'd start by asking them about all the good, kind and generous things they do (I don't want to assume they don't do charitable work through their church or other things that help people just because they're Republicans, that wouldn't be fair.) And then I'd ask about the Republican Party: When the Republicans come to call, do they ever draw on the good and kind and generous side of your personality, or do they restrict themselves to pushing other buttons, like hate and fear?
And then, if they were still talking to me, I'd ask them to think about what happens to a person when only the worst aspects of who they are is what's repeatedly called on, and never the best. The Republican party does YOU a disservice, because it doesn't draw on all that you are.
Damn. Brilliant af.
So this explain Hollywood's well-known liberal bias: Nobody likes stories starring assholes.
I love this strategy of using stories to change the focus from intentions to results. In Social Justice World we have a saying: "Intention does not equal impact." Intention matters sometimes, but impact always matters. And even when intention matters, it does not matter as much as impact, and it is not an excuse or justification for impact. One of the biggest contributors to the perpetuation of oppression is our cultural tendency to excuse even the most horrible actions if the instigator of them can convince us they meant well. The bottom line, though, is that if you truly mean well, then you will notice and acknowledge the impact of your actions, and hold yourself accountable when that impact does not align with your intentions. If we held each other to that, consistently, it would be much harder for everyone to conflate intention with impact.
Brilliant!
This could be brilliant in a therapy session - just because we never assume the client/patient is speaking in good faith; therapy is what (could) bring the patient out of bad faith, and into a heart centered alignment with (for lack of a better term) “things as they are”. None of the haves believes anyone - even his superior self, could possibly conceive of his or her superior self as an asshole, let alone believe his/her condescension is unwelcome: noblesse obliges is like the essence of good faith for an asshole. Sorry if I am not expressing this well, I just want to say it would be difficult over a meal with celebration and alcohol to expect an asshole to get the epiphany but in therapy- this is a must to try 🙏🤞🏼💓
Incidentally, I've been estranged from my mother since the middle of the pandemic (Trump and nasty rhetoric related). Out of the blue she sent be a text to wish me Happy Birthday and that she "hopes, I am still alive."
This was while reports of Trump's "vermin" speech were still in the headlines.
Part of me wanted to reply, "I'm vermin, why would you hope for that?"
The timing may have been just a coincidence, but my spidey senses were telling me, "She KNOWS this will irritate the eff out of you on account of Trump's recent comments and she wants the engagement more than she actually wants the relationship."
I decided instead to just continue radio silence. I have SO MUCH PEACE in my life since I stopped trying to have a functional relationship with people who can't help constantly bringing dysfunction into things.
She can tell herself whatever story she likes. I'm just done forcing myself to listen.
My kids are like you, I think. I don't know for sure because they need to enforce radio silence, but I'm pretty sure that at this point if I sent either one such a text ... it would be a nice email, my generation being what it is ... I would be no better than your quote at avoiding a perceiveably sarcastic tone. So I can't send the email and I don't know what I should do instead that won't just make them more mad, because (near as I can tell) being left thoroughly alone and not hearing about it is what they want. Too bad, I was really REALLY looking forward to being Grampa and building the trans-generational heritage, but hi ho, hi ho. The kids are doing fine (near as I can tell) and there's other stuff to be spending time talent and treasure on.
Maybe it was genuine. You could be right. But for my part, there needs to be some admission that I tried to warn her this is who Trump was and now that she has seen it for herself she wants no part of it. If in fact, that is the case.
An apology perhaps, or at least some admission that something has fundamentally changed and she understands things I said to her that she just couldn’t hear before. Is she is working actively to extricate herself from the Trump cult of personality and no longer a willing foot soldier in the misinformation war that promotes right wing extremism.
I have no desire to associate with people who feel that's still an important part of their personal identity. I don’t want or need pathological liars and haters in my life.
And I know my mom, and how stubborn she is. She may not be able to say, “You were right,” or “I’m sorry.” But there needs to be some validation of the truth. I’m done living out that Catholic pattern where you keep all the secrets and hide all the sins and everyone just keeps moving through life cramming the skeletons in the closet as if everything has always been good and wonderful. The things you just sweep under the rug instead of working to clean up properly, rot the floorboards.
I have no possible idea whether your mom was being sincere or not; I can accept that she's an asshole ... for sure I can be an asshole and I'm sure my kids can throw significant parenting failures at me ... I wish they would, actually, if we can't work out a resolution at least I would have something concrete to feel guilty about. Even so, not trying to change your attitude except to accept that there's real pain on both sides. Maybe.
