I'm hoping that by approaching old
themes I can find better wording. Immediately, “hope” is on my
list. The only podcast that made me exclaim out loud was a “This
American Life” story about trolls bragging about getting Hitler 2
elected, so I need to talk about “truth” and our approach to
language. My current work setting being very...simple, allows me to
adopt a sort of zoned-out zen that gives me pause about how I
consider myself in relation to the stories I'm hearing or the
dispositions of the people around me. Of course, in some convoluted
and generally hard to describe way, I feel it must be significantly
connected.
The only thing I can say about my relationship to “hope” is that I see it like the yin yang. I don't have it as much as I do. In the darkest moments I still crack a joke. In my “most hopeful” thoughts I see mountains of shit and doubt. I wish I could do away with the word altogether. The only reason I can't is because of how often people keep employing it to describe how they feel. They hope Hitler 2 will save jobs. They hope “someone” is going to save them in the background when shit hits the fan. They hope the boss will give them a raise. They hope they won't get sick. They hope they'll find a way to reorient their life if they get deported. They hope the system won't break down or that power will be checked.
I'm starting to equate hope with ignorance. I find it a cheery way to mask either hard truths or uncomfortable degrees of what you don't know. If you hope, what you're saying is that you don't know, but based on (blank) things may get better. It's like secular prayer. It's employed so often and so fluidly that we don't have a remotely negative conception of it. It wins presidential campaigns until people decide hope isn't as great as great. This side stepping of knowledge is like a billion tiny cuts a day. You disassociate the consequences or truth of any one thing and couch it in a lazily dressed up phrase for your feelings. I'm going to try and do a more deliberate job of avoiding the word. I think or I feel, but I don't really hope.
It's almost become my mission in life to break apart or criticize language. Hitler 2's “Muslim ban” neither banned nor identified Muslims. It couldn't even be honest in adopting that title after it was attempted. “Saving jobs” is another ridiculous conception. Any and everything you do can be considered a job. Your very existence contributes to the whole in countless ways. Until you decouple your job from a basic premise of the dignity and value of humans, all roads to special dignity for sacrificing time in service to capitalism is a suicidal act. A billionth of a cut for every hour, every inflamed lower back, every paycheck that makes you slump, and every word you offer that tries to make it go down better.
The whole “polite” exercise of taking and running with shitty language is at the heart of why “things” never get “better.” You're not paid more because your language suggests your place in the hierarchy. Your very spatial plain of existence is lower than that of your monied masters if any skyscraper is any indication. People are literally embarrassed at the idea of asking for more money or striking even after you tell them a plant worker in early America, high school education or less, would make $30-$50 an hour for the same sorts of tasks you're getting $8-$12 today. These morons who then grow up without learning the word “inflation” berate you in service to their ignorance. The real sin being, you swallow it.
And so how do you fix that? If you're one of those over-read college grads finding yourself rubbing elbows with the nicest, humblest, hardest-working...simple...people, do you have a duty? Should I be printing off fliers from Kroger's CEO exclaiming the ridiculous amount of money they're paying him and record profits the company has from eating up all of its competitors? Do I follow up with the union rep and say waiting 2 years for another shitty contract is no way to behave as someone allegedly more informed and sensitive to what “right-to-work” has done to the state? Because honestly, my thought is no.
I've felt myself growing resolved to not “fixing the world” for a long time. I figure with amount of hatred and criticism I embody, the world is lucky as long as I refrain from letting too much of what I say or wish to do really get out. I also encounter so many levels of different kinds of ignorance so routinely that there's extreme practical considerations in whether or not leading a peasant revolt could be expected to work. I'm not naïve enough to hope people would get on board. And I feel like my obligation to a fight like better wages or the teaching of that history of labor or struggle transcends singularly politicking that store. This begs the question, what does that struggle look like?
