A Great Resolution

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Clarissa

December 30, 2015

This is the last long quote for today, I promise, but it’s really great and the whole post is great, and I want to have it here:

I have realized of late that reading articles on social media, etc., about microaggressions, trigger warnings, how terrible academia is, the doom and gloom in America, helicopter parenting, coddling the middle class, taxing (or not) the middle class, defining the middle class by income, the economy, victimization, activism, etc., etc., has made me one uptight, unhappy, constantly stressed out person. It occurred to me today that I could just walk away from all that. I don’t have to read about the imminent apocalypse, and/or the secular equivalents, every. single. day.

I wasn’t going to make any New Year’s resolutions this year but the quoted blogger suggested such a great resolution that I will adopt it. I’m really tired of the masturbatory gloominess and showy self-flagellation of the folks who only too often pass for Liberals. They obviously derive tons of pleasure from all the apocalyptic melodrama but for any person with at least a degree of psychological health they are poisonous.

I say, let them unload their shit onto somebody who is not me. And that’s my resolution.

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11 responses to “A Great Resolution”

Shakti

December 30, 2015

Not the same thing but:

I already limit my consumption of news and political media because it feeds my misanthropy. I’m on several political mailing lists and I don’t read those emails because of the hectoring tone. Most of my political mail goes straight into the shredder. I ended up on these lists because I donated or volunteered once. I’ve stopped watching political tv shows. I avoid posting political stories or opeds or sharing political pictures on my Facebook profile for two reasons: 1)not everyone I know thinks the same way and 2)I am endlessly bored by others’ political posts.

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 30, 2015
  “Most of my political mail goes straight into the shredder. I ended up on these lists because I donated or volunteered once.”
  
  Same here! Monica Vernon is still not leaving me alone, no matter what I do.
  
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xykademiqz

December 30, 2015

I am with Fie, too. I was just complaining to DH last night how the feminist blogosphere is ridiculously disappointing. One can’t open one’s mouth without first checking that every thought is intersectional and trans-inclusive and does not reek of cis, able, hetero, white, or able-bodied privilege. Who the f**c can do that? Are we done discussing all the economic and political issues and are now policing each other’s speech full time?

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 30, 2015
  
  There are so many important issues that don’t even get discussed. We still don’t have maternity leave, let alone parental leave. This is barbaric yet for every article about this issue, there is a hundred of pieces about some childish squabble of who said what to whom and “calling people out” on some terminology that they used that is not inclusive enough or whatever. I know a woman who will have to go back to work 2 weeks after giving birth after a high-risk pregnancy. How about including her and her interests in feminist discussions? But it obviously is not as much fun as all this inter-sectional bickering over whether women have vaginas.
  
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2. Shakti
  
  December 30, 2015
  
  One can’t open one’s mouth without first checking that every thought is intersectional and trans-inclusive and does not reek of cis, able, hetero, white, or able-bodied privilege. Who the f**c can do that? Are we done discussing all the economic and political issues and are now policing each other’s speech full time?
  Heh. You’re describing exactly why I stopped commenting and reading Shakesville. As someone who is already prone to self censoring, it was far too much for me to weigh every word and then attach some content warning only to see my comments edited without comment. I wonder if the appeal of this kind of dynamic is that it reproduces situations that have already occurred in some people’s lives, where you must form your face in the correct expressions and endlessly choose and parse your words carefully to manage everyone’s traumas and quirks or else? It feels very familiar.
  
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el

December 30, 2015

\ I wonder if the appeal of this kind of dynamic is that it reproduces situations that have already occurred in some people’s lives, where you must form your face in the correct expressions and endlessly choose and parse your words carefully to manage everyone’s traumas and quirks or else? It feels very familiar.

To me, what you described is unfamiliar. I thought the appeal of this kind of dynamic lies in gaining a (fleeting?) intoxicating feeling of being in control and powerful, which those people sadly lack in their RL. (Isn’t Shakesville’s owner unemployed because of suffering from disability? It must be really hard for her.)

In addition to positioning oneself as a controlling power, policing language also turns the police(wo)men into a center of attention. Again, something they don’t get from people in their RL.

At last, managing not to talk about real feminist issues may derive from lacking faith in one’s ability to change anything. So why not have fun by discussing how many angels can dance on a head of a pin? 🙂

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Shakti

December 30, 2015

To me, what you described is unfamiliar. I thought the appeal of this kind of dynamic lies in gaining a (fleeting?) intoxicating feeling of being in control and powerful, which those people sadly lack in their RL….

In addition to positioning oneself as a controlling power, policing language also turns the police(wo)men into a center of attention. Again, something they don’t get from people in their RL.

What you’re describing is the what the people who do the language policing get out of it, namely those who run “safe spaces.” What I’m describing is why people submit to this language policing and self censor themselves. Of course, language policing may give people who were policed like this earlier in life a chance to switch roles in this dynamic.

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 30, 2015
  
  “What I’m describing is why people submit to this language policing and self censor themselves. ”
  
  It’s like those people who wilt and suffer if they are not micromanaged at work and request a handbook that will tell them what the dress code is and how many phone calls, etc they need to make in a day.
  
  Yes, such people do exist, scary as that may sound.
  
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Fie Upon This Quiet Life

December 30, 2015

Thanks for the link! I read the comments nervously, wondering if I’d get jumped for my weltschmerz. Happily, your readers are fantastic, like you. 🙂

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1. Clarissa
  
  December 30, 2015
  
  This was a brilliant post, really. 🙂
  
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Fie Upon This Quiet Life

December 30, 2015

Speaking of weltschmerz – I just found a short Guardian article from last year saying we should bring that word back. Ha! http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/16/time-dust-off-word-weltschmerz#comments

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