Victims of abuse create language to name both abuse and abusers. Inevitably, abusers use that same language to deny what they're doing. Navigating false equivalence in an age of rising fascism.
Well written brilliance, as usual. Thank you so much for continuing to be a powerful voice for sanity. You help keep my hope for a better society alive. 👍😎
"So, as victims create language to name their abusers and the abuses, abusers fight that language—stay woke, critical race theory, diversity equity and inclusivity—until they can learn it, claim it for themselves, and corrupt it to mean what they now want it to mean, which is danger—woke mind virus, CRT, DEI."
I'm also from Portland. I see the human beings who don't have houses to live in everyday. My daughters' grandmother is one of them. They do not frighten me. I feel sad and angry when I see them because I believe that it is a failure on the part of the city, state, and national leaders that cause so many of them to lose their houses.
The Huckinses claim that Portland has become a crime ridden failure of a city because we wanted it to be progressive. That is a lie. Progressives believe in affordable housing. Progressives believe in judgement free drug addiction treatment. Progressives believe in access to quality education. Progressives are willing to pay more in taxes to make these things happen.
People forget that Portland is a blue city in the middle of an otherwise fairly red state. Oregon has a lot of pretty progressive laws on the books, but 20 years ago we put anti-gay marriage language in our state Constitution. It's an uphill battle to get really progressive reforms in place
On top of that, even liberal Portland is only liberal to a certain point. Wealthy liberal Portlanders will side with money over people far more often than I care to think about. That's why we can decriminalize drugs but never fully fund our schools.
Anyway, I hope that the Huckinses enjoy Missouri, mainly because I don't particularly want them to move back.
"In all its forms, abuse is a mechanism of dominance, directed at someone deemed vulnerable, and repeated to maintain the vulnerability, and through that, the submission of the abused to the abuser...
Among the most common, if confusing and heartbreaking, aspects of the dynamics of abuse, is the culture of silence that surrounds it (within families, communities, congregations, institutions)...
Another perplexing phenomenon we observe is of the abused defending the abuser, or alternatively, those around the abuser jumping to their defense, at the expense of those being abused...
It’s not a new observation to say that American culture, American society, doesn’t simply tolerate violence, it celebrates it...
When it comes to interpersonal violence, the narratives of justification beget the perpetuation of violence...
The generalized statement ‘American culture’, when referring to the culture of violence, diffuses and obscures the reality that it is a contingent of subcultures that embraces interpersonal violence as a virtue...
These subcultures, not coincidentally, are the same ones that minimize the severity of domestic violence, child abuse, bullying, hate crimes against LGBTQ individuals, or the terrorizing of African-Americans by law enforcement— the subcultures that are contained with the rubric of political conservatism..."
I live in a small city in Washington that used to be very liberal. The Republicans from surrounding areas have been closing in and we have a severe housing shortage with insane rents and prices - mostly because the properties have been purchased by outside investors. People are now complaining about the unfortunate people who have been priced out of their homes, or who lost their homes because of medical bills from the pandemic. They talk about these people as if they are nothing but trash and it pisses me off. You have described the problem so clearly. Some of us are working on helping, but there’s no solution without making the wealthy pay their fair share.
Exactly this. Only by continuing to specify what people are doing and refusing to accept false equivalencies or disingenuous framing can we start to build a consensus moving forward of what shared values we should have and what it means to act on those values.
I don’t have time to do this research again but when I read this story--which bothered me for some reasons you mention--I checked to see if there was more actual safety if you move from Portland to Missouri and there really wasn’t? You definitely did not have to move a whole state to get safety. The whole story is based on a narrative from the right wing which is FALSE. This makes the story completely nauseating and depressing to me, because this is constantly happening. The right feeds a false narrative into the media machine and the media re-packages it back for us, with this pretend both sides version. People believe in this narrative SO MUCH and often all you have to do is some googling like ‘how many professors lost their jobs merely for speech’ or ‘is violent crime higher’ or ‘is property crime higher’ etc. etc. etc. When you say to people ‘but this is not happening!’ they get very adamant it is happening. You almost cannot disprove it to them, with all the data. But also, people almost seem like they cannot look around and notice things, even in their daily lives. Their entire view of their own daily reality comes from certain sources.
