I don't think that's quite it. I would say that the panda spirit is intrinsically neither good nor evil; it's all about how it's used. Use the panda spirit to protect your village and children from bandits in ancient China = good. Use it to destroy a stadium in Toronto = bad. It's a metaphor for how our emotions are neither good nor evil; it's what we do with them that matters.
It's long been my hypothesis that the horrors of world war made many parents try too hard to give their kids a sky-blue life, and their kids gave us the next step that FDB deplores.
In communism as traditionally understood there is no such thing as self-actualization independent of a social role- human society is deterministic and individual consciousness is necessarily determined by social being. The workers are considered the revolutionary class that will develop the full potential of humanity because Marx considers creative labor to be the human species essence, and such labor is the life-activity inherent to their social role *as workers*.
The idea of a "self-actualization" that happens *against* society, for the sake of expressing some authentic individual essence that exists prior to sociality, is a purely bourgeois idea.
Not sure if you’ve seen Encanto (I have two kids so these are the only new movies I watch) but it deals with similar themes in a better way I think. The mother is also an oppressive figure but more effort is put into understanding her viewpoint and history, and she’s not a literal villain.
I thought of that too. I’d take it further - Encanto is about a family attempting to live in a way that puts the world above themselves as individuals. The underlying assumption is that it is the right way to live (and the movie bears that out).
It's older, but Brave walks the same line well too, both acknowledging that Merida's desire for freedom is understandable and valid, but that Queen Elinor has a whole hell of a lot of a point too when it comes to duty and responsibility. I was impressed by it when it came out and I'm still surprised it never really got popular.
I think the problem with Brave is story structure - the world feels very cramped because we keep returning to the same locations over and over again. We're in the castle, now we're in the forest, now we're back at the castle, now we're back at the forest, now we're back at the castle. And the trailer made it seem like this epic story. So much of that movie is so well made but it's script doesn't do it favors.
Another brilliant article. I agree with every word to the point where I was vigorously nodding along while reading. It’s ties into the millennial obsession with “self care” and “self love”, as if that isn’t all we fucking do.
I have intuited this in my job. I own a large company and people born and educated outside of Canada seem to succeed where the Canadian born and educated seem to fail. Success in a management role requires inter-collegial skills and it is a hard thing. We have created a generation of monsters and they are set to lose.
There's massive selection bias and incentives going on there. The people from India that are able to come to Canada are some combination of ambitious, smart, and coming from educated wealthy families. They also often have to work hard to get sponsored etc. Canadians were just people who happened to be born there. If they lose one job they can just get another.
I think you are correct, although I don’t really know what selection bias is. My experience, new Canadians are dead serious about achieving success, the Canadian educated seem poorly equipped in the face of adversity, it is an affront to their sensibilities, they get all righteous. Maybe they’re harder to exploit, while newbies are desperate and will climb the mountain.
Ya only winners get in, or to get in you have to be a winner. My observation is a little different. My mid thirties Trinidadian director told of Monday morning assembly at school wherein corporal punishment is administered to bad kids. The other managers went nuts with funny stories about school from Pakistan, Iran, China, Venezuela and they all agreed it was a bad idea to tell the parents, they would also beat them. That’s a pretty different ethos.
If you're not dead serious about achieving success in the first place, you don't emigrate to a new country in the pursuit of it. So your immigrant sample is made up of go-getters to begin with, while your native Canadian sample includes a lot of people who would never go to such lengths to pursue success.
There's also the powerful incentive of potential humiliation. Anybody who was forced to return to India/China/whatever after failing to make it in the promised land of the industrialized West would be branded a loser and mocked on the street.
Something I find hilarious is that a lot of these self-help, self-actualization people also blame capitalism for their inability to do whatever their heart desires. They also, in words, support a lot communal versus individualistic ideals.
Which is like.... how do you think that works, Oliver? You think in the communist utopia you will be a self-actualized influencer mixologist, because the collective good will recognize that your passion for inventing new mixed drinks is more important than [insert any other cause]?
I want to note, that this is not just women that are like this. I hear plenty of men complaining about end-stage capitalism keeping their dreams down.
I remember that infamous "what are you doing in the communist utopia" thread and rolling my eyes. You'd think the ideal would be that it wouldn't matter so much what your job is? Perhaps it's my blue collar ancestors speaking, but what's wrong with working a perhaps boring, even stressful non-bullshit job for fewer hours than is the modern norm, and then doing whatever in one's extra free time, buoyed by a system that won't horrendously exploit you the second you break a leg or have a mental health crisis?
