Moral Progress is Annoying
June 24, 2024 8:18 AM Subscribe
Many genuinely good arguments for moral change will be initially experienced as annoying, argues a recent piece in Aeon magazine.
Two philosophers from Purdue University paint a psychological picture of "affective friction" resulting from moral change: Even when the difference between an old norm and a new one replacing it seems trivial, the disruptions caused by the shift can create feelings of anxiety, awkwardness – and anger.
The article puts its readers on notice that, going forward, many of us should expect to feel annoyed: Changing the social world for the better will very often mean changing some old, harmful norms and replacing them with better ones. And very often, that’s not going to feel good. Much of the time, it’s going to feel preachy. It’s going to grate on your nerves. It’s going to make you roll your eyes. A lot of moral progress is going to be annoying. Ugh.
Two philosophers from Purdue University paint a psychological picture of "affective friction" resulting from moral change: Even when the difference between an old norm and a new one replacing it seems trivial, the disruptions caused by the shift can create feelings of anxiety, awkwardness – and anger.
The article puts its readers on notice that, going forward, many of us should expect to feel annoyed: Changing the social world for the better will very often mean changing some old, harmful norms and replacing them with better ones. And very often, that’s not going to feel good. Much of the time, it’s going to feel preachy. It’s going to grate on your nerves. It’s going to make you roll your eyes. A lot of moral progress is going to be annoying. Ugh.
we don’t write work emails in iambic pentameter
my boss was just telling me that
posted by HearHere at 8:27 AM on June 24 [18 favorites]
my boss was just telling me that
posted by HearHere at 8:27 AM on June 24 [18 favorites]
Many People Experience Respect For Others As Annoying is something I'm familiar with but it's still sad to see it.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:29 AM on June 24 [22 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:29 AM on June 24 [22 favorites]
I feel like the most recent season of Hacks has been a really excellent illustration of precisely this dynamic.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:39 AM on June 24 [5 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:39 AM on June 24 [5 favorites]
Reactions involving awkwardness, irritation, even resentment are precisely what we should expect even in cases where old, unjust norms are being replaced with new, fairer ones. ... And, crucially, it does this regardless of whether those norms and conventions are just or unjust, harmful or beneficial, serious or silly.
I don't remember when or how I internalised this but I keep an eye out for this reaction in myself and interrogate it when it does happen.
To take some of the sting out, I often think of the meme of Principal Skinner briefly wondering if he's out of touch but concluding that no, it's the children who are wrong.
posted by slimepuppy at 8:59 AM on June 24 [29 favorites]
I don't remember when or how I internalised this but I keep an eye out for this reaction in myself and interrogate it when it does happen.
To take some of the sting out, I often think of the meme of Principal Skinner briefly wondering if he's out of touch but concluding that no, it's the children who are wrong.
posted by slimepuppy at 8:59 AM on June 24 [29 favorites]
Like back in Facebook's heyday, when they would change how your front page looked, everyone would freak out for 2 weeks and then forget what it used to look like. It makes sense to me it's not about the "cause", but that humans just really hate change.
posted by atomicstone at 9:05 AM on June 24 [7 favorites]
posted by atomicstone at 9:05 AM on June 24 [7 favorites]
The backlash to social change that's discussed in the article is preyed upon and amplified by the megaphones of misinformation, whether that's a botnet, a cross-country chain of TV and radio stations, or a bizarre conspiracy / political movement. Social change is seldom in the interests of those who profit from the status quo. Better to sow more social division than deal with positive change that could affect the bottom line.
It's one thing to deal with the difficulty of adjusting social norms and expectations for social progress; quite another when you add weaponized disinformation to the mix.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 9:06 AM on June 24 [14 favorites]
It's one thing to deal with the difficulty of adjusting social norms and expectations for social progress; quite another when you add weaponized disinformation to the mix.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 9:06 AM on June 24 [14 favorites]
On a personal note, when me and my partner have a discussion-slash-argument and I feel annoyed by something they say, I know that’s the thing I need to pay attention to. It’s usually annoying because they’re right, but admitting it causes an inconvenience to me in some regard. I can see how this scales up to larger issues.
posted by The River Ivel at 9:20 AM on June 24 [23 favorites]
posted by The River Ivel at 9:20 AM on June 24 [23 favorites]
everybody naturally believes they're 100% right about everything.
this is a helluva flaw in our mentalities.
posted by torokunai at 9:33 AM on June 24
this is a helluva flaw in our mentalities.
posted by torokunai at 9:33 AM on June 24
"Many genuinely good arguments for moral change will be initially experienced as annoying." Sure, and many good arguments will not, and many bad arguments will be initially experienced as annoying. This seems to be a long way of saying that change is hard.
Progressives would argue that there's an inherent bias against change, so think especially hard about proposals that are annoying, because you don't want to be biased against them. Conservatives would argue that, as the authors acknowledge, "Maybe the old norms are there for a good reason, and the new norm would make us worse off." That's another reason to think especially hard about arguments for change.
The conclusion - think hard about moral arguments - doesn't seem groundbreaking.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:36 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Progressives would argue that there's an inherent bias against change, so think especially hard about proposals that are annoying, because you don't want to be biased against them. Conservatives would argue that, as the authors acknowledge, "Maybe the old norms are there for a good reason, and the new norm would make us worse off." That's another reason to think especially hard about arguments for change.
The conclusion - think hard about moral arguments - doesn't seem groundbreaking.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:36 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Surely the conclusion is think hard about your reaction to moral arguments, which may not be groundbreaking but it sure seems hard to learn.
posted by Frowner at 9:38 AM on June 24 [24 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 9:38 AM on June 24 [24 favorites]
Frowner > Surely the conclusion is think hard about your reaction to moral arguments, which may not be groundbreaking but it sure seems hard to learn.
Indeed. A few good takeaways in the article:
"..treat your feelings of irritation as a cue for further reflection .. ‘Is this new thing actually bad, or does it just feel that way because it’s unfamiliar?’"
"Our minds contain much more than our norm psychologies, and we can consider all kinds of things – including moral arguments and reasons – in making judgments, deciding what to do, figuring out which norms are better or worse. As we sort through all the possibilities, we shouldn’t place too much trust in a psychological system whose default response to any norm change is to treat it like it’s bad."
We are so much more than our in-group-think and societal conditioning.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 9:46 AM on June 24
Indeed. A few good takeaways in the article:
"..treat your feelings of irritation as a cue for further reflection .. ‘Is this new thing actually bad, or does it just feel that way because it’s unfamiliar?’"
"Our minds contain much more than our norm psychologies, and we can consider all kinds of things – including moral arguments and reasons – in making judgments, deciding what to do, figuring out which norms are better or worse. As we sort through all the possibilities, we shouldn’t place too much trust in a psychological system whose default response to any norm change is to treat it like it’s bad."
