I don’t talk to my family anymore because I’m too busy reading WEFSLAVE69’s Facebook posts
I struggle with these thoughts probably weekly or at least twice a month. And my in-laws definitely live rent-free in my head, which they probably shouldn’t, because I don’t know if they support social housing protections.
This actually all started in 2015, the night before I got married. Regrettably, friends and family got together to go drinking the night before my wedding (I only regret this because I wish I had slept more and not been puffy the day I got married and it’s actually a sort of yucky way to spend the night before your wedding. . .).
During this outing, I met my soon-to-be brother-in-law’s new girlfriend, Roberta (using fake names). Now, I had met this brother, Lawrence, not more than twice before this. Once at an airport layover for thirty minutes, and maybe another time that I can’t remember. He seemed nice enough. . . Into traveling and mildly extreme sports like scuba diving. He loved Cuba and hated America. I thought it was funny and interesting, at first, and I can always empathize with and understand dislike and resentment, and even hatred of the US. I just respected his opinion on it, let it go, and tolerated his digs and demeaning remarks aimed at Americans and the United States, which were inescapable points when talking to him.
However, the night before my wedding to his little brother, he and Roberta decided to go into an entire joint speech about the evils, ills, stupidity, and greed, of not only the United States and Americans, but of capitalism, too. And capitalism, I learned, originated not from Europe, colonization, the industrial revolution, or slavery; nor from the Neolithic Revolution, as I personally lean towards believing, but rather how capitalism actually originated in the United States… Really wonderful discussions the first time you’re meeting someone and joining their family the next morning.
Roberta, for her part, by now, is probably around 47 years old. And immigrated as an adult from a former state of the USSR. So, the cold war beliefs are pretty intense. I tried to be lenient and understanding and asked questions about her growing up in the USSR, life in Germany, which is where they both live, and tried the entire night to frame their perspectives as simply resultant of different cultures and age. How could they not hate America when she grew up in the USSR? Isn’t that what they’re “taught”? Don’t we teach similar judgments? And he’s French, which, there are tons of stereotypes about French Hating Americans, and he loves Che Guerva, so. . . It’s almost cliché that they hate me. . . Without even knowing me, simply because I’m American..
After the entire night of diatribe after diatribe against fat, stupid, greedy, war-mongering, capitalist swine Americans, I eventually tearfully asked if they didn’t want me to marry F. since I’m American. The incident marked me so deeply because they giddily smiled and replied, barely containing what I can only consider a kind of passive-aggressive sadism, with “What?!!? No!! It’s fine!! 😊 😊 😊”. Zero care for the fact that they were making me cry, zero regard for the fact his brother apparently loved me enough to marry me, and just all-around disgustingly impolite and selfish behavior. Also, keep in mind, Lawrence is a decade older than me, and Roberta is older than him, which means I was 24 while he was 34 and she was even older than that. I’m only 31, at the time of this typing, and can neither imagine nor fathom ever talking to another person like this, especially on the night before their wedding, especially if I’m just getting to know them, especially if EVER because I would never!
It was extremely painful and humiliating. Here is my fiancé’s eldest, brother who I wanted to befriend and gain the approval of, or at least be cordial with and celebrate, and I certainly didn’t want to offend or upset him, so I just continued to grin and bear his bullshit and still sort of do, up to this day.
An outsider might wonder why F. didn’t say anything, and while maybe that night, he can have a slight pass because he was socializing with others, while I was sort of trapped between the two of them, after multiple similar instances, F. and I had more than a few arguments over letting this kind of behavior slide and are still trying to figure out how to manage it, but it’s a lot better and we’re way more unified now.
Nevertheless, the first real impression of Lawrence and Roberta left an incredibly sour taste, and unfortunately, it didn’t get any better.
Though I can’t recall every instance of their behavior, there are a few incidences that stand out. As a side note: it’s admittedly hard for me to contain my severe repulsion and anxiety towards these in-laws, and given their behavior, I hope you’ll forgive my hostile sarcasm when talking about them on my own website. . .