"Whatever" being, well, whatever. Self-actualization, art, being a trad mother/father to one's beloved children, playing so much Elden Ring you can no-hit Malenia with a jar on your head, I ain't here to judge.
I have a Knowledge Worker job (software engineer) that pays extremely well, is often pretty interesting, does serve a purpose but is extremely tenuously connected to anything in the real world. The truth is, though, I was happier washing dishes as a teenager, in part because it left the creative parts of my mind well-rested, in part because nobody expected me to pretend I was there for any other reason than getting paid. “Doing what you love” as a living has real drawbacks.
Oh same! Favorite job ever: slinging huevos rancheros at Dot's Diner. Done with work by 2:30pm and always had cash on me. What a beautiful convivial scene it was.
I've worked so many different jobs, mostly white collar, but my favorite was working at the supermarket checkout. Standing for shifts was terrible (cashiers should be allowed stools!!), but I loved seeing what people were buying and occasionally chit chatting with them.
Just to be clear, I don't think work should be drudgery, and I hope most people like their jobs or at least don't hate them. I absolutely think people should pursue happiness outside of work, and while also pursuing jobs that they enjoy.
Its just very funny to me when people think that communal values and the end of capitalism will supply financial support for them producing a luxury service or product.
"capitalism" has basically become meaningless. Like, every possible economic configuration is gonna involve people doing things that need to get done that they might not feel like doing at that moment. Or some division of labor based on ability. Or material scarcity if you take people's needs to be unlimited. Or people's psychological needs not always being fulfilled by other people.
Here’s what I have trouble foguring out. I’m someone with a boring office job who’s also a serious amateur violinist. I play in every community orchestra/group I can find, I go to play in classical music festivals, etc.
(Or at least, I used to, before the pandemic. When — and whether — in-person music-making will be a thing again for those of us who are neither professional musicians nor students still remains to be seen. But that’s a whole huge tangent.)
Anyway…according to the “build communism now lmao lol” crowd on twitter/reddit, I can’t tell if I’m:
(1) #winning, by having a life outside of work; or
(2) hopelessly deluded/brainwashed by the toxic capitalist notion that practicing the violin and getting better at playing is something I should be doing, since whatever’s worth doing is worth doing badly uwu lol.
Maybe both, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
I think the traditional communist view is that your pursuit of classical music betrays right-deviationist tendencies and a dangerously misguided desire (born of false consciousness) to conspicuously flaunt your bourgeois sensibilities. I say burn your violin and spend your free hours rallying the workers of the world.
My own thing is I like to study foreign languages. But that's, you know, totally different...
Funny enough I just wrote about my husband and his intense though thoroughly amateur love of being a musician. He’s about to play in a 250-trombone ensemble to celebrate the 250th something of something having to do with local trombones I don’t know. The point is, he runs a public safety network and before that he was a police officer. Classic bourgeois delusion! 🙄
You play that violin, babe, and don’t let anybody make you question your love of it.
Agree with all this. I also think it doesn't ultimately make you happy. Even if you are Barack Obama or Pablo Escobar and manage to achieve everything you ever wanted, you will quickly adapt to that fact and find new things that you "want." Training yourself that you can only be happy by acquiring things, racking up achievements, and exerting control over the world just leads you to notice, in ever more acute detail, all the things you don't have, haven't achieved, and can't control.
That's the inner part. The external part is the Randian lack of common-good morality, as you explain.
And I think the two issues are tied together -- a person who can focus his efforts on family and society, with modest pleasures for himself, will on balance be happier than someone focused solely on I want, I want, I want....
I think focusing your efforts on anything can be a recipe for comfort if your focus is on the efforts, and a recipe for misery if your focus is on the results. My pastor talks about leading a life of contribution as opposed to a life of successes.
This touches on something I've been thinking lately. In my opinion, much of our current political squabbles have an underlying thread that is rarely touched on and that is narcissism. Seems as though everyone expects everyone else to re-arrange their lives to ensure they do not suffer the slightest indiscretion. Likewise, there seems to be a dearth of humility these days with very few people even entertaining the notion that they might be wrong about something.
Really not sure where this came from. Maybe this is the culmination of the self esteem movement that began in the 80s/90s? Regardless, seems like everyone these days simply refuses to engage with anyone or anything that might dent their ego in any way.
