When I'm honest with myself, I recognize that my fear at this time is not that I will outright starve or end up in the gulag (I can hit food with a rock from my back porch - I might feel differently in a city), but the loss of comfort and bourgeois luxury to which I feel entitled at my age and station based on my background. And I know that my parents felt some degree of the same, when their two-income two-child household could not afford to standard of living that both of their families of origin had achieved with only one parent working. The camp, the boat, the retirement plans - where's my stuff?
So if I recognize that as the bullshit tough breaks of the fiat corruption that invades every corner of culture, from the contents of the Louvre to your asshole boss, and acknowledge that I may not end up walking through the rose garden no one actually promised me, then I look at what *really* matters, and that is, what kind of world can my children, or my children's children, hope to live in.
That's where the good news get loud. Many say the internet is killing us - I think it's saving us. It took SIXTY years for the Soviets to fall. A whole generation given lifespans under communism (especially with Lysenkoist surgeons). But the Covid authoritarian putsch started falling apart after 12 months, and has crumbled utterly (death throes notwithstanding) in 28. The flywheel is moving fast; may these new Dark Ages be a memory before I'm in my grave. The 20th century and the beginning of the 21st will not age well in the history books.
We are entering a world run by spoiled, unskilled, trans, queer, gay, nose-ringed, tatted, hair dyed perpetual children with zero self-awareness, zero understanding or curiosity for how things work, a work ethic you couldn't find with an electron microscope, who believe the world owes them everything... and who consider themselves the all-wise all-knowing arbiters of what you are allowed to say, think, act, feel, and do...
Every high school boy should be claiming they are trans and create an all boys girls team. And then they can battle it out with other all boys girls teams.
Long-time fan of Titania McGrath here. Yesterday, my husband read me her “Menstruators” poem, and we were laughing so hard, we could barely make it through:
About a week ago, swedish journalist and author Katerina Janouch (daughter of a czech who managed to get out from behind the Iron Curtain) was convicted for malicious slander/libel for having revealed that a teacher had forced children to write "I'm a moslem." and parts of the moslem confession of faith.
However, this was not a fabrication by Janouch. The teacher and the school did not deny this. Instead they admitted it and filed a report for harassment and malicious slander with the police.
Swedish law on slander/libel is a bit much to go into, but in short, it doesn't matter if the material published is true or not, only if it (as assessed by prosecutor, not the court) has cause distress to the person in question.
Example of our law, which your Democrats, liberals, progressives and so on wants to copy:
"The average IQ of Ethiopia is at the same level where the bar for mental retardation is" is a crime, despite 1) I'm using it as an example only and 2) I can cite scientific sources, and 3) I make no value judgement whatsoever, nor am I advocating criminalised acts.
But it's still a crime.
I apologise for being off-topic, but I want to help keep the alarms ringing regarding what is happening here in the EUSSR.
If a foreigner may, I'd urge to to be ready to use the 2nd to defend the 1st.
Edit: "Peter Sweden" covers this in more detail on his stack, named after himself.
"if having your own words and images shared seems like an attack upon you, precisely what are we to conclude about the nature of your activity?"
I think part of it is because many younger people have not had to defend the beliefs they adopted in college.
Case in point: I have a stepson in his mid 20's. When he would come over for dinner, he would occasionally say things I considered asinine. So I would gently ask him to explain why he thought that. In many cases, he had never examined his beliefs, and really couldn't. Over a very short period of time-- about six months or less-- by questioning these uber liberal beliefs and getting him to explain them, [and with the help of Joe Rogan] he's done a solid 180 and is now pretty conservative.
Also... I think many younger people are super sensitive, and will get upset if you simply ask them to explain their views. I think it's the "special snowflake" effect. I'm lucky. I don't have to deal with that.
It's a classic revolutionary cascade. The more people visibly oppose the insanity, the more other people reach their revolutionary threshold and feel brave enough to join in opposing it. It becomes a virtuous cycle.
As proof of this, I present the diminishing number of people including their pronouns on their email signatures and LinkedIn profiles. I have no hard data, but my empirical observation is that there were a LOT more pronoun signatures a few months ago than there are now.
And the cool thing is, society will probably come through it with some antibodies against it.
Not perfect ones, of course. But like natural immunity we'll recognize some of this the next time we see it, and say, "nope, not doing New Coke again, get the fuck out of here with that."
I hope you are right and the walls are crumbling. I have sacrificed almost every relationship I have with my vocal pushback against wokeness, cancel culture and the official narrative.
Hmmm. I agree with your POV, but the "Lesby" account is quite obviously parody. The issue is that a significant portion of the population cannot see parody even if it is quite obvious--there is something missing in their brains. Ever since social media has existed people have been getting in high dudgeon over things that are meant to be funny, but they fail to spot the joke. So no, I don't think we've made any progress against wokeness.
Ha ha ha. So funny. I guess we'll laugh all the way to the gulag while we help normalize their idiocy with our jokes and don't realize we're in an actual war. But hey, that's fine. We're winning the meme war and having a good laugh while we're at it.
When I'm honest with myself, I recognize that my fear at this time is not that I will outright starve or end up in the gulag (I can hit food with a rock from my back porch - I might feel differently in a city), but the loss of comfort and bourgeois luxury to which I feel entitled at my age and station based on my background. And I know that my parents felt some degree of the same, when their two-income two-child household could not afford to standard of living that both of their families of origin had achieved with only one parent working. The camp, the boat, the retirement plans - where's my stuff?