During Christmas of that same year, Lawrence, being a man of deep cultural awareness and knowledge, went to Mexico to appreciate Mexican culture. And where do you suppose he went? Jalisco? Mexico City? Maybe even Oaxaca? Nope! He went to Cancún. Which is so fucking funny that while typing this right now, I’m laughing. And French people, of all people, shouldn’t be so absurdly ignorant and stupid when they’re flying to Agadir to languish in all-inclusive resorts, just like their American counterparts do in Cancún. God forbid a country profit from their beaches and privileged entitled vacation tourists.
I digress. . . This was my first Christmas with F.’s family as his new wife. We all sat at the table together: F. and his two brothers, his mom, his grandma, and me (Roberta wasn’t there). An observation of the family dynamic I’ve become very familiar with now but didn’t yet notice then is that, either because Lawrence lives in Germany and is a rare appearance, or because he’s the oldest, or for whatever reason: He is given the entire floor (I’m also the oldest, and so, perhaps will naturally conflict with other oldest children. He’s also a Taurus, which is my least favorite sun sign).
Now, apparently, Lawrence was so shocked and surprised by the state of Cancún being a mega tourist destination instead of a raw look into indigenous Mexican culture that he thought it was a nice idea to imitate American accents, and perform, basically, a seated charade of a typical fat, dumb American, walking to the buffet, eating like a pig, and then going to plop their obese ass by the pool with a beer (and pray tell, how would he have witnessed this if he weren’t also there, sitting by the pool? How interesting. . .). This time, however, the entire family, including my husband, laughed at the performance, and I got up quickly to hide my tears in another room. If you’re a callous hater who has sacrificed empathy in favor of certainty, you might decide I’m overly sensitive, but you need to realize I had just immigrated to France in November of that year and it was the first Christmas in another country, without my family, without my friends, and I almost felt like I had made a mistake marrying into this family. I made a choice to sacrifice my life and security in the States to be with my husband, and how could he sit there and say nothing and instead laugh? And how could his entire family, knowing that I’m American, and had just four months earlier entered into their family, find it funny? And at Christmastime, no less. We all make mistakes and no one is perfect, but there is another level that allows an entire group to withhold consideration for an outsider in their midst.
That event caused countless arguments between me and F. and sadly, he didn’t always understand how awful and wrong that experience was. True of everyone: all families have similar dysfunctions, and F.’s family is no different. Not to invade their privacy too much or pigeonhole them to such reduced positions. . . : I will simply express the observation that Lawrence is given a special, authoritative position in the family. He talks and talks and talks. Everyone has to listen to him. We all have to silently listen, smile and nod, and clap when he speaks (exagerrating slightly, but we do have to sit silently while he goes on monologuing, no one disagrees with him, either). While my husband—the youngest—was/is relegated to more of a silly, sweet, lighthearted clown, and the other, middle brother is cast as totally silent, shadowy, and self-sufficient. He truly barely ever speaks amongst the group during family events. I think this dynamic made it more difficult for F. to see things from another perspective: Lawrence has always been the center of attention. He was just joking. He didn’t mean any harm. Etc.
The following years were less memorable, but each had its themes:
In 2016, it was: Angela Merkel is giving BMWs to immigrants. Angela Merkel is giving away free giant televisions to immigrants. Angela Merkel and the EU are giving five-six-seven-bedroom houses and mansions to immigrants. The immigrants are taking over! They’re taking our taxes and giving the money to IMMIGRANTS. (Keep in mind, once again, that Lawrence is French and lives in Germany, his wife is an immigrant from a former state of the USSR, and I’m an immigrant in France, and he’s trying to convince me of this). This was the year they’d leave their copies of 1984 around their grandmother’s house. These people are in their mid-forties, for God’s sake. Not that you can’t re-read 1984, but they were acting like it was some super-secret disclosure text that not every 15-year-old reads and thinks: “This says so much about society.”
