Every time Katie or anyone else on here talks about being abandoned by friends it hurts my goddamn heart. Katie is a nice person who pretends to be mean and is constantly being treated like shit by mean people who pretend to be nice.
“I care so much and love everyone so deeply that I’m willing to hate and destroy anyone who doesn’t 100% agree with me” seems like an unfortunately strong impulse in people. Kinda like how every ancient culture has some version of witch hunting and human sacrifice.
I was just thinking about the witch thing - we’ll cleanse you of the “devil” even if it kills you… for your own good. Yikes! I hate bullies in any disguise. Look up communal narcissists too - I read that somewhere regarding this sort - it fits nicely.
I get it but I think that's kind of backwards. If these people are the sort of people to engage in this sort of "canceling" behavior over nothing, they weren't friends to begin with.
Perhaps the real question is how many "Manchurian Candidate" friends we all have, just waiting for the chance to spring into action.
I came perilously close to being cancelled by my adult child, whom I had considered my friend for decades. We now maintain a superficial long-distance relationship by avoiding certain topics. If she didn't feel some familial obligation, I believe she would completely cut me out of her life. So I think that real friendships can indeed be destroyed by one person's adherence to a dogmatic, no-debate ideology.
I'm really sorry to hear about that. I was effectively cancelled by my sister seven years ago because I- an actual lesbian who actually sleeps with women and at the time had a long-term girlfriend- asked her not to call me queer. Obviously she 'identifies as queer' despite having had exclusively heterosexual relationships her entire life. She threw a screaming fit at me, then sent me endless messages to 'educate' me until I had to block her number, and has since tried to convince anyone in the family who'll listen that I'm a bigot.
Despite the fact that in the intervening years our mother has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, she still completely refuses to talk to me. I really don't know what it would take to get her to back down. It feels so completely hopeless, and it's hard to not end up worrying that maybe you're in the wrong after all.
That's horrible. I know what you mean. I sometimes think, "Maybe I just need to be more accepting." But then I remember that this "just be nice" attitude is how we got to a place where a vocal minority of straight men (mostly) are endangering the hard-won rights of women and LGB people. Most ordinary people, including children, are so confused by it all that they think sex and gender and sexual orientation are all basically the same thing. It's all so stupid. I hope it doesn't become the new normal.
Jesus. It all gets so twisted, bizarre and complicated. I can see trans activists limiting the rights of biological women, and white wokies invoking a new Jim Crow in the name of Social Justice. I can’t help thinking of Orwell’s Animal Farm. Tyranny happens on both the right and the left. In both cases it’s nasty and needs to be called-out. Makes me think of the YouTube Ryan Long skit wherein he shows how similar white Wokies and actual Nazis have become. But it’s all culturally sanctioned by the media, so somehow it’s ok.
Thanks. I have hope that someday we'll look back on these crazy times and laugh. "Remember when you insisted that you were nonbinary and I tried to tell you that everyone's nonbinary and you threatened to never speak to me again? LOL!" But for now we find less volatile sources of humor.
Good for you! I tried a lot of those arguments (I was sure the kickass Grandma would do the trick!) but made the mistake of putting them in writing, because we were thousands of miles apart and because writing is how I clarify my thinking. It did not go well, so for the time being I will just keep walking on eggshells and hope she comes around on her own. It doesn't help that she has a large "queer family" plus my own extremely tolerant family nearby. At least she still answers my emails and very occasional phone calls.
I'm saving your list of arguments in case I know of anyone who needs ideas.
Had to laugh at #5 because there's always a new one...
Do young women that say they're non-binary not realize that it's not a way to escape female oppression (in a global sense, I think of examples like Malala... saying that you aren't a girl doesn't change how others see you).
I think it’s too easy to think that. It’s that they were your friends and too cowardly to stand by you when it counted. Not that the friendship wasn’t there, just that they were too weak to value it. You may say that defines them as not a friend but I think it’s wrong to say they were not ever your friend. Thats why it’s sad. Like when your family chooses something else over you.
I think it’s too easy to look at the other person and put the blame all on them for being weak. That’s a bit convenient - a bit easy to walk away from. If one chooses to be friends with that type of person repeatedly then there is a dynamic that BOTH people are participating in and BOTH people are responsible for creating
We love people for lots of reasons and people become confused, weak, or broken for all kinds of more reasons. I don’t think there are many simple changes that can remove the element of human tragedy. There are people who become a part of your life just because they’ve been around so long and it hurts when they go.
But yes, I do understand boundaries. Sometimes you have to do that shit to yourself. It doesn’t make it not a tragedy, though.
Guess the definition of "true friend" here is kind of a semantic issue. My feeling in writing this was that anyone who was willing to cancel you over the sorts of things we call "canceling" can't have held the friendship in much esteem to begin with. There's certainly an interesting variety of emergent perspectives on that here.
Anyone who tries to point to 'capitalism' as the cause of a problem or 'overthrowing capitalism' as a possible solution to any problem needs to point to the specific historical, non-capitalist society and time period they are envisioning in which this problem was better. This tic that the self-described 'true leftists' have is just so fucking stupid and lazy that it makes it nearly impossible for me to take anything else they say seriously. In this specific case she's claiming that capitalism 'makes people feel powerless'. What non-capitalist system that has ever existed gives more power and agency over their lives to ordinary people than Capitalism? She's also making a vague claim that things in our society are terrible while speaking from a country that has some of the best living standards of any society that has existed in human history.
Totally agree. On that note, I have ruined (aka saved) more social events than I can count defending capitalism. (Note: I'm available for hire, 2 hour minimum)
The first step is to ask the perp to "define capitalism"--the response you will get is usually a word salad that has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with the "right" to be paid $220K to write bad poetry.
Before they can pause for breath, you then patiently explain what capitalism is (an economic system where production decisions are market based, not political) and how capitalism inspires many other goodies, like private property, free labor, a rational legal system and NOT BEING COERCED BY THE STATE TO WORK AT A JOB YOU HATE.
I've become the resident "rightist" (not NPC left) in my social groups over the past 2 years. A common dynamic is a discussion will move into a topic where everyone just assumes something that is patently untrue, or that paints entire swaths of the population incorrectly. A very calm pointing out that "some" disagree (never insert myself personally), usually followed by coddling to prevent a blow up, and if possible pointing out why there might be disagreement or some additional context.
I'll keep this in mind next time it's about "capitalism".
Yeah, don't try to go around telling people that our modern understanding of individual identity and romantic love actually has its roots in bourgeois morality and the upward mobility that resulted from industrialization/capitalism. We gay people get to be gay and define romantic love the way we do because of the same forces that created the middle class. Enjoy marriage for feels? Women's right to choose (their spouse)? Then you might want to try Western colonial capitalism.
They like it, coming from Foucault, but somehow not coming from me.
I think that "capitalism" as used by the guest, and lots and lots of people on the left, is just a shorthand for a number of features of advanced, developed consumer capitalist societies (breakdown of local democracy and local institutions and a perceived loss of accountability among decision makers, concentration of capital in a smaller number of mega multinationals, cost inflation in things that used to be more widely available or were public goods such as education and health care, and blah blah blah). Attacking someone for using a word like "capitalism" in a non-technical, but widely understood way doesn't really advance the conversation... Just like attacking people on the right for using CRT in a non-technical way doesn't really advance the conversation or help us understand each other.
But If we let them get away with defining capitalism as "anything I don't like in modern society" instead of its actual definition--a market-based economic system-- it's impossible to defend it.
If every evil on earth is supposedly caused by "capitalism" then how can we allow this abomination to continue??
Capitalism isn't a market based economic system. It's when ownership of the means of production is concentrated in a non-laboring class called capitalists.
(Not trying to be an ass -- just pointing out that one word can have various technical definitions, and we should attend to what people likely mean instead of critiquing their word choice 😃)
Wait, what? Non-laboring? So when you borrow money to start a business, and you invest in capital--(i.e. the means of production) let say a podcast microphone--you personally dont do any labor, the business just sorta magically happens?
So you pay off your $100 microphone. According to your stated definition, you're now a "capitalist" and you dont have to do any labor. A lot of plumbers who own their own equipment would find that interesting
Exactly. We can't allow this abomination to continue. That is what us communists believe. We believe that the ills of modern society are the inevitable result of late-stage capitalism, and that this abomination can't continue.
PS - If you want to find some examples of societies that weren't late-stage capitalism where ordinary everyday people did better, had more rights, more autonomy, more opportunity etc, I would point to the social democracies of Scandinavia up until recently, the social democracies of New Zealand, England, and Australia up until the early 1980's, and just about every hunter gatherer society ever. Your welcome
My point is: I want these people to explain exactly why capitalism is so evil and what nations with the same diverse population have done better. Capitalism is clearly far, far from perfect. But so is every other system. Capitalism is the best of what humankind has so far come up with. Do the young lefties think Marxism will really work?
Has anyone here who is invoking Marxism actually read Marx? Not a gotcha question, just want to make sure folks actually know what Marx wrote. I am currently reading Marx so by know means am I am expert but I do listen quite a bit to a bunch of Marxist scholars. I am also not an expert in economic theory. But I have had some conversations with some friends IRL who demonize Marx and then confess they have never read him.
Doesn't make the critique very compelling. What I do know so far is that Marxism is an analysis, and a very interesting one. No country has ever had a Marxist government or economy. I believe some have tried to apply some of Marx's analysis to aspects of their economy, but since Marx's analysis is based on a industrial economy, not an agrarian one, it was not successful. While I agree just throwing around "Capitalism is bad" without any nuance is unhelpful, so is saying it about Marxism, especially if you have not read Marx. Maybe the young lefties DO think Marxism would work, depending on what they know of Marxism. But she didn't mention Marxism at all so why anyone is bringing that into the critique makes no sense to me. We do know that there are countries using some democratic socialist principles of public goods governance that seem to address some of the inequality that societies all over the world experience. Maybe this is what young leftists are looking for and what Clemantine is invoking. Katie didn't ask her anything about that so its up in the air what Clemantine really means when she critiques capitalism.
You’re joking right? These people don’t READ!!! That’s the problem. Marx for most of them is a symbol. Read it as: We ‘hate’ capitalism. (Which they really don’t but that’s another topic.) And actually, correction: Some do read...but only leftist ideological books with an agenda. Which isn’t really reading, strictly speaking. Yes: I am completely generalizing here, obviously. Certainly many lefties must read. But as a generational phenomenon I think my feeling here is largely true.
I'm not sure who you think I was referring to, but my comment was about those on this comment thread yammering on about how Marxism won't/doesn't work, with me asking if any of them have actually read Marx. It was not aimed at lefties who have a general critique of capitalism, however well or not well informed that critique is. So no I'm not kidding. If you're going to invoke Marx as a critique of the left, but haven't read any Marx or any Marxist scholars, then I give little to no legitimacy to your critique. I'm sick of Marx being trotted out as the bogeyman from people who have no idea what Marx wrote. I agree far too many shoot their mouths off critiquing capitalism, but people also do it about Marxism. I think it's easier to have a critique of capitalism because we live it day to day and see it at work in real time. It might not be a great or nuanced or intellectually informed critique but it's got more salience, in my opinion, than a critique of Marx from someone who has no idea what Marx actually wrote. I think if commenters here are going to go on about how Marxism could never work, they should have some knowledge of Marx's analysis of capital and get called out if they don't.
Oh, and I AM a leftie, and I AM reading Marx, as I said in my original reply, so, apparently, some of us do actually READ!
Fair enough. I understand. Yes, I have read Marx. No, I am not a Marx expert or scholar. My reference was to the fact that most Woke people have no idea about Marx or what he actually wrote either. It's not me but the Woke person who needs to back up their anti-capitalistic claims. If anyone wants to argue about the evil of capitalism, let's hear a serious, rational argument. But that never happens. It's just like with race: Woke people have zero interest in data or an honest discussion of the reality of race; they just want to call you racist and signal to their friends that they're "good people." There's the 1619 Project, which is basically just fiction revisionist history, and then there are serious scholars like James M. McPherson and Gordon Wood. There is an ocean of difference between them. One is based on pure ideology, the other is based on historical fact and intellectual honesty.
But anyway: I think you and I come from different angles but we land in the same place, not politcally or ideologically but in terms of having knowledge about what you're arguing about. I respect the fact that you feel that way. I agree.
I think Clemantine Morrigan is more of an anarchist than a Marxist. Which might be impractical too, but I think is worth challenging in it's own right, rather than using an off-the-shelf criticism of Soviet communism for someone who doesn't hole that view.
Right. Capitalism certainly has problems and nasty side effects. But name a better system so far! There’s plenty we could and probably should change. There’s also an incredible amount of good in the world brought by the free market.
I think it is “we haven’t really thought this through but we’re sure everyone’s gonna be chill, man, and share and stuff.” Based on the anarchists I unfortunately know. They sound just like the libertarians as far as being wholly, hilariously unrealistic/naive about humanity.
One could also argue that dismissal of anti-capitalist ideas without engaging with them is "stupid and lazy". One might very well be able to argue that existing contemporary capitalism is in fact the best of all possible worlds and the final stage of economic history. One could also argue that this is Panglossian argument and that it's entirely possible to generalize welfare in a far better way than we're doing currently. But that's an argument worth having.
Also, best living standards in human history? FFS, there have been periods in American history where average living standards were better than they are today. Since 2008, it's been very good for a few techies and not so hot for most people. Hence, why we're seeing all these messy populist movements, right and left.
As to Clemantine Morrigan's argument, economic precarity or outright poverty, things that are on the increase, really do make people feel powerless and take a psychologial toll. albeit, that's probably a more precise argument than simply blaming capitalism broadly.
Has there been any global backsliding? The past fifty years of capitalism have been much better at lifting people out of extreme poverty than in improving the lives of middle class Americans.
I think if we couch the poverty/precarity as being the kind that's linked to elite overproduction (i.e. adjunct profs and foundation staffers fighting over ever fewer opportunities and not, you know, multigenerational destitution), then this analysis is accurate. And yes, this kind of elite overproduction is a feature of the current form of American capitalism.
Except it is a huge extrapolation to assume the cancellers are dealing with poverty or economic insecurity. Perhaps.
They also might just dicks
But also. I wish she would explain if cancel culture was in effect when there were other times of extreme income inequality. What is thr difference between now and those other times.
There was a portion where she goes back and forth between the PMC using cancellation in a self serving way (definitely true), immediately followed by saying cancellation is an artifact of poverty / powerlessness (probably true in a more diffuse way).
The 90s were when federal welfare was just..elimonated. The problem is that the low education jobs that could provide a living - those dried up soon after. And it has been getting worse ever since. But I think of started in the 80s.
I used to feel this way but now I try to walk into things with the thought that the person I’m talking to probably wants a better world and not a worse one and probably also they don’t have any idea of the academic meaning of any of econ lingo. Most people who say “capitalism” mean something like “Perverse Incentives” or “Rent Seeking” or “Monopolistic practices” or what have you. Just because we know what those words, precisely, mean doesn’t mean the other person is using them that way. None of these systems are gods and they were all put in place by us, for us, so I try to help people who talk this way give their best argument and then its usually something pretty reasonable.
Amen! Such a childish millennial/Gen Z fad to say ‘capitalism’ is the problem. How? But they don’t read or understand history. Most of these people couldn’t even tell you what country we broke from in 1776 or what the Declaration of Independence says. They hate America but they don’t even know what America is.
I’m not sure I follow your statement. Are you familiar with woke social justice thinking? They want a ‘trigger warning’ on the U.S. constitution, for example. They generally feel that the first amendment is only for those who agree with their views. Wokeism stems originally from Marxist ideology. They don’t deny this. They are fundamentally anti-capitalist and anti-American.
There's a whole lot of Marxists who will tell you that wokism is pretty far from Marxist, whatever you think of actually existing Marxism.
The fact that much of wokism employs very radical-sounding rhetoric while not just being not anti-capitalist, but hostile to class-based analysis and cross-racial working class solidarity is a very big reason that institutions like the centrist wing of the Democratic Party and many corporations have embraced it so readily. From about 2008 to 2020, there's been a major challenge to the neoliberal center from the far left, as represented by movements like Occupy and the Bernie Sanders campaign. "Liberal establishment" types (for lack of a better term) have had a lot of success in weaponizing identity politics to derail this challenge.
Yup. So this time the leftist Marxist view point is stymied because wokism has been embraced by corporatist and centrists.
Pour me another beer.
The last forty years have seen Marxists memorizing their mumbo jumbo, regurgitating it, and then explaining why the working classes aren't just enlightened enoough to understand it.
Woke is fundamentally anti-Marxist. It's something that neoliberalism/late-stage capitalism uses to police people, keep them divided and thus unable to organize in their own interests. It is used by the powers that be to prop up late-stage capitalism. Woke is shoring up your capitalism for you baby.
I think it’s worth mentioning, though, that most actual marxists today are just as frustrated with wokeness as anybody else. There may be a common ancestor but the identitarians and marxists I know are worlds apart. The main difference is that identitarianism doesn’t care about class, poverty, worker safety or the labour movement. Marxists do. Marxists don’t care very much about esthetic, symbolic or representational wins; their focus is economic redistribution. Socialist and Marxist organizations are being blown up by identitarians left and right. That means two things: that some identitarians align themselves with socialism or Marxism, but also that many Marxists are keenly aware of the destructive power of wreckerism as defined by Clementine and consider identitarians to be agents provocateurs with liberal arts graduate degrees.
A YouTuber I follow blamed capitalism for the current glut of MCU shows and movies. Apparently capitalism gets no credit for creating the MCU in the first place.
Capitalism also gets no credit from these types for the number of independent films out there (and unprecedented ease of independently making films) or how accessible foreign cinema is now.
I was speaking about the phenomenon of Wokeism generally in this comment, not her specifically. As far as her specifically, though I did disagree with some of her far left ideas, I truly respect and value her thoughtful discussion. And points for rational, civil conversation!
I agree that I don't like the whole concept of blaming this vague, undefined term 'capitalism' (since they often don't use it in the way definied by economics).
However, I don't understand the connection between hating capitalism to hating America.
Just want to point out that she's Canadian and America isn't the only country that operates on capitalism. Feels like you're jumping to preconcluded ideas and, for lack of a better word, getting 'triggered' by her comment about capitalism. :P
Thank you for pointing that out. Cancellation might be due to people freling powerless under capitalism. It might also due to being online and not seeing someone's face after coming after them. It might be that we do not have to face the repercussions of being a dick.
