From my new Taki's Magazine column:
While reading up a couple of weeks ago on the Oberlin College KKK fiasco, I became fascinated by the various Web pages at colleges such as Oberlin, Smith, Scripps, and similar progressive, lesbian-heavy institutions for the documenting of “microaggressions.” Since the Ku Klux Klaxon can’t be sounded every week (at least not yet), in the meantime young people are encouraged to fondle and document for posterity the subtlest of slights they feel they’ve suffered.
As I pored over the microaggressions endured by victims/students at expensive liberal-arts colleges, it struck me that this ongoing dumbing down of America is a joint project of both sexes, with men and women each contributing their own special something.
Read the whole thing there.
Posts
87 comments:
Steve--
How can what they are doing be called "dumb"? They are winning the country. And it is probably this kind of assiduous focus on language usage and social "propriety" that has helped them along.
Seriously, every left-winger I know rolls their eyes at terms like "micro-agressions" and "cisgender." If you can't push back against a mutant form of identity politics like this using humor and ridicule, then you don't deserve to win.
How can what they are doing be called "dumb"?
The same way that the recently reelected president of the United States, who is radically transforming this nation with enormous success, can be described by commenters as a person of no importance or influence, i.e., "a total nonentity."
I would have to say it started with men. Specifically, older liberal WASP men. They made it possible; they set up the framework for it decades ago. They made the mistake of forsaking their poor white brothers in favour of all the sacred minority groups known to us now.
You would think that the shift to "microaggressions" would be taken as a sign of progress.
Microaggression = micro-oppression
So the Wikipedia page helpfully points out that there is something called "microrape."
Can you imagine if this word was first uttered by a white male?
What kind of hidebound old coot would DARE place a diminutive prefix in front of the word "rape"!
The "party line Wikipedia entry." Well, somebody got subversive there:
See also
...
Paranoia
Paranoid personality disorder
...
I'm feeling that any male who values his marriage has a secret internal microagressions blog that he can mentally post arguments from his spouse into and then move on, rather than respond logically.
Keeps everyone sane.
What's the subtlest microaggression thus far identified?
"If you see or hear racist, heterosexist/homophobic, anti-Semitic, classist, ableist, sexist/cissexist speech etc., please submit it to us"
Sort of setting up a mini-stasi on campus. Next step to include the name of of the speaker. Put it in a searchable database any liberal institution can use to screen applicants.
"ableist ... cissexist"
They keep making up new stuff. What will be 'ist' 300 years from now?
"Time-traveling Ku Klux Klaxon Bitterly Aggrieved as a Klaxon of Non-Dominant Identity; They Can't Even Spell His Name Right"
"If you see or hear racist, heterosexist/homophobic, anti-Semitic, classist, ableist, sexist/cissexist speech etc., please submit it to us so that we may demonstrate that these acts are not simply isolated incidents, but rather part of structural inequalities."
If KKK is the new UFO, microaggressions are the new Easter eggs.
Yeah, let's go micro-aggression hunting/cellecting so we can compare who got the best one.
Or, it's almost like a hobby, like butterfly/stamp/button collecting.
An album full of microaggrssions in accounts and photos.
Btw, all them graduates in gowns almost fooled me as a Klan rally.
"What's the subtlest microaggression thus far identified?"
Someone cracked up at the idear.
I hear a TON of micro aggressions...
Most of the time it comes from non-whites
"That white girl" "You know..the white girl"
That type of stuff.
But I'm confused...I can't understand Steve's conclusion
Are Micro-Aggression sites Good in that they water down the anger...or are they echo chambers that will eventually erupt into sputtering rage at the slightest provocation?
I don't think you can compare the micro-aggression sites to British historical micro-aggressions.
I think that's a flaw in the article.
I laughed at the British micro-aggression, and so does the victim. It's a darn good comeback! It's how I talk to my closest friends...usually with a "Hmmm..what?" followed by a "your a bitch" followed by me saying "yes, yes I am :)" followed by a change of subject.
I don't laugh at these postings. These postings scare the crap out of me.
I think that's what Steve means about the men dividing up on teams. You definitely see that in several posts.
Scary indeed. Time to move!!
Just a superb column, Steve. You've reached a point at which your voice is so distinctive I'd know this one was your work within 50 words.
I have a great idea.
How about "combating micro-aggressions is the new Kim Il-Sung-ism."
"Portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il hang in every living room in North Korea. These pictures have to be carefully dusted every day with a clean cloth, never with a household rag. A dusty portrait spells trouble for the family, including incarceration as political prisoners. A cavalier treatment of their images is a serious offense and is treated as deconsecrating. A newspaper containing either of their pictures is not a mere newspaper; it is a piece of Holy Scripture. Sitting or stepping on it is a blasphemous act, deserving severe punishment."