[Thankfully, 2016 was the year F. finally realized how bizarre the situation with his brother had become, but we still didn’t know how to handle it. “We only see him once a year, you can’t argue with these ideas, maybe it’s just a phase. . .”. F. spoke up a few times in opposition to the claims but Lawrence would have none of it and pull out his iPhone.]
The next year, 2017, it was: Donald Trump is going to be the best president the United States has ever had (for someone like Lawrence, who claims to hate the US, I was a little confused by what he meant by “best president”). 2017 was all about American politics and how Donald Trump was going to fix all of the US’s problems, how Donald Trump was so amazing, did you see Donald Trump say X, Y, and Z? Hahaha. Barrack Obama was so evil and so terrible. Hillary Clinton is a murderer. Hillary Clinton would start WW3. Donald Trump is going to Make America Great Again. (They are LITERALLY SO OBSESSED WITH THE UNITED STATES THAT IT IS TRULY SURREAL).
2018 . . . my dad died a few months prior to Christmas and I was violently sick, so I spent Christmas in a locked room, having a mental breakdown, and then at a hotel by myself, avoiding the stress of interacting with them.
2019 was a bit better because they had a daughter by this time, who I adore, and who thankfully seemed to exhaust Lawrence, so he had less—but still enough —energy to talk about how the United States was a failing country, how the United States industrial output was mediocre and weak, how the United States was being outperformed by China. Probably some other bullshit I can’t remember. So much for Donald Trump fixing everyone’s problems!
When I tell you that the guy is incapable of talking about anything but “politics,” I am not exaggerating. And you know, it’s my belief that there’s a time and place for all topics. But when you see your family once a year, and the entire family only ever gets together once a year, and you take that singular opportunity to spew the garbage you consume all day on fucking Facebook on your fucking iPhone and Apple Laptop. . . there is something DEEPLY wrong with you. DEEPLY. Instead of obsessing over the WEF, who I’m sure doesn’t give a flying fuck what you’re posting on Facebook, maybe take a look at your own family, you creepy loser freak.
And the worst part is that every year we’d have to sit and listen to it. And I’m an outsider, so I’m not going to say anything. When F. eventually tried to test the waters and fight back a little against what Lawrence was saying, it was completely dismissed. Their views are held so rigidly and it turns into: Watch this video on Twitter, here’s an article from RT, and here, see for yourself this video of Arab people driving BMWs. . . You can’t reason with this.
You can imagine how things have turned since the pandemic. Every cliché imaginable is 100% true with him that I don’t even need to really detail it.
For these past two years, we’ve bought and mailed Christmas gifts to our niece: No thank you, no text responses. We try calling on her birthday and we text him on his birthday: No return phone call, no return texts. But F. logs into Facebook once in a while to see if there’s any news, and there is: textwalls about the vaccine, the anti-vaxxers are holocaust victims, the great replacement theory, about Biden, about Ukraine, about US-NATO aggression, about Barrack Obama STILL! Literally, if they’re talking about it on 4chan and Twitter, he’s talking about it on Facebook. The guy hasn’t even been to the United States outside a few layovers. . . He works at an airport. . .but he’s an expert on our culture, government, and politics.
My husband, on the other hand, is a literal sweetheart. . . He’s a Gemini rising, Libra sun, and Taurus moon, so I’m truly not exaggerating when I say that, and he hasn’t done a single offensive or even troubling thing towards his brother. They’re eight years apart, and he has always looked up to his brother and admired him. I might be pro-ghosting, and have, myself, severed my dad’s entire side of the family from my life after he died, but I have a myriad of reasons, and I told them exactly what those reasons were, and one of my aunts even understood. It’s also extended family and not my own brother. . .