And you know. Making a living off podcasts and books? That Is very capitalist- enabled.
And my mom grew up in Communist Poland. There are definitely benefits to lovong in a more socialist society. But cancel culture occurred there too. It is pretty inane.
This was absolutely great (and heartbreaking at times).
I really wonder what percentage of very vocal woke people actually believe what they say and what percentage is just utterly terrified of losing all of their friends.
I assume 90% the latter. I was cancelled in Portland, OR (I don't recommend it) and the number of people who told me to my face "it's just too expensive to know you. I have a job/family/kids/business/etc."
It's like Mafia shit here. There are real and very scary consequences. Especially now that we essentially don't have police. I wonder we they all wanted police abolition...
I want to hear more of your cancellation story Max. Why were you cancelled, and did you get a letter in the mail or by Twitter? Did it happen slow or fast? Did anyone stick by you? Raised in the PNW, so I am both sorry and yet it is so PNW to do this to someone.
An ex I hadn't spoken to in ~3 years (broke up when I posted something problematic on Tumblr - this is your first red flag) posted an online callout via Wordpress. It accused me of... everything? ALL the isms, from race/gender/trans/able/etc all the way down to micro stuff like militant veganism (supposedly I would bully people about food choices). There was a one sentence rape accusation in there (bit of burying the lead) but that was dropped when it became clear she had already told that story with a different subject as the perpetrator.
My world went up in flames. The nicest thing people would say *publicly* about me was “I have never personally observed any of those behaviors but I believe all women and marginalized voices…”
Friends were harassed, lost freelance work, and dipped.
Then the telephone game began and rumors of things that weren’t even in the callout started surfacing. Rumored death threats to black political leaders (seems easy to verify?). Rumors I was a serial rapist (no accusations but maybe the victims were too afraid to come forward even anonymously?).
To this day if you google me there are anonymous twitter accounts that “signal boost” my callout even though the links are broken because there aren’t any accusations left. This all began in 2014 and I’m still dealing with the fallout. Katie actually spoke to me a few years back when she was still with the Stranger for a piece she was working on.
My husband had someone make up lies about him because he wouldn't cooperate with her on a book she was writing about the Olympics.
She was sort of a dilettante, without a job, and decided a write a book about Olympic hopefuls. He was a busy coach, and didn't give her the time of day.
She self- published the book, and accused him of sexual harassment (harassing her). Which, if you know him, is sort of funny. She ended up getting sued for making shit up in the book, she lost, and it was pulled.
Thank God this was pre Twitter.
This is one of the reasons that "Believe All Women" was really stupid to me.
Sorry that happened to him. I've heard so many "thank god this was pre Twitter/Tumblr/Facebook" stories. When you are a high profile cancelled person in your town people start coming out of the woodwork to tell you their stories because they'll finally be believed.
I call it the Doppelgänger Social Club. The post-cancelled seeking each other out.
I flipped from "believe all women" to "take serious accusations seriously" overnight. It has given me a pretty good bullshit detector - because you can start to sort out the really suspicious ones early.
I forgot that I kind of had an analog cancellation in '87.
I went to small college before transferring to a big university. Right before I left the small college, a couple girls started a rumour that I had been stealing things all over town and from girls on my floor. If you have read my bike posts in this thread, you know how I feel about thieves. I never freaking steal!!! Don't now, didn't then. I still have no idea why they tried to implicate me.
Anyway, almost everyone I knew, all the friendships I had made at that college just disappeared. Gone.
Ever since then, I have a very small circle of trust.
Horrifying. I hope you have some people who stuck by you or at least that you’ve found solid new friends. I feel such a sense of relief that now that I’ve left those circles, I can and will publicly stand by any friends of mine who experience social abuse like this. There was a time where I wouldn’t have, but that had come to feel unconscionable.
Ohh, are you vegan by any chance? Don't want to get into a huge animal rights debate here, but I'm extremely frustrated by people to defend the "marginalized" all the time, but don't give a damn about farmed animals.
I was strictly vegan at the time. Now more like 90%? They were coming at it from the (popular at the time) notion that veganism is peak white supremacy + fat phobic + ablest + oh the poor people of color who pick vegetables. Because, as we all know, meat packing is done by wealthy white men...
Wow, that is absolutely insane -- especially considering that a number of vegan restaurants are run by Asians or pan-African Rastas. Also, Lizzo, the queen of fat acceptance, I recently learned is vegan!
But yeah, facts don't carry much weight here, I guess.
Funny enough, my two most woke friends have criticized me for “caring more about animals than people.” One brought it up over my donating to animal organizations, the other when I was talking about adopting a special needs cat. I hadn’t expressed anything about caring about animals over people during those conversations.
But I will say, it’s true now. Animals aren’t nearly as annoying.
That kind of sentiment is completely revolting to me on a visceral level. Other than by pointing to a Judeo-Christian worldview that views humans as made in God's image, how do you justify the idea that human life is infinitely more valuable than animal life? To say nothing of the whole climate change argument in favor of veganism and vegetarianism.
Unless we're spending all of our energy and financial resources on whatever class of people is considered most oppressed in the moment, we're racist, transphobic, etc. As if I can't refrain from eating animals and support progressive policies at the same time.
Not that I wanted to get into an animal rights debate here. . . but seriously.
I would guess A LOT. I skirt around the edges of "woke spaces" because of the volunteer work that I do, all the non-profit players I interact with because of my volunteer work, and because Asheville has a very "woke" scene (as well as a lot of conservatism so it makes for very interesting political dynamics and public comment at City Council and County Commission meetings). I am mostly in racial justice circles that center on housing and economics, but gender ideology is all up in there too, and what I see is a lot of "practicing woke speak" to stay in the game and to protect their jobs. They call it "shared language". And it's never defined, just everyone using certain terms and phrases to show that they are okay. And the cloying and obsequiousness is nauseating. I actually heard a moderator of an online racial justice caucus (during the Covid lockdown here) mention that she knew that "asking someone to mute themselves when they are not speaking is an act of dominance and aggression" (didn't say actual violence, thank god). It took all my strength to not roll my eyes and laugh. I only attended this once, but I challenged, very gently, some of the conventions of the proceeding. I suggested that the "wokespeak" was a way of avoiding these "difficult conversations" we are all supposed to be having, and, thoughout the hour and a half, everytime I made a comment I was told - in the most obsequious manner possible - how wise I was. Decided then and there that if I am that "wise" - I was 59 at the time so ageism? (just kidding) - maybe I have graduated from kindergarten and can stop wasting my time with these kinds of "spaces". Never went back. Only went the one time because a friend of mine had said these sessions had gotten much better - my friend was wrong!
It was a long time ago, before I quit reading paper books in favor of kindle with the adjustable font. One book I recall is Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. I suggest you google historical fiction and/or memoirs based on Chinese Cultural Revolution, then go to Amazon or Goodreads or somewhere to read book reviews.
FYI, there's a "memoir" written in 2013 by a Chinese immigrant to US named Ping Fu, who became a successful software entrepreneur. In reading her "memoir" it was just not believable, to me, an American who's been to China once (not an expert by any means). Many Chinese people called bullshit on her tales. But it wasn't just that she seemed to be exaggerating torture, etc., it was that she always came out smelling like a rose. She was always the smartest, did the best work, etc. So that's another subject but related. Like I could tell from the stories I had read of Chinese "intellectuals" who lived through this time period that her stories lacked credibility. It's an interesting rabbithole to go down. Her book was "Bend Not Break" if you want to research articles about it and her.
Is it even about believing what they say? The issue is the next step on which is genuinely believing that you can’t associate with someone who disagrees with you.
I loved this. The abolition ideology is absurd, in my opinion, but I very much cherish civil debate. On a personal note: Morrigan’s sobriety matters a huge amount here. I’m sober 12 years myself. Our national discourse feels very ‘alcoholic’ right now. Twelve-step recovery helps you grow up and become less narcissistic and self-involved. You begin to mature and sort your life out and help others and genuinely connect to reality. Victimhood is not supported in AA; taking responsibility very much is. Social justice warriors are all about victimhood and immaturity and shutting down dissenting opinions. The two cannot coexist very well. So, good for Morrigan on getting sober and seeing through the lies and woke bullshit!
Thanks for this Michael. My canceller actually took my callout down and included me in her amends when she entered a recovery program. Every year I hear about more and more of the people who harassed me or others in our city entering Twelve-step programs or something similar.
Wow really? That is great to hear and also very interesting on how the AA program is almost like a deprogramming of this victimhood and callout culture mindset.
Definitely. Were I not sober and hadn't been doing AA for the past 12 years I'm certain I'd have a much different (perhaps more victimy) perspective on our modern times. The steps are all about accountability. Personal responsibility. And how could we in AA judge others outside AA? Shit, I know people in The Program who have killed people, ya know? People who have done the worst things you can imagine. And then (and this is crucial) they CHANGED and got sober. They made amends. Which brings up something else: What the F happened to redemption in this country? Now it's like if you said something untoward 15 years ago that's it; you're "out."
That is awesome. Yes. AA definitely teaches the opposite of contemporary SJW culture. (And thank God.) Sadly, despite AA's commitment to political neutrality and disinterest (also thank God), I've noticed more political rants (always from people on the Left) in meetings the past two years. Very annoying. One thing happened in 2020 a few months into the lockdowns on an AA zoom meeting which I found very instructive and interesting.
One of those obnoxious Zoom bombers got on and started yelling about N-word this and N-word that. The meeting sort of paused for a moment and they expelled the jackass. (Probably some obese 15-year-old in a basement somewhere in Wyoming.) Anyway, the person leading the group proceeded to carry on with the meeting...until a young female POC spoke up and said we all needed to have a discussion right then, in real time, about the language we'd just experienced.
So the meeting devolved into said discussion. It lasted about 20 minutes. Many black people spoke up and quite a few white people. It became clear very quickly that there was a generational and gender divide. The few young black women basically said something to the effect of, "This language is harmful and it was clearly aimed at black people. This is the legacy of racism and slavery," etc. Then several older black men in their fifties spoke up and basically said, "Why are we giving the Zoom bomber this much power? It's not about racism, it's about some idiot trying to get a quick rise out of us, which he has clearly now succeeded in doing. Let's just move on. This is AA." Several white people spoke up on both sides and then finally the debacle ended. I laughed, shook my head, and left the meeting.
After getting off I felt like, "I need a meeting now!" But I'm glad I witnessed it. It was very telling.
Michael Mohr
I write a lot about AA, sobriety, writing, culture, etc if anyone wants to subscribe to my Substack: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
I was not addicted to alcohol, but I had severe adhd for most of my life - which can be an ingrained addiction to avoidance, in my experience, a learned behavior that starts VERY early in life, with similar roots to addiction. And apart from inherited predisposition, a lot of it comes from unmet attachment needs - which may be a result of parents, doctors, teachers and the greater environment not recognizing the needs of the child for many varied reasons that are unique to each person who develops this stress response.
I wonder how much of this cancel culture phenomenon comes from projecting this sort of unprocessed trauma response in mass via social media. kids who were a little different not getting their needs met as children enabling each other and kind of demanding that society cater to the sensitivity of those wounds, instead of finding a way to learn as adults how to recognize and meet those needs for themselves.
I bring up religion a lot on this board, and I think trauma responses to extremist faith and faithlessness itself also throw gasoline onto this phenomena. People have few tools for grounding and little sense of *healthy* secure belonging. Self regulation through prayer and clear defined core values that one shares with others are vital tools for emotional processing, resilience, and forgiveness.
We hate to admit we need recovery, but I agree with Clementine that modern life is a lot more traumatizing than we admit. The US has deplorable health conditions compared to other developed nations. A nation cannot have so much chronic illness AND be successfully meeting the needs of people, especially children. Growing up without your unmet needs even being acknowledged is traumatizing. It’s the trauma of neglect. If it’s not capitalism, it’s something. We only have to look at the health of other developed nations, and not compare to other times in history, to see that some how we are neglecting ourselves in our culture.
That being said, calling out culture doesn’t seem to be making anything better. I have a lot of friends in the interior of the country who are living better lives MINDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS.
I was diagnosed with ADHD later in life. May I ask if any treatments were helpful for you? I’ve tried med after med, then none, then back to ones I’ve tried before. I’m pretty lousy at being able to tell if anything helps or not.
(I ask this with the understanding that everyone is different & there’s no one way to treat ADHD, though overall stimulants are shown to be helpful for most, though not all people.)
It’s kind of like compulsive avoidance, and it’s a behavior like substance abuse, that gets worse with time, but which also does respond to willingness, interventions, knowledgeable support (which thank God there is now) and... grace .
I also think there is inherited predisposition and co morbid issues predispose one to developing distraction as a coping mechanism for overwhelm which can be provoked by sensory and auto immune and relational issues. I also think neuro-muscular issues like hypotonia can predispose us - like you said there are infinite reasons one starts Developing this automatic stress response- my experience though is that one can learn to observe the nervous system stress responses and build new responses. There is no switch though, it’s not switched off, and one doesn’t wake up and start making different decisions, it’s literally retraining the nervous system you have- which still might include all the co morbid issues that initially provoked the stress response, we can get better at attending those issues and not automatically and unconsciously avoiding.
I was diagnosed over a decade ago - and I wish adults could go to the interventions that children go to - I have done meds, physical therapy for hypotonia and motor planning, adhd coaching and finally somatic experiencing trauma therapy- all of that helped to build the mind body connection bc I think adhd starts as disassociation in infancy or in utero.
By far the most impactful of all those interventions was somatic experiencing trauma therapy.
*Dissociation* - I write with a ton of mistakes. Dyslexia, I can’t be bothered to correct it all for internet comment sections. That used to hold me back from writing bc I was so afraid of what others would think. Now🤷🏻♀️ yeah, my mistakes really bother some people. And that is there problem😉
Ha. I understand. It kills me when I write a thread on Twitter and realize there's a mistake in the middle. I can't ignore it, I have to go back and acknowledge it's there or some asshat will come along and point it out.
Wow, I haven't heard of most of that aside from meds, PT, and coaching. I have no history of trauma other than having an alcoholic father (the military got him to dry out, and he tried AA but didn't go through the whole thing so I suppose he's been a dry drunk for decades). He never hit me or my mother but he had a temper, we butted heads sometimes when I was older because I'm stubborn like him, much to my enabling mom's annoyance. He's a chronic hoarder, disabled... and now I'm realizing this sounds way more traumatic than I originally intended.
I got properly assessed by an ADHD specialist (psychologist), and did therapy throughout the pandemic with telehealth (assessment was in-person because of what it entails). I often feel like coaching would be helpful, but it's not covered by insurance & I don't know how people pay coaches thousands of dollars. I see an osteopath that specializes in psych stuff for my meds, but kind of came to the conclusion that it's pretty much going to be up to me to build the structure I need to do more with my abilities (I did well in school and I was just under what they'd call "gifted," meaning I always knew I wasn't achieving what I could if I had better executive functioning skills). Masked it in school with perfectionist traits, which promptly crumbled under me in college, though I got through and continued on to get a useless masters when I was feeling bad about myself (when I was floundering after college).
Okay, I'm rambling on now, which is my most hyper trait. I was all over the place, & hold no expectation it makes any sense to others. :)
I say this kindly... obviously you did a good job getting through whatever was going on, we minimize how hard it is to do that. You had an alcoholic father, that doesn’t not effect a person, even if that alcoholic never hits them. We tend to think of PTSD as a reaction to big events, complex PTSD or childhood PTSD is the response to ongoing chronic stressors during our development. being accountable is not saying “it wasn’t that bad”, and trying to act as if everything was good enough, being accountable is saying this happened, these are the unmet needs that resulted, this is what I still need, and seeking appropriate help for learning to meet those needs. Everyone has unmet childhood needs, this is true, but somehow in our culture we have normalized both childhood emotional neglect and NOT grieving that neglect because it’s the norm. These wounds are something that we can attend and overcome ONCE we acknowledge that we aren’t all divergent freaks of nature who absolutely cannot function, but humans with human needs that we actually have to attend to in order to function. Yes, some of us have unique needs or uncommon neurotypes, but our inability to sense and respond to our unique needs is because of development trauma and stress due to lack of modeling and practice sensing and attending those needs in childhood. I mean... in my opinión. 😂
Look into somatic experiencing, unlike talk therapy it starts by paying attention to sensations in the body as a sort of bottom up approach to addressing mental health/nervous system issues. It was far more effective for my adhd symptoms than any sort of talk therapy, including CBT.
Yes!!! I think everyone in America (and probably globally) is on the "spectrum" of addiction at this point. Alcohol or work or sex or devices, etc. Pick your poison.
I also have issue with all of the pathologising of everyone, but not bc I don’t think people experience adhd, bpd, npd, etc, but because I think these are symptoms of cptsd and ptsd and recovery is possible. We are resilient and capable of growing after prolonged stress and tragedy. Childhood trauma does shape your life, but it’s not a life sentence and I think all this pathologising enables a victim mentality where people are enabled and disempowered. We, in fact, can grow, maybe not change, but we CAN grow and the victim narrative convinces people that their pain must be catered to bc it is eternal.
I just see the diagnostic description as a useful shorthand for similar classes of behavior, without committing to the idea that they’re all disorder-level. Everyone has these tendencies to various degrees at various times.
I wonder if AA could be canceled, or if SJW types have more issues going through it bc if its setup (not thinking of anything specific but anything old could end up on the chopping block these days).
If someone steals my stuff, I want them punished. It’s not just an object they are stealing, but all the hours of work I did to earn the money to buy it. Why are they entitled to that?
If someone stole my bike, for example, I would want them in jail/prison for a year. Does that seem excessive??
A broke person works hard, saves money for bike, because there is no way they can afford a car. This bike is their transportation. With it, they can get to and from work and grocery store.
Someone sees the bike, and decides they are entitled to it. Sure, they could earn money, save it, and buy their own. But that's too much work. Far easier to free ride off someone else's hard work.
Now the bike owner has no good way to get to work anymore. It's either go back to a combination of El trains and buses that take double the time of riding the bike, or go into debt to buy a replacement. Time matters a lot when you work 12 hour shifts.