We are so much more than our in-group-think and societal conditioning.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 9:46 AM on June 24
I mean, this is something that I can actually say I've worked hard on. I remember very clearly back in the days of blogs, around 2007-2010, reading a lot of blogs by people of color writing about racism and whiteness and, while my bias ever since being bullied in childhood has always been toward believing people who seem to be at a disadvantage, I felt very threatened a lot of the time and sometimes angry. I'd often have a feeling of "anti-racism is all very well, but these people are going TOO FAR", and honestly, it was a pretty big step for me when I learned that this was a great time to step away from the keyboard and just not think about stuff anymore.
What I really learned in those days was that when something seemed "too far" social-justice-wise, the best thing to do was just to not think about it much for a few days. After I'd gotten a bit used to the idea and the novelty had worn off, a lot of things that seemed "too far" seemed fairly reasonable or at least arguable. My immediate "intellectual" response was not really an intellectual response so much as feelings dressed up in intellectual language, so better give things some time to settle.
My point is not that I am always perfect and respond appropriately to leftward momentum but that I did learn to identify a type of feeling and my response to it, and learn that my feeling was wrong. I should not in fact trust my gut; I should just leave my gut alone to settle down. This has come in very handy over the years, and I think that while it has not made me an amazing flawless person who never has to eat my words, it has made certain things easier and more comfortable for me than for some other white people in my milieu.
I also think that it is useful to put stuff like this in so many words and not just let it be a vague feeling. It's good to scaffold "I should let myself mull new ideas over because I am likely to be threatened by change, especially when it comes in the form of criticism of things I do without thinking about it".
Another thing I have learned over the years is that it takes a long, long time and often a lot of work to actually learn all that moral stuff that seems so obvious. If someone says, "be nice when people don't know how to do things that come easily to you instead of being smug or judgey", for instance, it's easy to feel that this is an obvious thing that of course we all know. And yet how often we are smug or judgey!
posted by Frowner at 9:48 AM on June 24 [56 favorites]
What I really learned in those days was that when something seemed "too far" social-justice-wise, the best thing to do was just to not think about it much for a few days. After I'd gotten a bit used to the idea and the novelty had worn off, a lot of things that seemed "too far" seemed fairly reasonable or at least arguable. My immediate "intellectual" response was not really an intellectual response so much as feelings dressed up in intellectual language, so better give things some time to settle.
My point is not that I am always perfect and respond appropriately to leftward momentum but that I did learn to identify a type of feeling and my response to it, and learn that my feeling was wrong. I should not in fact trust my gut; I should just leave my gut alone to settle down. This has come in very handy over the years, and I think that while it has not made me an amazing flawless person who never has to eat my words, it has made certain things easier and more comfortable for me than for some other white people in my milieu.
I also think that it is useful to put stuff like this in so many words and not just let it be a vague feeling. It's good to scaffold "I should let myself mull new ideas over because I am likely to be threatened by change, especially when it comes in the form of criticism of things I do without thinking about it".
Another thing I have learned over the years is that it takes a long, long time and often a lot of work to actually learn all that moral stuff that seems so obvious. If someone says, "be nice when people don't know how to do things that come easily to you instead of being smug or judgey", for instance, it's easy to feel that this is an obvious thing that of course we all know. And yet how often we are smug or judgey!
posted by Frowner at 9:48 AM on June 24 [56 favorites]
My high school Philosophy & Psychology 101 teacher demonstrated this pretty well. At the beginning of the first class of the semester he very deliberately emphasized that "change is disruptive" (it became clear over the course of the class that it was one of his favorite phrases). Most of the eager young students disagreed, saying change can be good; that debate went on for a bit before he moved on to the other subjects he was introducing that day.
About two weeks later, after letting students sit wherever they wanted and some seating patterns had naturally emerged, he announced that he was going to implement an alphabetical seating arrangement so he could more easily learn everyone's names. Of course we all groaned and protested, at which point he said with a big grin, "See? Change is disruptive!" I don't know about the other students, but the lesson certainly stuck in my own mind.
In retrospect I'm sure he gleefully looked forward to that little stunt every year.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:57 AM on June 24 [13 favorites]
About two weeks later, after letting students sit wherever they wanted and some seating patterns had naturally emerged, he announced that he was going to implement an alphabetical seating arrangement so he could more easily learn everyone's names. Of course we all groaned and protested, at which point he said with a big grin, "See? Change is disruptive!" I don't know about the other students, but the lesson certainly stuck in my own mind.
In retrospect I'm sure he gleefully looked forward to that little stunt every year.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:57 AM on June 24 [13 favorites]
Reflection as to whether change is good/bad is probably a net positive, but the knee-jerk reaction to change is not necessarily a bad thing; the discomfort is good.
I am very uncomfortable with equating social change as "moral progress." Many things are couched as moral progress that we later regret, such as, I dunno, eugenics, or prohibition, or residential schools for indigenous populations.
posted by tempestuoso at 9:58 AM on June 24 [8 favorites]
I am very uncomfortable with equating social change as "moral progress." Many things are couched as moral progress that we later regret, such as, I dunno, eugenics, or prohibition, or residential schools for indigenous populations.
posted by tempestuoso at 9:58 AM on June 24 [8 favorites]
I can't help but think of this Vulga Drawings panel on aggrieved entitlement. I'll do anything in my power to never be the saddlesore flailing bench weenie in the face of change.
posted by phunniemee at 10:08 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 10:08 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Good essay. The author gives a great overview of "norms" and how they operate.
One thing that I was late to learn, but not mentioned in the article, is that norms can vary in the same person, depending on what's going on. For example: One nice day, I'm driving down the road, it's very pleasant and I'm enjoying the drive, then some jerk drives right up my ass, honks even, before finally rocketing past me, flipping the bird. The nerve! Next day...damn! I'm late for a dentist appointment, and now I'm stuck behind some old fart just dawdling, til I finally can pass. What is with those people? Moral - be aware of your own moral rulesets and how they change depending on what's going on. We're not always consistent. This was a big insight for me and has helped a lot.
The author touches on something else that i think is important:
posted by Artful Codger at 10:10 AM on June 24 [9 favorites]
One thing that I was late to learn, but not mentioned in the article, is that norms can vary in the same person, depending on what's going on. For example: One nice day, I'm driving down the road, it's very pleasant and I'm enjoying the drive, then some jerk drives right up my ass, honks even, before finally rocketing past me, flipping the bird. The nerve! Next day...damn! I'm late for a dentist appointment, and now I'm stuck behind some old fart just dawdling, til I finally can pass. What is with those people? Moral - be aware of your own moral rulesets and how they change depending on what's going on. We're not always consistent. This was a big insight for me and has helped a lot.