The fact my brother-in-law has more or less shunned my husband and continually disrespects his efforts to communicate is something I find so pathetic and repellent. I actually find it quite disgusting and worthy of contempt. Especially when he can spend days on Facebook forfeiting communication with family in favor of obsessing over Barrack Obama and Joe Biden. I often feel like he’s punishing F. for marrying me but I know it’s not really about me. We tried calling when I found out I was pregnant, and obviously, there was no answer. F. texted him a few times and we finally got a text after maybe, one or two years of silence: “Congratulation” with a missing S and nothing else. Your little brother is having a baby with a woman he’s been with for a decade, and that’s your response? Fuck you.
One of the things that buffered against actually massive anxiety regarding this was the fact that, hey, I only see this guy once a year. He lives in Germany. Whatever. I barely need to engage with that ugliness. But recently, my mother-in-law has started spewing the same bullshit. After my surgery last year, she imposed herself for a week just two days after I left the hospital, and one of the things she mentioned while staying with us was how Greta Thunberg has fetal alcohol syndrome.
I will tell you my opinions on Greta Thunberg right now and they’re probably as stereotypically liberal snowflake bitch as you’d imagine: She’s very passionate and motivated about the climate crisis and environmental pollution. I don’t begrudge anyone, young or old, who really tries to make a difference regarding a social or environmental concern that’s important to them. I admire a teenager who would protest as she did. That takes courage and a strong, unwavering spirit of rebellion. But, of course, I can see how she’s exploited by the ruling capitalist class to subvert environmentally protective and restorative efforts and actually almost distracts from real solutions that would hold those same global corporations accountable. People don’t take her seriously—they mock her. Instead of focusing on the climate, we focus on her. It makes it easier to dismiss the climate crisis altogether when you can argue about the “face” representing it. While I respect her and her dedication, I think she was or is more of a useful spectacle puppet.
To allege that someone has fetal alcohol syndrome as an insult and way to undermine them is exactly what I’d expect to see on Twitter from an account like @WEFSLAVE69. To have my mother-in-law bring that up as a way to insult and mock some 18-year-old kid with autism is so fucking inhuman and ugly to me. A troll on Twitter is one thing, but a 65-year-old woman, one who could potentially become my child’s grandmother, is another. When I tried to counter by explaining that she actually has Aspergers, and using FAS—another developmental disorder with even more cruel social stigmas attached to it—as a way to laugh and discredit her dehumanizes the value of anyone with a developmental disorder, frustrates and demeans her actual struggles with Aspergers, and takes away from engaging with what she actually says and does regarding the very real problem of environmental destruction and pollution. She’s also literally like 17 or 18 years old. . . It’s so creepy. This was met with like complete nonchalance and like, “yeah, okay.” Once the narrative gets in, it’s stuck. Then she mentioned something about the “transgender agenda” and how our niece was asked “if she identifies as male,” by her first-grade teacher {cue outrage}.
This was one of the first unequivocal instances of Lawrence’s influence that I’m aware of. The newer comments have become more focused on immigrants, and how tired she is of the war in Ukraine. It’s definitely better to buckle than to support a country fighting for its freedom away from and against a dictator’s invasion. It’s not even October. It’s barely been cold. She’s sitting in her house with her chimney and towers of wood pellets, driving six hours one way in her boyfriend’s Jaguar to see her grandkids, but she’s tired of the war in Ukraine.
When we housesat for her this summer, we noticed a book on the coffee table that had some clickbaity, silly paranoiac title, so F. and I decided to skim it. Unsurprisingly, it was the typical libertarianism, autarkist, and right-wing fascism talking points. Except this one was a bit more explicit and extreme, at least compared to what I’ve been exposed to.