What the thief did was incredibly cruel. It caused this person to have to be chronically exhausted, because now their commute time doubled. When you work 12 hour shifts in a hospital, the clock is always running and you have to get enough sleep so you don't make any mistakes at work. Because when you make a mistake, someone can die.
Nothing about this theft was petty.
One of the main problems with prison, for the prisoner, is that they are completely surrounded by people like themselves. And it sucks to be around people like them.
I'm wondering what you think of the following arguments:
1) Countries in Europe that have more "humane" prisons also seem to have a lot less violent crime. Do you think that humane prisons create less violent societies, or that more violent societies make it more difficult to facilitate "humane" prisons? Or do you think they're unrelated/the relation is not causative?
2) What do you mean by "The US is particularly bad"--it's true that the prisons in the US have due process/safety issues, but there are probably only a handful of countries in the world where I would rather be imprisoned. I think that exaggerating the problems we have can lead to apathy and dismissal. Just as easily as someone can compare a US prison to a Norwegian prison, someone else can compare a US prison to a prison in Indonesia. I don't know how helpful either comparison is to the discussion of how to improve US prisons.
3) There have been a few studies that show a very high rate of ASPD in US prisons, much higher than the general population. I'm not sure I agree that I want someone to go to prison for stealing my bike, but I do think that we don't fully appreciate the extent to which prison separates people with both a severe personality disorder (many of which have little to no evidence of being susceptible to treatment) AND a tendency towards violence from the rest of the population. When you say that you think that "very few" people should be in prison, do you think everyone else is rehabilitatable? Or do you think that having more crime in our communities would be worth disinvesting from the current system?
4) There is an argument that when a population sees that there isn't a just response to crime and violence, they establish extra-judicial systems of punishment, which can be arbitrary and usually lack any sort of due process. Maybe if we implement less severe state-sanctioned punishment for violent crime especially, it will increase the number of people seeking violent extra-judicial recompense.
The word “abolition” strikes me as not compatible with still having a little bit of the abolished thing for just the most extreme cases. I don’t think John Brown would have been okay with a little bit of slavery just when it’s really necessary.
To expand on Brooks, had he not been granted a low cash bail of $1,000, six people would not have been killed, more than 60 others would not have been injured, and hundreds more wouldn’t still be wrestling with the mental trauma inflicted upon them by what they witnessed.
He was already jailed for having run over the mother of his children, using the same car he would later use to ram through the parade. He also had a history of bail jumping.
Brooks’s most heinous crime is rare, but serial victimizers like him are not. Serial victimizers being released from, or never sent to prison is probably a big driver of the sudden spike in murder rates. If you lock someone up for a few years on a gun charge, that’s a few years that they won’t be able to actually murder someone with a gun.
I agree that prisons should be more orderly. It’s absurd that it’s so easy to smuggle in contraband, and so easy to victimize other prisoners. Federal prisons and military prisons have far fewer such problems, perhaps states could learn from them.
I think the important thing is to reduce crime, because it has very high costs that very disproportionally impact the disadvantaged. I think the specific focus on retribution is a natural human tendency but is a bad idea from a policy perspective. My program would be something like the following:
* more police, particularly in poor areas that are currently under policed. However we need to be okay with the police taking a light touch and spending lots of time standing around on street corners, none of this “quotas for citations” BS that was pushed by police reformers in the 90s-2000s.
* good oversight of the police so people are okay with there being more police.
* shorter sentences, having 70-year-olds locked up for crimes they committed in their early 20s is not benefiting anyone.
* more resources for investigations so more crimes get solved.
* sure try to throw some violence interrupters in there if you want but the evidence base isn’t there.
In terms of the bike thief, I don’t have a strong desire to send anyone to prison for a long time but I’d love to see a sort of continuously rolling bike thief sting operation so that any given bike theft has a reasonably high chance of landing someone in jail for a few months. I think bike theft is essentially unpoliced in many communities and this causes a big deadweight loss in terms of discouraging bike ridership.
I remember when I was talking to my dad about how my bike- my transportation- had been stolen and how disruptive it was to my life. He said "They used to shoot horse thieves for a reason".
My car was broken into last week (despite my parking in, what is supposed to be, a secured garage I pay a lot of money for), and a pretty valuable jacket I had accidentally left on my passenger seat was stolen. Trust when I say I was ready to, at minimum, throw hands and, at max, call for a public execution to avenge my jacket. I’m moderately anti carceral, and remain so. But I did file a police report.
A good bicycle can cost $3,000. In most states theft over $1,000 or $1,500 is a felony. That means over a year in prison.
And trust me no one gets caught stealing their first bicycle. By the time they get caught they probably stolen dozens of them, it's some meth head who just makes a habit of stealing other people's property.
These are exactly the kind of people that cages are built for. If they had any kind of self control or productivity in society they wouldn't be going to jail
I had a 700 dollar bike stolen from me so not cheap but not high end either, anyways I think maybe a week in jail would be ok. But even that I’m not sure of. Too many factors to consider like what number offense the person is on , the absence of free will and if for certain crimes like stealing there may be more rehabilitative consequences than being locked in a room.
Bikes are many people’s main form of transportation in cities! Also they are not cheap! A low end bike for an adult starts around $400. A high end bike could be $5,000 plus. I have a bike that cost more than what I sold my old Jeep Cherokee for.
I agree- financial recourse should be the answer to most nonviolent crimes. Restitution in the form of actual money that is punitive beyond the amount stolen if the perp has it, and community service to pay off the debt for those who don’t. And not just some bullshit 20 hours of volunteering somewhere and you’re done. More like- you’re going to spend a whole year giving x number of hours every week to this specific restitution task outside your normal job.
Instead of letting the state foot the bill for punitive incarceration, make criminals atone by actually contributing something back to the society they’ve wronged.
That's pretty much the way the system works now. At least here in Kansas. Every time you see a bunch of blue garbage bags piled up on the side of the highway I guarantee you those were done by people serving the community per court order.
Yeah, the crazy thing is bike thieves are usually syndicates of adults. They’ve arrested people (rarely as the police don’t usually care) with hundreds of bikes in basements.
Many times what they do is steal 10-20 bikes and then bring them to sell to nearby cities.
Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist make it easy to liquidate stolen voods like this.
Well no kidding, huh, I did not know that. Ya, I would imagine that's a crime that's defacto legal given the low priority of it. Man, if I weren't so out of shape, I might have an exciting new side hustle...
You couldn't be more wrong. Cancel culture is about punishing people who haven't broken any laws. And as explained in the podcast doing so overly harshly and without due process and without presumption of innocence.
"Punishment (in the form of prison time) may serve a variety of purposes. First, and most obviously, the incarceration of criminals removes them from the general population and inhibits their ability to perpetrate further crimes. A new goal of prison punishments is to offer criminals a chance to be rehabilitated. Many modern prisons offer schooling or job training to prisoners as a chance to learn a vocation and thereby earn a legitimate living when they are returned to society. Religious institutions also have a presence in many prisons, with the goal of teaching ethics and instilling a sense of morality in the prisoners. If a prisoner is released before his time is served, he is released as a parole. This means that they are released, but the restrictions are greater than that of someone on probation."
People get cancelled for social infractions. Stealing is a literal crime. Apples and oranges.
Wanting someone in jail for a year for stealing my transportation isn't about revenge. It's about a thief being unable to steal more shit because they are locked up. That's one solid crappy year for the thief, and one year of a lot of people not having their stuff stolen by that particular thief.
Committing a crime and being punished for it is not the same thing as offending someone online ( sometimes by speaking the truth) and having a mob cause you social death.
I don’t think it’s fair to accuse her of not speaking in good faith. Even if those two things were in contradiction - and I think there is some case to make there - we all hold contradictory opinions, it doesn’t mean we are intentionally concealing our true opinions, it usually just means we haven’t yet noticed it or we disagree about the conflict or whatever.
It’s too bad because I thought the rest of what you had to say was fair. I’ve been furious with people who’ve stolen from me - unknown people - but my fury is not as important as working out how to avoid it happening so much. In any case given the near-zero clearance rate for property crimes, it’s irrelevant what I think.
I think America is on a fast track back to the crime rates of the 60s and 70s and 80s, and that really worries me. I don’t think nuking the tiny fraction of thieves we catch is going to fix it. Housing affordability, full employment, and free daycare would help, but I have to admit that with meth and opiate drugs widely available and cheap enough that getting addicted is easy, I don’t know how much anything will help.
The natural tendency of addicts is to consume exactly the amount of the substance that won’t kill them or otherwise prevent them from using. When these drugs are so cheap that even the small proceeds of petty theft can keep you high all the time, there will inevitably be a lot of people who find that an acceptable equilibrium.
Hmm. Maybe I’m in my minority here. Clementine seems (and is) quite freshly out of woke ideology. Personally, I’m not sure she contributed anything new or enlightening to the conversation within the BAR Pod universe. Her way of explaining “the nexus” was delivered in that familiar zealot, lefty manner. I suppose that’s to be expected since she was entrenched in it for so long. Ask her back when she becomes totally disenchanted with educating lefties about how to behave. She has not reach the sardonic cynic phase of “deprograming” that makes for more palatable, humorous discussion.
I think the value of having still-lefties talk about these things is that other lefties might listen to them.
Similarly, I have a lot of non-evangelical friends who despair at what's become of evangelical politics, but I don't tell my friends to try to persuade more right-wing evangelicals to vote like them. You have to know the lingo and understand what might persuade someone based on their core values and assumptions.
Yeah, I didn't think she had a lot to add, except for maybe the 12 Step part. Plus I found her speaking style a bit distracting, kind of Valley Girl-ish, with way too much use of "like" (even worse than Jesse, who really likes "like"). Maybe I would have been more tolerant of her speech quirks if I'd felt that she added more to the discourse.
That said, that’s just the way that many young American women talk these days, though “queer” culture seems to really wallow in an exaggerated version of that.
It's the same annoying speech pattern as the gender studies prof in What Is A Woman?, and the professor who was sputtering "transphobia!" at Josh Hawley in that Senate hearing on abortion rights.
The content was ok, I didn't agree with a lot of things (capitalism is the devil, etc) and it wasn't very cohesive. But I want to know what reasonable hard leftists are thinking, so in that sense it was an interesting listen. However, the speaking got to my nerves quite quickly (I'm not a native English speaker, which I suspect is part of why I find it so difficult to bear).
Fwiw, I know a few punky people from Montreal and they have very similar speech patterns. And lots of asymmetrical haircuts.
I wish she would have spoken more about her recovery. I think her insight on trauma recovery would be interesting. I have my theories that this nexus she speaks of is comprised of people with the mix of quite q bit of childhood emotional neglect and coercive control AND social entitlement. And I have some empathy. I think things have gone so far because society has allowed it, bc tbh society allows a lot from this demographic in the first place. Now that people are pushing back, a lot of these people are backing off. In a lot of ways they are behaving like spoiled neglected children when they finally meet someone who won’t tolerate their antics. That being said, spoiled children ARE emotionally neglected children. A parent who doesn’t do the emotional labor of maintaining boundaries is neglecting to give the child the structure they need to build self worth and emotional capacity.
I would have loved to hear her speak about how one must truly address and show up for their own wounds. Because I do believe these people have a lack of self worth and emotional capacity.
You nailed it on the emotional boundaries. Helicopter Parents are much of the problem here. The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt covers this brilliantly and succinctly.
Hi Michael, I have read Haidt’s book and I think many pundits who think the state of the American mind is a result of spoiling are missing something critical - the effects of social isolation on children and over parenting as a response. I think their premise that children are anti-fragile is true, when children have enough social support, apart from their parents. I think parents in part are coddling in an effort to make-up for the lack of social support in our current environment.
My personal opinion is that the internet, family disintegration and the loss of a *healthy* sense of tribal belonging is having an effect on the development of the nervous system in children and the effects go beyond cognitive beliefs to effect the body’s sense of threat. I think we see this is the increase of autism, adhd, ocd and other developmental disorders. Thank you for engaging.
I found some of her phrasing so annoying that I had a hard time fully talking her seriously. Plus the uptalk. Like when she talked about "racialized people." I think it is good to point our that white people are not racialized while other."racial" groups are. But it is a strange way to talk about people. Also. I am guessing she was homeless bit died other phrasing which was strange
I really am not sure how he explains the difference between racialization and racialized persons.
I also do not understand his need to say "folks" every single time.
The other thing is. Yee. Greeks and Romans considered you Greek if you adopted their customs. You could assimilate totally into Greek society if you wanted to. However. Was that the case with foreigners in China? What about foreigners coming to various parts pf Africa? I know India had the same philosophy as the Greeks in general.
I also have to say that I have heard two very different versions of how racism as we know it came to be. They are very different versions. I know this was a quick video but I would love some epistolary or literary evidence of this sorting beginning to happen in the 15 and 1600s. I have heard this stated as fact multiple times.
I appreciate that you mentioned that india had the same philosophy as the Greeks. There were people from the world over who come to what is now india, lived, assimilated, brought their own cultural practices which are still practiced and married into the broader populace. I didn't know this until recently because it isn't taught in our [indian] schools
Also "Greeks" is an overly sweeping statement. There were different Greek states with different rules and customs, spanning several centuries. What time is he talking about? Sure it's a short video but maybe this wasn't the right format to explore such a complex question.
I am pretty sure the term Greek is from the Romans. But I also hate the idea that a lot of anti-racist type academics posit - that there really was not racism until wrstetn europeans created race.
But there always WAS racism. It just looked different in different places. And I cant help bit think. I wish they would discuss various theories of how we got to the racism as we know it now, and which ones make the most sense and why
I politely beg to differ. I don't operate in such leftist circles but I do fear that I'll get 'got' at some point for my politics so it is uplifting for me to hear that there is one person, and hopefully a movement, to temper this mad dash to cancel dissenters. :)
Agree here too. I'm glad she was articulate, but thought it was an odd presentation that she was particularly insightful, maybe to an NYT or WaPo audience but not here. I mentioned separately but her own experience with a path to redemption which seems more practical and effective was interesting to me.
Most people who listen to this pod are mainstream liberals ime. It's super useful to have a resource of a person even further left who sees there's a problem, since some of my friends are left of me politically.
Yes definitely but I don't think katie said she wasn't wokey-just that she is fighting camel culture. That itself is a big thing considering the left refuses to acknowledge cancel culture exists :)
She (and FdB) are of course fundamentally wrong about what police do and how we work. Of course I can't help feeling some degree of judgement about some arrestees, but the base process and reasoning is completely different.
If I stop someone and find them to be driving drunk, I'm not trying to judge their worth as humans or at the bounds of personhood. Society has determined, via its duly elected legislature, that DWI is a behavior the presents an unacceptable danger to the public. I am enforcing that agreed upon prohibition. In order to do so I abide by strict rules of evidence. I don't render the verdict, I don't even prosecute the case. I simply bring the person before the court.
The mobs are principally concerned with judging and un-personing targets, based upon unilateral pronouncements that are capricious and arbitrary. They are not "acting like police". Not even slightly.
It's nice to see other literal cops listen to this podcast. I really like this show. But I feel like having an abolitionist on right after an episode about that poor dog Moose, and how absurd abolitionism is odd.
Jesse, just make an Instagram account so you can like Katie’s photos of Moose. You don’t even have to post. This is literally all she wants in the world.
This is what my sibling wants me to do to keep up with their (human) children, and I just can't. As someone who tends to scroll too long and have problems logging off, I have to go cold turkey on the less ancient social media. (I keep Facebook mainly for communicating with my mom, aunts, and uncles.) So I'd get it if Jesse wanted to avoid making new accounts.
I permit myself these Substack comments because they're like a Nicotine patch for my other online addictions. ;-)
When I’m bad Twitter runs I sometimes lock myself out of it with the Self Control app but I’ve whitelisted Substack bc I pretend it’s my less toxic social media.
I do find Substack much less toxic! I think both the paywalled commenting and the fact that you're here because you actually want to read/listen to things help a lot. The big social media have become avenues for people to sound off about things they haven't actually read/consumed.
You know it struck me: The way Morrigan describes The Nexus sounds very much like a religious cult. Like Scientology or Mormonism, say. You can’t say anything different from the script. Facts and data are verboten. Lying is normalized. It has nothing to do with reality or truth; it’s all about protecting the group ideology. Anyone who steps out of bounds gets destroyed. The good news is: These morons will destroy themselves. It’s already happening.
Indeed. I've followed the ex-scientologist community for a long time. When she talked about former roommates who wanted her to go through "an amends process" or friends who demanded she "give an accountability statement," the first analogy that popped in my head was scientologists who are made to do a "liability formula" for not being in lock-step with the group and so "taking on the color of the enemy." Tactics like this are endemic to the human experience, for sure, whenever and wherever we form groups. But it's alarming for it to happen on such a large scale.
Well, mormonism isn't really a cult, it's an organized religion with a lot of history and staying power. There are mormon (and other Christian) cults that exhibit this type of behavior, but most mormons aren't in a cult anymore than most catholics are.
I'm really moved right now by how similar her story is to the stories I have heard from friends who grew up in 90s-00s church youth culture and began deconstructing in their late 20s and 30s.
Listening to the ep now. I’m 20 mins in, and what is coming to mind is the phrase, ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in. ' For all that Queer culture loves to talk about and celebrate ‘Found Family’, it doesn’t seem like it adheres to that basic concept of what family/community/home is.
I liked this episode, though reading many of these comments before listening made me think I was going to hate it. I don't think Clementine introduced many new ideas to BARpod fans but her perspective was refreshing all the same... maybe because she's quite earnest rather than sarky like K&J. She has a generous spirit and seems to be reaching a different demographic than the usual heterodox voices. And I didn't mind her voice at all and appreciate all that she has been through in her life.
I was just listening to another podcast I generally like, and the hosts kept cutting off their subject to interject their thought or to finish a question he was already answering. Avoiding that is one skill, the inverse is cutting off the subject once they have made their point and are just repeating themselves. Editing of course can fix some of that, but not the interjections.
I find it fascinating how drenched American social justice culture is in the lingo of psychotherapy - which inherently is very individualistic, right? It makes even the most reasonable activist sound entitled, as if we have to end racism not because it’s idiotic but because it gives some activist panic attacks?