The author touches on something else that i think is important:
Finally, we can try to advocate and enforce new norms with positive rather than negative feedback, praising people for doing the right thing instead of shaming them for doing wrong.In other words, are we trying to create change by leading and guiding, or by hectoring and attacking? If you get the eyeroll, is it because you're hitting your audience with challenging ideas, or because you're coming off as a self-righteous preachy jerk? Both? Anything that needlessly adds to the friction works against the desired change.
posted by Artful Codger at 10:10 AM on June 24 [9 favorites]
I am very uncomfortable with equating social change as "moral progress."
this came up the other night, a rather heated discussion with and old friend. He's a moralist. I'm not. He takes offence when others don't adhere to the same inner directives that he does. And, key point here, he's a good guy. He plays fair. You'd want him on your team. But his moralism (a label he accepts) sure causes him a lot of anger, frustration.
Whereas I gave up on moralism long ago and far away. I have my morals, for sure, my sense of right/wrong etc. But what I've learned (the hard way) is that it pretty much never works to try to impose them on anyone else, or even to argue that hard in their favour. I'll discuss them with you, sure, but not from the angle that mine are somehow better than yours. Because well, I'm not you. I don't know your story, and never could, not fully.
And of course, I could be wrong.
What I will argue is ethics, tactics, politics. Because these, I think, you can at least begin to pin down, agree upon definitions. But morals? They are so uniquely part of one's self. And no, I can't change you. Or maybe won't is the better word.
So yeah, I read something like this:
Changing the social world for the better will very often mean changing some old, harmful norms and replacing them with better ones. And very often, that’s not going to feel good. Much of the time, it’s going to feel preachy. It’s going to grate on your nerves. It’s going to make you roll your eyes. A lot of moral progress is going to be annoying.
... and yes, my eyes do roll.
posted by philip-random at 10:17 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
this came up the other night, a rather heated discussion with and old friend. He's a moralist. I'm not. He takes offence when others don't adhere to the same inner directives that he does. And, key point here, he's a good guy. He plays fair. You'd want him on your team. But his moralism (a label he accepts) sure causes him a lot of anger, frustration.
Whereas I gave up on moralism long ago and far away. I have my morals, for sure, my sense of right/wrong etc. But what I've learned (the hard way) is that it pretty much never works to try to impose them on anyone else, or even to argue that hard in their favour. I'll discuss them with you, sure, but not from the angle that mine are somehow better than yours. Because well, I'm not you. I don't know your story, and never could, not fully.
And of course, I could be wrong.
What I will argue is ethics, tactics, politics. Because these, I think, you can at least begin to pin down, agree upon definitions. But morals? They are so uniquely part of one's self. And no, I can't change you. Or maybe won't is the better word.
So yeah, I read something like this:
Changing the social world for the better will very often mean changing some old, harmful norms and replacing them with better ones. And very often, that’s not going to feel good. Much of the time, it’s going to feel preachy. It’s going to grate on your nerves. It’s going to make you roll your eyes. A lot of moral progress is going to be annoying.
... and yes, my eyes do roll.
posted by philip-random at 10:17 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
unfortunately, no amount of "yes I know you find the singular "they" annoying, but you should do it anyway" has worked with certain of my family. It really does seem rooted in the stuff this article talks about. And I get it, I've felt it, I've tried to deal with it.
or because you're coming off as a self-righteous preachy jerk?
And from the other side, is "is this person wrong, or just being an asshole about it" can be a tricky question to even ask yourself! Some ideas are good even if the first proponent you've met is being a huge jerk about it.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:19 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
or because you're coming off as a self-righteous preachy jerk?
And from the other side, is "is this person wrong, or just being an asshole about it" can be a tricky question to even ask yourself! Some ideas are good even if the first proponent you've met is being a huge jerk about it.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:19 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Reflection as to whether change is good/bad is probably a net positive, but the knee-jerk reaction to change is not necessarily a bad thing; the discomfort is good.
Everyone has to have their own framework, but to my mind that framework should be as little driven by "oh yuck" and " no, it's the children who are wrong" as possible, and those are often the first responses we have. We're embodied creatures, we live in a society, there's no way to access some kind of god's-eye-view of right and wrong, but we can at least strive to be a little less thoughtless, interrogate our assumptions, etc.
Good discomfort wouldn't come from the immediate feeling that you're be criticized, that change will be frightening, that change can be frustrating, that you might have to give something up which seems far more valuable right this second than it does normally, etc.
I'd argue if anything that things like residential schools were established as the opposite of the kind of social change under discussion - they were created because white people felt good about them and they affirmed white people's desire to colonize and dominate. White people didn't think "oh yuck" or "change is scary" and need to remind themselves to sit patiently with new ideas, they thought "yes, this is exactly how a white person's world should run".
posted by Frowner at 10:31 AM on June 24 [9 favorites]
Everyone has to have their own framework, but to my mind that framework should be as little driven by "oh yuck" and " no, it's the children who are wrong" as possible, and those are often the first responses we have. We're embodied creatures, we live in a society, there's no way to access some kind of god's-eye-view of right and wrong, but we can at least strive to be a little less thoughtless, interrogate our assumptions, etc.
Good discomfort wouldn't come from the immediate feeling that you're be criticized, that change will be frightening, that change can be frustrating, that you might have to give something up which seems far more valuable right this second than it does normally, etc.
I'd argue if anything that things like residential schools were established as the opposite of the kind of social change under discussion - they were created because white people felt good about them and they affirmed white people's desire to colonize and dominate. White people didn't think "oh yuck" or "change is scary" and need to remind themselves to sit patiently with new ideas, they thought "yes, this is exactly how a white person's world should run".
posted by Frowner at 10:31 AM on June 24 [9 favorites]
"I should let myself mull new ideas over because I am likely to be threatened by change, especially when it comes in the form of criticism of things I do without thinking about it".
of course modern life and twitter and the soundbite culture and the shortening of attention spans and the 24hr news cycle and politicians and people in power would never take advantage of knee-jerk immediate response to new ideas no sireee
posted by lalochezia at 10:37 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
of course modern life and twitter and the soundbite culture and the shortening of attention spans and the 24hr news cycle and politicians and people in power would never take advantage of knee-jerk immediate response to new ideas no sireee
posted by lalochezia at 10:37 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
I'd argue if anything that things like residential schools were established as the opposite of the kind of social change under discussion - they were created because white people felt good about them and they affirmed white people's desire to colonize and dominate.