First of all, right out of the gate, “we” are losing “everything” due to mass immigration. Who is ”we”. . .I’ll let you guess. . . And to save ourselves from this, not only should all foreign-born and non-pureblood residents be forcibly deported from the country; anyone who cannot prove they’re not a foreigner or “can’t remember where they’re from”—should be sent to a gulag prison in French Guinea and pay for the flight themselves. 100% serious. It was under some chapter about how to fix society. Other notable points were on how we have to stop reading newspapers and magazines, even ones about astronomy, and especially ones about science, and, of course, we have to stop watching mainstream news (except, we are allowed to read the magazines in which the author writes and allowed to watch the news channels where he’s a commentator). He talked about how we have to indefinitely close the borders to immigrants because they don’t share “our” values and how immigrants are inherently criminal, how immigrants are given all the tax money, and how taxes themselves are actually tools to increase immigration and facilitate “the great replacement”; how “they” will never integrate, etc. etc.. He talked about how “we” have to police more and deport more. His points on taxes were basically about the virtues of gutting the entire social welfare system to stop the immigrant “parasites” (his words).
In all honesty, I have never encountered a book that proposed such heinous and violent policies. I really feel uncomfortable just thinking about this. I’m 7 months pregnant with this woman’s grandchild and this is the type of simplistic, callous, and sadistic garbage she reads, the type of antihuman waste of ideas she leaves on her coffee table in the living room. And we noticed that it wasn’t the only book by this author she had. In another room, she had about 10 other books by this author and similar others, and of course, she had a copy of 1984 in the same pile. (Sorry, I just find it so funny and bizarre that 1984 has turned into this like a middle-aged adult’s occult-like text, when to me it’s so juvenile). So, not only does Lawrence completely shut F. and me out of their lives, but he can send books and pamphlets full of this propaganda to his mother (she told us that he sent them to her, so I’m not just assuming). His mother is a grandmother to a little Central Asian-French and German little girl, and a soon-to-be grandmother to a little French-American baby. Half of her grandchildren will be products of globalization, taxation, and global immigration, and she’s keeping these extremely racist, isolationist, libertarian extremist, xenophobic books around.
The level of cognitive dissonance is so unbridgeable. I truly have no idea how they do it. I mean I do, because F. actually talked to his mom about the book, and her response was something along the lines of: “The book is political satire and the immigrants the author is talking about aren’t ‘like Censorine’.” Congratulations on ALMOST admitting you’re flagrantly and proudly racist.
Anyway, I know it’s been a decade of political discussions around “Should You Cut Your Racist Family Out of Your Life?” I mean, with my own family, I always argued my positions, and if I may be allowed some self-indulgence, the most intense argument I had with my Nemesis, in which I got her to admit that she thinks “some people” don’t “deserve” an education,” my aunts had to intervene and tell us to stop debating because she was getting her dumb ass humiliated by the actually stupid high school dropout with a GED and an associate’s degree. In any case, that’s sort of beside the point. I’m not suggesting icing him out. What I really need to do is to stand up to this middle-aged overgrown bully. The thing though too, is that this goes beyond far unchecked prejudice. This is beyond politics. It’s not just “crazy uncle with his kooky ideas!” It’s: Uncle who cannot talk about anything else, who is spreading violence, and poisons the entire extended family unit. His behavior stresses out everyone, except maybe his mom. It’s uncomfortable to spend days listening to his bullshit. It’s uncomfortable that he doesn’t talk about anything else. He ruins the only time we have together as a family.
My concern is that I cannot stand this way of thinking. I’m tolerant up to a point and this level of hatred and scapegoating is far beyond my limit. I cannot stand it, and it is so unlike me to have sat silently complicit, year after year, while some barefacedly self-unaware, sniveling, unrepentant, ignorant hypocrite goes on a megalomaniacal monologue speech basically insulting me, my family, my friends, my entire country, and everything I value (and not even in a rational, well-thought-out way. It’s not a debate, it’s a highly emotional, almost religiously held belief system being regurgitated and spread like some kind of Facebook conspiracy missionary).
In almost every other situation where I’ve witnessed an injustice occur, I’ve spoken up, and often when no one else did. I’ve spoken up after things worse than some fool spewing hatred. . . and it keeps me awake at night knowing that I let this Facebook glutton slide and get away with attacking me. In my own fucking “family.”