Thus I retreat to why I'm there in the first place. Get enough money to secure living conditions that allow me to pursue creative or contributory ends freely. My job is to give my brain leeway and allow myself the rest of my time to do with as I please. Once I can offer that option to others for them to freely accept or reject, I'll know how to better guide my actions that can be considered “in service” to them or not. I'll be able to identify who's willing and capable of helping themselves. Important caveat, to truly help yourself is to do it in a way that should help everyone.
So then on to the trolls. I don't believe they think they're helping anything. They'll argue they're “making a point” that by elevating hate speech and fear mongering, something something PC liberals and “they just want to talk.” It's an endless sea of naïve rationalizing bullshit. I find it so intriguing because where they flirt with what could be an important point, again, the stupid incomplete language takes over to reduce everyone to whiny judgmental ends. Consider the criticism of the “PC” crowd. As someone who makes horrible jokes and is flatly dead inside to inflammatory language, I can still distinguish what makes a joke or comment with a racial slur work verses advocating for the coded (and not so coded) language that emboldens people who would commit violence. Trolls make no such distinctions. Arguably, ignorant inflamed liberals don't either.
As I can go back and take responsibility for the times I've acted like an immature troll or used abrasive and ignorant language, the exercise of doing so takes not just a shrug and excuse for my behavior. I don't feel particularly good about the idea that people feel genuinely hurt about something I might say. At the same time, I expect a certain level of maturity and discernment. I've never found Hitler 2 funny. It's like making fun of the mentally handicapped. It's exceedingly easy and hilarious, were they not carrying the fucking nuclear codes. Then and only then can I agree with the phrase, “There are some things you shouldn't joke about,” which I feel is often a snobby prick's nuclear comment option regarding humor they don't like.
Much of it boils down to a persistent “truth” claim. If you say you hope that Hitler 2 does something positive, is that even a true claim? You felt something, so you can say it's true you had a feeling. You like positive things, so you can say something positive would illicit a good feeling. But what do we make of your hope? How do we conceive of this sentence as anything but you saying “I want to feel good?” And? When the pathological waterfall of lies that comes out of the White House beats you over the head, what's your response? Bad jokes? Crossed fingers? I think it's only sane to revolt! I think you have to shut it off. I think Saturday Night Live is ill-equipped to save us no matter what its ratings. Instead of hearing what you hope or how you feel, we need a revolution in what you read that wasn't shaped by the idiot at the top.
Truth doesn't exist without discernment. Well, it's pure physics at that point, but for an intentioned aware mind that doesn't want to be the wagging tail of a feral animal, we need specifics. We need the hour long explanation of the court decision so we don't scream or cower in the face of nuance. We need new reflexes that check ourselves automatically. That comes from a particular kind of leadership and awareness. One could go so far as to say it's science and expertise. It's what I cling to in the dirt and toil of manual labor not in service to something I care to build or own. It's counting instead of judging. It's an honest pile of information, not an honest opinion. I don't write to “tell it like is,” I'm trying to get underneath the sea of all that isn't. The top layer of this fog of words and cordial interplay retains no respect, no coherence, no direction, and no way out.
I don't think we'll get better. I don't hope we will either. When I'm only as smart as my circumstances suggest, down here in the mud with any number of cliches for someone my age with my habits and tastes, you can expect a resentful anger-induced response to most of what you're offering me. You can trust I will be cold and manipulative and “above it all” even as I'm standing next to you. I'll petition and campaign and toot my own horn for a place a little higher, but my true stature and worth you don't know how to talk about. You don't even find the language for yourself, so I don't expect you to empathize with me. You don't see your place in context, discerning your details, in spite of the corners your insecurities, your families, your language, your friends, or just your general culture puts you in. I can't fix that.
I find it unbearably depressing to consider everyone on a kind of equal footing. How to assess the sheer amount of deliberate tragedy we inflict on people simply because we forgo that burden? How to account for every “soul” without pawning off the responsibility to a god? How to speak in a way that people can't ignore or dismiss because their “interpretation” was different? How do we avoid the sheer tragedy of the mind that was all for Bernie Sanders, but picked Hitler 2 once Sanders dropped out? That's the disconnect. That's the damage of false equivalence. That's missing literally every detail. As long as we remain primarily prone to that, I guess we'll just have to pray about it.