That is hindsight and reflection. At the time, I'd argue that most people weren't thinking in those terms; western civilization was deemed to be an unalloyed virtue, and don't get me started on western mainstream religions believing it their calling to bring all ignorant savages into the one true faith and to salvation.
/derail
posted by Artful Codger at 10:41 AM on June 24 [1 favorite]
That is hindsight and reflection. At the time, I'd argue that most people weren't thinking in those terms; western civilization was deemed to be an unalloyed virtue, and don't get me started on western mainstream religions believing it their calling to bring all ignorant savages into the one true faith and to salvation.
/derail
posted by Artful Codger at 10:41 AM on June 24 [1 favorite]
yes one thing that the internet is good at is finding the single worst advocates for any position and shoving them directly into your eyeballs. Want to be negatively polarized? just join Twitter and people will retweet the worst advocates directly into your feed.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:42 AM on June 24 [4 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 10:42 AM on June 24 [4 favorites]
Yeah, unfortunately not all change is progress. And we won’t know until all the facts are in. But (this post notwithstanding) “one less hot take” is definitely my mantra these days.
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:47 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:47 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
There's a lot of bullshit in this article—start with the first paragraph, where it's strongly implied that the preachy vegan is right—but the passage that jumped out at me was:
Reactions involving awkwardness, irritation, even resentment are precisely what we should expect even in cases where old, unjust norms are being replaced with new, fairer ones.
I mean, sometimes the new norm is fair(er) and the old one less just or unjust. But sometimes, the new norm is pointless or stupid or the sort of fig leaf that serves as a substitute for and thus often prevents/impedes a real move toward justice. Sometimes the amount of irritation the new norm causes outweighs any purported benefit it might have. Or sometimes it's counterproductive: for example, IMO capitalizing the first letters of Black and White not only doesn't solve structural racism, but makes it worse because the capital letters imply a certain amount of existential weight to categories that were pretty much total bullshit in the first place. You may feel differently on that or on some other norm-change, but I don't think it's real productive to categorize anyone irritated by a change as necessarily part of the problem.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 10:48 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Reactions involving awkwardness, irritation, even resentment are precisely what we should expect even in cases where old, unjust norms are being replaced with new, fairer ones.
I mean, sometimes the new norm is fair(er) and the old one less just or unjust. But sometimes, the new norm is pointless or stupid or the sort of fig leaf that serves as a substitute for and thus often prevents/impedes a real move toward justice. Sometimes the amount of irritation the new norm causes outweighs any purported benefit it might have. Or sometimes it's counterproductive: for example, IMO capitalizing the first letters of Black and White not only doesn't solve structural racism, but makes it worse because the capital letters imply a certain amount of existential weight to categories that were pretty much total bullshit in the first place. You may feel differently on that or on some other norm-change, but I don't think it's real productive to categorize anyone irritated by a change as necessarily part of the problem.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 10:48 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
where it's strongly implied that the preachy vegan is right
the problem is less whether they're right and more that being annoyed at them is not a very reliable indicator that they're wrong. I'm not vegan but I think they're quite likely right, and I would still be annoyed by someone being preachy about it.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:53 AM on June 24 [7 favorites]
the problem is less whether they're right and more that being annoyed at them is not a very reliable indicator that they're wrong. I'm not vegan but I think they're quite likely right, and I would still be annoyed by someone being preachy about it.
posted by BungaDunga at 10:53 AM on June 24 [7 favorites]
the problem is less whether they're right and more that being annoyed at them is not a very reliable indicator that they're wrong
Mmm not totally. I can stow whether they're right/wrong on the merits and still be annoyed as shit by their inability to read the room and STFU instead of trying to earn Social Justice Points, or worse yet, actually think they have a right to impose their morality on us while we're trying to enjoy lunch.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 10:56 AM on June 24
Mmm not totally. I can stow whether they're right/wrong on the merits and still be annoyed as shit by their inability to read the room and STFU instead of trying to earn Social Justice Points, or worse yet, actually think they have a right to impose their morality on us while we're trying to enjoy lunch.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 10:56 AM on June 24
I REALLY wish the authors had resisted the stereotype of framing Black people as being "angry". (And yes I know the philosopher they quoted is Black, but even Black people can have ideas that are antiBlack). She's right that Black people have a strong emotional reaction to injustice, and that can powerfully fuel purpose and motivation.
But when white people feel "anger" they often get retaliatory and violent towards whoever they see as the cause. White Anger leads to tit for tat. And that's what many white people are afraid Black people are planning... which is why they always call us "angry" and are so afraid of us.
"Anger" as it exists in white spaces is NOT what most Black people feel about racism and injustice, or else all the human traffickers' mansions and Derek Chauvin's police station would have been stormed with guns, the way angry white men stormed the capitol a few years ago. If Black people were "angry" the way it's meant in white spaces, former enslavers would have been lynched by Black mobs just the way their mobs lynched Black men.
Even when Black communities are pushed to the point of protest, the protests are UNARMED, and typically NONVIOLENT. (And a lot of the perceived "violence" at Black protests is created by nonBlack agents provocateurs - there were videos of white people smashing windows or cops deliberately leaving an old cop car on a protest route to be set on fire or leaving bricks piled near large windows to encourage protests to escalate. In my city, I literally SAW white cops taking decorative stones from a city garden and piling them right onto the sidewalk, an hour before a planned Black Lives Matter protest. And in several of those cases, Black people (including me) actually confronted and de-escalated the agents provocateurs, instead of "being angry" and joining in.
SO - Black people are not "Angry" in that white-man way that's focused on tit for tat and revenge. Black people ALMOST NEVER enact revenge for racism. We just know racism is wrong, and we want to move forward and fix it.
Shorthanding that justified and powerful emotion as "angry" reinforces a harmful fear response that gets Black people murdered by white people who are "scared" of them. It's clumsy, it's inaccurate, and most of all, it's dangerous. In this case it really taints an otherwise valuable article.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:01 AM on June 24 [40 favorites]
But when white people feel "anger" they often get retaliatory and violent towards whoever they see as the cause. White Anger leads to tit for tat. And that's what many white people are afraid Black people are planning... which is why they always call us "angry" and are so afraid of us.
"Anger" as it exists in white spaces is NOT what most Black people feel about racism and injustice, or else all the human traffickers' mansions and Derek Chauvin's police station would have been stormed with guns, the way angry white men stormed the capitol a few years ago. If Black people were "angry" the way it's meant in white spaces, former enslavers would have been lynched by Black mobs just the way their mobs lynched Black men.
