Something lately I don’t like is, between my boss’s dualistic judgmental attitude and how we’ve been talking about the Trumpers as evil, ugly, stupid etc, I’ve been feeling like I’m in/buying into the dualism and judgments where if I don’t like someone they’re bad etc.
@Leucrotta No yeah that makes /absolute/ sense.
@Leucrotta it makes total sense -- like, one of the things that i really respect about you is the amount of visible *care* that you put into articulating & holding onto your values, even on a horrible day
and when overwhelming feelings of rage & powerlessness start whispering "what if there *is* no alternative to the old cycle of punishing and being punished?" then, well, that's Distressing <3
Serious but also rambly
@Leucrotta I think I get what you mean. It's easy to conflate the two if you dont examine your assumptions about their motives
Like the trumpers clearly don't care about other people but someone who comes across a bit rude or slow or whatever - that's a bit more ambiguous
re: Serious but also rambly
@verity yeah, thinking about it... like, they're mean, *and* they might also be all of these things it's not safe/permitted to be. But the thing that's harmful is them being mean, not that they're stupid, undereducated, ugly, fat or old. And yeah, punishment is needed.
But I feel uncomfortable with how close it's being phrased to being a kid where if you were bad you were this terrible person in all kinds of ways, so it was a short jump from say, having glasses and bad acne as a teenager, to this moral and intellectual and value judgment, and the other *really southern* thing where morality relates to your ability to punish. It just feels off to me.
Thank you for talking to me a little more about it which helped me pinpoint more what was bothering me.
re: Serious but also rambly
@Leucrotta yes the morality thing!! I took a while to figure out what was up with that too tbh - I always thought those attitudes were very Asian so maybe it's not just Southern....
... like no, I *really* don’t like my boss or the Trumpers or some others, but I definitely don’t feel comfortable with how all the judgment/punitive stuff from myself and others feels like being back in Georgia as a kid again, does that make sense?