I'm pretty normie (standard hipster Brooklyn friends) and I started becoming alarmed when I first got on Facebook in the late-aught years, when immigration was a hot topic. I found that if you simply pointed out that there were Mexican and Central American immigrants who were for tightened immigration laws, or that this was a universal in all countries, you were called a full-throttle racist. And I found that odd. I was not anti-immigration at all, more disturbed at the careless accusations of racism, and I believe I already was losing followers for simply touching on that issue and defending others for having reasonable alternate beliefs. Then when Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown happened, it really took off. To me, the queer-sphere cancel culture feels much more recent, but of course I was not part of it so don't know what the issues were 2009 - 2012.
In any case, I have now lost friends defending falsely accused men in the age of MeToo even though I could not be more enthusiastic about MeToo and even consider myself a FemiNazi. What to me is most difficult is that I have been dropped by friends who have known me for years or a lifetime and who witnessed me being ultra-feminist over and over, and who because of one or two instances of defending someone falsely accused, decided I am On the Other Side and dumped me. It's the complete dismissal of every bit of evidence of who you are and ever were. Suddenly it's as if your past never existed, as if your friends just met you yesterday, when you stated that one thing.
I am fearful that recently I have defended JK Rowling one too many times on Twitter. I have two 30+ year friends who recently are not returning my messages. It's all very devastating, and it's just stunning that this is becoming a normal part of being, I think, a moral person.
I'm grateful for podcasts like this and the work these guys do, and for everyone else sticking their necks out, and am glad for this community.
The change in how we talk about immigration is fascinating. It used to be that right leaning people wanted tighter immigration laws and left lesning wanted looser. But everyone wanted legal immigration. Now. For progressives, talking about legal immigration is racist. Well. This country would stop functioning without immigration. But illegal immigration hurts the poorest in our country because they are all competing for the lowest wage jobs.
Oh. And undocumented rather than illegal. Well. If someobe overstays their visa, which Is the vast majority of people living in the US without papers - they in fact ARE documentrd. The government knows they are here. And if you just crossed the border,,it is not like the lack of documentation list happened to them. And I hate the "no perspn Is illegal." No one said or implied they were. They are living in a country illegally.
I thikk the queer stuff happenecat the same time. And it is crazy.
Yeah, it was already at that point, at around 2010, that people were implying that there should be open borders, and that if you felt otherwise you were pure evil. It felt fringe and naive, and I was surprised that my well-educated peers were thinking so simplistically. And it is now truly the norm in leftist thinking.
And that issue alone, as a harbinger of what was to come, is so telling, because to believe that, you really have to ignore scads and scads of realities and, basically, the history of the world, e.g. how disease travels, how the economy works, what kind of crime was going on across the border. (Holy cow, I used to read Narco Blog, which documented the gangs in Mexico, and that was like yesterday's Kiwi Farms sex surgery thread...horror movie fodder, photos out of your worst nightmares.) And you have to not be able to imagine that maybe, just maybe, really good people across the border wanted to leave that murder rate and those gangs behind instead of having them follow along.
We could have made coming into this country EASIER for the good people who wanted to escape the nightmare of gangs or to simply better their opportunities for themselves or their children, but no. It was early "woke racism" in that lefties could only see potential immigrants as a monolith of pure souls who could do no wrong, as if they are not even human. They are only to be pitied and protected like little children, so of course every single one of them should be allowed to enter and we should provide them as much as we can give, even if it takes away from our own children's classroom sizes and access to hospitals and ability to find entry-level work, etc.
And that's the bottom of all of this: The complete fetishization of entire groups of people and demonization of others in a way that is detached from reality, what was formerly known as "being prejudiced."
Soo my mom came to NYC for school and was gonna return home but fell in love with the city so she overstayed her student visa and was here illegally until she married my dad and he sponsored her greencard. Pretty much every client I have ho was here illegally, that is what happened. They just did not have the fortune of marrying a citizen and so are stuck in limbo for years
And the fact is, most people who live in the US illegally overstayed their visas. Since 2009 that has been the majority, not people who are undocumented.
I have heard open border people talk about how in rhe 19th century when it was Europeans coming, they could just easily come. And now we want restrictions when it is brown people. That may be part of it. But also. On the 19rh century, Europeans were shopped from getting on boats and they were stopped from entering NY once they arrived in the US. And most importantly once they were here, if they could not make a living, rhey literally starved. Or if there were too many mouths to feed, kids died. We do not allow immigrants to do that anymore. This costs the taxpayer. Sometimes short term, and some people for years.
And there was the fact that to immigrate from Europe, you had tp earn money to get on a ship. Just like people from the Caribbean or Asia need to do today, to get on a plane. People from South America are literally just walling to the US Mexico border with the clothes on their back. Which indicates both desperation and no planning.
So there are several problems. The first is we need more visas for highly educated workers. From Africa, South America, Asia. They need work in a safe country, we need people with proper education.
We need way more agricultural worker visas. There is such a shortage of farm workers and there are so many people for whom agricultural work in the US is preferable to doing whatever back home.
We need to loosen tor definition pf who qualifies for asylum. I remember seeing the criteria is crazy.
We need to tighten up things at the southern border. Not just for criminals who want to come to the US bit also because people without papers can get paid less than citizens or visa holders. And if they are not getting paid less" since perhaps they got a fake SSN, it does mean someone who followed the rules gets fucked over.
The big question is people who who come here for a better life and/ or to escape violence at home. There are so many more people who want to come than there are open green card lottery spots. So maybe increase that.
Also. Considering that the situation in Honduras is so bad and things in Mexico and various sourh American countries have improved so much, why not help some settle in various safer countries as well?
And then there is the family unification problem. Like I read about this guy who decided to stop in Mexico bit he had relatives in the US and did not know anyone in Mexico. That is heartbreaking as well.
As I noted earlier, and especially before all of the controversy, back in the 90s and early 2000s, I always thought, why in the world don't we make it easier to legally immigrate? And so, yes, the problem is that it's a nuanced issue and people will only see it in the most simplistic terms. And of course there are some who simply are racist. But I was pushing back against the "everyone who does not want open borders is a racist" concept that has taken over.
I'm Gen-X. Two of my grandparents and then two great-grandparents came in from Ellis Island (one grandmother, coming over as a teen, almost died of Scarlett fever on the boat ride over)(the remaining grandparent came from Canada). People don't realize that many were turned away, once here, due to lack of money, not being healthy, not having contacts, etc. And then, yeah, for example, my other grandmother used to pass out from hunger and had stunted growth due to improper nutrition growing up here as a recent immigrant. It was rarely easy, no matter how far back you go in our history.
I think there was a span of time in the 90s when some pundits were talking reasonably about the growing issue, and some smart policies could have been put in place, but again, it all got derailed by this disconnected-from-reality stuff as the issue became toxic and polarized in the worst way. There was no way to discuss it reasonably, and the politicians fell in line. It's so tragic and so ridiculous.
Around 2000-ish, the accusation was that Republicans were all about undocumented workers, while Dems were against (due to being in favor of the American worker)
I mean hell. Large scale migration, legal or otherwise, is very beneficial to the biggest companies - highly educated workers or workers with little education that you can pay shit.
That being said I find it curious how " undocumented" has overtaken " illegal" as the preferred nomenclature. I hate the argument that "no one is illegal," which I do not think anyone ever claimed. I lile the term " unauthorized." It is not belittling to anyone and it actually makes sense.
If you overstayed your visa, you are in fact documented. The US government knows you are in the US. If you crossed the border illegally, then in fact there is no documentation.
"It used to be that right leaning people wanted tighter immigration laws and left leaning wanted looser."
Not even this! Only a couple decades ago, it was the union-led left, e.g. blue collar democrats, that was pro protectionist policies like tariffs and limiting immigration, becaus free trade pushes down wages among blue collar workers, and it was the pro corporate right that was OK with letting in illegals because it pushed down their labor costs. NAFTA.
The corporate neo libs on the left led the current push towards immigration - because more immigration does mean lower prices as well as lower wages which supposedly "help everyone in the long run". Now everything has flipped.
Yeah. I was thinking about it. I remember an episode about Freakonomics in which an economist spoke about how they had been very excited about free trade and thought it would lift everyone up. But in fact the poorest got massively screwed.
Or yeah. I heard an interview with some Trump-voting Mexican-American Texans, and they were basically like - illegal immigration makes it almost impossible to get a job.
And it is true. A lot of legal immigration depresses wages for lower-income work. The problem is people are coming either way, and illegal.immigration pushes wages down more. And we need workers and a lot of jobs, US citizens do not want
You think? I am not sure. I have heard some people refer to the "migrants" as illegal immigrants. I have also heard they are asylum seekers, which makes them living in this country legally. There are list unprecedented numbers of them.
I'm sorry you've lost friends. I've lost friends I had from college that were in my life for 20 years, for the crime of arguing against putting violent men in women's prison. Later spats about JK Rowling, too, though none of them can EVER cite anything specific (because they just keep reading opinion pieces by activists and never read what she's actually said). I'm fine most of the time, but other days I get angry, because it's not me who stopped believing in objective reality.
The thing about immigration is that when you see the movement in political affiliation of Hispanics in this country (which I realize encompasses people from so many different places that calling them one group because of their language is a stretch). The people immigrating here are WAY more traditional on social issues than the people calling you a racist.
I saw the same things progressing from the rural midwest, I can't imagine trying to navigate this shit in "feminazi" Brooklyn circles, as a (even relatively lefty) normie.
You guys (haha) make an attempt to locate the source of cancel culture. Queer is part of it, but you exclude gay males.
What does that leave but cis women?
Sarah Haider talks about "toxic femininity.". So is it possible that cancel culture is just mean girl culture taken to an extreme? (Serious, not rhetorical, question)
Huh? Cis is not the opposite of gay. Gay men are usually cisgender, as are most straight men, lesbians, and straight women (all of whom might call themselves "queer" today). That said, yes, women can be very mean to other women they know, but they're also (paradocically) stereotypically nice. Plenty of men, especially the trans-identified ones, have attempted to cancel gender-critical women. So I don't really see this as a woman-driven phenomenon.
I guess by "stereotypically nice" I meant that the image people have of females vs. males is that they're less likely to break rules, hurl insults, or otherwise act out. I've seen speculation that much of the deference to trans-identified people has come from women who were too nice to question someone's identity. ETA: Maybe "polite" is a more accurate word.
I hear what you're saying. As someone who was once trans identified, I couldn't understand how my immediate willingness to defend myself could be viewed as...male.
If someone put a gun to your head, would you say a person acting "nice" was male or female?
Our sex hormones and evolutionary psychology mean that I have to work on being less of an ay-hole and my female counterpart needs to work on being more assertive, etc.
I don't think women are the 'nicer' sex at all. They just tend to do aggression differently, in a more diffuse, less physically dominant way, but one that can be interpersonally quite awful. If anything, I think 'cancel culture' is partly a product of a more feminized culture where alpha male traits and explicity and often brutal dominance hierarchies are played down. Much of that is to the good, but it's also meant a rise in 'relational aggression' engaged in by men and women alike. The next step in social evolution will be to reject this type of aggression just as strongly as the older brute force dominance hierarchies.
If we are going to be using the tail of the distribution to judge the whole population, can I come back and ask if someone had been saying mean things about you behind your back would you guess they were male or female? As I said, niceness could be expressed in different ways between the sexes in general, I would suggest this implies that arseholery is in the same boat.
Or we could judge people on the basis of the way the vast majority behave
If you don't agree that we're dealing with bell curves of behavior, and that generalizations can be made, and that exceptions are a given, I'm not sure what else I can say.
Haider's (pretty sure it was her. Apologies to her if it wasn't!) argument includes biology:. Because men tend to be bigger, stronger and faster than women, our arguments devolve into actual fights quicker.
So women tend more toward non physical forms of manipulation. If that's all you have to keep your head being caved in by your intimate partner, and it works, you'll see less reason to use physicality with another woman when some words will do.
Carole Hooven's book talks about testosterone's role in individuals' threshold for violence (though she doesn't talk about toxic femininity discussed above). You can hear Sarah Haider (and her co-host Meghan Daum) on "A Special Place in Hell."
And I remember what 'gender critical' was a thing called radical feminism and would trash and cancel folks they disagree with. I rember when radical feminism was the dominant feminism and seeing trans people, sex worker activists, and sex-positive feminists come under some absolutely *vicious* attacks from the 'sisterhood'. It's just too bad that when the third wave became more dominant that they just reproduced the same ugly dynamics. But I don't think the answer to it lies in going back to second-wave feminism, which was at least as bad.
I think sex work is not a net good at all, and I don't see a problem in saying it. All of the feminists I know who think it is bad for women don't attack the women themselves. Have you seen that?
I’ve seen that QUITE A BIT, actually. Anytime a sex worker refuses to play the role of victim. Especially if they advocate for full decriminalization, then suddenly they’re the wrong kind of sex worker. I’ve seen the radfem hive mind be every bit as vicious as the trans activist one.
Anybody who’s been following these issues for a while (like several decades) will know that radfems played a huge role in developing what now call ”cancel culture”, and ironically now consider themselves to be victims of it because they eventually became the unpopular ones within feminism.
I always ask people who are for full decriminalization of sex work ( as opposed to going after just the johns and not the workers) this question.
If sex work is just work, why don't we have girls with Down Syndrome just train to be sex workers? Its a good steady job with regular pay. We can just make it a regular jobs training program for all special education high school students.
One thing that the sex work is work people don't address is that when you legalize it, you increase the demand which far surpasses the available workers. It has the effect of increasing trafficking of women and girls ( and boys) in order to meet demand. The collateral damage the legalizing causes is enough to just down the argument, in my mind.
Is the demand higher in countries where sex work is decriminalized? If we take the US it seems there are about twice as many prostitutes per 10.000 people than for example the Netherlands, where its fully legal. This seems to counter that assertion.
"One thing that the sex work is work people don't address is that when you legalize it, you increase the demand which far surpasses the available workers. It has the effect of increasing trafficking of women and girls ( and boys) in order to meet demand. The collateral damage the legalizing causes is enough to just down the argument, in my mind."
No evidence for that whatsoever. The claim is that once it's decriminalized, the "demand" will be so great that women will be forced to do it. That's not the way it works. As long as there's adequate safeguards to insure that those working in the sex trade aren't doing it by fraud or coercion, the supply of sex workers is what it is, the demand is what it is, and prices adjust accordingly. As for criminalization making things somehow better, that's certainly not what actual sex workers have to say about it. Criminalizing (and the "Nordic model IS criminalization" it actually makes it harder to screen clients and to get steady, non-sketchy ones and makes the job MORE dangerous, not less.
As for the part about "girls with Down's Syndrome" that's absolutely silly, and a hypothetical from off the top of your head.
Every time Katie or anyone else on here talks about being abandoned by friends it hurts my goddamn heart. Katie is a nice person who pretends to be mean and is constantly being treated like shit by mean people who pretend to be nice.
Very well said. I don’t know what’s wrong with these “nice people” but they sure are horrible.
“I care so much and love everyone so deeply that I’m willing to hate and destroy anyone who doesn’t 100% agree with me” seems like an unfortunately strong impulse in people. Kinda like how every ancient culture has some version of witch hunting and human sacrifice.
I was just thinking about the witch thing - we’ll cleanse you of the “devil” even if it kills you… for your own good. Yikes! I hate bullies in any disguise. Look up communal narcissists too - I read that somewhere regarding this sort - it fits nicely.
Communal narcissism: I like that phrase! Sounds like a perfect fit for Wokies.
I get it but I think that's kind of backwards. If these people are the sort of people to engage in this sort of "canceling" behavior over nothing, they weren't friends to begin with.
Perhaps the real question is how many "Manchurian Candidate" friends we all have, just waiting for the chance to spring into action.
I came perilously close to being cancelled by my adult child, whom I had considered my friend for decades. We now maintain a superficial long-distance relationship by avoiding certain topics. If she didn't feel some familial obligation, I believe she would completely cut me out of her life. So I think that real friendships can indeed be destroyed by one person's adherence to a dogmatic, no-debate ideology.
I'm really sorry to hear about that. I was effectively cancelled by my sister seven years ago because I- an actual lesbian who actually sleeps with women and at the time had a long-term girlfriend- asked her not to call me queer. Obviously she 'identifies as queer' despite having had exclusively heterosexual relationships her entire life. She threw a screaming fit at me, then sent me endless messages to 'educate' me until I had to block her number, and has since tried to convince anyone in the family who'll listen that I'm a bigot.
Despite the fact that in the intervening years our mother has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, she still completely refuses to talk to me. I really don't know what it would take to get her to back down. It feels so completely hopeless, and it's hard to not end up worrying that maybe you're in the wrong after all.
That’s horrible. Gotta love those queer straight girls. If everyone decides how they self-ID, how can she decide what you’ll be called?
That's horrible. I know what you mean. I sometimes think, "Maybe I just need to be more accepting." But then I remember that this "just be nice" attitude is how we got to a place where a vocal minority of straight men (mostly) are endangering the hard-won rights of women and LGB people. Most ordinary people, including children, are so confused by it all that they think sex and gender and sexual orientation are all basically the same thing. It's all so stupid. I hope it doesn't become the new normal.
I'm sorry. That's a horrible family situation to deal with.
Jesus. It all gets so twisted, bizarre and complicated. I can see trans activists limiting the rights of biological women, and white wokies invoking a new Jim Crow in the name of Social Justice. I can’t help thinking of Orwell’s Animal Farm. Tyranny happens on both the right and the left. In both cases it’s nasty and needs to be called-out. Makes me think of the YouTube Ryan Long skit wherein he shows how similar white Wokies and actual Nazis have become. But it’s all culturally sanctioned by the media, so somehow it’s ok.
Whoa, I’m sorry.
Thanks. I have hope that someday we'll look back on these crazy times and laugh. "Remember when you insisted that you were nonbinary and I tried to tell you that everyone's nonbinary and you threatened to never speak to me again? LOL!" But for now we find less volatile sources of humor.
Good for you! I tried a lot of those arguments (I was sure the kickass Grandma would do the trick!) but made the mistake of putting them in writing, because we were thousands of miles apart and because writing is how I clarify my thinking. It did not go well, so for the time being I will just keep walking on eggshells and hope she comes around on her own. It doesn't help that she has a large "queer family" plus my own extremely tolerant family nearby. At least she still answers my emails and very occasional phone calls.
Those are great arguments that I may try using (hopefully it won't come to that, but gotta be prepared).
I'm saving your list of arguments in case I know of anyone who needs ideas.