I don’t know what to do about this. It’s very tiring to me because I want to understand what is happening in the world, and I don’t want to believe lies, and I am finding this extremely tiring. I also don’t want to become one of those people who thinkings ‘everyone is lying about everything’ and I don’t want to be one of those people that believes conspiracy theories. I’m trying to be informed and stay cognitively normal. How do we even do that right now?
I don't know if this might be a consolation to you, but the lies don't work equally on all people. These days, Republicans mostly speak only to their own base, which will believe any crazy thing. Their fear-mongering has much less effect on normal people. I think we saw this in their disappointing results in the midterms and in many elections since then. Most people aren't buying the crazy.
Racism makes people gullible. It's like a cult where your brain gets used to blocking facts and information and it doesn't work right anymore. I am convinced this is partly how they get people to believe ridiculous things so easily.
Right. Like, why couldn't the story been about how one family moved so that their son could be safe and the other family moved so they could be closer to their grandchildren. Which is a perfectly reasonable reason to move. This false narrative makes people like the Huckinses feel justified in their fears.
"The Huckinses moved away because there were many many unhoused people in their hometown of Portland, and this made them feel unsafe and desperate."
What really sets people like the Huckinses off (and I'm happy to have "Huckinses" be the stand-in term for all such people going forward) isn't just the existence or number of unhoused, but a growing attitude of empathy and understanding towards the unhoused, especially when displayed by those who are not unhoused themselves. To the Huckins-brained, these empathetic, kind people are traitors to their class (the class of housed people) and a dangerous indicator of "corruption", of "softness", a "lack of moral standards", which, of course, will lead to the destruction of America, they're certain of that.
All Huckinses are reactionaries, so we should really pay more attention to what they're reacting against. For example: The Spectrum News had a story about a Park & Ride near Milwaukee that has become the site of a homeless encampment. And it wasn't OOH SCARY HOMELESS PEOPLE, instead the reporter interviewed some of the residents, each telling their story, what a struggle it was just to live, day-to-day, and then it followed some social-service workers who were checking on people and offering what help they could. This is increasingly the response in our cities to homeless people, not the clubs & cops approach the Huckinses would favor, and it's driving them mad.
You could tell the same story with regard to Trans folk: A growing understanding and empathy towards trans people and their families, expressed broadly throughout our society, accompanied by an increasingly frenzied reaction by the trans-haters (a reaction that will itself drive even more people to empathy.) What's important is to distinguish the main current from the counter-current, to see which is more broad and powerful and more likely to prevail in the end.
I guess I’m just confused about this Biden impeachment, if we can impeach presidents for using the office for personal profit, why didn’t we at any point between 2016 and 2020?
One of the Republicans, in the debate on the House floor, asked the question: "What are the Democrats afraid of? If Biden has done nothing wrong, why would they object to a little impeachment inquiry?" Which is an excellent point, I propose that, from now on, we impeach EVERY President, with an official Launching of the Inquiry on Jan. 21, the day after their inauguration.
Do you remember in the beginning of 2021 when Nikki Fried opened a lawsuit against Biden (I guess) to get him to reschedule cannabis or at least change the law so that medical cannabis patients don’t have to give up their second amendment rights? I’m kind of giggling thinking of the meltdown the red hats would’ve had had he done that. It wouldn’t have saved Hunter that indictment because he violated that law with other drug use before this lawsuit, but imagine. 😂😂 They’re very pro 2A so it should be a good thing, but if Biden did it that means it’s bad, especially if his son committed that crime.
I assume she dropped that lawsuit? I should go look, it was a weird stunt for her to sue the president right after he got elected, but I liked that she was trying to change that law. I shouldn’t have to give up my handgun just because I choose to medicate with a plant instead of Xanax.
I don’t know, maybe we should wait until after their first year that way it can really screw up the midterms and also give them a chance to do something wrong.
I went and read the article in the NYT that you cited. It is a real gem of bothsidesism IMO. It also fails to question the claims made by the Huckins or bother to add any context to thier claims as to what prompted them to move do far from Portland. A lot of lazy journalism whether intentional or not is still lazy journalism. Of course that's the point of both sides stories. To present as fair and balanced, information which is neither.
As for Gutfield, who I literally watched one time and was satisfied it served no purpose to ever watch him again? He's as you point out a professional practitioner of DARVO especially the "reverse victim and offender" portion. Of course the same us true of Fox News in general.