Sometimes it’s not actually a political debate, sometimes it’s an ethical or moral one, and sometimes it’s simply that someone is an awful person. We can debate politics, sure. We can debate laws, social expectations, and norms. But once you cross the line and begin demonizing and dehumanizing entire groups, and once you go further by proposing “solutions” that require violent action against an entire group—you are now denying human rights and basic dignity to the members of those groups. . . to other fucking people, and are no longer arguing politics: you are now arguing for violence and sadistic cruelty against other people.
There might be days where I can lean towards different economic models or be convinced of the merits of localism, but there is truly never a fucking day where I could ever be okay with another person, let alone entire groups, having their rights, freedom, autonomy, and safety taken away and wholly denied. I do not care if it’s the most bizarre person with the most bizarre religious practices with the most bizarre everything of everything. I might have some judgments, but ultimately, what matters to me more than anything else is that every person is given the FUCKING FREEDOM to experience their life peacefully, joyfully even; to develop their unique skills and perspectives, to be safe: housed, fed, hydrated, with healthcare and access to education, able to find some belonging in society, share their gifts with society, able to “be themselves,” to have their safety and happiness protected by the safety and happiness of everyone else, to ensure that they consider their life to be worth living. . . I mean, I would rather have a world of incredible, endlessly mind-boggling incomprehensible strangeness than one where forced normativity crushes the spirit of human invention, experimentation, and creativity.
And you’re never going to get rid of difference and internationalism. It’s impossible. Go live in a fucking space capsule in the remote part of the galaxy if you want to isolate yourself from the world. Good luck and good riddance, bitch.
So, simply put, these ideas of Lawrence’s—and of everyone else whose ideas perpetuate this energy—have declared war on me, personally.
On the one hand, this is a really personal issue because I’ve watched this guy go from like, “The US is a Capitalist Cancer” (my words, not his), to “THE IMMIGRANTS ARE STEALING THE BMW THAT I ACTUALLY DESERVE” to “The only way to fix society is to deport and detain immigrants in labor prison camps.” Simultaneously, I’ve watched his attacks go from being on just Americans, which, fine—I get it. . . you’re jealous of the influence and power, and how salty it must be that the formerly colonized becomes the McDonald’s Netflix Amazon Facebook colony, and the US is a fair target deserving of critique—to now attacking anyone with any slight apparent “difference”. Compounded by the fact he is only interacting with family members to spread these “ideas,” and refuses to or is unable to communicate about anything else.
It was “tolerable” when he just attacked me, and when he was on his own little island in Germany. It’s becoming something much worse now that I’m going to have a baby in the family and the idea of my baby’s own grandmother being xenophobic and hateful towards my and their nationality terrifies me. I don’t want my child growing up where the only time the extended family gets together, we complicity or overtly hate-bond over outgroups and people different from us.
I’m up at night unable to sleep imagining Lawrence going on one of his tirades and practicing speeches in my head so I’m prepared to finally stand up to him. I’m imagining situations where he’s crossed the line again and I have to lay a boundary or risk leaving Christmas with my little baby, whose birthday will be around Christmastime. I’m up at night imagining how I’ll deal with situations where Lawrence, Roberta, and/or my mother-in-law start saying things and ganging up on my child about either about me, because I’m American, or about him, since he’ll be American, or about any other foreigner or person with some kind of “difference”. I have so much anxiety over if my child has a disability, or if they’re divergent in any way, and if his own FAMILY does ANYTHING to demean his value, importance, abilities, or satisfaction with life. . . The fact that Lawrence has made every single experience with him a xenophobic trauma, and how he’s targetted me and humiliated me time and time again, gives me so much panic over how I’m going to handle this in front of and with a child and how fucking sad it is that these ideas are circulating amongst my child’s closest family. . .