Had to laugh at #5 because there's always a new one...
Do young women that say they're non-binary not realize that it's not a way to escape female oppression (in a global sense, I think of examples like Malala... saying that you aren't a girl doesn't change how others see you).
I love your list. I have also had success with "look at all the non-conformists non-conforming in exactly the same way, isn't that interesting."
So sorry to hear that.
I think it’s too easy to think that. It’s that they were your friends and too cowardly to stand by you when it counted. Not that the friendship wasn’t there, just that they were too weak to value it. You may say that defines them as not a friend but I think it’s wrong to say they were not ever your friend. Thats why it’s sad. Like when your family chooses something else over you.
I think it’s too easy to look at the other person and put the blame all on them for being weak. That’s a bit convenient - a bit easy to walk away from. If one chooses to be friends with that type of person repeatedly then there is a dynamic that BOTH people are participating in and BOTH people are responsible for creating
We love people for lots of reasons and people become confused, weak, or broken for all kinds of more reasons. I don’t think there are many simple changes that can remove the element of human tragedy. There are people who become a part of your life just because they’ve been around so long and it hurts when they go.
But yes, I do understand boundaries. Sometimes you have to do that shit to yourself. It doesn’t make it not a tragedy, though.
Right??! I’m tempted to think they were never truly friends to begin with...but maybe I’m wrong
Guess the definition of "true friend" here is kind of a semantic issue. My feeling in writing this was that anyone who was willing to cancel you over the sorts of things we call "canceling" can't have held the friendship in much esteem to begin with. There's certainly an interesting variety of emergent perspectives on that here.
Maybe the whole concept of friendship in younger generations during the social media age is fundamentally changing.
Anyone who tries to point to 'capitalism' as the cause of a problem or 'overthrowing capitalism' as a possible solution to any problem needs to point to the specific historical, non-capitalist society and time period they are envisioning in which this problem was better. This tic that the self-described 'true leftists' have is just so fucking stupid and lazy that it makes it nearly impossible for me to take anything else they say seriously. In this specific case she's claiming that capitalism 'makes people feel powerless'. What non-capitalist system that has ever existed gives more power and agency over their lives to ordinary people than Capitalism? She's also making a vague claim that things in our society are terrible while speaking from a country that has some of the best living standards of any society that has existed in human history.
Totally agree. On that note, I have ruined (aka saved) more social events than I can count defending capitalism. (Note: I'm available for hire, 2 hour minimum)
The first step is to ask the perp to "define capitalism"--the response you will get is usually a word salad that has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with the "right" to be paid $220K to write bad poetry.
Before they can pause for breath, you then patiently explain what capitalism is (an economic system where production decisions are market based, not political) and how capitalism inspires many other goodies, like private property, free labor, a rational legal system and NOT BEING COERCED BY THE STATE TO WORK AT A JOB YOU HATE.
Then ask, which of these dont they like? And why?
I've become the resident "rightist" (not NPC left) in my social groups over the past 2 years. A common dynamic is a discussion will move into a topic where everyone just assumes something that is patently untrue, or that paints entire swaths of the population incorrectly. A very calm pointing out that "some" disagree (never insert myself personally), usually followed by coddling to prevent a blow up, and if possible pointing out why there might be disagreement or some additional context.
I'll keep this in mind next time it's about "capitalism".
I never do the coddling part or saying some so I just dig myself a giant ditch and jump in.
Lol nice use of “perp”.
Yeah, don't try to go around telling people that our modern understanding of individual identity and romantic love actually has its roots in bourgeois morality and the upward mobility that resulted from industrialization/capitalism. We gay people get to be gay and define romantic love the way we do because of the same forces that created the middle class. Enjoy marriage for feels? Women's right to choose (their spouse)? Then you might want to try Western colonial capitalism.
They like it, coming from Foucault, but somehow not coming from me.
Oh wow, ya I bet you're like a walking record scratch when you break that out at parties.
I think that "capitalism" as used by the guest, and lots and lots of people on the left, is just a shorthand for a number of features of advanced, developed consumer capitalist societies (breakdown of local democracy and local institutions and a perceived loss of accountability among decision makers, concentration of capital in a smaller number of mega multinationals, cost inflation in things that used to be more widely available or were public goods such as education and health care, and blah blah blah). Attacking someone for using a word like "capitalism" in a non-technical, but widely understood way doesn't really advance the conversation... Just like attacking people on the right for using CRT in a non-technical way doesn't really advance the conversation or help us understand each other.
But If we let them get away with defining capitalism as "anything I don't like in modern society" instead of its actual definition--a market-based economic system-- it's impossible to defend it.
If every evil on earth is supposedly caused by "capitalism" then how can we allow this abomination to continue??
Capitalism isn't a market based economic system. It's when ownership of the means of production is concentrated in a non-laboring class called capitalists.
(Not trying to be an ass -- just pointing out that one word can have various technical definitions, and we should attend to what people likely mean instead of critiquing their word choice 😃)
Wait, what? Non-laboring? So when you borrow money to start a business, and you invest in capital--(i.e. the means of production) let say a podcast microphone--you personally dont do any labor, the business just sorta magically happens?
If you've borrowed the money for it, the bankers are the owner of your microphone and hence the capitalist in the situation 😃
So you pay off your $100 microphone. According to your stated definition, you're now a "capitalist" and you dont have to do any labor. A lot of plumbers who own their own equipment would find that interesting
Exactly. We can't allow this abomination to continue. That is what us communists believe. We believe that the ills of modern society are the inevitable result of late-stage capitalism, and that this abomination can't continue.
PS - If you want to find some examples of societies that weren't late-stage capitalism where ordinary everyday people did better, had more rights, more autonomy, more opportunity etc, I would point to the social democracies of Scandinavia up until recently, the social democracies of New Zealand, England, and Australia up until the early 1980's, and just about every hunter gatherer society ever. Your welcome
I wouldn't compare your ideal commie society to hunter-gatherers if I were you, unless you think food insecurity is a selling point.
I read all of your comments in H Jon Benjamin's voice
My point is: I want these people to explain exactly why capitalism is so evil and what nations with the same diverse population have done better. Capitalism is clearly far, far from perfect. But so is every other system. Capitalism is the best of what humankind has so far come up with. Do the young lefties think Marxism will really work?
Has anyone here who is invoking Marxism actually read Marx? Not a gotcha question, just want to make sure folks actually know what Marx wrote. I am currently reading Marx so by know means am I am expert but I do listen quite a bit to a bunch of Marxist scholars. I am also not an expert in economic theory. But I have had some conversations with some friends IRL who demonize Marx and then confess they have never read him.
Doesn't make the critique very compelling. What I do know so far is that Marxism is an analysis, and a very interesting one. No country has ever had a Marxist government or economy. I believe some have tried to apply some of Marx's analysis to aspects of their economy, but since Marx's analysis is based on a industrial economy, not an agrarian one, it was not successful. While I agree just throwing around "Capitalism is bad" without any nuance is unhelpful, so is saying it about Marxism, especially if you have not read Marx. Maybe the young lefties DO think Marxism would work, depending on what they know of Marxism. But she didn't mention Marxism at all so why anyone is bringing that into the critique makes no sense to me. We do know that there are countries using some democratic socialist principles of public goods governance that seem to address some of the inequality that societies all over the world experience. Maybe this is what young leftists are looking for and what Clemantine is invoking. Katie didn't ask her anything about that so its up in the air what Clemantine really means when she critiques capitalism.
You’re joking right? These people don’t READ!!! That’s the problem. Marx for most of them is a symbol. Read it as: We ‘hate’ capitalism. (Which they really don’t but that’s another topic.) And actually, correction: Some do read...but only leftist ideological books with an agenda. Which isn’t really reading, strictly speaking. Yes: I am completely generalizing here, obviously. Certainly many lefties must read. But as a generational phenomenon I think my feeling here is largely true.
I'm not sure who you think I was referring to, but my comment was about those on this comment thread yammering on about how Marxism won't/doesn't work, with me asking if any of them have actually read Marx. It was not aimed at lefties who have a general critique of capitalism, however well or not well informed that critique is. So no I'm not kidding. If you're going to invoke Marx as a critique of the left, but haven't read any Marx or any Marxist scholars, then I give little to no legitimacy to your critique. I'm sick of Marx being trotted out as the bogeyman from people who have no idea what Marx wrote. I agree far too many shoot their mouths off critiquing capitalism, but people also do it about Marxism. I think it's easier to have a critique of capitalism because we live it day to day and see it at work in real time. It might not be a great or nuanced or intellectually informed critique but it's got more salience, in my opinion, than a critique of Marx from someone who has no idea what Marx actually wrote. I think if commenters here are going to go on about how Marxism could never work, they should have some knowledge of Marx's analysis of capital and get called out if they don't.
Oh, and I AM a leftie, and I AM reading Marx, as I said in my original reply, so, apparently, some of us do actually READ!
Fair enough. I understand. Yes, I have read Marx. No, I am not a Marx expert or scholar. My reference was to the fact that most Woke people have no idea about Marx or what he actually wrote either. It's not me but the Woke person who needs to back up their anti-capitalistic claims. If anyone wants to argue about the evil of capitalism, let's hear a serious, rational argument. But that never happens. It's just like with race: Woke people have zero interest in data or an honest discussion of the reality of race; they just want to call you racist and signal to their friends that they're "good people." There's the 1619 Project, which is basically just fiction revisionist history, and then there are serious scholars like James M. McPherson and Gordon Wood. There is an ocean of difference between them. One is based on pure ideology, the other is based on historical fact and intellectual honesty.
But anyway: I think you and I come from different angles but we land in the same place, not politcally or ideologically but in terms of having knowledge about what you're arguing about. I respect the fact that you feel that way. I agree.
Michael
I think Clemantine Morrigan is more of an anarchist than a Marxist. Which might be impractical too, but I think is worth challenging in it's own right, rather than using an off-the-shelf criticism of Soviet communism for someone who doesn't hole that view.
Then point to a functional anarchist society.
Its good to point out problems with our society. But don 't say "because capitalism".
Right. Capitalism certainly has problems and nasty side effects. But name a better system so far! There’s plenty we could and probably should change. There’s also an incredible amount of good in the world brought by the free market.
Yeah. I got that sense too and I truly do not understand what anarchists want. Or how it is supposed to work
I always just think "chaos."
I think it is “we haven’t really thought this through but we’re sure everyone’s gonna be chill, man, and share and stuff.” Based on the anarchists I unfortunately know. They sound just like the libertarians as far as being wholly, hilariously unrealistic/naive about humanity.
Yeah that’s probably true--she sounds more extreme left than the average
Yeah that’s probably true--she sounds more extreme left than the average
One could also argue that dismissal of anti-capitalist ideas without engaging with them is "stupid and lazy". One might very well be able to argue that existing contemporary capitalism is in fact the best of all possible worlds and the final stage of economic history. One could also argue that this is Panglossian argument and that it's entirely possible to generalize welfare in a far better way than we're doing currently. But that's an argument worth having.
Also, best living standards in human history? FFS, there have been periods in American history where average living standards were better than they are today. Since 2008, it's been very good for a few techies and not so hot for most people. Hence, why we're seeing all these messy populist movements, right and left.
As to Clemantine Morrigan's argument, economic precarity or outright poverty, things that are on the increase, really do make people feel powerless and take a psychologial toll. albeit, that's probably a more precise argument than simply blaming capitalism broadly.
Has there been any global backsliding? The past fifty years of capitalism have been much better at lifting people out of extreme poverty than in improving the lives of middle class Americans.
I think if we couch the poverty/precarity as being the kind that's linked to elite overproduction (i.e. adjunct profs and foundation staffers fighting over ever fewer opportunities and not, you know, multigenerational destitution), then this analysis is accurate. And yes, this kind of elite overproduction is a feature of the current form of American capitalism.
Except it is a huge extrapolation to assume the cancellers are dealing with poverty or economic insecurity. Perhaps.
They also might just dicks
But also. I wish she would explain if cancel culture was in effect when there were other times of extreme income inequality. What is thr difference between now and those other times.
There was a portion where she goes back and forth between the PMC using cancellation in a self serving way (definitely true), immediately followed by saying cancellation is an artifact of poverty / powerlessness (probably true in a more diffuse way).
Clementine Morgan doesn't live in the USA she lives in Canada.
The 90s were when federal welfare was just..elimonated. The problem is that the low education jobs that could provide a living - those dried up soon after. And it has been getting worse ever since. But I think of started in the 80s.
I used to feel this way but now I try to walk into things with the thought that the person I’m talking to probably wants a better world and not a worse one and probably also they don’t have any idea of the academic meaning of any of econ lingo. Most people who say “capitalism” mean something like “Perverse Incentives” or “Rent Seeking” or “Monopolistic practices” or what have you. Just because we know what those words, precisely, mean doesn’t mean the other person is using them that way. None of these systems are gods and they were all put in place by us, for us, so I try to help people who talk this way give their best argument and then its usually something pretty reasonable.
Amen! Such a childish millennial/Gen Z fad to say ‘capitalism’ is the problem. How? But they don’t read or understand history. Most of these people couldn’t even tell you what country we broke from in 1776 or what the Declaration of Independence says. They hate America but they don’t even know what America is.
It's lazy argument, but the jump you made from hating capitalism to hating America is fascinating.
I’m not sure I follow your statement. Are you familiar with woke social justice thinking? They want a ‘trigger warning’ on the U.S. constitution, for example. They generally feel that the first amendment is only for those who agree with their views. Wokeism stems originally from Marxist ideology. They don’t deny this. They are fundamentally anti-capitalist and anti-American.
There's a whole lot of Marxists who will tell you that wokism is pretty far from Marxist, whatever you think of actually existing Marxism.
The fact that much of wokism employs very radical-sounding rhetoric while not just being not anti-capitalist, but hostile to class-based analysis and cross-racial working class solidarity is a very big reason that institutions like the centrist wing of the Democratic Party and many corporations have embraced it so readily. From about 2008 to 2020, there's been a major challenge to the neoliberal center from the far left, as represented by movements like Occupy and the Bernie Sanders campaign. "Liberal establishment" types (for lack of a better term) have had a lot of success in weaponizing identity politics to derail this challenge.
Yup. So this time the leftist Marxist view point is stymied because wokism has been embraced by corporatist and centrists.
Pour me another beer.
The last forty years have seen Marxists memorizing their mumbo jumbo, regurgitating it, and then explaining why the working classes aren't just enlightened enoough to understand it.
Maybe next time.
Woke is fundamentally anti-Marxist. It's something that neoliberalism/late-stage capitalism uses to police people, keep them divided and thus unable to organize in their own interests. It is used by the powers that be to prop up late-stage capitalism. Woke is shoring up your capitalism for you baby.
Wokeism stems from Marxism? I hadn't heard this before. Can you say more about the origin story?
Critical theory (wokism) originated with the frankfurt school, which is both critical of and rooted in marxism.
I think it’s worth mentioning, though, that most actual marxists today are just as frustrated with wokeness as anybody else. There may be a common ancestor but the identitarians and marxists I know are worlds apart. The main difference is that identitarianism doesn’t care about class, poverty, worker safety or the labour movement. Marxists do. Marxists don’t care very much about esthetic, symbolic or representational wins; their focus is economic redistribution. Socialist and Marxist organizations are being blown up by identitarians left and right. That means two things: that some identitarians align themselves with socialism or Marxism, but also that many Marxists are keenly aware of the destructive power of wreckerism as defined by Clementine and consider identitarians to be agents provocateurs with liberal arts graduate degrees.
America is a capitalist country.
So is most of the world.
And she's Canadian
Based on my experiences with people making these arguments I don't think it's an unreasonable jump to make.
A YouTuber I follow blamed capitalism for the current glut of MCU shows and movies. Apparently capitalism gets no credit for creating the MCU in the first place.
I feel like some of these people use capitalism in place for the word 'greed' which would better serve their ideological needs.
Capitalism also gets no credit from these types for the number of independent films out there (and unprecedented ease of independently making films) or how accessible foreign cinema is now.
Dude, she's Canadian. That's not her history. You are the one who is being ignorant here.
I was speaking about the phenomenon of Wokeism generally in this comment, not her specifically. As far as her specifically, though I did disagree with some of her far left ideas, I truly respect and value her thoughtful discussion. And points for rational, civil conversation!
I agree that I don't like the whole concept of blaming this vague, undefined term 'capitalism' (since they often don't use it in the way definied by economics).
However, I don't understand the connection between hating capitalism to hating America.
Just want to point out that she's Canadian and America isn't the only country that operates on capitalism. Feels like you're jumping to preconcluded ideas and, for lack of a better word, getting 'triggered' by her comment about capitalism. :P
Thank you for pointing that out. Cancellation might be due to people freling powerless under capitalism. It might also due to being online and not seeing someone's face after coming after them. It might be that we do not have to face the repercussions of being a dick.
And you know. Making a living off podcasts and books? That Is very capitalist- enabled.
And my mom grew up in Communist Poland. There are definitely benefits to lovong in a more socialist society. But cancel culture occurred there too. It is pretty inane.
Yeah, the whole “every problem can be traced back to capitalism” shtick shows that someone is probably low IQ and not worth dealing with.
Straaaaaaw man
Okay thank you lol it's so lazy to me
This was absolutely great (and heartbreaking at times).
I really wonder what percentage of very vocal woke people actually believe what they say and what percentage is just utterly terrified of losing all of their friends.
I assume 90% the latter. I was cancelled in Portland, OR (I don't recommend it) and the number of people who told me to my face "it's just too expensive to know you. I have a job/family/kids/business/etc."
It's like Mafia shit here. There are real and very scary consequences. Especially now that we essentially don't have police. I wonder we they all wanted police abolition...
I want to hear more of your cancellation story Max. Why were you cancelled, and did you get a letter in the mail or by Twitter? Did it happen slow or fast? Did anyone stick by you? Raised in the PNW, so I am both sorry and yet it is so PNW to do this to someone.
An ex I hadn't spoken to in ~3 years (broke up when I posted something problematic on Tumblr - this is your first red flag) posted an online callout via Wordpress. It accused me of... everything? ALL the isms, from race/gender/trans/able/etc all the way down to micro stuff like militant veganism (supposedly I would bully people about food choices). There was a one sentence rape accusation in there (bit of burying the lead) but that was dropped when it became clear she had already told that story with a different subject as the perpetrator.