"In Missouri, though, nobody ever stops to think why people might not want to fly a flag that represents power trying to eliminate them from existence, because so few of them are being eliminated anymore. So that must be comfortable. I imagine it feels very safe."
This is gross. You need to expand your imagination. Do you remember Ferguson? Do you know who Cori Bush is? Lot's of things are under attack in Missouri and a LOT of people are staying and fighting it.
You can't have an article about the laziness of the NYT and be this lazy yourself.
Remember that Minnesota, the enlightened state that goes unexamined in this piece, is the home of Michelle Bachmann and the place where George Floyd was murdered by racist police.
Looking at everything in a binary is part of the problem.
Pete: thanks for this correction. That is an unfortunate (and yes lazy in a way I try to avoid) characterization of Missouri, and not the way I should have phased it.
Your article is a compelling critique of the both-siding NYT. And I agree with Pete that even your portrayal of the cities lacked nuance. My hometown, St. Louis, is full of contradictions. We’re southern and to this day racially segregated. The most destitute neighborhoods are within a few miles of the most affluent. In our politics, dog whistles and supremacism abound, but outright racism is politically incorrect. So Bible-belt extremists demonized a different “other” and Republicans in our super-majority state government eagerly took up the cause, They have relentlessly targeted transgender people under the auspices of “protecting children.” Their lies and fear-mongering have swayed a lot of previously unaware bystanders. As parent to a trans woman, I feel apprehension, and despair for children who now, by law, cannot obtain gender-affirming healthcare. So far, we stay and resist, I’m thankful for activist leaders like Cori Bush. We will not give up.
Hooray and Huzzah (which is also the name of a good floating river in the Missourah portion of Missouri, pronounced 'OOZ-uh because certainly not *all* is as it should be down here).
Thanks for your responsiveness! And for your newsletter.
It's easy to convince people of false equivalence in a culture such as ours, where one of the benefits of privilege is an unquestioned entitlement to be free of discomfort. This, I believe, is what privileged fragility is based on. When you're used to having your comfort catered to, you begin to be very afraid of experiencing any discomfort at all. Then, you begin to assume that your fear is equal to the fear felt by people who can't afford to worry about inconveniences like discomfort, and are afraid because they are actually endangered. People who are protected from the damage and dangers of systemic oppression can't even imagine that level of day-in-day-out threat, and they are more than happy to imagine that the danger of oppression is really just the same as the discomfort they fear. That kind of fragility self-perpetuates even without any interference, but when power-hungry supremacists exploit it, it becomes so brittle and volatile that people who have it will allow any level of atrocity if they believe it will restore their comfort. That's where we are today. The problem, to those fragile people is easily solved by eliminating those of us who make them uncomfortable.
That description reminds me of the affects of substance abuse, where people respond to the normal pain of existence with (alcohol, opiates) and end up restructuring their lives around being comfortably numb, with excessive and sometimes violent responses if something gets in the way of their next fix. Substances like opiates rewrite the brain pain/pleasure/reward centers and I wonder of the religion of supremacy has some of the same effect, a feed back loop of positive reinforcement over a long time (here is your participation trophy for being cis/white/male), with some negative reinforcement (maybe vicariously against others) to clarify the situation, that becomes a crutch and addiction that people find themselves in pain if it is withdrawn and they have to think more factually and critically about themselves and their place in the universe/planet/country/neighborhood.
I have a motto in response to folks who feel the need to denigrate the 'other'. It is a subtle way of reframing They Are Us to get past that posture some people have that the 'others' could never be equated with 'us'.
I call it We Are All 'Them'. I have little experience that it makes any sense to the supremicizers, but it does occasionally suggest a different angle of engagement for some of my cohort, such as it is.
Incidentally, there's an article in the Guardian about American right-wingers rediscovering Franco and his brand of fascism that includes this quote:
"Consistently, these far-right voices make a direct comparison between Spain in the 1930s and the US today – claiming that both feature a totalitarian, violent left that is prepared to overturn elections – and look forward to an authoritarian leader who will resolve the crisis."
Seems like a calm, objective, fact-based analysis of our situation, huh?
Anyway, what I am henceforth calling Sharkey's Theory explains very well why these lunatics can't calm the fuck down and just coexist with the rest of us.
I have been struggling to get through Adjustment Day from Chuck Palahniuk. I enjoy his books, the struggle is just because it hits a little too close to home, just like I couldn’t watch the handmaid‘s tale during the last administration.
