Social justice identity politics, feminism, critical race theory, and even Marxism are all easily re-tooled as sustaining fantasies for an “elite” in a state of ressentiment.
I've seen this in action (virtually lol) in a recent conversation that Ron Placone hosted With Savage Joy who had tried to organise marches for universal healthcare. She couldn't have been more obviously left, she literally looked like the cliche of a social justice warrior, nerd glasses and blue hair and all. (But she was someone quite able to get into action, as she was organising the marches. I'm just saying that to show how absurd these accusations were.) I was never quite able to catch what actually happened but somehow somewhere a rightwing person had held a speech(?) been part of organising(?) at one of the marches and in the lifestream chat people were accusing her of not addressing the matter *at the exact time that she was talking about it on camera*. They never stopped saying that even after half an hour of Joy and Ron talking about it. It was so insane, the chat (me included) believed it had to be paid trolls. One of these particularly loud complainiers called himself Dckpnk. That was also highly weird about it because that's the opposite of a politcally correct name. Yet he (I presume from the name) kept talking like the most enraged social justice warrior.
I felt like less addressing of it would have been more powerful, frankly. But in the end Ron got really pissed and Joy cried and (as dark as that sounds) their raw emotion was more powerful that endless cerebral justifying and the trolls did shut up. That was a fascinating experience.
I find it interesting that you say Rhyd that its 'a fantasy that these are paid saboteurs'. There was an eeriness to all this, and the sense of eeriness was what also made me feel like those were saboteurs. Like an inexplicable power was present and I thought that that power was the state. But to think it might have been human resentiment that causes that eeriness is interesting.
Compliments on the essay, which sums up what most of us have seen these last few years.
The extract from Slippery Elm is brilliant. I hope to be able to get to the full essay soon.
But this stood out:
"Failures to understand power on its own terms can lead to it becoming twisted and perverted. Coercion, in effect, is the perversion of power."
One of the problems in U.S. careerist feminism is that replacing a man with a woman is considered in itself a victory. You mention this in your essay more than once--Karen assumed that landing a position would cause a revolution at the organization, but their choice of a man was a signal of how hopelessly retrograde the organization is.
Yet many women in the managerial class (let alone men in the same class) haven't thought through what it means to wield power. They are not prepared at all to flatten the hierarchy and promote equality (the left's goals). These men and women simply want to get rid of the "old guard" to put in a new cadre.
Another oddity of U.S. culture that may be at play here in the essay is the heterosexual woman who can't stand men. (We're not talking about lesbians here--who often see right through men and male behavior and deal with it.) I saw it with a Karen in my own life who also engaged in the serial relationships (often defined by sex), diagnosed everyone's problems (alcoholism was a big diagnosis with this Karen), and then succumbed to various panics like the recovered-memory movement. Yet a constant was that men were *the* problem.
I have seen it also play out as a syndrome that I call "mommy's a sexist": I was at an informal after-work reception and a friend's son, who attends a high school nearby, was going to stop in because his mother was there. Someone else, a woman who was in a powerful position in the company, simply had no way of dealing with him even though she knew full well who he was and hadn't seen him in some time. It was striking how she couldn't converse with a fifteen-year-old boy. Meanwhile, I did the older man / younger man thing: How was practice? What are your plans for the evening? Make sure to hit the company buffet table and have a free snack...
I want to upvote this a thousand times.
This is a great essay, thank you.
Brilliant. Really. And thank you.
I've seen this in action (virtually lol) in a recent conversation that Ron Placone hosted With Savage Joy who had tried to organise marches for universal healthcare. She couldn't have been more obviously left, she literally looked like the cliche of a social justice warrior, nerd glasses and blue hair and all. (But she was someone quite able to get into action, as she was organising the marches. I'm just saying that to show how absurd these accusations were.) I was never quite able to catch what actually happened but somehow somewhere a rightwing person had held a speech(?) been part of organising(?) at one of the marches and in the lifestream chat people were accusing her of not addressing the matter *at the exact time that she was talking about it on camera*. They never stopped saying that even after half an hour of Joy and Ron talking about it. It was so insane, the chat (me included) believed it had to be paid trolls. One of these particularly loud complainiers called himself Dckpnk. That was also highly weird about it because that's the opposite of a politcally correct name. Yet he (I presume from the name) kept talking like the most enraged social justice warrior.
I felt like less addressing of it would have been more powerful, frankly. But in the end Ron got really pissed and Joy cried and (as dark as that sounds) their raw emotion was more powerful that endless cerebral justifying and the trolls did shut up. That was a fascinating experience.
I find it interesting that you say Rhyd that its 'a fantasy that these are paid saboteurs'. There was an eeriness to all this, and the sense of eeriness was what also made me feel like those were saboteurs. Like an inexplicable power was present and I thought that that power was the state. But to think it might have been human resentiment that causes that eeriness is interesting.
Compliments on the essay, which sums up what most of us have seen these last few years.
The extract from Slippery Elm is brilliant. I hope to be able to get to the full essay soon.
But this stood out:
"Failures to understand power on its own terms can lead to it becoming twisted and perverted. Coercion, in effect, is the perversion of power."
One of the problems in U.S. careerist feminism is that replacing a man with a woman is considered in itself a victory. You mention this in your essay more than once--Karen assumed that landing a position would cause a revolution at the organization, but their choice of a man was a signal of how hopelessly retrograde the organization is.
Yet many women in the managerial class (let alone men in the same class) haven't thought through what it means to wield power. They are not prepared at all to flatten the hierarchy and promote equality (the left's goals). These men and women simply want to get rid of the "old guard" to put in a new cadre.
Another oddity of U.S. culture that may be at play here in the essay is the heterosexual woman who can't stand men. (We're not talking about lesbians here--who often see right through men and male behavior and deal with it.) I saw it with a Karen in my own life who also engaged in the serial relationships (often defined by sex), diagnosed everyone's problems (alcoholism was a big diagnosis with this Karen), and then succumbed to various panics like the recovered-memory movement. Yet a constant was that men were *the* problem.
I have seen it also play out as a syndrome that I call "mommy's a sexist": I was at an informal after-work reception and a friend's son, who attends a high school nearby, was going to stop in because his mother was there. Someone else, a woman who was in a powerful position in the company, simply had no way of dealing with him even though she knew full well who he was and hadn't seen him in some time. It was striking how she couldn't converse with a fifteen-year-old boy. Meanwhile, I did the older man / younger man thing: How was practice? What are your plans for the evening? Make sure to hit the company buffet table and have a free snack...