A thought from 2013 on the common political moaner's technique of conveniently avoiding truth by using abstract, vague language
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Next time you hear polite middle class complaining about something, you could try making an experiment.
Each time you hear an abstraction, like "society puts pressure on us to" or "they wouldn't let me do it" or "all [X[ group are the same",,,politely ask the person to say WHO they are talking about.
People suffering from persecution mania or paranoia often speak of 'Them'. It is often quite unclear who 'They' are...and this is no coincidence. On a less extreme level, when people use abstractions like "the system" or even "the patriarchy", they don't want to be clear to themselves who they are really angry with.
You can also experiment - each time you want to generalise about some group in general you dislike - "men", "women", "the rich", "the poor" "immigrants" "the right wing"...ask yourself whether your accusation can possibly be true of all of "them" and can possibly justify the high emotion you are feeling. The angrier people get, the more they start foaming, the more scared they are of the thing they are trying not to know.
There is always a pay off for this self-delusion. For example, I hear a lot of people speaking from their armchairs about revolution and how suppressive the system is. From the historically unique situation of being able to say this without being arrested or executed for sedition or treason! Yes there is much wrong with our politics and laws in the UK, but the truth for most armchair revolutionaries is that they are pretty comfortable, well off with ample time to mean and so we collectively conspire to silence ourselves and each other because for most of us now, protest would be less comfortable than what we have". This way you get to moan, sound clever without having to change anything or think anything through.
You see, it is easier to blame 'them' or the 'system' than face this. For myself, I realised my biggest enemy is me quite some time ago, and once you realise this, there isn't a lot of time to sound off about other people's faults.
J. North 2013
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Next time you hear polite middle class complaining about something, you could try making an experiment.
Each time you hear an abstraction, like "society puts pressure on us to" or "they wouldn't let me do it" or "all [X[ group are the same",,,politely ask the person to say WHO they are talking about.
People suffering from persecution mania or paranoia often speak of 'Them'. It is often quite unclear who 'They' are...and this is no coincidence. On a less extreme level, when people use abstractions like "the system" or even "the patriarchy", they don't want to be clear to themselves who they are really angry with.
You can also experiment - each time you want to generalise about some group in general you dislike - "men", "women", "the rich", "the poor" "immigrants" "the right wing"...ask yourself whether your accusation can possibly be true of all of "them" and can possibly justify the high emotion you are feeling. The angrier people get, the more they start foaming, the more scared they are of the thing they are trying not to know.
There is always a pay off for this self-delusion. For example, I hear a lot of people speaking from their armchairs about revolution and how suppressive the system is. From the historically unique situation of being able to say this without being arrested or executed for sedition or treason! Yes there is much wrong with our politics and laws in the UK, but the truth for most armchair revolutionaries is that they are pretty comfortable, well off with ample time to mean and so we collectively conspire to silence ourselves and each other because for most of us now, protest would be less comfortable than what we have". This way you get to moan, sound clever without having to change anything or think anything through.
You see, it is easier to blame 'them' or the 'system' than face this. For myself, I realised my biggest enemy is me quite some time ago, and once you realise this, there isn't a lot of time to sound off about other people's faults.
J. North 2013