Even though it’s fiction he seems to nail their motivations and grievances perfectly. The premise is that all of society’s problems stem from an excess of young men between ages like 20 and 50 so they do an organized purge of sorts.
The excess males theory of warmongering is pretty well documented, tho not universally agreed. Anyway, it is easy to imagine patriarchal societies needing to purge their own young adult male populations on occasion if too many find themselves unpartnered and unloved and unappreciated and un-deferred-to. Wouldn't do to have that cohort organize and try to take what they think their rightful due within their own borders. So send them off to glorious combat for the love and honor of the fatherland.
I do not know if this has traction in the inner circles of the CCP in China (for example), but that nation certainly has the demographic leanings...
Yeah I knew it wasn’t his original thought, but the way he describes the thought processes of his characters is quite interesting to me. But also difficult to read at this time in the world.
Author Trip Gabriel seems to have recently moved from the politics beat to obituaries. Can't imagine that's a promotion. But maybe he had the Huckins assignment forced on him and then asked for the change? Could be a whole other story right there and one that moves the spotlight back to the Times, where it mostly belongs.
Well written brilliance, as usual. Thank you so much for continuing to be a powerful voice for sanity. You help keep my hope for a better society alive. 👍😎
"So, as victims create language to name their abusers and the abuses, abusers fight that language—stay woke, critical race theory, diversity equity and inclusivity—until they can learn it, claim it for themselves, and corrupt it to mean what they now want it to mean, which is danger—woke mind virus, CRT, DEI."
See one Christopher Rufo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Rufo#Critical_race_theory
This was a brilliant, if depressing read, that accurately describes the rising fascism occurring here at a granular level. Well done and thank you.
I'm also from Portland. I see the human beings who don't have houses to live in everyday. My daughters' grandmother is one of them. They do not frighten me. I feel sad and angry when I see them because I believe that it is a failure on the part of the city, state, and national leaders that cause so many of them to lose their houses.
The Huckinses claim that Portland has become a crime ridden failure of a city because we wanted it to be progressive. That is a lie. Progressives believe in affordable housing. Progressives believe in judgement free drug addiction treatment. Progressives believe in access to quality education. Progressives are willing to pay more in taxes to make these things happen.
People forget that Portland is a blue city in the middle of an otherwise fairly red state. Oregon has a lot of pretty progressive laws on the books, but 20 years ago we put anti-gay marriage language in our state Constitution. It's an uphill battle to get really progressive reforms in place
On top of that, even liberal Portland is only liberal to a certain point. Wealthy liberal Portlanders will side with money over people far more often than I care to think about. That's why we can decriminalize drugs but never fully fund our schools.
Anyway, I hope that the Huckinses enjoy Missouri, mainly because I don't particularly want them to move back.
A.R. Moxon you sound very deranged.
*very* deranged?
But how can that be? I'm home, home on the range.
"Abusive narcissists always have a story."
So do those who align with the abusive narcissists-
'Defending abusers, rather than the abused, and the perpetuation of violence in our society.' (Jan. 25, 2021)
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/25/2011708/-Defending-abusers-rather-than-the-abused-and-the-perpetuation-of-violence-in-our-society
"In all its forms, abuse is a mechanism of dominance, directed at someone deemed vulnerable, and repeated to maintain the vulnerability, and through that, the submission of the abused to the abuser...
Among the most common, if confusing and heartbreaking, aspects of the dynamics of abuse, is the culture of silence that surrounds it (within families, communities, congregations, institutions)...
Another perplexing phenomenon we observe is of the abused defending the abuser, or alternatively, those around the abuser jumping to their defense, at the expense of those being abused...
It’s not a new observation to say that American culture, American society, doesn’t simply tolerate violence, it celebrates it...
When it comes to interpersonal violence, the narratives of justification beget the perpetuation of violence...
The generalized statement ‘American culture’, when referring to the culture of violence, diffuses and obscures the reality that it is a contingent of subcultures that embraces interpersonal violence as a virtue...
These subcultures, not coincidentally, are the same ones that minimize the severity of domestic violence, child abuse, bullying, hate crimes against LGBTQ individuals, or the terrorizing of African-Americans by law enforcement— the subcultures that are contained with the rubric of political conservatism..."