Maybe partly the self-esteem movement. But I think it’s mostly social media. Now you have the opportunity to have an echo chamber that agrees with you all the time in a way that no one in reality ever would. Dopamine hits for the more extreme you can be. And together you can shriek at the other side without any consequences.
Ohhh...the cheerleaders for self-esteem! In my view, anyone who has seen "The Real Housewives" of ANYTHING knows that the last thing most Americans need is more goddamn self-love. Those ladies think they are just fine, thanks.
I agree on the importance of humility, and I'd suggest we emphasize not self-esteem but self-confidence. For myself, the realization that failure wouldn't kill me was a giant step towards feeling better about life. I'd like to teach more Americans that getting something wrong today is fine--just try to get it right tomorrow. But you have to *try*, and not assume you are just fine as-is.
You see this a lot in the "self care" corner of the internet, especially the areas where people convince each other that poor and unhealthy habits are "treating yourself" because you're a "goddess" and you "deserve it". _Actual_ self care is hard, and involves doing things that are good for you that you might not like, but that doesn't fit on an Instagram meme.
As a feral cat, that shit will get you killed or used as a subject for medical experiments.
Better to take a cold hard look at yourself, what you are really capable of, what you really need, and what those around you can do to you and for you.
Quoting, loosely, Kimi on The Wire. "Once you've taken a few beatdowns, you realize that it isn't the end of the world. Then you can just do your job as a police."
I've been joining some "trying to conceive" subreddits because I'm trying to conceive, and some of the women in those groups have been struggling with persistent infertility. Which is, legitimately, difficult and stressful. Many of them are understandably jealous of pregnant women or women with babies. What's weird though is the way that jealousy manifests itself: being jealous of the drug addict or the woman with a serious health condition who still gets pregnant first try? Okay, sure, I get it, they beat the odds or whatever.
But there's also a lot of jealousy directed toward the "MAGA relative" or "conspiracy nut who thinks the COVID vaccine is poison" getting pregnant, which is just weird to me. Political leanings don't have any effect on fertility. There's this huge undercurrent of "those people don't morally deserve to have children" that's really ugly.
...I'm not sure where I was going with that, but your comment reminded me of it for some reason.
Was recently in this boat. Some I understand. Some of it was very entitled - like my sister isn't allowed to tell me or the family she's pregnant because she should know how much I want to be pregnant and I'm not. Ugh.
Even a greater philosopher once wrote 'I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all'.
It's the same version of "they should be fired for their political beliefs": they hate someone, something good happened to that person, therefore they don't deserve it, because they're "bad people". People are keeping weird global tallies of goodness and badness. Trump voter? -1,000 points. Biden voter? +1,000 points. Still read Harry Potter? -50 points. Nothing good can ever happen to the people you hate. Nothing.
Twenty-five years ago on discussion groups on the same subject, there was a little jealousy expressed, but not a lot. It was never a discussion thread, just a very occasional vent. I remember feeling a bit jealous when everyone else was getting pregnant, but not me. But I stomped on it and enjoyed their experiences vicariously.
Are people more prone to openly express jealousy than they were 20 years ago? Are people more likely to complain, why me than they used to?
Hang in there. I've had a lot of experience in this. Five of my six kids are adopted.
I think the die was cast before the 80s, the self-esteem push being a manifestation of...something. My money is on the relentless exertions of CorporateAmerica’s marketing. Modern media has proven the perfect vehicle for advancing the notion that one can ‘have it all’ and that’s metastasized into a pervasive egoism that, sadly, seems like it’s here to stay.
Yep. “Ayn Rand shit, libertarian me-first propaganda laundered through a vaguely social justicey philosophy”. So true. I think the self-actualized, self-loving individual, constantly posting “self-love” selfies & tiktoks is pretty damn sad. It’s also ironic that the social media culture which claims to laud “individuality” is still 100% about attention & validation — you know, all those self-love accounts & e-girls who “self love” so hard that they post pictures of it to the tune of hundreds of thousands of followers.
And to be clear, I do wonder how much the algorithm feeds our culture now, versus the culture feeding the algorithm. Social media culture is first and foremost fed by the profit motives of its companies; so I’m not surprised by the weird doublethink of “self-love”, but try to get as many likes as possible!!
