My hot take is that "bullying" is a term associated with childhood and something we think of as "childish" not really because adults do it less but because we actually make more excuses to protect adults who do ithttps://twitter.com/dreamingnoctis/status/1291584154958798850 …
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Because, you know, sometimes they are The torture chamber doesn't support the government, the government supports the torture chamber The atrocities aren't in service of the revolution, the revolution is in service of the atrocities Boots stamping on faces forever etc
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I think that traumatized people, like Orwell obviously was, often do what CBT therapists call "catastrophizing" and "universalizing", like you really think an overwhelming conspiracy of schoolyard bullies out to fuck with you personally runs the world ("cancel culture")
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And that leads to some very bad places, in fact if you don't put up any walls against it there's no bad place it can't lead Orwell preparing to go McCarthyist on his deathbed, making a blacklist of Stalinist fellow-travelers, etc Hurt people hurt people, and all that
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But you gotta acknowledge the emotional place it comes from is real The sick feeling when you come up against a situation where you can't bargain or negotiate your way out of getting fucked with because your pain is the actual goal
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And a lot of the Trump voter discourse keeps missing this, refusing to accept that the "psychic wage" IS A WAGE "Why do these people vote against their own economic interests" Well, even assuming that that's actually true, they think they're getting fair value for their money
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They're not being conned, the deal is upfront and square Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a whole economic future in return for your enemy's abjection and humiliation They can afford it and they'll pay it because it's worth it, nothing else gives the same bang for the buck
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Hence the takes about why this or that abusive rich person -- including the one in the White House right now -- doesn't just retire and enjoy their money Enjoy it how? How many Big Macs can one person actually eat? How many golden towers can you build before you get sick of it?
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The only two things you can really do with money after you hit a normal human being's satiation point (which let's be realistic is *long* before even $1 billion) are help people or hurt people
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And hurting people is easier, faster, cheaper and gives a much more intense high It's sativa to helping people's indica Most people dabble in both, for variety, but it's the hurting people that really gets your blood pumping
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End of conversation
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to me his abusive school experience as described in "Such, Such Were The Joys" feels very much like the inspiration for Nineteen Eighty-Four, especially the part where he believed the headmaster had spies all over town waiting to rat him out for buying candy
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