On the other hand, this is a global phenomenon and something I find so frustrating about the landscape today is that yes, there are crises, and yes, little baby, the world is like, so totally scary and uncertain. . . but it’s always been that way? These people have been rendered so entitled to comfort and peace, the freedom to say anything, and so spoiled by the fruits of “democracy” that they now shit on it and turn their backs like cowards when our ideals actually need serious defending and require massive improvements and change. Now that they have the freedom, comfort and security to say anything, it’s time to become an authoritarian, deny those things to others, and idealize hyper-predatory hierarchical order.
After years with this, online and in my own life…I resent how incompatible this thinking is with taking the time to deliberate information and to come to a conclusion gradually, and how, instead, every bit of information is used immediately to confirm some already absolutely held belief. I resent how instead of getting in the dirt and trying to find solutions to the horrible chaos, these worldviews scapegoat minority groups and play pedantic whataboutism. I resent how instead of using international crises as an opportunity to show and practice solidarity with our nation and neighbors, to come together and take care of each other (I have ideas for this and it depends on the crisis)—these worldviews choose to cling hopefully to the destruction and decimation of their country, neighbors, and society. I resent how these ideas promote distrust of “everything,” yet encourage blind trust of whatever @WEFSLAVE2030, Facebook, and random substackers, youtube vloggers post. Extremism doesn’t “question” anything. It doesn’t even take the time to question anything. Some event happens and these groups have often already decided the cause, the intention, the consequences, and the goal of the event. Gotta get those likes, fast. . . I resent the use of ideas to make the world more hellish, crueler, and more sadistic. And I really cannot fucking stand them because the only solution they provide is HATE.
As A GROUP… AS MY ENEMY OUTGROUP… These people and their ideas are not actually concerned with changing the global economy or lessening inequity, the ideas are not concerned with stopping rape, incest, or pedophilia, they’re not concerned with corruption and fraud, and exploitation. They’re not concerned with protecting anyone. They’re the ones promoting sexism and returning to a time when women were purely valued for their sexual and reproductive abilities, they’re the ones desperate for the return of “traditional gender roles,” they’re the ones consuming hate-porn where instead of focusing on victims, they focus on the nationality and immigration of the rapist, they’re the ones pouring over pictures of a 17-year-old girl trying to find physical defects while simultaneously sexualizing her, they’re the ones idealizing, minimizing and joking about Jeffrey Epstein, they’re the ones whose idea of making the world a better place is by imprisoning people, supporting dictators who poison and assassinate opponents and imprison citizens who diverge from social norms, they have more sympathy for predators than for victims, they support politicians who make the poor poorer and more intensely criminalized, they support erasure of the only measly protection WE have against total corporate predation: the government. They’re selfish, they’re entitled, they refuse to share, and they don’t cooperate. They don’t do a single fucking thing or even think of a single fucking thing that could actually improve society or their neighborhood by one iota of a fraction.
The thing these bastards have in common is SELFISHNESS. They’ll live on their fucking farms, they’ll buy their kids into private or homeschools to avoid the TERRIFYING IMMIGRANT, to avoid the TERRIFYING PROPAGANDA, they’ll write their paywalled think pieces, they’ll peddle their contrarian ‘u mad bro?’ garbage, they’ll traffick in absolutism and certainty as digital currency, they’ll sell their bullshit to save THEMSELVES. They want a world for people LIKE THEM, and ONLY THEM. They’re not open to anything except what benefits or enhances themselves and their in-group. They’re not working on building trust in communities—they want to fracture the community. They’re not trying to make the world a better place for their neighbors—they want their neighbors imprisoned, impoverished, and deported. They’re not trying to improve education standards, housing standards, or the welfare of the young, elderly, or disabled. They want to remove social protections, deny welfare to the needy, and many passively espouse supporting negative eugenics. They’re weak, cowardly, and threatened by the world around them. They’re so fucking scared of ambiguity that they’ll cling to the most simplistic, easily accessible narrative that puts the world into a certain, easily digestible order. They seemingly lack so much inner self-worth, confidence, and identity that they’re desperate for someone with some “REAL” authority to come along and validate them and their noxious worldviews. They’re addicted to painting themselves as victims when they’re doing and profiting from the oppressing. They’re so fucking entitled and so fucking hypocritical . . . And it’s everywhere. And it’s so boring. It’s tired, it’s been done. We already know where it goes. Learn a new fucking trick.