Yeah, self-actualization seems like pmc bootstrapping in the end. Where is our collective actualization? : ) Seriously though, I just get depressed at the near total lack of collective solutions to problems in popular media.
it's because we preached self-esteem instead of self-confidence. Gen-X parents (that's me) grew up with neither from our absent and distracted parents. We gained our own self-confidence thru our shenanigans. It seems like we wanted a softer easier life for our kids than we had, and so we preached self-esteem - it's ok as long as you feel it's ok. No different than participation trophy.
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Please could we have more of this sort of serious discussion of the themes underpinning family friendly movies (or books). Love it.
I loved the idea I got from the trailer, that menstruation could be made less taboo for young women and explored in a subtle Disney movie that worked in metaphor. Unfortunately the movie wasn't as subtle as the trailer at all.
I don't think that's quite it. I would say that the panda spirit is intrinsically neither good nor evil; it's all about how it's used. Use the panda spirit to protect your village and children from bandits in ancient China = good. Use it to destroy a stadium in Toronto = bad. It's a metaphor for how our emotions are neither good nor evil; it's what we do with them that matters.
A few words seem missing, just typos.
It's long been my hypothesis that the horrors of world war made many parents try too hard to give their kids a sky-blue life, and their kids gave us the next step that FDB deplores.
In communism as traditionally understood there is no such thing as self-actualization independent of a social role- human society is deterministic and individual consciousness is necessarily determined by social being. The workers are considered the revolutionary class that will develop the full potential of humanity because Marx considers creative labor to be the human species essence, and such labor is the life-activity inherent to their social role *as workers*.
The idea of a "self-actualization" that happens *against* society, for the sake of expressing some authentic individual essence that exists prior to sociality, is a purely bourgeois idea.
Not sure if you’ve seen Encanto (I have two kids so these are the only new movies I watch) but it deals with similar themes in a better way I think. The mother is also an oppressive figure but more effort is put into understanding her viewpoint and history, and she’s not a literal villain.
Maybe she knew but she wasn't allowed to talk about him. They did a whole song about it.
She has a verse in a song where she admits she knew he was there.
Spot on. An altruistic hero trying to find the best way to do the right thing for her family finds out she can do so by being herself.
Much more appealing than a brat railing against her family constantly to get what she wants... Then getting it.
Inside Out had a much more complex examination of the emotional turmoil of a young girl you could find appealing too.
I thought of that too. I’d take it further - Encanto is about a family attempting to live in a way that puts the world above themselves as individuals. The underlying assumption is that it is the right way to live (and the movie bears that out).
It's older, but Brave walks the same line well too, both acknowledging that Merida's desire for freedom is understandable and valid, but that Queen Elinor has a whole hell of a lot of a point too when it comes to duty and responsibility. I was impressed by it when it came out and I'm still surprised it never really got popular.
Brave is great. Same story, but its much better than Turning Red.
Agreed. Brave is awesome. I also enjoy the dickens out of Zootopia (Da Chief is my spirit animal (I kid, I kid)).
I think that a sense of duty - this is your job, and you do it, and there is no special sticker for that - is perhaps missing from today's mindset.
I think the problem with Brave is story structure - the world feels very cramped because we keep returning to the same locations over and over again. We're in the castle, now we're in the forest, now we're back at the castle, now we're back at the forest, now we're back at the castle. And the trailer made it seem like this epic story. So much of that movie is so well made but it's script doesn't do it favors.
It's a female hero journey, not a male hero. Still epic, different structure.
Another brilliant article. I agree with every word to the point where I was vigorously nodding along while reading. It’s ties into the millennial obsession with “self care” and “self love”, as if that isn’t all we fucking do.
But did you see the movie?
"yet piece" should be "yet another piece", I think? Loved it though.
Very solid piece, great clarity, thank you Freddie!
I have intuited this in my job. I own a large company and people born and educated outside of Canada seem to succeed where the Canadian born and educated seem to fail. Success in a management role requires inter-collegial skills and it is a hard thing. We have created a generation of monsters and they are set to lose.
There's massive selection bias and incentives going on there. The people from India that are able to come to Canada are some combination of ambitious, smart, and coming from educated wealthy families. They also often have to work hard to get sponsored etc. Canadians were just people who happened to be born there. If they lose one job they can just get another.
I think you are correct, although I don’t really know what selection bias is. My experience, new Canadians are dead serious about achieving success, the Canadian educated seem poorly equipped in the face of adversity, it is an affront to their sensibilities, they get all righteous. Maybe they’re harder to exploit, while newbies are desperate and will climb the mountain.
