Giving Voice To The Despondency
Feeble attempts at rationalizing the doom-ether wafting between my ear holes
There’s so much bad news happening at the moment it’s hard to know where to turn one’s head and not have your eyeballs assaulted with cruelty, ugliness, and misguided thinking.
Good times! (/s)
A few things in particular have stood out to me.
Sociogenomics
Just read an interesting guest essay on the NY Times Op-Ed page about a new field of study called Sociogenomics which basically settles the nurture vs. nature debate by studying how they influence each other. This is a space similar to that covered by Robert Sopolsky in his book Determined. Here’s a basic example of how the field thinks: Scientists have found the “sprinter’s gene” (ACTN3). If you have it, you’re likely fast. And, if you’re fast, your PE coach likely notices and encourages you to pursue sports and once in sports you get positive feedback from coaches and the more your speed engenders positive interaction with adults and peers, the more you lean into it, which is to say that your innate speed changes your environment by placing you in spaces where you’re speed is an asset and gets honed and thus you get faster and faster.
We know this already. Intuitively. And (outside of concerns around eugenics and racial essentialism) it’s exciting that people are intentionally studying how genes and environments interact.
My wild and unresearched conjecture is that the bad genes and bad environments are very much a reality. I just listened to Terry Gross’ interview of Bill Burr on Fresh Air in which Burr acknowledges that the anger issues he deals with stem from the childhood trauma of being on the receiving end of his father’s rage. But he makes the important point that his experience was normal. Meaning many of his friends also had rageful fathers and browbeaten mothers. He grew up in a culture/environment of traumatized people.
Then, I look at our current president whose entire personna is so clearly built on childhood trauma, namely endlessly seeking his father’s love and not getting it. And then realizing that the American people are attracted to him, in part, because they recognize their own internalized trauma in him and his rage and sense of being forever slighted by the world is similar to their own. They get to express their trauma vicariously through a traumatized person who has actually achieved power. It’s a revenge fantasy of the hurt looking to hurt others to alleviate their own hurt.
There’s a million directions to go with this insight (if that’s what it is). We’ll choose to view it as a political issue. This is to say that, were we to 1. Destigmatize mental health care, 2. Provide for basic needs (shelter, food, community) and 3. Ensure access to rewarding work, we would remove many of the environmental inputs that create trauma and thus future traumatizers.
Sadly, we are a nation in tremendous pain and culturally we tend to blame that pain on the people experiencing the pain (a collective sense of “you made your own bed, now sleep in it”). By not giving people access to actual relief from their pain, we enable the pained to inflict pain on others. And this perpetual loop plays itself out endlessly over generations.
FInally on this point: The Statue of Liberty is inscribed with “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me” Which is to say our nation has been populated by the traumatized - immigrants fleeing pogroms and famine and war, the enslaved stolen from their homes. And those traumatized people moved ever westward traumatizing those who were here before us. Our nation is a weeping scab of past traumas.
Xenophobic Nationalism FTW
Sam Seder appeared on Jubilee. That I even know this happened (and what it means) is testament to how deeply into YouTube political content I’ve been swallowed. I think at this point I’m beyond the stomach and have settled into the lower intestines where the real shit lives. It’s not a happy place.
Anyhoo, Sam Seder hosts a YouTube show called The Majority Report. He rides the line between liberal and progressive, though the other hosts on the show are pretty hardcore progressives. So Sam went on another YouTube show called Jubilee. It’s basically a debate show with a dumb twist. A single participant guest (in this case Sam) sits at a table across from an empty seat. The table is in the middle of a big circle of other people in chairs. A claim is announced (for instance, “Trump is bad for the American economy”) and then a horn is sounded and anyone in the outer circle can rush the empty chair in the middle of the circle, like musical chairs, and the first one there gets to sit with the guest and debate the claim. It’s a dumb gimmick, but what it does allow is to hear multiple perspectives on a single claim.
So Sam was basically debating Trump supporters and, it being a YouTube channel, the Trump supporters were all pretty danged young…like under 40 (that’s how we olds define you youths). I didn’t learn anything demonstrably new because I already know that right wing people are mostly ill informed and fearful. One guy, for instance, in his denunciation of DEI initiatives, claimed that government agencies get tax breaks for every black person they hire. As if the Department of Education is a for profit entity in need of tax breaks. Just more lunatic nonsense that’s a deeply held truth.
But the one that got me the most was a young blonde white woman who asked Sam (And I do indeed quote), “What’s the problem with xenophobic nationalism? Don’t you think that’s better for Americans in general?” She went on to say, “We should have a coherent culture; everyone should be part of the same culture. We already have a dominant culture based on European and Christian values and identity. And we’re not letting people assimilate to that culture and that’s why our culture is so divided now.” She also adds this nugget “Trump is basically a Democrat of 15 years ago when it comes to social issues.” To which Sam asks, “So he’s not xenohobic enough for you?” and she responds, “Nowhere close. He’s trying to import a bunch of H1-Bs, are you kidding?”