You see, 'cavalier' micro-aggression against a Kim portrait is a terrible injustice deserving of severe punishment!!
Ironically, this seems like a bitchy aristo-gay development in our culture. Though it's officially about protecting the 'non-dominant identities'--that's a new one, perhaps preferable to 'minorities' since whites are gonna be minorities too--, the whole demeanor is fussy-elitist-snobby-sneering. Basically, it's against uppity political incorrectness.
Long ago, aristocrats and social superiors took great umbrage at even the slightest deviation from the social norm, especially by social inferiors. So, if a social inferior didn't bow correctly, use proper words to address certain people, and etc, he was seen as crude and vulgur, a most unworthy sort.
And in the non-West too. In SHOGUN, a samurai lops off a peasant's head for the mere micro-aggression or micro-disobedience of not bowing.
In Saudi Arabia, a whole bunch of school girls were shut inside to die in a burning school cuz letting them out--when they were improperly dressed--might be a microaggression against Muslim dress codes.
In the Old South, even a black guy looking directly into the eyes of a white man or looking at a white woman could be deemed a serious microaggression.
In Edith Wharton stories, a woman could lose her entire reputation and station in life by one wrong word or impression. I saw such in House of Mirth.
There's the culture of severe punishment for microaggressions among gangs too. Even wearing the wrong shirt or hat can get you killed. Gangs are the urban warrior caste.
In WILD BILL, messing with the guy's hat could lead to death. A microagression severely punished by buffalo bill, the man who lives by the warrior code.
In a way, this obsession with microaggression has roots in the Anglo cult of manners and form. It's a form of neo-victorianism, which makes it ironic.
Old New England Librarians were like this, saying Shhhhhh to everyone.
It's like the archive lady in CITIZEN KANE. Fussy fussy fussy. Everything could be an infraction in her eyes.
Though Alexandra Wallace was condemned as a 'racist', she too was yammering about microaggressions: those pesty Asians in the library that just have no manners.
"In fact, “microaggressions” could be an apt description of the matter of much of British literature and theater, such as the works of Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Evelyn Waugh, and John Cleese. The Brits may be the all-time world champs at blandly hurling microaggressions from their stiff upper limits."
That's one way to look at it. But another way to look at it is the Brits were extremely sensitive about micro-aggressions because they took notice of them so often. And though Brits enjoyed it in literature, in real life a person could be severely ostracized for the slightest microaggression.
Also, the Brit culture of microaggressions was never democratic or fair. Generally, the superiors could snobbily talk down to inferiors who often had to keep their heads low and take the insults. Also, British microaggression could sometimes be worse than outright aggression because it was spoken with the preening veneer of false civility. I'd rather have someone honestly say 'go fuc* off' than make a snide snotty comment that pretends to be civil but is really venomous. Brit upper classes could dabble in such microaggressions because they were secure in their privileges. But they tolerated no microaggression aimed at them from the lower classes.
So, this PC lack of tolerance for microaggressions has a neo-british-aristocratic flair to it. It's a PC form of snobbery. It's in the name of fairness but has the ring of aristo-fussbudgets who are so obsessed with rules and proper manners.
It's also contradictory. If a rich black guy and a poor white guy offend one another, who is the 'non-dominant' person? Do we rely on the 'racism' or 'classism' yardstick?
And what about microaggressions against microaggressions. Suppose a black girl on the bus speaks rudely and a white person looks at her funny. Who is the microaggressor?
"How can what they are doing be called "dumb"? They are winning the country."
Dumb people allied with powerful smart people win. It's like all Americans, even dummies, won WWII.
Quayle is dumb but he won along with Bush in 1988 because he was allied with powerful people.
Japan, nation that tolerates no microaggressions. People who might benefit most from anti-microaggression training may be blacks because they are so naturally wild, unruly, and aggressive. But Japanese might do better with a more live and let live attitude.
Big movie of my youth. BAD NEWS BEARS, the anthem of 70s kids when US was still in the haze of 60s counterculture. BNB was like old ethnic Royko-ist kids-will-be-kids mind-set plus counterculture hangover still lingering in society. How kids movie and culture have changed. Now, it's all about Harry Potter. Order, organization, seriousness.
Nurse Ratched was a microaggression hunter, but I can kind of see her point of view too. While McMurphy is fun, he does make a total mess of things at the mental ward.
"Seriously, every left-winger I know rolls their eyes at terms like "micro-agressions" and "cisgender." If you can't push back against a mutant form of identity politics like this using humor and ridicule, then you don't deserve to win."
I couldn't disagree more.