Sorry to be thick but spell it out for me
Ya only winners get in, or to get in you have to be a winner. My observation is a little different. My mid thirties Trinidadian director told of Monday morning assembly at school wherein corporal punishment is administered to bad kids. The other managers went nuts with funny stories about school from Pakistan, Iran, China, Venezuela and they all agreed it was a bad idea to tell the parents, they would also beat them. That’s a pretty different ethos.
If you're not dead serious about achieving success in the first place, you don't emigrate to a new country in the pursuit of it. So your immigrant sample is made up of go-getters to begin with, while your native Canadian sample includes a lot of people who would never go to such lengths to pursue success.
Ok simple, they select.
Bingo!
There's also the powerful incentive of potential humiliation. Anybody who was forced to return to India/China/whatever after failing to make it in the promised land of the industrialized West would be branded a loser and mocked on the street.
Something I find hilarious is that a lot of these self-help, self-actualization people also blame capitalism for their inability to do whatever their heart desires. They also, in words, support a lot communal versus individualistic ideals.
Which is like.... how do you think that works, Oliver? You think in the communist utopia you will be a self-actualized influencer mixologist, because the collective good will recognize that your passion for inventing new mixed drinks is more important than [insert any other cause]?
I want to note, that this is not just women that are like this. I hear plenty of men complaining about end-stage capitalism keeping their dreams down.
I remember that infamous "what are you doing in the communist utopia" thread and rolling my eyes. You'd think the ideal would be that it wouldn't matter so much what your job is? Perhaps it's my blue collar ancestors speaking, but what's wrong with working a perhaps boring, even stressful non-bullshit job for fewer hours than is the modern norm, and then doing whatever in one's extra free time, buoyed by a system that won't horrendously exploit you the second you break a leg or have a mental health crisis?
"Whatever" being, well, whatever. Self-actualization, art, being a trad mother/father to one's beloved children, playing so much Elden Ring you can no-hit Malenia with a jar on your head, I ain't here to judge.
"From each according to their desires, to each according to their wants."
I have a Knowledge Worker job (software engineer) that pays extremely well, is often pretty interesting, does serve a purpose but is extremely tenuously connected to anything in the real world. The truth is, though, I was happier washing dishes as a teenager, in part because it left the creative parts of my mind well-rested, in part because nobody expected me to pretend I was there for any other reason than getting paid. “Doing what you love” as a living has real drawbacks.
Are you me? Software engineer, insane salary, and I was happier working back booth at McDonald's in high school.
Main drawback: not loving it anymore.
Oh same! Favorite job ever: slinging huevos rancheros at Dot's Diner. Done with work by 2:30pm and always had cash on me. What a beautiful convivial scene it was.
I've worked so many different jobs, mostly white collar, but my favorite was working at the supermarket checkout. Standing for shifts was terrible (cashiers should be allowed stools!!), but I loved seeing what people were buying and occasionally chit chatting with them.
Just to be clear, I don't think work should be drudgery, and I hope most people like their jobs or at least don't hate them. I absolutely think people should pursue happiness outside of work, and while also pursuing jobs that they enjoy.
Its just very funny to me when people think that communal values and the end of capitalism will supply financial support for them producing a luxury service or product.
"capitalism" has basically become meaningless. Like, every possible economic configuration is gonna involve people doing things that need to get done that they might not feel like doing at that moment. Or some division of labor based on ability. Or material scarcity if you take people's needs to be unlimited. Or people's psychological needs not always being fulfilled by other people.
In Soviet Russia, dream pursues you.
Here’s what I have trouble foguring out. I’m someone with a boring office job who’s also a serious amateur violinist. I play in every community orchestra/group I can find, I go to play in classical music festivals, etc.
(Or at least, I used to, before the pandemic. When — and whether — in-person music-making will be a thing again for those of us who are neither professional musicians nor students still remains to be seen. But that’s a whole huge tangent.)
Anyway…according to the “build communism now lmao lol” crowd on twitter/reddit, I can’t tell if I’m:
(1) #winning, by having a life outside of work; or
(2) hopelessly deluded/brainwashed by the toxic capitalist notion that practicing the violin and getting better at playing is something I should be doing, since whatever’s worth doing is worth doing badly uwu lol.
