Good evening, all. This could be the most important thing I ever write here.
I have to admit that I don’t think it’s going to do a lick of good, either. I’ve been yattering on about this since almost the moment I arrived, and it’s felt like trying to refreeze a melting glacier by fanning it gently. But I have to try; there’s more riding on it now than there ever was. Potential and actual, they’re two different levels of urgency; and it’s ACTUAL TIME. Shit just got really, really, real.
This is a diary about abuse and enabling, and about the thinking and behavior patterns of abusers. It will be as comprehensive as I can make it. I’m going off inspiration here, not working from an outline, so if it gets long, I’ll stop and do a second diary. SOON.
It’s a diary with an underlayment: the top level theme is that we Lefties are being abused by the Rightwingers, we have been trained to enable RWNJs in response, and we have to stop the enabling because LOOK WHAT IT GETS US, PEOPLE. The second level is: FFS, stop it with the derogation of old people. I know all this shit BECAUSE I AM AN OLD PERSON, WHO HAS LIVED A LOT OF YEARS AND WAS PAYING ATTENTION. And now I’m going to try to “codify an expert system”, i.e., write down what I know so other people DON’T have to spend four or five decades piecing it together. Other cultures know all about this “handing down of knowledge” thing. Ours likes to pretend it only exists for recipes. So think of this as a recipe collection, if you must.
Oh cool, I found a delineator ^^^! So let’s get started.
Starting with a shout out to a woman named Patricia Evans, another woman named Martha Stout, and several men, Robert Hare, Lundy Bancroft, Paul Babiak, the late Tim Field, and Beau of the Fifth Column. Also the writing team of Judith Wyatt and Chauncey Hare, and the husband and wife team of Ruth and Gary Namie. I will put links to their work at the end of this — if I forget or this becomes too long, their names are here for Googling. These people are leaders in the study and elucidation of bullying, manipulation, and sociopathy, which are all part of abuse. Field, Wyatt and C. Hare, and the Namies specialized in workplace abuse, but it generalizes, trust me. This body of work dates from the 90s and earlier, so they won’t be the topline hits in a general search. But these are the people who turned on the light for me. And I thank them.
Now. Belt in.
Our culture is massively abusive. MASSIVELY. It rests on a foundation of human sacrifice, which we ignore as much as possible.
- You know the term “permanent underclass”; well, that’s part of the sacrifice; we relegate an entire segment of our population to second-class status and do our level best to keep them there. AKA systemic racism. Sometimes conscious, sometimes not, deadly either way. Different flavors for different regions; Blacks here, Indigenous People there, Latin peoples over there, but it’s all part of the same dynamic.
- Second class citizenship for women — all colors, all economic levels, so this is stratified and diffuse, but no less real.
- “Othering” of anyone who differs from the cis-het-white-affluent-able stereotype is another part of it (that’s where I live, in Aspieville, next to NAMIville and LGBTQ+ville).
- Yet another part happens routinely these days in schools and shopping malls and God knows how many other places, and yes, I mean mass shootings.
- Another part involves those “deaths of despair” that really took off when OxyContin came out but aren’t about OxyContin, of course. Or fentanyl. Or any other flavor of the month street drug. They’re about hopelessness, when people realize they have been crammed into one of these designated subhuman categories and can’t get out.
- And here’s a controversial one. I’m going to argue that RW Hate Media are instrumental in producing not only haters, but despairers — feeding into that third and fourth category, and doing so KNOWINGLY. The people who are mainlining the RW crap but still working and paying taxes and being routinely sheared, gouged, and conned with the rest of us, for the Glory of Capitalism? They’re Deaths of Despair waiting in the wings. (And if you think most of us aren’t, you need to ponder some more. Don’t cheer for this, because the same bell tolls for thee.)
- But wait, there’s more. These are the main areas, but probably everyone here can think of one or more that I have missed.
Now, we are accustomed to thinking that “sacrifice” serves some purpose. And this does, definitely. That “purpose” our suffering serves? Is sitting on obscene piles of cash and doing its level best to rake in more, paid for by the working class, lower class, underclass, in time and toil and tears. That “purpose” owns Sinema; IS Manchin and his spawn; and is currently slandering union organizers to a whiners’ continuo. Rentiers, profiteers, whatever you want to call them: they are intraspecies predators, and WE ARE THE PREY.
Well, that’s a hell of a thing, and you would think people would notice. They do, they do, we do. Notice enough, think enough, and you get indignant. Get indignant enough, and you might decide to do something. Well good Lord, we can’t have that. And this is where the abuse and enabling dynamic comes in.
The point of abuse, the WHOLE point, is control.
And the point of control is POWER.
Abusers want power. To get it, and keep it, they will lie, twist,
manipulate in every way possible,
they will create systems of rules that are DESIGNED to disempower their prey,
and they will actively train their prey to collaborate in its own victimization (enabling).
I’m going to stop here, although this is just the Preamble. It’s long enough as is. Tomorrow I’ll put together Part Two, which will hopefully include some of the actual Rules I’ve learned. And how to thwart them, which, like charity, always begins at home. We be brainwashed, yes, even us, perhaps in some ways especially us, and the first step to freedom starts with realizing that and deprogramming OURSELVES.
Caveat Lector: This diary draws from personal experience, which does not usually come with citations and links. I will try to find links for some of the concepts I present in sequels, but please understand that I’m unwilling to debate the validity of my own experiences. The reflex to invalidate people, especially when those people are women, with extra sprinkles for OLD women, versus taking in the information and thinking about how it might (a) be true and (b) apply to some of one’s own experiences? THAT is, yeah it is, abusive. So try to catch that impulse as it goes past, and not let it out of the house without a chaperone; all kinds of interactions will improve, markedly.
Aaaaaand I don’t have bibliography links for all my mentors, but here’s a very recent gem from Beau. I will put those links together, though, promise.
and this. If you listen to the lyrics, and the fidelity is good enough that you can, you’ll understand why it belongs here.
Saturday, May 7, 2022 · 1:25:23 PM +00:00 · Gaelsdottir
Before I do anything else today (Saturday, some hours post-pub), I want to thank all of the commenters, and encourage people who read this diary to please look through the comments.
Here is an update to incorporate links to detailed comments from Mettle Fatigue, Niemann, and Mokurai that link back to their own work in this area, at this site. It’s vitally important to glean as much as one can from different thinkers on the subject, and that we have several people here with well developed commentary is a huge, huge benefit. IF people can find that commentary! So without further ado:
Mettle Fatigue on ageism and the Left:
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/2095028/83527150#comment_83527150
Niemann's comment on the GOP mindset, and diary link
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/2095028/83527204#comment_83527204
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/8/5/367244/-
Mokurai's comment on the abuse phenomenon in our politics
https://www.dailykos.com/comments/2095028/83527790#comment_83527790
(Not sure why the links didn’t go live. I’ll try to fix that, later today if possible.)