Oliver Bateman Does the WorkVerified account

Liberals have to tell each other “it’s okay to eat some ice cream,” “it’s okay to enjoy sex,” “it’s okay to take a time out,” “it’s okay not to have kids,” etc. bc the baseline mode of affluent liberalism is an ascetic denial of pleasure and a relentless scolding into perfection

I think it’s close to what @Shialabeefsteak’s been on about. I’ve until now framed it more as a kind of puritanism, but shoring up moral righteousness through performed denials of one’s own better material position is surely at the center of it

Thinking about it more, I don’t think it’s about denial of pleasure per se (because there’s also the whole happiness industry and mandate) but rather a denial of the libidinal, of the directly embodied, and bawdy, the viscerally straightforward, what you could call the soulful,