My world went up in flames. The nicest thing people would say *publicly* about me was “I have never personally observed any of those behaviors but I believe all women and marginalized voices…”
Friends were harassed, lost freelance work, and dipped.
Then the telephone game began and rumors of things that weren’t even in the callout started surfacing. Rumored death threats to black political leaders (seems easy to verify?). Rumors I was a serial rapist (no accusations but maybe the victims were too afraid to come forward even anonymously?).
To this day if you google me there are anonymous twitter accounts that “signal boost” my callout even though the links are broken because there aren’t any accusations left. This all began in 2014 and I’m still dealing with the fallout. Katie actually spoke to me a few years back when she was still with the Stranger for a piece she was working on.
My husband had someone make up lies about him because he wouldn't cooperate with her on a book she was writing about the Olympics.
She was sort of a dilettante, without a job, and decided a write a book about Olympic hopefuls. He was a busy coach, and didn't give her the time of day.
She self- published the book, and accused him of sexual harassment (harassing her). Which, if you know him, is sort of funny. She ended up getting sued for making shit up in the book, she lost, and it was pulled.
Thank God this was pre Twitter.
This is one of the reasons that "Believe All Women" was really stupid to me.
Sorry that happened to him. I've heard so many "thank god this was pre Twitter/Tumblr/Facebook" stories. When you are a high profile cancelled person in your town people start coming out of the woodwork to tell you their stories because they'll finally be believed.
I call it the Doppelgänger Social Club. The post-cancelled seeking each other out.
I flipped from "believe all women" to "take serious accusations seriously" overnight. It has given me a pretty good bullshit detector - because you can start to sort out the really suspicious ones early.
Oh yeah!!
I forgot that I kind of had an analog cancellation in '87.
I went to small college before transferring to a big university. Right before I left the small college, a couple girls started a rumour that I had been stealing things all over town and from girls on my floor. If you have read my bike posts in this thread, you know how I feel about thieves. I never freaking steal!!! Don't now, didn't then. I still have no idea why they tried to implicate me.
Anyway, almost everyone I knew, all the friendships I had made at that college just disappeared. Gone.
Ever since then, I have a very small circle of trust.
Horrifying. I hope you have some people who stuck by you or at least that you’ve found solid new friends. I feel such a sense of relief that now that I’ve left those circles, I can and will publicly stand by any friends of mine who experience social abuse like this. There was a time where I wouldn’t have, but that had come to feel unconscionable.
Has*
Jesus. That’s awful. The brazen rape and death threat false accusations are particularly harrowing. I’m so sorry you experienced any of that.
Ohh, are you vegan by any chance? Don't want to get into a huge animal rights debate here, but I'm extremely frustrated by people to defend the "marginalized" all the time, but don't give a damn about farmed animals.
I was strictly vegan at the time. Now more like 90%? They were coming at it from the (popular at the time) notion that veganism is peak white supremacy + fat phobic + ablest + oh the poor people of color who pick vegetables. Because, as we all know, meat packing is done by wealthy white men...
Wow, that is absolutely insane -- especially considering that a number of vegan restaurants are run by Asians or pan-African Rastas. Also, Lizzo, the queen of fat acceptance, I recently learned is vegan!
But yeah, facts don't carry much weight here, I guess.
Funny enough, my two most woke friends have criticized me for “caring more about animals than people.” One brought it up over my donating to animal organizations, the other when I was talking about adopting a special needs cat. I hadn’t expressed anything about caring about animals over people during those conversations.
But I will say, it’s true now. Animals aren’t nearly as annoying.
Ha! I do agree with that statement.
That kind of sentiment is completely revolting to me on a visceral level. Other than by pointing to a Judeo-Christian worldview that views humans as made in God's image, how do you justify the idea that human life is infinitely more valuable than animal life? To say nothing of the whole climate change argument in favor of veganism and vegetarianism.
Unless we're spending all of our energy and financial resources on whatever class of people is considered most oppressed in the moment, we're racist, transphobic, etc. As if I can't refrain from eating animals and support progressive policies at the same time.
Not that I wanted to get into an animal rights debate here. . . but seriously.
Wow. I’m sorry. That’s horrific.
I would guess A LOT. I skirt around the edges of "woke spaces" because of the volunteer work that I do, all the non-profit players I interact with because of my volunteer work, and because Asheville has a very "woke" scene (as well as a lot of conservatism so it makes for very interesting political dynamics and public comment at City Council and County Commission meetings). I am mostly in racial justice circles that center on housing and economics, but gender ideology is all up in there too, and what I see is a lot of "practicing woke speak" to stay in the game and to protect their jobs. They call it "shared language". And it's never defined, just everyone using certain terms and phrases to show that they are okay. And the cloying and obsequiousness is nauseating. I actually heard a moderator of an online racial justice caucus (during the Covid lockdown here) mention that she knew that "asking someone to mute themselves when they are not speaking is an act of dominance and aggression" (didn't say actual violence, thank god). It took all my strength to not roll my eyes and laugh. I only attended this once, but I challenged, very gently, some of the conventions of the proceeding. I suggested that the "wokespeak" was a way of avoiding these "difficult conversations" we are all supposed to be having, and, thoughout the hour and a half, everytime I made a comment I was told - in the most obsequious manner possible - how wise I was. Decided then and there that if I am that "wise" - I was 59 at the time so ageism? (just kidding) - maybe I have graduated from kindergarten and can stop wasting my time with these kinds of "spaces". Never went back. Only went the one time because a friend of mine had said these sessions had gotten much better - my friend was wrong!
This is basically how Maoism played out culturally. Coercion not persuasion.
Yes. Like what I'm read from memoirs and historical fiction of Cultural Revolution.
Can you recommend any books? I read Red Scarf Girl when I was into communism and boy, did that turn my shit around. But anything else?
It was a long time ago, before I quit reading paper books in favor of kindle with the adjustable font. One book I recall is Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. I suggest you google historical fiction and/or memoirs based on Chinese Cultural Revolution, then go to Amazon or Goodreads or somewhere to read book reviews.
FYI, there's a "memoir" written in 2013 by a Chinese immigrant to US named Ping Fu, who became a successful software entrepreneur. In reading her "memoir" it was just not believable, to me, an American who's been to China once (not an expert by any means). Many Chinese people called bullshit on her tales. But it wasn't just that she seemed to be exaggerating torture, etc., it was that she always came out smelling like a rose. She was always the smartest, did the best work, etc. So that's another subject but related. Like I could tell from the stories I had read of Chinese "intellectuals" who lived through this time period that her stories lacked credibility. It's an interesting rabbithole to go down. Her book was "Bend Not Break" if you want to research articles about it and her.
Is it even about believing what they say? The issue is the next step on which is genuinely believing that you can’t associate with someone who disagrees with you.
I loved this. The abolition ideology is absurd, in my opinion, but I very much cherish civil debate. On a personal note: Morrigan’s sobriety matters a huge amount here. I’m sober 12 years myself. Our national discourse feels very ‘alcoholic’ right now. Twelve-step recovery helps you grow up and become less narcissistic and self-involved. You begin to mature and sort your life out and help others and genuinely connect to reality. Victimhood is not supported in AA; taking responsibility very much is. Social justice warriors are all about victimhood and immaturity and shutting down dissenting opinions. The two cannot coexist very well. So, good for Morrigan on getting sober and seeing through the lies and woke bullshit!
Michael Mohr
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Thanks for this Michael. My canceller actually took my callout down and included me in her amends when she entered a recovery program. Every year I hear about more and more of the people who harassed me or others in our city entering Twelve-step programs or something similar.
Wow, maybe we need to start a 12-Step Cancellers Anonymous program.
You know: That's not a bad idea!
That’s awesome!!!
Wow really? That is great to hear and also very interesting on how the AA program is almost like a deprogramming of this victimhood and callout culture mindset.
I found that part of the interview interesting as well!
Definitely. Were I not sober and hadn't been doing AA for the past 12 years I'm certain I'd have a much different (perhaps more victimy) perspective on our modern times. The steps are all about accountability. Personal responsibility. And how could we in AA judge others outside AA? Shit, I know people in The Program who have killed people, ya know? People who have done the worst things you can imagine. And then (and this is crucial) they CHANGED and got sober. They made amends. Which brings up something else: What the F happened to redemption in this country? Now it's like if you said something untoward 15 years ago that's it; you're "out."
Michael Mohr
Sincere American Writing
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
That is awesome. Yes. AA definitely teaches the opposite of contemporary SJW culture. (And thank God.) Sadly, despite AA's commitment to political neutrality and disinterest (also thank God), I've noticed more political rants (always from people on the Left) in meetings the past two years. Very annoying. One thing happened in 2020 a few months into the lockdowns on an AA zoom meeting which I found very instructive and interesting.
One of those obnoxious Zoom bombers got on and started yelling about N-word this and N-word that. The meeting sort of paused for a moment and they expelled the jackass. (Probably some obese 15-year-old in a basement somewhere in Wyoming.) Anyway, the person leading the group proceeded to carry on with the meeting...until a young female POC spoke up and said we all needed to have a discussion right then, in real time, about the language we'd just experienced.
So the meeting devolved into said discussion. It lasted about 20 minutes. Many black people spoke up and quite a few white people. It became clear very quickly that there was a generational and gender divide. The few young black women basically said something to the effect of, "This language is harmful and it was clearly aimed at black people. This is the legacy of racism and slavery," etc. Then several older black men in their fifties spoke up and basically said, "Why are we giving the Zoom bomber this much power? It's not about racism, it's about some idiot trying to get a quick rise out of us, which he has clearly now succeeded in doing. Let's just move on. This is AA." Several white people spoke up on both sides and then finally the debacle ended. I laughed, shook my head, and left the meeting.
After getting off I felt like, "I need a meeting now!" But I'm glad I witnessed it. It was very telling.
Michael Mohr
I write a lot about AA, sobriety, writing, culture, etc if anyone wants to subscribe to my Substack: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
I was not addicted to alcohol, but I had severe adhd for most of my life - which can be an ingrained addiction to avoidance, in my experience, a learned behavior that starts VERY early in life, with similar roots to addiction. And apart from inherited predisposition, a lot of it comes from unmet attachment needs - which may be a result of parents, doctors, teachers and the greater environment not recognizing the needs of the child for many varied reasons that are unique to each person who develops this stress response.
I wonder how much of this cancel culture phenomenon comes from projecting this sort of unprocessed trauma response in mass via social media. kids who were a little different not getting their needs met as children enabling each other and kind of demanding that society cater to the sensitivity of those wounds, instead of finding a way to learn as adults how to recognize and meet those needs for themselves.
I bring up religion a lot on this board, and I think trauma responses to extremist faith and faithlessness itself also throw gasoline onto this phenomena. People have few tools for grounding and little sense of *healthy* secure belonging. Self regulation through prayer and clear defined core values that one shares with others are vital tools for emotional processing, resilience, and forgiveness.
We hate to admit we need recovery, but I agree with Clementine that modern life is a lot more traumatizing than we admit. The US has deplorable health conditions compared to other developed nations. A nation cannot have so much chronic illness AND be successfully meeting the needs of people, especially children. Growing up without your unmet needs even being acknowledged is traumatizing. It’s the trauma of neglect. If it’s not capitalism, it’s something. We only have to look at the health of other developed nations, and not compare to other times in history, to see that some how we are neglecting ourselves in our culture.
That being said, calling out culture doesn’t seem to be making anything better. I have a lot of friends in the interior of the country who are living better lives MINDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS.
I was diagnosed with ADHD later in life. May I ask if any treatments were helpful for you? I’ve tried med after med, then none, then back to ones I’ve tried before. I’m pretty lousy at being able to tell if anything helps or not.
(I ask this with the understanding that everyone is different & there’s no one way to treat ADHD, though overall stimulants are shown to be helpful for most, though not all people.)
It’s kind of like compulsive avoidance, and it’s a behavior like substance abuse, that gets worse with time, but which also does respond to willingness, interventions, knowledgeable support (which thank God there is now) and... grace .
I also think there is inherited predisposition and co morbid issues predispose one to developing distraction as a coping mechanism for overwhelm which can be provoked by sensory and auto immune and relational issues. I also think neuro-muscular issues like hypotonia can predispose us - like you said there are infinite reasons one starts Developing this automatic stress response- my experience though is that one can learn to observe the nervous system stress responses and build new responses. There is no switch though, it’s not switched off, and one doesn’t wake up and start making different decisions, it’s literally retraining the nervous system you have- which still might include all the co morbid issues that initially provoked the stress response, we can get better at attending those issues and not automatically and unconsciously avoiding.
I was diagnosed over a decade ago - and I wish adults could go to the interventions that children go to - I have done meds, physical therapy for hypotonia and motor planning, adhd coaching and finally somatic experiencing trauma therapy- all of that helped to build the mind body connection bc I think adhd starts as disassociation in infancy or in utero.
By far the most impactful of all those interventions was somatic experiencing trauma therapy.
*Dissociation* - I write with a ton of mistakes. Dyslexia, I can’t be bothered to correct it all for internet comment sections. That used to hold me back from writing bc I was so afraid of what others would think. Now🤷🏻♀️ yeah, my mistakes really bother some people. And that is there problem😉
Ha. I understand. It kills me when I write a thread on Twitter and realize there's a mistake in the middle. I can't ignore it, I have to go back and acknowledge it's there or some asshat will come along and point it out.
Wow, I haven't heard of most of that aside from meds, PT, and coaching. I have no history of trauma other than having an alcoholic father (the military got him to dry out, and he tried AA but didn't go through the whole thing so I suppose he's been a dry drunk for decades). He never hit me or my mother but he had a temper, we butted heads sometimes when I was older because I'm stubborn like him, much to my enabling mom's annoyance. He's a chronic hoarder, disabled... and now I'm realizing this sounds way more traumatic than I originally intended.
I got properly assessed by an ADHD specialist (psychologist), and did therapy throughout the pandemic with telehealth (assessment was in-person because of what it entails). I often feel like coaching would be helpful, but it's not covered by insurance & I don't know how people pay coaches thousands of dollars. I see an osteopath that specializes in psych stuff for my meds, but kind of came to the conclusion that it's pretty much going to be up to me to build the structure I need to do more with my abilities (I did well in school and I was just under what they'd call "gifted," meaning I always knew I wasn't achieving what I could if I had better executive functioning skills). Masked it in school with perfectionist traits, which promptly crumbled under me in college, though I got through and continued on to get a useless masters when I was feeling bad about myself (when I was floundering after college).
Okay, I'm rambling on now, which is my most hyper trait. I was all over the place, & hold no expectation it makes any sense to others. :)
I say this kindly... obviously you did a good job getting through whatever was going on, we minimize how hard it is to do that. You had an alcoholic father, that doesn’t not effect a person, even if that alcoholic never hits them. We tend to think of PTSD as a reaction to big events, complex PTSD or childhood PTSD is the response to ongoing chronic stressors during our development. being accountable is not saying “it wasn’t that bad”, and trying to act as if everything was good enough, being accountable is saying this happened, these are the unmet needs that resulted, this is what I still need, and seeking appropriate help for learning to meet those needs. Everyone has unmet childhood needs, this is true, but somehow in our culture we have normalized both childhood emotional neglect and NOT grieving that neglect because it’s the norm. These wounds are something that we can attend and overcome ONCE we acknowledge that we aren’t all divergent freaks of nature who absolutely cannot function, but humans with human needs that we actually have to attend to in order to function. Yes, some of us have unique needs or uncommon neurotypes, but our inability to sense and respond to our unique needs is because of development trauma and stress due to lack of modeling and practice sensing and attending those needs in childhood. I mean... in my opinión. 😂
Look into somatic experiencing, unlike talk therapy it starts by paying attention to sensations in the body as a sort of bottom up approach to addressing mental health/nervous system issues. It was far more effective for my adhd symptoms than any sort of talk therapy, including CBT.
I would never try to suggest meds: I’m not anywhere near an expert :)
Yes!!! I think everyone in America (and probably globally) is on the "spectrum" of addiction at this point. Alcohol or work or sex or devices, etc. Pick your poison.
I also have issue with all of the pathologising of everyone, but not bc I don’t think people experience adhd, bpd, npd, etc, but because I think these are symptoms of cptsd and ptsd and recovery is possible. We are resilient and capable of growing after prolonged stress and tragedy. Childhood trauma does shape your life, but it’s not a life sentence and I think all this pathologising enables a victim mentality where people are enabled and disempowered. We, in fact, can grow, maybe not change, but we CAN grow and the victim narrative convinces people that their pain must be catered to bc it is eternal.
I just see the diagnostic description as a useful shorthand for similar classes of behavior, without committing to the idea that they’re all disorder-level. Everyone has these tendencies to various degrees at various times.
There’s no way that putting 6-week old babies into day-long day care isn’t damaging them. The US’s maternity leave policies (or lack of) are barbaric.
I wonder if AA could be canceled, or if SJW types have more issues going through it bc if its setup (not thinking of anything specific but anything old could end up on the chopping block these days).
I think that, by design, AA is un-cancellable.
This is just a random thought.
Can I come out here as pro- carceral?
If someone steals my stuff, I want them punished. It’s not just an object they are stealing, but all the hours of work I did to earn the money to buy it. Why are they entitled to that?
If someone stole my bike, for example, I would want them in jail/prison for a year. Does that seem excessive??
I’ve been captivated by the trial of Darrell Brooks. He’s a great example of why we need prisons and police.
What do abolitionists propose we do with obstinate, unrepentant mass murderers that insist that they aren’t even subject to your laws?
I honestly think most white Wokies at this point think crime itself is a white racist construct 😂
My daughters and nieces are obsessed with this trial It's insane.
Here's cruel to me:
A broke person works hard, saves money for bike, because there is no way they can afford a car. This bike is their transportation. With it, they can get to and from work and grocery store.
Someone sees the bike, and decides they are entitled to it. Sure, they could earn money, save it, and buy their own. But that's too much work. Far easier to free ride off someone else's hard work.
Now the bike owner has no good way to get to work anymore. It's either go back to a combination of El trains and buses that take double the time of riding the bike, or go into debt to buy a replacement. Time matters a lot when you work 12 hour shifts.
What the thief did was incredibly cruel. It caused this person to have to be chronically exhausted, because now their commute time doubled. When you work 12 hour shifts in a hospital, the clock is always running and you have to get enough sleep so you don't make any mistakes at work. Because when you make a mistake, someone can die.