Even when Black communities are pushed to the point of protest, the protests are UNARMED, and typically NONVIOLENT. (And a lot of the perceived "violence" at Black protests is created by nonBlack agents provocateurs - there were videos of white people smashing windows or cops deliberately leaving an old cop car on a protest route to be set on fire or leaving bricks piled near large windows to encourage protests to escalate. In my city, I literally SAW white cops taking decorative stones from a city garden and piling them right onto the sidewalk, an hour before a planned Black Lives Matter protest. And in several of those cases, Black people (including me) actually confronted and de-escalated the agents provocateurs, instead of "being angry" and joining in.
SO - Black people are not "Angry" in that white-man way that's focused on tit for tat and revenge. Black people ALMOST NEVER enact revenge for racism. We just know racism is wrong, and we want to move forward and fix it.
Shorthanding that justified and powerful emotion as "angry" reinforces a harmful fear response that gets Black people murdered by white people who are "scared" of them. It's clumsy, it's inaccurate, and most of all, it's dangerous. In this case it really taints an otherwise valuable article.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:01 AM on June 24 [40 favorites]
Flagged as fantastic, nouvelle-personne. I winced at that also, but I couldn't have laid out why nearly as well as you did. Thank you.
posted by humbug at 11:36 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
posted by humbug at 11:36 AM on June 24 [2 favorites]
I'm wondering wether different generations have different attitudes towards change? Or perhaps different social groups? My grandmother, born in 1920, really liked change, almost to her last weeks. Her language was very youthful and fun because she picked up new slang and other phrases, both from us and from TV. She always wore fashionable clothes. And she voted further and further to the left as she got older, because she embraced social change, equal rights and immigration.
I feel my parents were much more conservative, though my mother was always curious about new stuff.
Maybe what I am questioning is the way the article is based on a lot of assumptions that may not be universally applicable. I don't roll my eyes if someone is vegan or asks me to use a different pronoun than I first assumed. Why would I do that? But of course I am sometimes disgusted or confused or alienated by concepts and things that are new to me.
I was once at a summer school where one of the professors gave a similar lecture, based on the assumption that we were mostly white American college kids. But we weren't -- over half of us were from other parts of the world. And we were just confused and couldn't even guess what he was trying to say.
posted by mumimor at 11:36 AM on June 24 [1 favorite]
I feel my parents were much more conservative, though my mother was always curious about new stuff.
Maybe what I am questioning is the way the article is based on a lot of assumptions that may not be universally applicable. I don't roll my eyes if someone is vegan or asks me to use a different pronoun than I first assumed. Why would I do that? But of course I am sometimes disgusted or confused or alienated by concepts and things that are new to me.
I was once at a summer school where one of the professors gave a similar lecture, based on the assumption that we were mostly white American college kids. But we weren't -- over half of us were from other parts of the world. And we were just confused and couldn't even guess what he was trying to say.
posted by mumimor at 11:36 AM on June 24 [1 favorite]
But sometimes, the new norm is pointless or stupid or the sort of fig leaf that serves as a substitute for and thus often prevents/impedes a real move toward justice. Sometimes the amount of irritation the new norm causes outweighs any purported benefit it might have. Or sometimes it's counterproductive: for example, IMO capitalizing the first letters of Black and White not only doesn't solve structural racism, but makes it worse because the capital letters imply a certain amount of existential weight to categories that were pretty much total bullshit in the first place.
Okay, but who gets to decide what's pointless and unjust? Who gets to declare that a norm is meaningless and performative? Is it you? Is it me? Is it some committee of individuals? Who?
Your argument is just that George Carlin routine about how anyone driving faster than you is a menace and anyone driving slower than you is an idiot. You can't divide norms into "necessary" and "stupid" columns because it gives you the opportunity and justification to dismiss anything you find to be too irritating as "stupid" and not worth respecting.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:39 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
Okay, but who gets to decide what's pointless and unjust? Who gets to declare that a norm is meaningless and performative? Is it you? Is it me? Is it some committee of individuals? Who?
Your argument is just that George Carlin routine about how anyone driving faster than you is a menace and anyone driving slower than you is an idiot. You can't divide norms into "necessary" and "stupid" columns because it gives you the opportunity and justification to dismiss anything you find to be too irritating as "stupid" and not worth respecting.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:39 AM on June 24 [3 favorites]
Okay, but who gets to decide what's pointless and unjust? .... anyone driving faster than you is a menace and anyone driving slower than you is an idiot.
I couldn't agree more ;-)
You can't divide norms into "necessary" and "stupid" columns because it gives you the opportunity and justification to dismiss anything you find to be too irritating as "stupid" and not worth respecting.
Sure, but that cuts both ways; does perceiving yourself to be "right" and your cause important give you full licence to lecture to and berate others who you consider to be "wrong"? A little humility on both sides of the transaction is required. The Golden Rule, etc.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:53 AM on June 24 [1 favorite]
I couldn't agree more ;-)
You can't divide norms into "necessary" and "stupid" columns because it gives you the opportunity and justification to dismiss anything you find to be too irritating as "stupid" and not worth respecting.
Sure, but that cuts both ways; does perceiving yourself to be "right" and your cause important give you full licence to lecture to and berate others who you consider to be "wrong"? A little humility on both sides of the transaction is required. The Golden Rule, etc.
posted by Artful Codger at 11:53 AM on June 24 [1 favorite]
I mean, none of us really get to decide what’s good or bad or durable or fleeting, right? We each may have a pinkie finger on the ouja board, but we’re not actually controlling where the consensus really lands. I know a lot of people want to be on the right side of history, but that’s going to get redrawn over and over again. I think the fact that good, necessary change is often indistinguishable from fads or arbitrary churn to the average, mediocre citizen is what fuels so much over-reaction, along with the perceived threat to their own social credit score. Reaction is ugly and can make people behave monstrously, but it’s not this anomalous thing that only other people do… it’s actually pretty universal. (It doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t strive for the change they see as good and necessary, they absolutely should!!)
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:03 PM on June 24 [1 favorite]
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:03 PM on June 24 [1 favorite]
Bleh, so much for my mantra…
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:08 PM on June 24
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:08 PM on June 24
Sure, but that cuts both ways; does perceiving yourself to be "right" and your cause important give you full licence to lecture to and berate others who you consider to be "wrong"?
Everyone has the right to lecture and berate. If you ask me, there's a shortage of lecturing and berating in this world, at least from the people who have good ideas about things. Drown out those who disagree with you. Lecture and berate until there can be no doubt about what you believe, why you believe it, and what harm is being done by the people who are standing in your way.
We have to be fair. We have to be just. We have to be compassionate. We don't have to be nice.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:09 PM on June 24 [4 favorites]
Everyone has the right to lecture and berate. If you ask me, there's a shortage of lecturing and berating in this world, at least from the people who have good ideas about things. Drown out those who disagree with you. Lecture and berate until there can be no doubt about what you believe, why you believe it, and what harm is being done by the people who are standing in your way.