The PC enforcer is usually a spoiled-brat white woman with a filthy temper and no sense of humour whatsoever. If you say something they don't want to hear, their reaction is to throw an almighty and very public tantrum so that everyone looks at you as though you have done something wrong. It used to work on me, but I'm used to academic ladies now. I recommend shouting back: Stop screaming and calm down! Is screaming at the top of your voice how you get your own way?
The main danger is that they use the fact that they are women as a weapon. They initiate the screaming match, and then claim you are traumatizing them by fighting back.
They have won so far because their opponents were too nice.
In my experience, at the level of consumption--i.e. the undergrads, NOT the PhDs inventing this stuff--the most hostile and combative proponents of oppression theories are women. The (straight) male students who participate are generally beta types hoping for some positive female attention. The men hold up signs. The women scream and point fingers.
I'm surprised it's distributed evenly.
Reminds me of this old Space Moose cartoon. Your rights end where my feelings begin!
I'm not sure that most of these perceived slights really rise to the level of microaggression.
I'd like to propose we use the terms nanoaggression or picoaggression.
I'd propose we send these terms to the Oberlin grievance Nazis for calibration.
I'd like them to start by categorizing (as pico, nano or micro) the annoyance I feel at seeing an Obama bumpersticker on a Prius driven by a geriatric government employee. The cumulative effect of such low grade annoyances can be real crankiness.
Bottom line is, since HBDers aren't pro-White, there is now way for them to really put up a defense on issues like open borders, etc.
It just becomes an IQ and psychometric hobby more than something that can rally anyone.
Who? Woody Allen.
Both Annie Hall and Manhattan deal with microaggressions.
From Annie Hall
ROB: Alvy, you're a total paranoid.
ALVY: Wh- How am I a paran-? Well, I pick up on those kind o' things.
There is a hilarious movie here if only there was a gay Woody Allen out there to write it.
I remember when I found my dad’s high school yearbook as a young’un. I flipped through it expecting to see lighthearted notes like “Have a neat summer!” or “Math class was super!” Instead I found things like: “To the only Jew I like,” or: “You’re a dirty Jew but an OK golfer.” I was a very serious child, so when I saw this I marched dramatically into the den, where my dad was watching The Searchers for the zillionth time. John Wayne is his hero.
Texas: A Lot of Land, A Lot of Horses, Not a Lot of Jews
http://heebmagazine.com/texas-a-lot-of-land-a-lot-of-horses-not-a-lot-of-jews/23624
I shoved the yearbook in his face. “Dad! Did you see this?!” I was ready to grab picket signs and form my own militia. Dad scanned his yearbook notes and grinned. “Honey,” he said, stifling his smile when he saw the fury in my face, “It was a different time. They were my friends.” He went back to watching John Wayne rewrite the pronunciation of “Comanche.” I retreated with the heavy yearbook, totally confused.
Is crying reverse racism the same as crying microaggression
Mississippi Bawling
http://heebmagazine.com/mississippi-bawling/43885
Is collecting, cherishing and swapping microagressions a form of scrapbooking?
"Nowadays offense is taken--snatched and grabbed--as if offense were something valuable to own." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Steve--
How can what they are doing be called "dumb"? They are winning the country. And it is probably this kind of assiduous focus on language usage and social "propriety" that has helped them along."
Its dumb because while they are 'winning the country' they are also destroying it. They're so wrapped up in appeasing their narcissistic delusions that they'd rather have people never raise the slightest disdain about transgenders or a question about PC than to have a free, productive country that will survive another century without collapse.
you are showing your age steve, microagressions are old news, at mpc brony privilege is the new rage.
"Reminds me of this old Space Moose cartoon. Your rights end where my feelings begin!"
the big sister is watching and getting millions to study why she is so voluptuous.
Anonymous said...
But I'm confused...I can't understand Steve's conclusion
Are Micro-Aggression sites Good in that they water down the anger...or are they echo chambers that will eventually erupt into sputtering rage at the slightest provocation?
I don't think you can compare the micro-aggression sites to British historical micro-aggressions.
I think that's a flaw in the article.
I think Mr. Sailer was saying that the old British tradition of microagressions were a useful social release valve and way to signal displeasure early on rather than let it build up into an outburst. The new microagression blog sites don't understand the value of these messages and instead they collect such slights rather than learn from them and correct their behaviour.
How can what they are doing be called "dumb"? They are winning the country.
Some, yes. Others, no. White women are losing their country.
'Lesbian heavy institutions'.
For gawd's sake rule out the face-sitting competitions.
Anonymous said...