I live in a small city in Washington that used to be very liberal. The Republicans from surrounding areas have been closing in and we have a severe housing shortage with insane rents and prices - mostly because the properties have been purchased by outside investors. People are now complaining about the unfortunate people who have been priced out of their homes, or who lost their homes because of medical bills from the pandemic. They talk about these people as if they are nothing but trash and it pisses me off. You have described the problem so clearly. Some of us are working on helping, but there’s no solution without making the wealthy pay their fair share.
Exactly this. Only by continuing to specify what people are doing and refusing to accept false equivalencies or disingenuous framing can we start to build a consensus moving forward of what shared values we should have and what it means to act on those values.
I don’t have time to do this research again but when I read this story--which bothered me for some reasons you mention--I checked to see if there was more actual safety if you move from Portland to Missouri and there really wasn’t? You definitely did not have to move a whole state to get safety. The whole story is based on a narrative from the right wing which is FALSE. This makes the story completely nauseating and depressing to me, because this is constantly happening. The right feeds a false narrative into the media machine and the media re-packages it back for us, with this pretend both sides version. People believe in this narrative SO MUCH and often all you have to do is some googling like ‘how many professors lost their jobs merely for speech’ or ‘is violent crime higher’ or ‘is property crime higher’ etc. etc. etc. When you say to people ‘but this is not happening!’ they get very adamant it is happening. You almost cannot disprove it to them, with all the data. But also, people almost seem like they cannot look around and notice things, even in their daily lives. Their entire view of their own daily reality comes from certain sources.
I don’t know what to do about this. It’s very tiring to me because I want to understand what is happening in the world, and I don’t want to believe lies, and I am finding this extremely tiring. I also don’t want to become one of those people who thinkings ‘everyone is lying about everything’ and I don’t want to be one of those people that believes conspiracy theories. I’m trying to be informed and stay cognitively normal. How do we even do that right now?
I don't know if this might be a consolation to you, but the lies don't work equally on all people. These days, Republicans mostly speak only to their own base, which will believe any crazy thing. Their fear-mongering has much less effect on normal people. I think we saw this in their disappointing results in the midterms and in many elections since then. Most people aren't buying the crazy.
But thank you Thomas for consoling me! I do see that!!! I see they totally captured some but the majority is disgusted by it.
Racism makes people gullible. It's like a cult where your brain gets used to blocking facts and information and it doesn't work right anymore. I am convinced this is partly how they get people to believe ridiculous things so easily.
Right. Like, why couldn't the story been about how one family moved so that their son could be safe and the other family moved so they could be closer to their grandchildren. Which is a perfectly reasonable reason to move. This false narrative makes people like the Huckinses feel justified in their fears.
A call to fly the Stars and Stripes
This is the resl flag for which so many have fought and died
Fly the Stars and Stripes
For sane health care
For affordable healthcare
For reducing military excess
For a reliable military
For freedom of religion
For freedom of no religion
For the right to pursue happiness
For a sustainable income
For the future of a country
Built year by year, headstone by headstone.
So for any or every occasion
Flly the Stars and Stripes
Not the Stars and Bars.
That was superceded
Eight score years ago
Not the Disfigured Cross
That was crippled almost
Four score years ago
Fly the Stars and Stripes
For fifty states working
Together with civility
Not rancor.
Fly the Stars and Stripes
So this great,
though flawed,
Nation can endure.
It is OUR flag.
"The Huckinses moved away because there were many many unhoused people in their hometown of Portland, and this made them feel unsafe and desperate."
What really sets people like the Huckinses off (and I'm happy to have "Huckinses" be the stand-in term for all such people going forward) isn't just the existence or number of unhoused, but a growing attitude of empathy and understanding towards the unhoused, especially when displayed by those who are not unhoused themselves. To the Huckins-brained, these empathetic, kind people are traitors to their class (the class of housed people) and a dangerous indicator of "corruption", of "softness", a "lack of moral standards", which, of course, will lead to the destruction of America, they're certain of that.
All Huckinses are reactionaries, so we should really pay more attention to what they're reacting against. For example: The Spectrum News had a story about a Park & Ride near Milwaukee that has become the site of a homeless encampment. And it wasn't OOH SCARY HOMELESS PEOPLE, instead the reporter interviewed some of the residents, each telling their story, what a struggle it was just to live, day-to-day, and then it followed some social-service workers who were checking on people and offering what help they could. This is increasingly the response in our cities to homeless people, not the clubs & cops approach the Huckinses would favor, and it's driving them mad.