We have to be fair. We have to be just. We have to be compassionate. We don't have to be nice.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:09 PM on June 24 [4 favorites]
You do you. Sometimes that approach works. Sometimes it's counterproductive.
posted by Artful Codger at 12:15 PM on June 24 [4 favorites]
posted by Artful Codger at 12:15 PM on June 24 [4 favorites]
I think part of being fair is acknowledging that we don’t always know the consequences and implications of our own beliefs, and that progress is going to be constantly re-defined. Society changes, needs change, values change… this makes conflict inevitable and probably necessary, and it means nobody ever really gets the final word on what is good or just.
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:24 PM on June 24 [5 favorites]
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:24 PM on June 24 [5 favorites]
One of the things that one can do is read some material about philosophy, ethics, etc, even books about philosophy and ethics germane to a specific situation and try to develop some kind of relatively durable, consistent outlook that you can use to guide you rather than the yuck/yum gut feelings.
Obviously people are inconsistent and it's difficult, etc, but at least if you know what you think about things in a general way, it's a bit easier to interrogate the yuck/yum feelings. In fact, I think at least some of the yuck/threat feelings come from a semi-conscious recognition that we don't know enough to have an opinion, or that our opinions may contradict what we do, and while humans are not generally creatures of virtuous careful consistency, it helps to hold that stuff up to the light.
If we're going to live in big complex societies, everything is going to go to hell if we don't actually sit down and reflect on our values and try to apply them. It's possible to sort of mooch along in a non-abstract way in smaller, flatter societies where people have roughly equal power and connections, but without some kind of framework you're just going to be going with stupid yuck/yum feelings and self-interest all the time.
posted by Frowner at 1:08 PM on June 24 [8 favorites]
Obviously people are inconsistent and it's difficult, etc, but at least if you know what you think about things in a general way, it's a bit easier to interrogate the yuck/yum feelings. In fact, I think at least some of the yuck/threat feelings come from a semi-conscious recognition that we don't know enough to have an opinion, or that our opinions may contradict what we do, and while humans are not generally creatures of virtuous careful consistency, it helps to hold that stuff up to the light.
If we're going to live in big complex societies, everything is going to go to hell if we don't actually sit down and reflect on our values and try to apply them. It's possible to sort of mooch along in a non-abstract way in smaller, flatter societies where people have roughly equal power and connections, but without some kind of framework you're just going to be going with stupid yuck/yum feelings and self-interest all the time.
posted by Frowner at 1:08 PM on June 24 [8 favorites]
it's interesting the authors spend so much time focusing on the affectively negative consequences of being exposed to new norms, and maybe they are telling on themselves a bit. for professors at a big state university, the existing norms have worked out pretty well for them insofar as they have landed a pretty decent job that carries connotations of status. so they spend all their essay talking about the experience of being exposed to different perspectives with negatively loaded terms like 'affective friction' and whatnot. i'm like halfway convinced that one of the authors themselves was actually the person in the example listening to a vegan talking loudly during lunch and getting irritated.
so they're focused on how uncomfortable it is to adapt to new norms, and i would guess that the reason they're focused on that is that they themselves are uncomfortable with change, and they have generalized their discomfort to the whole wide world. even when they talk about affectively positive aspects, like curiosity, it's presented as a way to make adapting to a new norm less aversive. there seems to be zero mention of why new norms appear to begin with, and i would guess its because there is no room in their philosophy for people to be uncomfortable with the existing norms and to want to find/create something that is less uncomfortable.
posted by logicpunk at 1:50 PM on June 24 [4 favorites]
so they're focused on how uncomfortable it is to adapt to new norms, and i would guess that the reason they're focused on that is that they themselves are uncomfortable with change, and they have generalized their discomfort to the whole wide world. even when they talk about affectively positive aspects, like curiosity, it's presented as a way to make adapting to a new norm less aversive. there seems to be zero mention of why new norms appear to begin with, and i would guess its because there is no room in their philosophy for people to be uncomfortable with the existing norms and to want to find/create something that is less uncomfortable.
posted by logicpunk at 1:50 PM on June 24 [4 favorites]
logicpunk, it could very well be that they are, consciously or not, focusing their writing on the audience of the people that resist change because, being on the beneficial end of current social structures, they feel the annoyance mentioned, rather than those who welcome the changes because the current structure hasn’t been good for them. In essence (generous reading) writing for the people who need to hear it? Of course, another reading might simply be that they themselves don’t see that the annoyance is a sign that the annoyed person has benefited from a status quo, and don’t feel or see the need that someone else desperately has for the change that is coming?
As mentioned above, the Principal Skinner “it is the children who are wrong” meme can be helpful in recognizing when our reactions aren’t helpful, but I think here, maybe the “are we the baddies” meme might be helpful, too. If it is the case that the framing of the article is coming from authors who have yet to fully understand their own biases, these days, I’m trying to react to those early instances of self-awareness and understanding with encouragement and support. They’ve made steps, important ones, and they’re on their way, even if it’s not as far down the path as you or I might like, I’m hopeful they’ll get there. It’s fucking exhausting, but all change is, and it’s about harder to do it alone.
I will admit to having been very much resistant to change, and felt the same annoyance, and been rightfully dragged over the coals for it. It’s helped me to understand my reactions better, and yeah, looking back on things over the years, there are a number of my initial reactions to things that I cringe at, and more than likely, as I get older, that list will sadly get longer. I can also recognize, though, that in my initial reaction to some things was the seed of anger at being called out, and I recognize that in people who seemed pretty all right at one point, but are now raging against things that their younger selves would be ashamed of.
I also recognize the shittiness of relying on others to do the exhausting labor of dragging people kicking and screaming into understanding, but without having been the (grateful) recipient of that dragging, I can’t honestly say I’d see things the way I do today.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:30 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
As mentioned above, the Principal Skinner “it is the children who are wrong” meme can be helpful in recognizing when our reactions aren’t helpful, but I think here, maybe the “are we the baddies” meme might be helpful, too. If it is the case that the framing of the article is coming from authors who have yet to fully understand their own biases, these days, I’m trying to react to those early instances of self-awareness and understanding with encouragement and support. They’ve made steps, important ones, and they’re on their way, even if it’s not as far down the path as you or I might like, I’m hopeful they’ll get there. It’s fucking exhausting, but all change is, and it’s about harder to do it alone.
I will admit to having been very much resistant to change, and felt the same annoyance, and been rightfully dragged over the coals for it. It’s helped me to understand my reactions better, and yeah, looking back on things over the years, there are a number of my initial reactions to things that I cringe at, and more than likely, as I get older, that list will sadly get longer. I can also recognize, though, that in my initial reaction to some things was the seed of anger at being called out, and I recognize that in people who seemed pretty all right at one point, but are now raging against things that their younger selves would be ashamed of.