This lady is mid 20s. This lady is ignorant and brain-wormed. This lady is the type of person we’re raising in America today. I mean, you don’t need me to pick apart the holes in her argument. I share it because this is what we’re up against and the scariest part is that her argument suggests she feels safe inside her white christian identity and unsafe when faced with people outside it which means she lives in a white christian in-group. She’s surrounded by people who share her belief system.
I would argue you can’t grow up in a multicultural milieu like LA, Chicago, or New York City and hold these kinds of beliefs. That’s not saying that folk in diverse cities can’t be bigots (or idiots) but they certainly recognize the benefits of variety and that all cultures hold certain core values about family and love and self respect and hard work.
I don’t know what to do with this kind of ignorance. It makes me sad mostly. It also makes me afraid. People with this attitude are the same people who support pogroms and Jim Crow laws. She has dangerous beliefs and her attitude is dangerous and her culture’s faith in its natural hegemony is dangerous. She scared the shit out of me.
Economic Shenanigans
As some of you know, I’m currently unemployed. I’m picking up freelance work here and there, though not enough to cover costs. And finding a job has been a shit show. Most of the local Bay Area economy is tech focused and tech jobs are being shed like a hot sheepdog. Additionally, tech has been bewitched by the promise of AI which it believes could massively reduce reliance on humans and thus payroll and thus massively increase profits for investors who are already rich. But I had an ugly hope that made me feel like a bad person. I hoped the mere fact of a Republican president returning to office would boost the optimism of the business class and thus generate a little economic boom that would sweep me up in it so I could enjoy a salary and benefits again.
The opposite is happening. The chaos Trump has unleashed with his dismantling of the civil service and on again/off again tariffs on imports has caused the business world to clench its collective sphincters and pull back. The stock market is falling and talk of recession is on the lips of the pundits. I’m beginning to think that my job prospects are getting less rosy by the day.
I’m already feeling like my age is a hindrance. Like my skills are not fit for the modern economy. Like my prospects of rejoining the comfortable classes are dimming. It’s a hard place to be. I’m thankful I don’t have kids or a spouse depending on me. I’m thankful I’m a cheapskate who isn’t in debt (beyond my fucking SF level mortgage). I’m thankful I have the support of family and friends. I have options. I’ll be fine, even if it doesn’t feel that way.
I will say that the Silicon Valley mantra of “move fast and break shit” is great when the pain of failure is borne by a tiny group of well-to-do investors and the benefits of innovation can be felt by a huge swath of humanity. That mantra DOES NOT APPLY to the federal government because the stakes are so much higher and the pain of failure will be borne by the most vulnerable among us. Supply side libertarian capitalist tech bros (and their sycophants) don’t seem to understand this, or worse, don’t seem to care.
I believe Trump’s survival instinct will kick in and his desire to be adored will push him to adjust away from this draconian path he’s taken us all on. But he’s surrounded by simplistic thinkers so when they try to rebuild what they’ve already broken, they’re gonna do a very poor job of it.
Gah!
Sesame Street
I, like most of you, grew up on Sesame Street. My favorites were always Grover and Oscar the Grouch. Grover because his try hard positivity and Oscar because he spoke truth to optimism. I don’t know if there’s a better metaphor for the decline of the great American experiment than the Sesame Street corporation losing its contract with HBO and downsizing with layoffs. The beautiful vision of an inclusive, educated, and kind nation has been defeated.
But beauty persists, so I leave you today with a visual eulogy to that great american show by one of my favorite artists, Skottie Young.
Internets of the Day
Quote of the Week:
“If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.” – Yogi Berra
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Good
– Music: Music is good. Nestles deep into the soul. Let’s you express your emotions by connecting with others - kind of active mood empathy.
Anyway, here’s some music I use when the mood strikes:
Mood: Need to rage and rant and release a barbaric yawp
Creeping Death Metallica
Killing In The Name Rage Against The Machine
Blood and Thunder Mastodon
Walk Pantera
Waiting Room Fugazi
Mood: Need to maintain an upbeat attitude
Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard Paul Simon
Hey Ya Outcast
Genius of Love Tom Tom Club
Creatures of Love Talking Heads
Mood: Need a pick me up
Unstoppable Sia
Get Lucky Daft Punk/Pharrell
X Gon’ Give It To Ya DMX
Pon De Replay Rihanna
Tusk Fleetwood Mac
Mood: Need to Cry
68 Nolan Taylor
Down From Dover Dolly Parton
Rejoice Julien Baker
Nothing Compares 2 U Chris Cornell
He Stopped Loving Her Today George Jones
The Bad:
– Nada: I think we’ve had our fill already.
The Ugly:
– The End Of Pax Americana: So long Europe. Hello Putin. It was a good run while it lasted.
Finally:
Jetzt habe ich noch mehr Kopfschmerzen 🥴