Nothing about this theft was petty.
One of the main problems with prison, for the prisoner, is that they are completely surrounded by people like themselves. And it sucks to be around people like them.
Good post. Add to that that in Kansas where I live we have a free bike program where you can just pick them up and ride
They're all over town literally thousands of them. And meth heads still steal personal bicycles.
I'm wondering what you think of the following arguments:
1) Countries in Europe that have more "humane" prisons also seem to have a lot less violent crime. Do you think that humane prisons create less violent societies, or that more violent societies make it more difficult to facilitate "humane" prisons? Or do you think they're unrelated/the relation is not causative?
2) What do you mean by "The US is particularly bad"--it's true that the prisons in the US have due process/safety issues, but there are probably only a handful of countries in the world where I would rather be imprisoned. I think that exaggerating the problems we have can lead to apathy and dismissal. Just as easily as someone can compare a US prison to a Norwegian prison, someone else can compare a US prison to a prison in Indonesia. I don't know how helpful either comparison is to the discussion of how to improve US prisons.
3) There have been a few studies that show a very high rate of ASPD in US prisons, much higher than the general population. I'm not sure I agree that I want someone to go to prison for stealing my bike, but I do think that we don't fully appreciate the extent to which prison separates people with both a severe personality disorder (many of which have little to no evidence of being susceptible to treatment) AND a tendency towards violence from the rest of the population. When you say that you think that "very few" people should be in prison, do you think everyone else is rehabilitatable? Or do you think that having more crime in our communities would be worth disinvesting from the current system?
4) There is an argument that when a population sees that there isn't a just response to crime and violence, they establish extra-judicial systems of punishment, which can be arbitrary and usually lack any sort of due process. Maybe if we implement less severe state-sanctioned punishment for violent crime especially, it will increase the number of people seeking violent extra-judicial recompense.
The word “abolition” strikes me as not compatible with still having a little bit of the abolished thing for just the most extreme cases. I don’t think John Brown would have been okay with a little bit of slavery just when it’s really necessary.
To expand on Brooks, had he not been granted a low cash bail of $1,000, six people would not have been killed, more than 60 others would not have been injured, and hundreds more wouldn’t still be wrestling with the mental trauma inflicted upon them by what they witnessed.
He was already jailed for having run over the mother of his children, using the same car he would later use to ram through the parade. He also had a history of bail jumping.
Brooks’s most heinous crime is rare, but serial victimizers like him are not. Serial victimizers being released from, or never sent to prison is probably a big driver of the sudden spike in murder rates. If you lock someone up for a few years on a gun charge, that’s a few years that they won’t be able to actually murder someone with a gun.
I agree that prisons should be more orderly. It’s absurd that it’s so easy to smuggle in contraband, and so easy to victimize other prisoners. Federal prisons and military prisons have far fewer such problems, perhaps states could learn from them.
What do you think makes them cruel?
I think the important thing is to reduce crime, because it has very high costs that very disproportionally impact the disadvantaged. I think the specific focus on retribution is a natural human tendency but is a bad idea from a policy perspective. My program would be something like the following:
* more police, particularly in poor areas that are currently under policed. However we need to be okay with the police taking a light touch and spending lots of time standing around on street corners, none of this “quotas for citations” BS that was pushed by police reformers in the 90s-2000s.
* good oversight of the police so people are okay with there being more police.
* shorter sentences, having 70-year-olds locked up for crimes they committed in their early 20s is not benefiting anyone.
* more resources for investigations so more crimes get solved.
* sure try to throw some violence interrupters in there if you want but the evidence base isn’t there.
In terms of the bike thief, I don’t have a strong desire to send anyone to prison for a long time but I’d love to see a sort of continuously rolling bike thief sting operation so that any given bike theft has a reasonably high chance of landing someone in jail for a few months. I think bike theft is essentially unpoliced in many communities and this causes a big deadweight loss in terms of discouraging bike ridership.
Great points here!!
I remember when I was talking to my dad about how my bike- my transportation- had been stolen and how disruptive it was to my life. He said "They used to shoot horse thieves for a reason".
My car was broken into last week (despite my parking in, what is supposed to be, a secured garage I pay a lot of money for), and a pretty valuable jacket I had accidentally left on my passenger seat was stolen. Trust when I say I was ready to, at minimum, throw hands and, at max, call for a public execution to avenge my jacket. I’m moderately anti carceral, and remain so. But I did file a police report.
Holy cow remind me not to steal your bike!
A good bicycle can cost $3,000. In most states theft over $1,000 or $1,500 is a felony. That means over a year in prison.
And trust me no one gets caught stealing their first bicycle. By the time they get caught they probably stolen dozens of them, it's some meth head who just makes a habit of stealing other people's property.
These are exactly the kind of people that cages are built for. If they had any kind of self control or productivity in society they wouldn't be going to jail
Yikes remind me not to steal your bike either!
Looks like deterrence works. Amazing how easy is not to steal someone's bike.
I had a 700 dollar bike stolen from me so not cheap but not high end either, anyways I think maybe a week in jail would be ok. But even that I’m not sure of. Too many factors to consider like what number offense the person is on , the absence of free will and if for certain crimes like stealing there may be more rehabilitative consequences than being locked in a room.
As soon as they earn enough money in jail to replace the stuff they stole they can be released. I think that sounds very fair.
Bikes are many people’s main form of transportation in cities! Also they are not cheap! A low end bike for an adult starts around $400. A high end bike could be $5,000 plus. I have a bike that cost more than what I sold my old Jeep Cherokee for.
For a bike? Damn, you are strict! For me that seems like more of a civil issue but I certainly understand the anger.
For the record it's definitely not a civil matter. It's 100% criminal.
Sure, I just meant it could be handled financially rather than with jail time.
I agree- financial recourse should be the answer to most nonviolent crimes. Restitution in the form of actual money that is punitive beyond the amount stolen if the perp has it, and community service to pay off the debt for those who don’t. And not just some bullshit 20 hours of volunteering somewhere and you’re done. More like- you’re going to spend a whole year giving x number of hours every week to this specific restitution task outside your normal job.
Instead of letting the state foot the bill for punitive incarceration, make criminals atone by actually contributing something back to the society they’ve wronged.
That's pretty much the way the system works now. At least here in Kansas. Every time you see a bunch of blue garbage bags piled up on the side of the highway I guarantee you those were done by people serving the community per court order.
But if they are in jail, they are not stealing bikes.
Well, you're logic is irrefutable. Iron Lady, Bane of the bike booster
I am generally a delight! Kind, generous, easy going. Just don't steal my stuff, man!
Bikes are many people’s forma of transportation. Bikes can cost months of wages even at the lower end depending on how much you make.
Ya fair enough, I just thought bike thieves are often young and jail time seems steep is all.
Yeah, the crazy thing is bike thieves are usually syndicates of adults. They’ve arrested people (rarely as the police don’t usually care) with hundreds of bikes in basements.
Many times what they do is steal 10-20 bikes and then bring them to sell to nearby cities.
Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist make it easy to liquidate stolen voods like this.
Well no kidding, huh, I did not know that. Ya, I would imagine that's a crime that's defacto legal given the low priority of it. Man, if I weren't so out of shape, I might have an exciting new side hustle...
Yes. Maybe 360 days. Not a year. But I get your point.
You couldn't be more wrong. Cancel culture is about punishing people who haven't broken any laws. And as explained in the podcast doing so overly harshly and without due process and without presumption of innocence.
We don't put people in prison for vengeance.
From wiki:
"Punishment (in the form of prison time) may serve a variety of purposes. First, and most obviously, the incarceration of criminals removes them from the general population and inhibits their ability to perpetrate further crimes. A new goal of prison punishments is to offer criminals a chance to be rehabilitated. Many modern prisons offer schooling or job training to prisoners as a chance to learn a vocation and thereby earn a legitimate living when they are returned to society. Religious institutions also have a presence in many prisons, with the goal of teaching ethics and instilling a sense of morality in the prisoners. If a prisoner is released before his time is served, he is released as a parole. This means that they are released, but the restrictions are greater than that of someone on probation."
This makes no sense.
People get cancelled for social infractions. Stealing is a literal crime. Apples and oranges.
Wanting someone in jail for a year for stealing my transportation isn't about revenge. It's about a thief being unable to steal more shit because they are locked up. That's one solid crappy year for the thief, and one year of a lot of people not having their stuff stolen by that particular thief.
Committing a crime and being punished for it is not the same thing as offending someone online ( sometimes by speaking the truth) and having a mob cause you social death.
I don’t think it’s fair to accuse her of not speaking in good faith. Even if those two things were in contradiction - and I think there is some case to make there - we all hold contradictory opinions, it doesn’t mean we are intentionally concealing our true opinions, it usually just means we haven’t yet noticed it or we disagree about the conflict or whatever.
It’s too bad because I thought the rest of what you had to say was fair. I’ve been furious with people who’ve stolen from me - unknown people - but my fury is not as important as working out how to avoid it happening so much. In any case given the near-zero clearance rate for property crimes, it’s irrelevant what I think.
I think America is on a fast track back to the crime rates of the 60s and 70s and 80s, and that really worries me. I don’t think nuking the tiny fraction of thieves we catch is going to fix it. Housing affordability, full employment, and free daycare would help, but I have to admit that with meth and opiate drugs widely available and cheap enough that getting addicted is easy, I don’t know how much anything will help.
The natural tendency of addicts is to consume exactly the amount of the substance that won’t kill them or otherwise prevent them from using. When these drugs are so cheap that even the small proceeds of petty theft can keep you high all the time, there will inevitably be a lot of people who find that an acceptable equilibrium.
Hmm. Maybe I’m in my minority here. Clementine seems (and is) quite freshly out of woke ideology. Personally, I’m not sure she contributed anything new or enlightening to the conversation within the BAR Pod universe. Her way of explaining “the nexus” was delivered in that familiar zealot, lefty manner. I suppose that’s to be expected since she was entrenched in it for so long. Ask her back when she becomes totally disenchanted with educating lefties about how to behave. She has not reach the sardonic cynic phase of “deprograming” that makes for more palatable, humorous discussion.
I think the value of having still-lefties talk about these things is that other lefties might listen to them.
Similarly, I have a lot of non-evangelical friends who despair at what's become of evangelical politics, but I don't tell my friends to try to persuade more right-wing evangelicals to vote like them. You have to know the lingo and understand what might persuade someone based on their core values and assumptions.
Fair enough
True!
That said, maybe people who already listen to this podcast don't need the lefty pitch!
Yeah, I didn't think she had a lot to add, except for maybe the 12 Step part. Plus I found her speaking style a bit distracting, kind of Valley Girl-ish, with way too much use of "like" (even worse than Jesse, who really likes "like"). Maybe I would have been more tolerant of her speech quirks if I'd felt that she added more to the discourse.
Some serious “high rising terminal” here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal
That said, that’s just the way that many young American women talk these days, though “queer” culture seems to really wallow in an exaggerated version of that.
I've been a lot more irritated by the speaking styles of some other guests. To each his own, I guess.
Did you see David Sedaris' take on queer culture? It was hilarious!
It's the same annoying speech pattern as the gender studies prof in What Is A Woman?, and the professor who was sputtering "transphobia!" at Josh Hawley in that Senate hearing on abortion rights.
What a world!
The vocal uptick was intense. Katie can be annoying with hers (and the vocal fry) but this was...a lot
I've tried to listen to Clementine's podcast but it's just grating. The opposite would be Helen Lewis' voice. So calming and mature.
Was the content grating or her speaking style? And yes about Lewis. Do not always agree with her but her voice...
The content was ok, I didn't agree with a lot of things (capitalism is the devil, etc) and it wasn't very cohesive. But I want to know what reasonable hard leftists are thinking, so in that sense it was an interesting listen. However, the speaking got to my nerves quite quickly (I'm not a native English speaker, which I suspect is part of why I find it so difficult to bear).
I am a native English speaker. The way she speaks is hard to listen to.
Fwiw, I know a few punky people from Montreal and they have very similar speech patterns. And lots of asymmetrical haircuts.
I wish she would have spoken more about her recovery. I think her insight on trauma recovery would be interesting. I have my theories that this nexus she speaks of is comprised of people with the mix of quite q bit of childhood emotional neglect and coercive control AND social entitlement. And I have some empathy. I think things have gone so far because society has allowed it, bc tbh society allows a lot from this demographic in the first place. Now that people are pushing back, a lot of these people are backing off. In a lot of ways they are behaving like spoiled neglected children when they finally meet someone who won’t tolerate their antics. That being said, spoiled children ARE emotionally neglected children. A parent who doesn’t do the emotional labor of maintaining boundaries is neglecting to give the child the structure they need to build self worth and emotional capacity.
I would have loved to hear her speak about how one must truly address and show up for their own wounds. Because I do believe these people have a lack of self worth and emotional capacity.
You nailed it on the emotional boundaries. Helicopter Parents are much of the problem here. The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt covers this brilliantly and succinctly.
Hi Michael, I have read Haidt’s book and I think many pundits who think the state of the American mind is a result of spoiling are missing something critical - the effects of social isolation on children and over parenting as a response. I think their premise that children are anti-fragile is true, when children have enough social support, apart from their parents. I think parents in part are coddling in an effort to make-up for the lack of social support in our current environment.
My personal opinion is that the internet, family disintegration and the loss of a *healthy* sense of tribal belonging is having an effect on the development of the nervous system in children and the effects go beyond cognitive beliefs to effect the body’s sense of threat. I think we see this is the increase of autism, adhd, ocd and other developmental disorders. Thank you for engaging.
I was grateful she at least didn’t have a vocal fry.
Ha!! I felt the same re ‘like’ haha! To a large degree I think that’s just generational. But yes: a little distracting.
The value of having her on the show is she's right about almost everything she says 😃
... Except the stuff about polyamory. Insert Tobias Funke meme.
I think I agreed with maybe a quarter of what she said. But she was very interesting. And I really like what she said about being open minded
I found some of her phrasing so annoying that I had a hard time fully talking her seriously. Plus the uptalk. Like when she talked about "racialized people." I think it is good to point our that white people are not racialized while other."racial" groups are. But it is a strange way to talk about people. Also. I am guessing she was homeless bit died other phrasing which was strange
"Racialized people" is Canadian terminology--it's effectively equivalent to "people of color."
It's not just Canadian, I've seen it in American academia as well.
Hmm. Why the different terminology?
No slavery but BLM has cultural and political power, it's a way to use the blueprint in Canada.
Dr. Carlos Hoyt explains "racialized" persons and "racialization". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTcs-qOaAQ0&t=12s
I really am not sure how he explains the difference between racialization and racialized persons.
I also do not understand his need to say "folks" every single time.
The other thing is. Yee. Greeks and Romans considered you Greek if you adopted their customs. You could assimilate totally into Greek society if you wanted to. However. Was that the case with foreigners in China? What about foreigners coming to various parts pf Africa? I know India had the same philosophy as the Greeks in general.
I also have to say that I have heard two very different versions of how racism as we know it came to be. They are very different versions. I know this was a quick video but I would love some epistolary or literary evidence of this sorting beginning to happen in the 15 and 1600s. I have heard this stated as fact multiple times.
I appreciate that you mentioned that india had the same philosophy as the Greeks. There were people from the world over who come to what is now india, lived, assimilated, brought their own cultural practices which are still practiced and married into the broader populace. I didn't know this until recently because it isn't taught in our [indian] schools
Also "Greeks" is an overly sweeping statement. There were different Greek states with different rules and customs, spanning several centuries. What time is he talking about? Sure it's a short video but maybe this wasn't the right format to explore such a complex question.
I am pretty sure the term Greek is from the Romans. But I also hate the idea that a lot of anti-racist type academics posit - that there really was not racism until wrstetn europeans created race.
But there always WAS racism. It just looked different in different places. And I cant help bit think. I wish they would discuss various theories of how we got to the racism as we know it now, and which ones make the most sense and why
I politely beg to differ. I don't operate in such leftist circles but I do fear that I'll get 'got' at some point for my politics so it is uplifting for me to hear that there is one person, and hopefully a movement, to temper this mad dash to cancel dissenters. :)
Sometimes it's enough that the person you happen to run in to is a fellow traveler.
Agree here too. I'm glad she was articulate, but thought it was an odd presentation that she was particularly insightful, maybe to an NYT or WaPo audience but not here. I mentioned separately but her own experience with a path to redemption which seems more practical and effective was interesting to me.
Most people who listen to this pod are mainstream liberals ime. It's super useful to have a resource of a person even further left who sees there's a problem, since some of my friends are left of me politically.
Fair assessment. Much of her language was still very wokey.
Yes definitely but I don't think katie said she wasn't wokey-just that she is fighting camel culture. That itself is a big thing considering the left refuses to acknowledge cancel culture exists :)
Agreed. I also add that her voice is very hard to listen to
So. Hard.
She (and FdB) are of course fundamentally wrong about what police do and how we work. Of course I can't help feeling some degree of judgement about some arrestees, but the base process and reasoning is completely different.
If I stop someone and find them to be driving drunk, I'm not trying to judge their worth as humans or at the bounds of personhood. Society has determined, via its duly elected legislature, that DWI is a behavior the presents an unacceptable danger to the public. I am enforcing that agreed upon prohibition. In order to do so I abide by strict rules of evidence. I don't render the verdict, I don't even prosecute the case. I simply bring the person before the court.
The mobs are principally concerned with judging and un-personing targets, based upon unilateral pronouncements that are capricious and arbitrary. They are not "acting like police". Not even slightly.
It's nice to see other literal cops listen to this podcast. I really like this show. But I feel like having an abolitionist on right after an episode about that poor dog Moose, and how absurd abolitionism is odd.
Perhaps "acting like vigilantes" is more accurate.
Thank you so much for this!!
Jesse, just make an Instagram account so you can like Katie’s photos of Moose. You don’t even have to post. This is literally all she wants in the world.
This is what my sibling wants me to do to keep up with their (human) children, and I just can't. As someone who tends to scroll too long and have problems logging off, I have to go cold turkey on the less ancient social media. (I keep Facebook mainly for communicating with my mom, aunts, and uncles.) So I'd get it if Jesse wanted to avoid making new accounts.