I also recognize the shittiness of relying on others to do the exhausting labor of dragging people kicking and screaming into understanding, but without having been the (grateful) recipient of that dragging, I can’t honestly say I’d see things the way I do today.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:30 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Or, another possible take: looking back at the article, the authors are doing something I’m trying to get my junior high students away from doing, using “you” and “we” when writing like this. I imagine they made that choice here with the idea that using “we” pushes the idea that we’re all in this together, which they hoped would make a challenging idea more palatable through a sense of shared experience. That falls apart when, as here, you’ve got people that maybe aren’t the intended audience (people for whom the status quo isn’t great, and who are advocating for change) whose response, rightfully, is “we who?!”
It doesn’t help that in several places, they’re jumping back and forth with “we” as “author and audience” and “we” as “we the authors (alone).”
I’d argue that their conspiratorial voice was a choice to attract the kind of reader they think needs to hear what they have to say, but I don’t think it speaks very highly of how they view that audience, and I imagine that choice plays a pretty strong part in how their work is being received here.
To go back several years, though, it might help to think of this as the 101 level text. Is it at the level of discourse people in this thread would prefer? No, not really. It doesn’t mean it’s without merit, though. I’ve got a class of ridiculously privileged and frighteningly conservative high school seniors that this might just be perfect for.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:52 PM on June 24 [4 favorites]
It doesn’t help that in several places, they’re jumping back and forth with “we” as “author and audience” and “we” as “we the authors (alone).”
I’d argue that their conspiratorial voice was a choice to attract the kind of reader they think needs to hear what they have to say, but I don’t think it speaks very highly of how they view that audience, and I imagine that choice plays a pretty strong part in how their work is being received here.
To go back several years, though, it might help to think of this as the 101 level text. Is it at the level of discourse people in this thread would prefer? No, not really. It doesn’t mean it’s without merit, though. I’ve got a class of ridiculously privileged and frighteningly conservative high school seniors that this might just be perfect for.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:52 PM on June 24 [4 favorites]
Mmm not totally. I can stow whether they're right/wrong on the merits and still be annoyed as shit by their inability to read the room and STFU instead of trying to earn Social Justice Points, or worse yet, actually think they have a right to impose their morality on us while we're trying to enjoy lunch.
"I am not distressed because I am faced with the moral dissonance between my values and my actions. I am just responding to the fact people to my left are objectively annoying."
posted by The Manwich Horror at 3:46 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
"I am not distressed because I am faced with the moral dissonance between my values and my actions. I am just responding to the fact people to my left are objectively annoying."
posted by The Manwich Horror at 3:46 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
I dunno, I've sat in rooms with intelligent people who have very good values around topics A, B and C and they've reacted with the same kind of fear and annoyance about D that is described in this article.
Also, I may be worse than other people but I can't believe that I'm worse than everyone and I've definitely been in rooms where people have spoken from perspectives to my left that I'd never even considered, and I've felt that same old grumpy/uncomfortable/inadequate/threatened feeling when it's things that are new to me.
I have trouble believing that most of us are so very enlightened that we never experience irritation, threat or resentment when we're told that we are hurting someone's feelings, taking unfair advantage, perpetuating bigotry without meaning to, etc, because that's not what I see around me day to day.
What I see around me is people from all subject positions - not just privileged people who come from comfort and indulgence - reacting to moral challenges similarly. It's the challenges that differ more than the people. Someone might be really good at hearing people from X different background, but as soon as people from Y start saying that their needs aren't being met, that person can easily fall into the same old "you're too preachy, that's getting in the way of what's really important, la la I can't hear you" routine.
Would that it were true that only overprivileged ignorant greedy people reacted this way! If that were the case, we could just find some people who were guaranteed by their subject position to be open and fair, and let them do the driving.
I think that people don't recognize this feeling when they have it! I think that we get good at telling ourselves that of course we're enlightened and smart, so our feelings of annoyance, etc are in fact accurate responses to just how foolish the other people are being.
The thing is, it's good to recognize, manage and preempt this feeling, and I think that if you recognize and manage it, you can diminish it and sort of duck around it until it's not a problem anymore, but I've just seem this same kind of reaction too often to believe that it's purely an artifact of privilege.
posted by Frowner at 3:50 PM on June 24 [15 favorites]
Also, I may be worse than other people but I can't believe that I'm worse than everyone and I've definitely been in rooms where people have spoken from perspectives to my left that I'd never even considered, and I've felt that same old grumpy/uncomfortable/inadequate/threatened feeling when it's things that are new to me.
I have trouble believing that most of us are so very enlightened that we never experience irritation, threat or resentment when we're told that we are hurting someone's feelings, taking unfair advantage, perpetuating bigotry without meaning to, etc, because that's not what I see around me day to day.
What I see around me is people from all subject positions - not just privileged people who come from comfort and indulgence - reacting to moral challenges similarly. It's the challenges that differ more than the people. Someone might be really good at hearing people from X different background, but as soon as people from Y start saying that their needs aren't being met, that person can easily fall into the same old "you're too preachy, that's getting in the way of what's really important, la la I can't hear you" routine.
Would that it were true that only overprivileged ignorant greedy people reacted this way! If that were the case, we could just find some people who were guaranteed by their subject position to be open and fair, and let them do the driving.
I think that people don't recognize this feeling when they have it! I think that we get good at telling ourselves that of course we're enlightened and smart, so our feelings of annoyance, etc are in fact accurate responses to just how foolish the other people are being.
The thing is, it's good to recognize, manage and preempt this feeling, and I think that if you recognize and manage it, you can diminish it and sort of duck around it until it's not a problem anymore, but I've just seem this same kind of reaction too often to believe that it's purely an artifact of privilege.
posted by Frowner at 3:50 PM on June 24 [15 favorites]
I also have noticed it exclusively in other people.
posted by Reyturner at 6:49 PM on June 24 [5 favorites]
posted by Reyturner at 6:49 PM on June 24 [5 favorites]
We all want to be the hero of our own story. I believe that is a universal habit of human kind. When we encounter a situation where that personal narrative is challenged, the first inclination is to be defensive. Again, I believe that is a universal habit.