You could tell the same story with regard to Trans folk: A growing understanding and empathy towards trans people and their families, expressed broadly throughout our society, accompanied by an increasingly frenzied reaction by the trans-haters (a reaction that will itself drive even more people to empathy.) What's important is to distinguish the main current from the counter-current, to see which is more broad and powerful and more likely to prevail in the end.
I guess I’m just confused about this Biden impeachment, if we can impeach presidents for using the office for personal profit, why didn’t we at any point between 2016 and 2020?
One of the Republicans, in the debate on the House floor, asked the question: "What are the Democrats afraid of? If Biden has done nothing wrong, why would they object to a little impeachment inquiry?" Which is an excellent point, I propose that, from now on, we impeach EVERY President, with an official Launching of the Inquiry on Jan. 21, the day after their inauguration.
😂 This is just going to happen!
Do you remember in the beginning of 2021 when Nikki Fried opened a lawsuit against Biden (I guess) to get him to reschedule cannabis or at least change the law so that medical cannabis patients don’t have to give up their second amendment rights? I’m kind of giggling thinking of the meltdown the red hats would’ve had had he done that. It wouldn’t have saved Hunter that indictment because he violated that law with other drug use before this lawsuit, but imagine. 😂😂 They’re very pro 2A so it should be a good thing, but if Biden did it that means it’s bad, especially if his son committed that crime.
I assume she dropped that lawsuit? I should go look, it was a weird stunt for her to sue the president right after he got elected, but I liked that she was trying to change that law. I shouldn’t have to give up my handgun just because I choose to medicate with a plant instead of Xanax.
I don’t know, maybe we should wait until after their first year that way it can really screw up the midterms and also give them a chance to do something wrong.
I went and read the article in the NYT that you cited. It is a real gem of bothsidesism IMO. It also fails to question the claims made by the Huckins or bother to add any context to thier claims as to what prompted them to move do far from Portland. A lot of lazy journalism whether intentional or not is still lazy journalism. Of course that's the point of both sides stories. To present as fair and balanced, information which is neither.
As for Gutfield, who I literally watched one time and was satisfied it served no purpose to ever watch him again? He's as you point out a professional practitioner of DARVO especially the "reverse victim and offender" portion. Of course the same us true of Fox News in general.
"In Missouri, though, nobody ever stops to think why people might not want to fly a flag that represents power trying to eliminate them from existence, because so few of them are being eliminated anymore. So that must be comfortable. I imagine it feels very safe."
This is gross. You need to expand your imagination. Do you remember Ferguson? Do you know who Cori Bush is? Lot's of things are under attack in Missouri and a LOT of people are staying and fighting it.
You can't have an article about the laziness of the NYT and be this lazy yourself.
Remember that Minnesota, the enlightened state that goes unexamined in this piece, is the home of Michelle Bachmann and the place where George Floyd was murdered by racist police.
Looking at everything in a binary is part of the problem.
Pete: thanks for this correction. That is an unfortunate (and yes lazy in a way I try to avoid) characterization of Missouri, and not the way I should have phased it.
I'll be fixing it. Thanks again.
Your article is a compelling critique of the both-siding NYT. And I agree with Pete that even your portrayal of the cities lacked nuance. My hometown, St. Louis, is full of contradictions. We’re southern and to this day racially segregated. The most destitute neighborhoods are within a few miles of the most affluent. In our politics, dog whistles and supremacism abound, but outright racism is politically incorrect. So Bible-belt extremists demonized a different “other” and Republicans in our super-majority state government eagerly took up the cause, They have relentlessly targeted transgender people under the auspices of “protecting children.” Their lies and fear-mongering have swayed a lot of previously unaware bystanders. As parent to a trans woman, I feel apprehension, and despair for children who now, by law, cannot obtain gender-affirming healthcare. So far, we stay and resist, I’m thankful for activist leaders like Cori Bush. We will not give up.
Thanks! To be clear, I agree with your main argument completely.
That's quite clear. I don't think somebody who disagreed would issue such a critique.
I've made adjustments. If it remains offensively reductive it is now a product of my remaining ignorance rather than my laziness. Hooray?