I permit myself these Substack comments because they're like a Nicotine patch for my other online addictions. ;-)
When I’m bad Twitter runs I sometimes lock myself out of it with the Self Control app but I’ve whitelisted Substack bc I pretend it’s my less toxic social media.
I do find Substack much less toxic! I think both the paywalled commenting and the fact that you're here because you actually want to read/listen to things help a lot. The big social media have become avenues for people to sound off about things they haven't actually read/consumed.
Let me rephrase: “When I’m on bad Twitter marathons...” or something something I’m stumbling.
You know it struck me: The way Morrigan describes The Nexus sounds very much like a religious cult. Like Scientology or Mormonism, say. You can’t say anything different from the script. Facts and data are verboten. Lying is normalized. It has nothing to do with reality or truth; it’s all about protecting the group ideology. Anyone who steps out of bounds gets destroyed. The good news is: These morons will destroy themselves. It’s already happening.
Indeed. I've followed the ex-scientologist community for a long time. When she talked about former roommates who wanted her to go through "an amends process" or friends who demanded she "give an accountability statement," the first analogy that popped in my head was scientologists who are made to do a "liability formula" for not being in lock-step with the group and so "taking on the color of the enemy." Tactics like this are endemic to the human experience, for sure, whenever and wherever we form groups. But it's alarming for it to happen on such a large scale.
Well, mormonism isn't really a cult, it's an organized religion with a lot of history and staying power. There are mormon (and other Christian) cults that exhibit this type of behavior, but most mormons aren't in a cult anymore than most catholics are.
I'm really moved right now by how similar her story is to the stories I have heard from friends who grew up in 90s-00s church youth culture and began deconstructing in their late 20s and 30s.
yes
Listening to the ep now. I’m 20 mins in, and what is coming to mind is the phrase, ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in. ' For all that Queer culture loves to talk about and celebrate ‘Found Family’, it doesn’t seem like it adheres to that basic concept of what family/community/home is.
I liked this episode, though reading many of these comments before listening made me think I was going to hate it. I don't think Clementine introduced many new ideas to BARpod fans but her perspective was refreshing all the same... maybe because she's quite earnest rather than sarky like K&J. She has a generous spirit and seems to be reaching a different demographic than the usual heterodox voices. And I didn't mind her voice at all and appreciate all that she has been through in her life.
Just gotta say, Katie is a great interviewer. If she did a whole interview style podcast, I would listen in a heartbeat.
She really is! I noticed that too.
I was just listening to another podcast I generally like, and the hosts kept cutting off their subject to interject their thought or to finish a question he was already answering. Avoiding that is one skill, the inverse is cutting off the subject once they have made their point and are just repeating themselves. Editing of course can fix some of that, but not the interjections.
I find it fascinating how drenched American social justice culture is in the lingo of psychotherapy - which inherently is very individualistic, right? It makes even the most reasonable activist sound entitled, as if we have to end racism not because it’s idiotic but because it gives some activist panic attacks?
I'm pretty normie (standard hipster Brooklyn friends) and I started becoming alarmed when I first got on Facebook in the late-aught years, when immigration was a hot topic. I found that if you simply pointed out that there were Mexican and Central American immigrants who were for tightened immigration laws, or that this was a universal in all countries, you were called a full-throttle racist. And I found that odd. I was not anti-immigration at all, more disturbed at the careless accusations of racism, and I believe I already was losing followers for simply touching on that issue and defending others for having reasonable alternate beliefs. Then when Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown happened, it really took off. To me, the queer-sphere cancel culture feels much more recent, but of course I was not part of it so don't know what the issues were 2009 - 2012.
In any case, I have now lost friends defending falsely accused men in the age of MeToo even though I could not be more enthusiastic about MeToo and even consider myself a FemiNazi. What to me is most difficult is that I have been dropped by friends who have known me for years or a lifetime and who witnessed me being ultra-feminist over and over, and who because of one or two instances of defending someone falsely accused, decided I am On the Other Side and dumped me. It's the complete dismissal of every bit of evidence of who you are and ever were. Suddenly it's as if your past never existed, as if your friends just met you yesterday, when you stated that one thing.
I am fearful that recently I have defended JK Rowling one too many times on Twitter. I have two 30+ year friends who recently are not returning my messages. It's all very devastating, and it's just stunning that this is becoming a normal part of being, I think, a moral person.
I'm grateful for podcasts like this and the work these guys do, and for everyone else sticking their necks out, and am glad for this community.
The change in how we talk about immigration is fascinating. It used to be that right leaning people wanted tighter immigration laws and left lesning wanted looser. But everyone wanted legal immigration. Now. For progressives, talking about legal immigration is racist. Well. This country would stop functioning without immigration. But illegal immigration hurts the poorest in our country because they are all competing for the lowest wage jobs.
Oh. And undocumented rather than illegal. Well. If someobe overstays their visa, which Is the vast majority of people living in the US without papers - they in fact ARE documentrd. The government knows they are here. And if you just crossed the border,,it is not like the lack of documentation list happened to them. And I hate the "no perspn Is illegal." No one said or implied they were. They are living in a country illegally.
I thikk the queer stuff happenecat the same time. And it is crazy.
Yeah, it was already at that point, at around 2010, that people were implying that there should be open borders, and that if you felt otherwise you were pure evil. It felt fringe and naive, and I was surprised that my well-educated peers were thinking so simplistically. And it is now truly the norm in leftist thinking.
And that issue alone, as a harbinger of what was to come, is so telling, because to believe that, you really have to ignore scads and scads of realities and, basically, the history of the world, e.g. how disease travels, how the economy works, what kind of crime was going on across the border. (Holy cow, I used to read Narco Blog, which documented the gangs in Mexico, and that was like yesterday's Kiwi Farms sex surgery thread...horror movie fodder, photos out of your worst nightmares.) And you have to not be able to imagine that maybe, just maybe, really good people across the border wanted to leave that murder rate and those gangs behind instead of having them follow along.
We could have made coming into this country EASIER for the good people who wanted to escape the nightmare of gangs or to simply better their opportunities for themselves or their children, but no. It was early "woke racism" in that lefties could only see potential immigrants as a monolith of pure souls who could do no wrong, as if they are not even human. They are only to be pitied and protected like little children, so of course every single one of them should be allowed to enter and we should provide them as much as we can give, even if it takes away from our own children's classroom sizes and access to hospitals and ability to find entry-level work, etc.
And that's the bottom of all of this: The complete fetishization of entire groups of people and demonization of others in a way that is detached from reality, what was formerly known as "being prejudiced."
Soo my mom came to NYC for school and was gonna return home but fell in love with the city so she overstayed her student visa and was here illegally until she married my dad and he sponsored her greencard. Pretty much every client I have ho was here illegally, that is what happened. They just did not have the fortune of marrying a citizen and so are stuck in limbo for years
And the fact is, most people who live in the US illegally overstayed their visas. Since 2009 that has been the majority, not people who are undocumented.
I have heard open border people talk about how in rhe 19th century when it was Europeans coming, they could just easily come. And now we want restrictions when it is brown people. That may be part of it. But also. On the 19rh century, Europeans were shopped from getting on boats and they were stopped from entering NY once they arrived in the US. And most importantly once they were here, if they could not make a living, rhey literally starved. Or if there were too many mouths to feed, kids died. We do not allow immigrants to do that anymore. This costs the taxpayer. Sometimes short term, and some people for years.
And there was the fact that to immigrate from Europe, you had tp earn money to get on a ship. Just like people from the Caribbean or Asia need to do today, to get on a plane. People from South America are literally just walling to the US Mexico border with the clothes on their back. Which indicates both desperation and no planning.
So there are several problems. The first is we need more visas for highly educated workers. From Africa, South America, Asia. They need work in a safe country, we need people with proper education.
We need way more agricultural worker visas. There is such a shortage of farm workers and there are so many people for whom agricultural work in the US is preferable to doing whatever back home.
We need to loosen tor definition pf who qualifies for asylum. I remember seeing the criteria is crazy.
We need to tighten up things at the southern border. Not just for criminals who want to come to the US bit also because people without papers can get paid less than citizens or visa holders. And if they are not getting paid less" since perhaps they got a fake SSN, it does mean someone who followed the rules gets fucked over.
The big question is people who who come here for a better life and/ or to escape violence at home. There are so many more people who want to come than there are open green card lottery spots. So maybe increase that.
Also. Considering that the situation in Honduras is so bad and things in Mexico and various sourh American countries have improved so much, why not help some settle in various safer countries as well?
And then there is the family unification problem. Like I read about this guy who decided to stop in Mexico bit he had relatives in the US and did not know anyone in Mexico. That is heartbreaking as well.
Everything you wrote sounds on target to me.
As I noted earlier, and especially before all of the controversy, back in the 90s and early 2000s, I always thought, why in the world don't we make it easier to legally immigrate? And so, yes, the problem is that it's a nuanced issue and people will only see it in the most simplistic terms. And of course there are some who simply are racist. But I was pushing back against the "everyone who does not want open borders is a racist" concept that has taken over.
I'm Gen-X. Two of my grandparents and then two great-grandparents came in from Ellis Island (one grandmother, coming over as a teen, almost died of Scarlett fever on the boat ride over)(the remaining grandparent came from Canada). People don't realize that many were turned away, once here, due to lack of money, not being healthy, not having contacts, etc. And then, yeah, for example, my other grandmother used to pass out from hunger and had stunted growth due to improper nutrition growing up here as a recent immigrant. It was rarely easy, no matter how far back you go in our history.
I think there was a span of time in the 90s when some pundits were talking reasonably about the growing issue, and some smart policies could have been put in place, but again, it all got derailed by this disconnected-from-reality stuff as the issue became toxic and polarized in the worst way. There was no way to discuss it reasonably, and the politicians fell in line. It's so tragic and so ridiculous.
Around 2000-ish, the accusation was that Republicans were all about undocumented workers, while Dems were against (due to being in favor of the American worker)
As a side note, this is a doozy of a fact check... https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/jun/27/cal-thomas/did-hillary-clinton-support-border-wall-mexico/
I mean hell. Large scale migration, legal or otherwise, is very beneficial to the biggest companies - highly educated workers or workers with little education that you can pay shit.
That being said I find it curious how " undocumented" has overtaken " illegal" as the preferred nomenclature. I hate the argument that "no one is illegal," which I do not think anyone ever claimed. I lile the term " unauthorized." It is not belittling to anyone and it actually makes sense.
If you overstayed your visa, you are in fact documented. The US government knows you are in the US. If you crossed the border illegally, then in fact there is no documentation.
"It used to be that right leaning people wanted tighter immigration laws and left leaning wanted looser."
Not even this! Only a couple decades ago, it was the union-led left, e.g. blue collar democrats, that was pro protectionist policies like tariffs and limiting immigration, becaus free trade pushes down wages among blue collar workers, and it was the pro corporate right that was OK with letting in illegals because it pushed down their labor costs. NAFTA.
The corporate neo libs on the left led the current push towards immigration - because more immigration does mean lower prices as well as lower wages which supposedly "help everyone in the long run". Now everything has flipped.
Yeah. I was thinking about it. I remember an episode about Freakonomics in which an economist spoke about how they had been very excited about free trade and thought it would lift everyone up. But in fact the poorest got massively screwed.
Or yeah. I heard an interview with some Trump-voting Mexican-American Texans, and they were basically like - illegal immigration makes it almost impossible to get a job.
And it is true. A lot of legal immigration depresses wages for lower-income work. The problem is people are coming either way, and illegal.immigration pushes wages down more. And we need workers and a lot of jobs, US citizens do not want
From illegal to undocumented to migrants.
You think? I am not sure. I have heard some people refer to the "migrants" as illegal immigrants. I have also heard they are asylum seekers, which makes them living in this country legally. There are list unprecedented numbers of them.
I'm sorry you've lost friends. I've lost friends I had from college that were in my life for 20 years, for the crime of arguing against putting violent men in women's prison. Later spats about JK Rowling, too, though none of them can EVER cite anything specific (because they just keep reading opinion pieces by activists and never read what she's actually said). I'm fine most of the time, but other days I get angry, because it's not me who stopped believing in objective reality.
The thing about immigration is that when you see the movement in political affiliation of Hispanics in this country (which I realize encompasses people from so many different places that calling them one group because of their language is a stretch). The people immigrating here are WAY more traditional on social issues than the people calling you a racist.
So sorry to hear Suzen, that sounds incredibly painful.
I saw the same things progressing from the rural midwest, I can't imagine trying to navigate this shit in "feminazi" Brooklyn circles, as a (even relatively lefty) normie.
You guys (haha) make an attempt to locate the source of cancel culture. Queer is part of it, but you exclude gay males.
What does that leave but cis women?
Sarah Haider talks about "toxic femininity.". So is it possible that cancel culture is just mean girl culture taken to an extreme? (Serious, not rhetorical, question)
Huh? Cis is not the opposite of gay. Gay men are usually cisgender, as are most straight men, lesbians, and straight women (all of whom might call themselves "queer" today). That said, yes, women can be very mean to other women they know, but they're also (paradocically) stereotypically nice. Plenty of men, especially the trans-identified ones, have attempted to cancel gender-critical women. So I don't really see this as a woman-driven phenomenon.
I’d only disagree on one point, about women being stereotypically nice.
I think people in general are nice regardless of biology, though it may be that it is expressed to different degrees or in different ways.
I may just be lucky in being surrounded by decent people, but I can’t think why that would be the case.
I guess by "stereotypically nice" I meant that the image people have of females vs. males is that they're less likely to break rules, hurl insults, or otherwise act out. I've seen speculation that much of the deference to trans-identified people has come from women who were too nice to question someone's identity. ETA: Maybe "polite" is a more accurate word.
I hear what you're saying. As someone who was once trans identified, I couldn't understand how my immediate willingness to defend myself could be viewed as...male.
I thought I was just being morally correct!
If someone put a gun to your head, would you say a person acting "nice" was male or female?
Our sex hormones and evolutionary psychology mean that I have to work on being less of an ay-hole and my female counterpart needs to work on being more assertive, etc.
I don't think women are the 'nicer' sex at all. They just tend to do aggression differently, in a more diffuse, less physically dominant way, but one that can be interpersonally quite awful. If anything, I think 'cancel culture' is partly a product of a more feminized culture where alpha male traits and explicity and often brutal dominance hierarchies are played down. Much of that is to the good, but it's also meant a rise in 'relational aggression' engaged in by men and women alike. The next step in social evolution will be to reject this type of aggression just as strongly as the older brute force dominance hierarchies.
If we are going to be using the tail of the distribution to judge the whole population, can I come back and ask if someone had been saying mean things about you behind your back would you guess they were male or female? As I said, niceness could be expressed in different ways between the sexes in general, I would suggest this implies that arseholery is in the same boat.
Or we could judge people on the basis of the way the vast majority behave
If you don't agree that we're dealing with bell curves of behavior, and that generalizations can be made, and that exceptions are a given, I'm not sure what else I can say.
Haider's (pretty sure it was her. Apologies to her if it wasn't!) argument includes biology:. Because men tend to be bigger, stronger and faster than women, our arguments devolve into actual fights quicker.
So women tend more toward non physical forms of manipulation. If that's all you have to keep your head being caved in by your intimate partner, and it works, you'll see less reason to use physicality with another woman when some words will do.
That is interesting. Where could I read/hear more about that?
Carole Hooven's book talks about testosterone's role in individuals' threshold for violence (though she doesn't talk about toxic femininity discussed above). You can hear Sarah Haider (and her co-host Meghan Daum) on "A Special Place in Hell."
Yes, was hoping for a specific episode/post etc because I am lazy. But I’m very interested in women and social aggression/skills.
"have attempted to cancel gender-critical women."
And I remember what 'gender critical' was a thing called radical feminism and would trash and cancel folks they disagree with. I rember when radical feminism was the dominant feminism and seeing trans people, sex worker activists, and sex-positive feminists come under some absolutely *vicious* attacks from the 'sisterhood'. It's just too bad that when the third wave became more dominant that they just reproduced the same ugly dynamics. But I don't think the answer to it lies in going back to second-wave feminism, which was at least as bad.
I think I disagree with you on some of this.
I think sex work is not a net good at all, and I don't see a problem in saying it. All of the feminists I know who think it is bad for women don't attack the women themselves. Have you seen that?
I’ve seen that QUITE A BIT, actually. Anytime a sex worker refuses to play the role of victim. Especially if they advocate for full decriminalization, then suddenly they’re the wrong kind of sex worker. I’ve seen the radfem hive mind be every bit as vicious as the trans activist one.
Anybody who’s been following these issues for a while (like several decades) will know that radfems played a huge role in developing what now call ”cancel culture”, and ironically now consider themselves to be victims of it because they eventually became the unpopular ones within feminism.
There is nothing new under the sun...
I always ask people who are for full decriminalization of sex work ( as opposed to going after just the johns and not the workers) this question.
If sex work is just work, why don't we have girls with Down Syndrome just train to be sex workers? Its a good steady job with regular pay. We can just make it a regular jobs training program for all special education high school students.
One thing that the sex work is work people don't address is that when you legalize it, you increase the demand which far surpasses the available workers. It has the effect of increasing trafficking of women and girls ( and boys) in order to meet demand. The collateral damage the legalizing causes is enough to just down the argument, in my mind.
Is the demand higher in countries where sex work is decriminalized? If we take the US it seems there are about twice as many prostitutes per 10.000 people than for example the Netherlands, where its fully legal. This seems to counter that assertion.
"One thing that the sex work is work people don't address is that when you legalize it, you increase the demand which far surpasses the available workers. It has the effect of increasing trafficking of women and girls ( and boys) in order to meet demand. The collateral damage the legalizing causes is enough to just down the argument, in my mind."
No evidence for that whatsoever. The claim is that once it's decriminalized, the "demand" will be so great that women will be forced to do it. That's not the way it works. As long as there's adequate safeguards to insure that those working in the sex trade aren't doing it by fraud or coercion, the supply of sex workers is what it is, the demand is what it is, and prices adjust accordingly. As for criminalization making things somehow better, that's certainly not what actual sex workers have to say about it. Criminalizing (and the "Nordic model IS criminalization" it actually makes it harder to screen clients and to get steady, non-sketchy ones and makes the job MORE dangerous, not less.
As for the part about "girls with Down's Syndrome" that's absolutely silly, and a hypothetical from off the top of your head.