Heck, I’d argue some of the comments arguing against the article are exhibiting this very same thing! Rather than writing people off because they don’t sign on right away, I think we have an obligation to take a step back and realize that progress is a process and not everyone moves at the same pace. If nothing else, it will help our mental health and that’s not nothing.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:06 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Heck, I’d argue some of the comments arguing against the article are exhibiting this very same thing! Rather than writing people off because they don’t sign on right away, I think we have an obligation to take a step back and realize that progress is a process and not everyone moves at the same pace. If nothing else, it will help our mental health and that’s not nothing.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:06 PM on June 24 [2 favorites]
Being annoyed at being told a norm you hold is wrong is very human. Indeed, just seeing other people violate norms, even ones with no moral element, annoys people. That's just about the definition of a norm. So IMHO the narrow version of this argument--that progress that involves changing norms has to battle against this annoyance--is true.
But it's trivially true. The authors seem to want to go further, but don't quite come out and say exactly where. Is this meaningfully different than general advice to try and keep an open mind?
I do think it's an implicitly Whiggian view of history--things advance and change tends towards progress, so things that slow down potential change are bad. But there are examples where I've been motivated to action by my annoyance at regressive norm violation.
posted by mark k at 10:37 PM on June 24 [5 favorites]
But it's trivially true. The authors seem to want to go further, but don't quite come out and say exactly where. Is this meaningfully different than general advice to try and keep an open mind?
I do think it's an implicitly Whiggian view of history--things advance and change tends towards progress, so things that slow down potential change are bad. But there are examples where I've been motivated to action by my annoyance at regressive norm violation.
posted by mark k at 10:37 PM on June 24 [5 favorites]
I've been curious about the academic discussion about disgust and politics for a long while, for both professional and private reasons. Originally, more than a decade ago, it was claimed that conservatives are more disgust-sensitive, which resonated with my then experience. But the rise of Trump has sort of put an end to that. Trump is objectively disgusting by any metric, but even European conservatives who have no stakes in US elections seem to find him palatable.
On the other hand, it makes me feel uncomfortable when people describe Trump as disgusting. I did it here, and it makes me feel bad that I did it.
In a sense, the tables have been turned, and I can see how the authors are trying to replace disgust as the distinguishing conservative emotion with annoyance. Morals are annoying. Except it only works for the morals of liberals and the left. Morals that force teenagers to give birth to babies are still fine. And have you noticed how often Trump describes his opponents as disgusting? Whereas veganisme, respect for other humans and wanting to save the planet are all annoying. Which is a pretty weak emotion: the planet is burning and all you have to offer against doing something is annoyance? You fear that you will be mildly inconvenienced? It is clearly absurd, yet that absurdity is killing our civilisation, so it is relevant.
Here in Denmark, a grumpy old libertarian has been running his EUP campaign on annoyance, and it didn't work at all, but I wonder if that was because he wasn't funny. I feel there is a lot of energy in the EU and the US coming from the young male libertarian set who are basically annoyed that the world isn't set up for their pleasure. Not enough to be a political force of their own, but enough to reinforce the fascists.
I'm thinking a lot about this because I am interested in the New European Bauhaus Desire project. I don't think it has found its feet yet, but I do think we need to replace both disgust and annoyance with desire if we want change. Which is also why I am curious about people who have embraced change in the past, because hundreds of millions did that after WW2.
posted by mumimor at 12:31 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]
On the other hand, it makes me feel uncomfortable when people describe Trump as disgusting. I did it here, and it makes me feel bad that I did it.
In a sense, the tables have been turned, and I can see how the authors are trying to replace disgust as the distinguishing conservative emotion with annoyance. Morals are annoying. Except it only works for the morals of liberals and the left. Morals that force teenagers to give birth to babies are still fine. And have you noticed how often Trump describes his opponents as disgusting? Whereas veganisme, respect for other humans and wanting to save the planet are all annoying. Which is a pretty weak emotion: the planet is burning and all you have to offer against doing something is annoyance? You fear that you will be mildly inconvenienced? It is clearly absurd, yet that absurdity is killing our civilisation, so it is relevant.
Here in Denmark, a grumpy old libertarian has been running his EUP campaign on annoyance, and it didn't work at all, but I wonder if that was because he wasn't funny. I feel there is a lot of energy in the EU and the US coming from the young male libertarian set who are basically annoyed that the world isn't set up for their pleasure. Not enough to be a political force of their own, but enough to reinforce the fascists.
I'm thinking a lot about this because I am interested in the New European Bauhaus Desire project. I don't think it has found its feet yet, but I do think we need to replace both disgust and annoyance with desire if we want change. Which is also why I am curious about people who have embraced change in the past, because hundreds of millions did that after WW2.
posted by mumimor at 12:31 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]
>> (+1:) In essence (generous reading) writing for the people who need to hear it?
i’m reminded of another genre of writing: https://www.thenovelry.com/blog/bildungsroman
posted by HearHere at 12:31 AM on June 25
i’m reminded of another genre of writing: https://www.thenovelry.com/blog/bildungsroman
posted by HearHere at 12:31 AM on June 25
The main thing that jumped out at me is that we're currently a species being ravaged by a pandemic, but it's somehow déclassé to actually do anything about it, I suspect because more people were uncomfortable with the required safety norm-shift than not, rather than anything to do with facts. Facts like how, even now, it's the third leading cause of death after cancer and heart disease, which are both pluralistic causes, unlike COVID, so it could be argued it's #1.
Once you've soaked in the data..
Ethically, the only kind choice is to mask.
Scientifically, the only sound choice is to mask.
Socially, the only inclusive choice is to mask.
Yet here we are. And how many people, reading those words, are going to automatically feel defensive? Most. It's baffling, unless looked at through the lens of the rigidity of social norms.
posted by foxtongue at 6:32 AM on June 25 [6 favorites]
Once you've soaked in the data..
Ethically, the only kind choice is to mask.
Scientifically, the only sound choice is to mask.
Socially, the only inclusive choice is to mask.
Yet here we are. And how many people, reading those words, are going to automatically feel defensive? Most. It's baffling, unless looked at through the lens of the rigidity of social norms.
posted by foxtongue at 6:32 AM on June 25 [6 favorites]
As I passionately fight spanking/hitting of children, I am appalled at the responses I get. "Who do you think you are telling me I can't hurt my kids?" is the prevailing sentiment. People are gross. I'll just have AI bust you doing it. Enjoy my angry protective robot.
posted by lextex at 8:28 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]
posted by lextex at 8:28 AM on June 25 [2 favorites]
Facts like how, even now, it's the third leading cause of death
Where and when? In the US, it was the third leading cause in 2021, then dropped to 4th in 2022, and it looks like it will be about 8th in 2023.
If you want to "soak" in the data, it's important to use accurate data.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:55 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]
Where and when? In the US, it was the third leading cause in 2021, then dropped to 4th in 2022, and it looks like it will be about 8th in 2023.
If you want to "soak" in the data, it's important to use accurate data.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:55 PM on June 25 [2 favorites]
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posted by HearHere at 8:25 AM on June 24