So if I recognize that as the bullshit tough breaks of the fiat corruption that invades every corner of culture, from the contents of the Louvre to your asshole boss, and acknowledge that I may not end up walking through the rose garden no one actually promised me, then I look at what *really* matters, and that is, what kind of world can my children, or my children's children, hope to live in.
That's where the good news get loud. Many say the internet is killing us - I think it's saving us. It took SIXTY years for the Soviets to fall. A whole generation given lifespans under communism (especially with Lysenkoist surgeons). But the Covid authoritarian putsch started falling apart after 12 months, and has crumbled utterly (death throes notwithstanding) in 28. The flywheel is moving fast; may these new Dark Ages be a memory before I'm in my grave. The 20th century and the beginning of the 21st will not age well in the history books.
We are entering a world run by spoiled, unskilled, trans, queer, gay, nose-ringed, tatted, hair dyed perpetual children with zero self-awareness, zero understanding or curiosity for how things work, a work ethic you couldn't find with an electron microscope, who believe the world owes them everything... and who consider themselves the all-wise all-knowing arbiters of what you are allowed to say, think, act, feel, and do...
What could go wrong?
Mockery ad infinitum is the only way out.
And much in the same vein...
Every high school boy should be claiming they are trans and create an all boys girls team. And then they can battle it out with other all boys girls teams.
It's the only way to save women's sports....
Long-time fan of Titania McGrath here. Yesterday, my husband read me her “Menstruators” poem, and we were laughing so hard, we could barely make it through:
• https://twitter.com/titaniamcgrath/status/1435637690712666117
Here's the first stanza to get you going:
We bleed
Like florets of pity, deadened into burly clams
Twice solely gobbletossed by a scrumping leper
As beefcurtained strap-on dreams of selfhood
Wrench the damaged crablouse
from its hairy home.
About a week ago, swedish journalist and author Katerina Janouch (daughter of a czech who managed to get out from behind the Iron Curtain) was convicted for malicious slander/libel for having revealed that a teacher had forced children to write "I'm a moslem." and parts of the moslem confession of faith.
However, this was not a fabrication by Janouch. The teacher and the school did not deny this. Instead they admitted it and filed a report for harassment and malicious slander with the police.
Swedish law on slander/libel is a bit much to go into, but in short, it doesn't matter if the material published is true or not, only if it (as assessed by prosecutor, not the court) has cause distress to the person in question.
Example of our law, which your Democrats, liberals, progressives and so on wants to copy:
"The average IQ of Ethiopia is at the same level where the bar for mental retardation is" is a crime, despite 1) I'm using it as an example only and 2) I can cite scientific sources, and 3) I make no value judgement whatsoever, nor am I advocating criminalised acts.
But it's still a crime.
I apologise for being off-topic, but I want to help keep the alarms ringing regarding what is happening here in the EUSSR.
If a foreigner may, I'd urge to to be ready to use the 2nd to defend the 1st.
Edit: "Peter Sweden" covers this in more detail on his stack, named after himself.
"if having your own words and images shared seems like an attack upon you, precisely what are we to conclude about the nature of your activity?"
I think part of it is because many younger people have not had to defend the beliefs they adopted in college.
Case in point: I have a stepson in his mid 20's. When he would come over for dinner, he would occasionally say things I considered asinine. So I would gently ask him to explain why he thought that. In many cases, he had never examined his beliefs, and really couldn't. Over a very short period of time-- about six months or less-- by questioning these uber liberal beliefs and getting him to explain them, [and with the help of Joe Rogan] he's done a solid 180 and is now pretty conservative.
Also... I think many younger people are super sensitive, and will get upset if you simply ask them to explain their views. I think it's the "special snowflake" effect. I'm lucky. I don't have to deal with that.
"Ann is a national treasure." -S.A. Tyre
"...abandoned his blackness and became a "lowercase b" black, aka white-adjacent bigot."
OMG...I just snorted.
Ann Lesby is my hero.
Reminds me I need to call my birthing parent.
It's a classic revolutionary cascade. The more people visibly oppose the insanity, the more other people reach their revolutionary threshold and feel brave enough to join in opposing it. It becomes a virtuous cycle.
As proof of this, I present the diminishing number of people including their pronouns on their email signatures and LinkedIn profiles. I have no hard data, but my empirical observation is that there were a LOT more pronoun signatures a few months ago than there are now.
Woke is an industry. A profitable one with full support of the government.
Two front battle imo.
The government "prints" woke and the private sector monetizes it. That's going to require a lot of work to decouple.
I view it as a tightly tangled ball of yarn...not a loose thread in a sweater.
But you do have me feeling a skosh more optimistic this morning.
I'm eager to hear how NPR et al pivot to we knew this was bad for you and America all along.
Your writing is fabulous Gato, thanks. You are a supreme cultural commentor.
And the cool thing is, society will probably come through it with some antibodies against it.
Not perfect ones, of course. But like natural immunity we'll recognize some of this the next time we see it, and say, "nope, not doing New Coke again, get the fuck out of here with that."
I hope you are right and the walls are crumbling. I have sacrificed almost every relationship I have with my vocal pushback against wokeness, cancel culture and the official narrative.
Hmmm. I agree with your POV, but the "Lesby" account is quite obviously parody. The issue is that a significant portion of the population cannot see parody even if it is quite obvious--there is something missing in their brains. Ever since social media has existed people have been getting in high dudgeon over things that are meant to be funny, but they fail to spot the joke. So no, I don't think we've made any progress against wokeness.
Ha ha ha. So funny. I guess we'll laugh all the way to the gulag while we help normalize their idiocy with our jokes and don't realize we're in an actual war. But hey, that's fine. We're winning the meme war and having a good laugh while we're at it.