The only thing I can say about my relationship to “hope” is that I see it like the yin yang. I don't have it as much as I do. In the darkest moments I still crack a joke. In my “most hopeful” thoughts I see mountains of shit and doubt. I wish I could do away with the word altogether. The only reason I can't is because of how often people keep employing it to describe how they feel. They hope Hitler 2 will save jobs. They hope “someone” is going to save them in the background when shit hits the fan. They hope the boss will give them a raise. They hope they won't get sick. They hope they'll find a way to reorient their life if they get deported. They hope the system won't break down or that power will be checked.
I'm starting to equate hope with ignorance. I find it a cheery way to mask either hard truths or uncomfortable degrees of what you don't know. If you hope, what you're saying is that you don't know, but based on (blank) things may get better. It's like secular prayer. It's employed so often and so fluidly that we don't have a remotely negative conception of it. It wins presidential campaigns until people decide hope isn't as great as great. This side stepping of knowledge is like a billion tiny cuts a day. You disassociate the consequences or truth of any one thing and couch it in a lazily dressed up phrase for your feelings. I'm going to try and do a more deliberate job of avoiding the word. I think or I feel, but I don't really hope.
It's almost become my mission in life to break apart or criticize language. Hitler 2's “Muslim ban” neither banned nor identified Muslims. It couldn't even be honest in adopting that title after it was attempted. “Saving jobs” is another ridiculous conception. Any and everything you do can be considered a job. Your very existence contributes to the whole in countless ways. Until you decouple your job from a basic premise of the dignity and value of humans, all roads to special dignity for sacrificing time in service to capitalism is a suicidal act. A billionth of a cut for every hour, every inflamed lower back, every paycheck that makes you slump, and every word you offer that tries to make it go down better.
The whole “polite” exercise of taking and running with shitty language is at the heart of why “things” never get “better.” You're not paid more because your language suggests your place in the hierarchy. Your very spatial plain of existence is lower than that of your monied masters if any skyscraper is any indication. People are literally embarrassed at the idea of asking for more money or striking even after you tell them a plant worker in early America, high school education or less, would make $30-$50 an hour for the same sorts of tasks you're getting $8-$12 today. These morons who then grow up without learning the word “inflation” berate you in service to their ignorance. The real sin being, you swallow it.
And so how do you fix that? If you're one of those over-read college grads finding yourself rubbing elbows with the nicest, humblest, hardest-working...simple...people, do you have a duty? Should I be printing off fliers from Kroger's CEO exclaiming the ridiculous amount of money they're paying him and record profits the company has from eating up all of its competitors? Do I follow up with the union rep and say waiting 2 years for another shitty contract is no way to behave as someone allegedly more informed and sensitive to what “right-to-work” has done to the state? Because honestly, my thought is no.
I've felt myself growing resolved to not “fixing the world” for a long time. I figure with amount of hatred and criticism I embody, the world is lucky as long as I refrain from letting too much of what I say or wish to do really get out. I also encounter so many levels of different kinds of ignorance so routinely that there's extreme practical considerations in whether or not leading a peasant revolt could be expected to work. I'm not naïve enough to hope people would get on board. And I feel like my obligation to a fight like better wages or the teaching of that history of labor or struggle transcends singularly politicking that store. This begs the question, what does that struggle look like?
Thus I retreat to why I'm there in the first place. Get enough money to secure living conditions that allow me to pursue creative or contributory ends freely. My job is to give my brain leeway and allow myself the rest of my time to do with as I please. Once I can offer that option to others for them to freely accept or reject, I'll know how to better guide my actions that can be considered “in service” to them or not. I'll be able to identify who's willing and capable of helping themselves. Important caveat, to truly help yourself is to do it in a way that should help everyone.