Maybe both, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
I think the traditional communist view is that your pursuit of classical music betrays right-deviationist tendencies and a dangerously misguided desire (born of false consciousness) to conspicuously flaunt your bourgeois sensibilities. I say burn your violin and spend your free hours rallying the workers of the world.
My own thing is I like to study foreign languages. But that's, you know, totally different...
Funny enough I just wrote about my husband and his intense though thoroughly amateur love of being a musician. He’s about to play in a 250-trombone ensemble to celebrate the 250th something of something having to do with local trombones I don’t know. The point is, he runs a public safety network and before that he was a police officer. Classic bourgeois delusion! 🙄
You play that violin, babe, and don’t let anybody make you question your love of it.
Agree with all this. I also think it doesn't ultimately make you happy. Even if you are Barack Obama or Pablo Escobar and manage to achieve everything you ever wanted, you will quickly adapt to that fact and find new things that you "want." Training yourself that you can only be happy by acquiring things, racking up achievements, and exerting control over the world just leads you to notice, in ever more acute detail, all the things you don't have, haven't achieved, and can't control.
That's the inner part. The external part is the Randian lack of common-good morality, as you explain.
And I think the two issues are tied together -- a person who can focus his efforts on family and society, with modest pleasures for himself, will on balance be happier than someone focused solely on I want, I want, I want....
Sounds like you might be a Buddhist and not even know it.
I am and I do know it. Boom.
Or Confucian...
I think focusing your efforts on anything can be a recipe for comfort if your focus is on the efforts, and a recipe for misery if your focus is on the results. My pastor talks about leading a life of contribution as opposed to a life of successes.
Now there’s a pastor I’d happily send out an amen to.
Hedonic treadmill
This touches on something I've been thinking lately. In my opinion, much of our current political squabbles have an underlying thread that is rarely touched on and that is narcissism. Seems as though everyone expects everyone else to re-arrange their lives to ensure they do not suffer the slightest indiscretion. Likewise, there seems to be a dearth of humility these days with very few people even entertaining the notion that they might be wrong about something.
Really not sure where this came from. Maybe this is the culmination of the self esteem movement that began in the 80s/90s? Regardless, seems like everyone these days simply refuses to engage with anyone or anything that might dent their ego in any way.
Multiple people have now recommended it but I haven't read it. I'll have to check it out.
Maybe partly the self-esteem movement. But I think it’s mostly social media. Now you have the opportunity to have an echo chamber that agrees with you all the time in a way that no one in reality ever would. Dopamine hits for the more extreme you can be. And together you can shriek at the other side without any consequences.
One could trace it back to Rand (and further back to Nietzsche) if they were so inclined.
Nietzsche quotes as inspirational instagram memes would be a hell of a project.
I think https://instagram.com/power.of.self.care?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= (note -- this is a parody account) has done that at _some_ point
Have you read Lasch?
Ohhh...the cheerleaders for self-esteem! In my view, anyone who has seen "The Real Housewives" of ANYTHING knows that the last thing most Americans need is more goddamn self-love. Those ladies think they are just fine, thanks.
I agree on the importance of humility, and I'd suggest we emphasize not self-esteem but self-confidence. For myself, the realization that failure wouldn't kill me was a giant step towards feeling better about life. I'd like to teach more Americans that getting something wrong today is fine--just try to get it right tomorrow. But you have to *try*, and not assume you are just fine as-is.
You see this a lot in the "self care" corner of the internet, especially the areas where people convince each other that poor and unhealthy habits are "treating yourself" because you're a "goddess" and you "deserve it". _Actual_ self care is hard, and involves doing things that are good for you that you might not like, but that doesn't fit on an Instagram meme.
As a feral cat, that shit will get you killed or used as a subject for medical experiments.
Better to take a cold hard look at yourself, what you are really capable of, what you really need, and what those around you can do to you and for you.
I always end up quoting William James:
self-esteem = accomplishments / pretensions
There's also a nice Buddhist equivalent (from memory so WYSIWYG):
Basō mounted the podium and said, "The mind is the Buddha. This is the medicine for those who are sick.
"No mind, no Buddha. This is for those who are sick because of the medicine."
Quoting, loosely, Kimi on The Wire. "Once you've taken a few beatdowns, you realize that it isn't the end of the world. Then you can just do your job as a police."
