watching a video essay by PsychoSocialism on YouTube, and they mentions the idea that parents' fears of being bad parents often is behind their attempts to control their children and thus... being bad parents

and there's a good point there

I think it's especially apparent with race. White people are often so afraid of being considered "a racist" that they do incredibly racist shit and push any conversation into self-defense.

the "crime" of pointing out racism ends up more important than the racism itself

I also think about a story my dad (who is black) mentioned when we were arguing about the police

gonna cw it...

To just state it abruptly, my father was, at a young age, physically kicked out of the house by his step father. Full on out on the street, pulling a red wagon behind him. (This was so traumatic he couldn't handle buying me one, instead buying me a purple one which immediately triggered gender fears.)

At some point a police officer noticed him wandering alone and got him help, eventually getting him into foster care, where he worked hard, joined the military, and had two bright children of his own.

happy enough story and I have no reason to doubt it.

He felt that this experience with the police overshadowed everyone's else's, including within his own family, and all the statistics and so on.

Basically "the police officer was good to me, so I can't accept that I, as a black kid was lucky, or that the cops are inherently bad"

it seems ridiculous to say it like that, but ultimately the fear is one I've faced myself. "I am seeing these people that I trust and have helped me being called bad people. if they helped me that might mean I'm a bad person too."

it's fucking terrifying! at the least you begin to fear what happens if you're on their bad side. but it even applies through the way we judge morality through our associates.

that doesn't make sense, but that's how we think

If your kid hangs out with the "wrong crowd", they will be tempted by their friends and do bad things.

In some respects, as I said yesterday that's true, but it's denying your own self-control to some degree

the view of purity being corrupted is so attractive because it provides a straightforward solution to moral problems. just stay pure.

it also helps cement the "just world" hypothesis, that those who have bad things happen to them were impure

This is much more palatable than the reality "bad things often happen to people because our 'good people' force it upon them to encourage compliance."

Is it that a person is addicted to drugs that keeps them homeless, or is it the landlord who evicted them?

obviously, the landlord would prefer the second. the cop will prefer that they were justified in killing a person because they failed to comply thus becoming a threat.

the war criminal must be justified because they were fighting for a big important idea even given their actions

the billionaire is justified because they're trying to get us into space or create the best products they can. yes, they cause suffering, but it's for a greater good...

leftists are not immune; it is a question of which parts of say, the suffering in the USSR was necessary to stave counter-revolution or redistribute property.

some are, some aren't, and a lot of the supposed suffering is fantasies of fascist "victims of communism"