Hooray and Huzzah (which is also the name of a good floating river in the Missourah portion of Missouri, pronounced 'OOZ-uh because certainly not *all* is as it should be down here).
Thanks for your responsiveness! And for your newsletter.
It's easy to convince people of false equivalence in a culture such as ours, where one of the benefits of privilege is an unquestioned entitlement to be free of discomfort. This, I believe, is what privileged fragility is based on. When you're used to having your comfort catered to, you begin to be very afraid of experiencing any discomfort at all. Then, you begin to assume that your fear is equal to the fear felt by people who can't afford to worry about inconveniences like discomfort, and are afraid because they are actually endangered. People who are protected from the damage and dangers of systemic oppression can't even imagine that level of day-in-day-out threat, and they are more than happy to imagine that the danger of oppression is really just the same as the discomfort they fear. That kind of fragility self-perpetuates even without any interference, but when power-hungry supremacists exploit it, it becomes so brittle and volatile that people who have it will allow any level of atrocity if they believe it will restore their comfort. That's where we are today. The problem, to those fragile people is easily solved by eliminating those of us who make them uncomfortable.
That description reminds me of the affects of substance abuse, where people respond to the normal pain of existence with (alcohol, opiates) and end up restructuring their lives around being comfortably numb, with excessive and sometimes violent responses if something gets in the way of their next fix. Substances like opiates rewrite the brain pain/pleasure/reward centers and I wonder of the religion of supremacy has some of the same effect, a feed back loop of positive reinforcement over a long time (here is your participation trophy for being cis/white/male), with some negative reinforcement (maybe vicariously against others) to clarify the situation, that becomes a crutch and addiction that people find themselves in pain if it is withdrawn and they have to think more factually and critically about themselves and their place in the universe/planet/country/neighborhood.
I have a motto in response to folks who feel the need to denigrate the 'other'. It is a subtle way of reframing They Are Us to get past that posture some people have that the 'others' could never be equated with 'us'.
I call it We Are All 'Them'. I have little experience that it makes any sense to the supremicizers, but it does occasionally suggest a different angle of engagement for some of my cohort, such as it is.
This is brilliant and it helps me understand why pampered white boys try so hard to feel oppressed. This is absolutely brilliant.
Incidentally, there's an article in the Guardian about American right-wingers rediscovering Franco and his brand of fascism that includes this quote:
"Consistently, these far-right voices make a direct comparison between Spain in the 1930s and the US today – claiming that both feature a totalitarian, violent left that is prepared to overturn elections – and look forward to an authoritarian leader who will resolve the crisis."
Seems like a calm, objective, fact-based analysis of our situation, huh?
Anyway, what I am henceforth calling Sharkey's Theory explains very well why these lunatics can't calm the fuck down and just coexist with the rest of us.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/15/us-far-right-francisco-franco-spanish-civil-war
Oh thank you I hadn’t seen that!
I have been struggling to get through Adjustment Day from Chuck Palahniuk. I enjoy his books, the struggle is just because it hits a little too close to home, just like I couldn’t watch the handmaid‘s tale during the last administration.
Even though it’s fiction he seems to nail their motivations and grievances perfectly. The premise is that all of society’s problems stem from an excess of young men between ages like 20 and 50 so they do an organized purge of sorts.
The excess males theory of warmongering is pretty well documented, tho not universally agreed. Anyway, it is easy to imagine patriarchal societies needing to purge their own young adult male populations on occasion if too many find themselves unpartnered and unloved and unappreciated and un-deferred-to. Wouldn't do to have that cohort organize and try to take what they think their rightful due within their own borders. So send them off to glorious combat for the love and honor of the fatherland.
I do not know if this has traction in the inner circles of the CCP in China (for example), but that nation certainly has the demographic leanings...
Yeah I knew it wasn’t his original thought, but the way he describes the thought processes of his characters is quite interesting to me. But also difficult to read at this time in the world.
I agree! I don't think I've ever seen this explained so well.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231007094610/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/us/politics/politics-states-moving.html
https://www.nytimes.com/by/trip-gabriel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_Gabriel
Author Trip Gabriel seems to have recently moved from the politics beat to obituaries. Can't imagine that's a promotion. But maybe he had the Huckins assignment forced on him and then asked for the change? Could be a whole other story right there and one that moves the spotlight back to the Times, where it mostly belongs.