I've been joining some "trying to conceive" subreddits because I'm trying to conceive, and some of the women in those groups have been struggling with persistent infertility. Which is, legitimately, difficult and stressful. Many of them are understandably jealous of pregnant women or women with babies. What's weird though is the way that jealousy manifests itself: being jealous of the drug addict or the woman with a serious health condition who still gets pregnant first try? Okay, sure, I get it, they beat the odds or whatever.
But there's also a lot of jealousy directed toward the "MAGA relative" or "conspiracy nut who thinks the COVID vaccine is poison" getting pregnant, which is just weird to me. Political leanings don't have any effect on fertility. There's this huge undercurrent of "those people don't morally deserve to have children" that's really ugly.
...I'm not sure where I was going with that, but your comment reminded me of it for some reason.
100%
Was recently in this boat. Some I understand. Some of it was very entitled - like my sister isn't allowed to tell me or the family she's pregnant because she should know how much I want to be pregnant and I'm not. Ugh.
I think the great philosopher W.S. Gilbert summed it up when he wrote
See how the Fates their gifts allot
For A is happy, B is not
Yet B is worthy, I dare say
Of more prosperity than A
Even a greater philosopher once wrote 'I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all'.
Ecclesiastes is my favorite chapter in the Bible.
So you’re going for it!! Good luck 🍀
Apparently...lesbian couple, so we'll need some outside assistance, but probably attempting first try in July. Thanks!
It's the same version of "they should be fired for their political beliefs": they hate someone, something good happened to that person, therefore they don't deserve it, because they're "bad people". People are keeping weird global tallies of goodness and badness. Trump voter? -1,000 points. Biden voter? +1,000 points. Still read Harry Potter? -50 points. Nothing good can ever happen to the people you hate. Nothing.
Twenty-five years ago on discussion groups on the same subject, there was a little jealousy expressed, but not a lot. It was never a discussion thread, just a very occasional vent. I remember feeling a bit jealous when everyone else was getting pregnant, but not me. But I stomped on it and enjoyed their experiences vicariously.
Are people more prone to openly express jealousy than they were 20 years ago? Are people more likely to complain, why me than they used to?
Hang in there. I've had a lot of experience in this. Five of my six kids are adopted.
I think the die was cast before the 80s, the self-esteem push being a manifestation of...something. My money is on the relentless exertions of CorporateAmerica’s marketing. Modern media has proven the perfect vehicle for advancing the notion that one can ‘have it all’ and that’s metastasized into a pervasive egoism that, sadly, seems like it’s here to stay.
Makes a lousy democracy when you do.
Our public education system teaches students to pursue social justice rather than knowledge via intellectual humility.
Had a similar thought after reading the piece on shame in the NYT Opinion yesterday.
It’s a culmination of neoliberalism, the extension of market logic to every dimension of cultural and social activity.
Yep. “Ayn Rand shit, libertarian me-first propaganda laundered through a vaguely social justicey philosophy”. So true. I think the self-actualized, self-loving individual, constantly posting “self-love” selfies & tiktoks is pretty damn sad. It’s also ironic that the social media culture which claims to laud “individuality” is still 100% about attention & validation — you know, all those self-love accounts & e-girls who “self love” so hard that they post pictures of it to the tune of hundreds of thousands of followers.
And to be clear, I do wonder how much the algorithm feeds our culture now, versus the culture feeding the algorithm. Social media culture is first and foremost fed by the profit motives of its companies; so I’m not surprised by the weird doublethink of “self-love”, but try to get as many likes as possible!!
“Being antisocial is self-care/social justice” is the new “taxation is theft”?
Yeah, self-actualization seems like pmc bootstrapping in the end. Where is our collective actualization? : ) Seriously though, I just get depressed at the near total lack of collective solutions to problems in popular media.
Can't pass intelligent legislation with politicians elected by numbskulls.
it's because we preached self-esteem instead of self-confidence. Gen-X parents (that's me) grew up with neither from our absent and distracted parents. We gained our own self-confidence thru our shenanigans. It seems like we wanted a softer easier life for our kids than we had, and so we preached self-esteem - it's ok as long as you feel it's ok. No different than participation trophy.
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Ric
Please could we have more of this sort of serious discussion of the themes underpinning family friendly movies (or books). Love it.
I loved the idea I got from the trailer, that menstruation could be made less taboo for young women and explored in a subtle Disney movie that worked in metaphor. Unfortunately the movie wasn't as subtle as the trailer at all.