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Notes -
I’d add a fourth which is that the entire thing feels coercive from the bottom. It’s always couched as “of course this is just human decency” and with accusations of various forms of bigotry— the implied threat being that “bad things might happen if people found out you’re a bigot”. And increasing needs to perform, especially as connected to schools and jobs, again is coercion from the bottom-view. As are the incessant training modules that nag about privilege to a working class that knows it’s not true.
The truest meme I’ve ever seen was a 4chan meme. The left side is a kid with an old outdated computer in his bedroom, and this is labeled privileged white male. On the right is a very large skyscraper with a corporate logo, and this is labeled the oppressed. And this is what I think is driving the wars. It’s the sneering at the lower class that’s driving the rebellion. It’s a way to punch down at those poor stupid people that aren’t good enough to be elite like them. Their stupid backwards religion, their stupid folkways, their sexual prudishness, and their stupid, backwards desire for autonomy are proof they’re unworthy. It’s not like even if they agreed that a Yale graduate would actually want to get to know an auto service tech from Georgia. But being able to sneer at him makes this class hatred much more socially tenable. It’s not that he ugh works with his hands, no. It’s that he believes in crime-think.
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