My main thing, my kids and as I look around many other kids, don't value that trans-generational stuff the way I want to or much at all. They think of the past as merely toxic? That would be a new thing for human society, and a big problem. Hope I get to see how the kids born in 2050 handle it (yah sure).
It seems as though you are at least willing to contend with and discuss the past in an honest and productive way, to own your part in it so to speak.
That seems like a good first step if you're ever able to get your kids back into open discussion. And I know it will be hard and probably painful to admit some past mistakes.
At one point, my husband had tried to hash out some old traumas with his parents, and he got a big old dose of gaslighting... as if the things he clearly remembers and still has the actual physical scars from never even happened. If you can't even agree on the basic facts of reality and/or the events that occurred (even though each person might have their own individualized emotional perspective), and there's no willingness for one to admit mistakes were made and someone was obviously hurt by your actions, then there's really no basis for reconciliation.
Why would you keep putting yourself in a situation with someone who is so adverse to admitting the mistakes of their past and showing any remorse, that they would rather rewrite history? You can't expect someone has learned anything from their mistakes when they constantly deny they ever even happened.
"Maybe"
Yeah, maybe. Or maybe you didn't have to take this person's story and make it about you. Or generalize about "kids" and how they aren't a big fan of apparently everyone in previous generations because you personally do not have a good relationship with your own kids.
None of this stuff is new. You are not uniquely victimized by your children deciding to go no contact, and maybe if you tried to change your attitude and figure out why your kids did that instead of feeling sorry for yourself, you might make changes for the better.
I didn't mind so much. My post was admittedly a minor tangent from the original post. This is the way discussions work sometimes.
I just took it to be, "your Mom is probably hurting too over this." And that is probably true. I did find it helpful to think about what it would actually take on her part to bridge the gap. That I don't need to hear how much she is hurting over it too, but that she understands now why I wasn't willing to put up with the BS in the first place and doesn't want to be that person anymore.
I'm glad you found it helpful in a way.
I'm never surprised to hear that parents are hurt when their children go no contact; of course they are. But their hurt feelings are not really what's important here. You would not have been driven to this point if your parent hadn't repeatedly hurt *you* despite your asking them not to, right, despite you trying to repair the situation.
I wish you all the best.
My favorite story is about the main character clad in a tight, buttock emphasizing uniform lamenting about the evil in the world and then punching it!
Well done. Thank you.
"What's happening is a critical mass of people are done putting up with abusive bullshit anymore—taking it or excusing it—and I think this seems very divisive and dangerous to people who rely on abusive bullshit for either fortune or identity."
This is the sentence that leapt out at me too. Beautifully said. ❤️
Love this. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving!
For 40 years I’ve been pointing out to conservatives that there is no evidence of any of their ideas actually creating a better life for anyone who wasn’t born rich. The responses run from “Yeah but we need NEW thinking”* to “It’s just common sense.”
Unfortunately I think they’ve turned the corner on that. They know their “ideas” are not actually popular and never will be, and they’re just going for it anyway. Nothing is going to work on them. It is true that you never know who’s listening and who’s still on the edge. So we keep working.
*(Their ability to convince our six- and seven-figure media stars that “cutting taxes for rich people and eliminating laws they don’t like” is still a bold new idea that has never been tried remains my chief frustration with them.)
I think the root of the problem in terms of economic beliefs/policy, is that SO MANY poor people (poor whites in particular) have fallen into that trap Lyndon Johnson described so well:
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
They consider themselves temporarily embarrassed, future millionaires despite the odds being against it. In the class war, they prefer to erroneously self associate with the white (mostly male), moneyed, powered capital class and keep voting as such... when the reality is they have infinitely more in common with the large underclass of working people of all colors, creeds, and origins.
The idea that THEY are still one rung above poor minorities by virtue of White Supremacy (and/or one rung above LGBTQIA+ people and women via Christo-Fascist patriarchy) is "good enough" for most of these people. And they seem to be willfully ignorant that the people at the top of the ladder are now completely over the wall, and out of view of the rest of us, and pulling up the ladder behind them hoping the rest of the riffraff will fall off completely into the gutter where they belong.
Wow, it’s like you know my mother. “Temporarily embarrassed future millionaires,” is an incredible description.
This is so freaking brilliant. Thank you.