There are REAL, deep existential problems that nations and the entire world are facing that need addressing. If only we could imagine new philosophies, new perspectives, try and experiment with new solutions and ways of engaging and restructuring the world. . . but no. So many people believe that everything has already been done, everything has already been discovered and that human creativity and imagination are obsolete, so what can you do if that’s how you frame humanity? Return. Retvrn II Muh Racism, to some imaginary past where “My Group, who has been unjustly dethroned, is Respected and Restored To Power” Return to a time where they can lord over and control others. And you know why? Because for some segments of the population: it’s cheap, it’s fast, it’s easy, and it gets the clicks and it sells. These ideas truly are the Mcdonalds of human thought.
And there is possibly no cure for it? The crises will continue, migrants will flee, nations will restructure, power will consolidate and disperse, disasters will strike etc. etc. Not everything is caused by deliberate, intentional action. . .There doesn’t need to be a tidy explanation for every event. People will continue fighting, people will continue having weird, conflicting views. None of these things are going away and I wish we could learn to live with them peacefully rather than turn towards violence, hatred, and extremism.
But then again, the entire world is extremist: extreme plastic surgery, extreme wealth, extreme obesity and thinness, extreme inequality, extreme hoarding, etc. . . I understand the world is chaotic and overwhelming, but that doesn’t justify becoming information illiterate and threatening to others. Maybe it is some conspiracy: Overwork and overload the cognitive resources of the population, inundate them with 1000 conflicting online narratives, take away their time and stress them out with digital and new media, and then, profit from the percentage of the population who turn to easy, clear answers because they don’t have the psychic luxury to deliberate. Profit off people becoming isolated atoms in front of their screens, sacrificing their social lives and personal growth in favor of being on Facebook. But on the other hand, fuck these people. I’m tired of having sympathy and giving the benefit of the doubt to people who are inflicting so much harm, who do not care about the consequences of that harm, or who actually revel with pride in that harm.
Rather than focus on finding the answer and “knowing,” why not focus on accuracy and collecting all available information? Instead of needing to scapegoat and blame someone else to solve a problem, why not take the time and consideration for everyone involved and find compromises or agreements that everyone can live with? BALANCE, HARMONY, JUSTICE, WEIGHING THE BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS it takes TIME and PATIENCE, it’s not easy but the fact it’s more nuanced and complex makes it more valuable and wortwhile . . Let’s practice taking our time to collect information and consider multiple points of view and multiple competing needs. Let’s move slowly. Let’s work on checking our judgments against others, appreciating and admiring everyone for being ALIVE, and practicing helping others who need it, even when it comes at a price for ourselves. We can always complain about how it sucks, but isn’t it better to help someone who needs it, than to live the rest of your life knowing that you could’ve helped, but refused? When you’re in hell, are you going to keep sinking lower and lower to punish the people around you, or will you try to bring a bit of light and do something to bring everyone closer to mercy and heaven? There are some things I can’t excuse though, and some things that no matter if you have your back against a wall, are never acceptable or justifiable. And that’s where so many of these ideas are right now.
Oh well. I’ll just have to live with this, try to help where I’m able, maintain my values at all costs, and do everything I can to protect my child and defend them if ever these nightmares occur in reality. . . It’s just so hard, and I know I’m not the only one whose family has been divided and poisoned by these infotoxins, and it’s very, very sad. But I also like to imagine one of “them” reading this and smugly thinking that I’m a hypocrite for out-grouping them, and to that: I would simply admire how pathetic it is to constantly blame others, externalize everything, refuse to introspect, and ever hold yourself accountable and accept that you and your ideas are FUCKING WRONG