So then on to the trolls. I don't believe they think they're helping anything. They'll argue they're “making a point” that by elevating hate speech and fear mongering, something something PC liberals and “they just want to talk.” It's an endless sea of naïve rationalizing bullshit. I find it so intriguing because where they flirt with what could be an important point, again, the stupid incomplete language takes over to reduce everyone to whiny judgmental ends. Consider the criticism of the “PC” crowd. As someone who makes horrible jokes and is flatly dead inside to inflammatory language, I can still distinguish what makes a joke or comment with a racial slur work verses advocating for the coded (and not so coded) language that emboldens people who would commit violence. Trolls make no such distinctions. Arguably, ignorant inflamed liberals don't either.
As I can go back and take responsibility for the times I've acted like an immature troll or used abrasive and ignorant language, the exercise of doing so takes not just a shrug and excuse for my behavior. I don't feel particularly good about the idea that people feel genuinely hurt about something I might say. At the same time, I expect a certain level of maturity and discernment. I've never found Hitler 2 funny. It's like making fun of the mentally handicapped. It's exceedingly easy and hilarious, were they not carrying the fucking nuclear codes. Then and only then can I agree with the phrase, “There are some things you shouldn't joke about,” which I feel is often a snobby prick's nuclear comment option regarding humor they don't like.
Much of it boils down to a persistent “truth” claim. If you say you hope that Hitler 2 does something positive, is that even a true claim? You felt something, so you can say it's true you had a feeling. You like positive things, so you can say something positive would illicit a good feeling. But what do we make of your hope? How do we conceive of this sentence as anything but you saying “I want to feel good?” And? When the pathological waterfall of lies that comes out of the White House beats you over the head, what's your response? Bad jokes? Crossed fingers? I think it's only sane to revolt! I think you have to shut it off. I think Saturday Night Live is ill-equipped to save us no matter what its ratings. Instead of hearing what you hope or how you feel, we need a revolution in what you read that wasn't shaped by the idiot at the top.
Truth doesn't exist without discernment. Well, it's pure physics at that point, but for an intentioned aware mind that doesn't want to be the wagging tail of a feral animal, we need specifics. We need the hour long explanation of the court decision so we don't scream or cower in the face of nuance. We need new reflexes that check ourselves automatically. That comes from a particular kind of leadership and awareness. One could go so far as to say it's science and expertise. It's what I cling to in the dirt and toil of manual labor not in service to something I care to build or own. It's counting instead of judging. It's an honest pile of information, not an honest opinion. I don't write to “tell it like is,” I'm trying to get underneath the sea of all that isn't. The top layer of this fog of words and cordial interplay retains no respect, no coherence, no direction, and no way out.
I don't think we'll get better. I don't hope we will either. When I'm only as smart as my circumstances suggest, down here in the mud with any number of cliches for someone my age with my habits and tastes, you can expect a resentful anger-induced response to most of what you're offering me. You can trust I will be cold and manipulative and “above it all” even as I'm standing next to you. I'll petition and campaign and toot my own horn for a place a little higher, but my true stature and worth you don't know how to talk about. You don't even find the language for yourself, so I don't expect you to empathize with me. You don't see your place in context, discerning your details, in spite of the corners your insecurities, your families, your language, your friends, or just your general culture puts you in. I can't fix that.
I find it unbearably depressing to consider everyone on a kind of equal footing. How to assess the sheer amount of deliberate tragedy we inflict on people simply because we forgo that burden? How to account for every “soul” without pawning off the responsibility to a god? How to speak in a way that people can't ignore or dismiss because their “interpretation” was different? How do we avoid the sheer tragedy of the mind that was all for Bernie Sanders, but picked Hitler 2 once Sanders dropped out? That's the disconnect. That's the damage of false equivalence. That's missing literally every detail. As long as we remain primarily prone to that, I guess we'll just have to pray about it.
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