"Japan, nation that tolerates no microaggressions. People who might benefit most from anti-microaggression training may be blacks because they are so naturally wild, unruly, and aggressive. But Japanese might do better with a more live and let live attitude."
I not sure I agree. The Japanese way of doing things works for them, but I don't think can be applied outside a homogeneous, high-IQ Asian population.
The nicest boss I ever had was Japanese, but they vary. Japanese in positions of authority often have an amazing talent for tormenting those further down the pecking order. When I lived in Japan, between ten and twenty years ago, the news was full of stories about bullying, or ijime. Kissing up and kicking down is a fault that the Japanese recognise in themselves and have been trying to address. The aggressions are often quite "macro".
Microaggressions are basically politically correct social shit tests. If you bend you are beta.
Jews mislead on the issue of race, but as nothing burned than more than racial doctrine, it isn't difficult to understand Jewish fears.
Suppose you're part of a white minority living in a black majority-ruled nation. Do you want blacks with majority power to think in racial terms and theorize about racial differences? What if blacks were to demagogue the racial issue?
So, even if you know about the truth of race, you would not want blacks to think about race. Instead, you'd try to calm the blacks that we are all the same.
Dan Quayle nailed to a T the next wave leftist bid for Gramscian hegemony by using media to mainstream dysfunction but yea he's an idiot.
Microaggressions are championed by women, not men.
Here's an example from my life-my grandfather, father and myself (all three of us are black) were reminiscing about life in Europe (GF was stationed in Germany in the 50's, my Da in the 80's, myself in the post-Millennium Era.)
GF-"Germany was great! I've never met so many people who thought that I had rhythm and could sing!"
Da-"Germany was great! I never met so many people who thought that I could rap, just because I was born in New York City!"
Me-"Germany was great! I had a few people ask me if I was built like a porn star, but everything else was awesome!"
The women in my family-*Eyes wide, mouths agape*"Those racist bastards! Didn't they try to kill you for being black? They did, didn't they!?"
We three men-*confused stares*"Umm, no? Why would they do that?"
It's all grievance politics, all the way down. As I've said on plenty of occasions, "I'd rather deal with a curious conservative than a know it all liberal, because the conservative will at least pay attention to what I say. Liberals like their race scripts way too much."
At 27:00 and at 29:00.
No micro-ignorances tolerated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRfOoYXKtvw
------------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlTa_veVBZY
No microaggressions tolerated by upperclassmen at this school.
Interestingly, anti-microaggression is just another form of microaggession, like in OLEANNA.
---------
From the rise of the unmeltable ethnics to the return of the irrepressible puritan/victorian neo-anglos. It's like Michael Novak said New England anglos are crazy about soap and couldn't tolerate any kind of odor.
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2006/08/novak-the-rise-of-unmeltable-e
(And Jews are famous for their code of so many do's and donts when it comes to what you can eat and how to dress. Even on the Sabbath, there's a whole long list oh how you can relax/rest and can't. So, even resting is a kind of duty and labor. The work ethic of rest.)
PC microaggression policy is directed at whites unlike anglo fussbudgetism in the past--that tried to coerce everyone to model themselves on anglo ways and culture--, but it comes from the same mindset of controlism. This element of controlism among anlos, jews, japanese, and germans led to much discipline and achievement, but it also made them a pain in the ass. Everything is a double-edged sword.
Though PC microaggression idea is officially for diversity, it seems to be appealing because diversity creates a lot of clashes and problems. So, to make sure that people are ever so mindful not to give offense to people of different cultures or attitudes, there is the cult of microagg. If in the past, non-whites were made to be ever so mindful not to give offense to whites--like a black man looking into the eyes of whites and acting uppity--, the new policy of microagg is reversed and whites must be careful at all times not to offend non-whites. It's like humans are not allowed to say NO to apes in the BATTLE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.
It's time foe obedience school for whites.
This can get out of hand. This Muslim seems to think that white women who don't cover themselves are committing microaggressions against Muslims and so should be punished with rape.
http://takimag.com/article/the_muff_crazed_mufti_christian_bonk/print#axzz2O61u4YuB
I'm resubmitting this because of captcha follies:
Isn's Lena Dunham's show just a cataloguing of microaggressions committed on a group of privileged young white woman?
Often during the act of sex?
"Gee, I wonder where kvetching about White oppression came from?"
Seriously?
You would think that the shift to "microaggressions" would be taken as a sign of progress. Microaggression = micro-oppression.
That would only apply to a debate. There is no debate, these people have total control of the conversation, both at Oberlin and in the nation, and through that control near total political power. In that context "micro-aggression" is just an extension of the "white privilege" hate campaign, inventing "white oppression" where none exists. Thus in a way micro-aggression is progress, it's just that it's progress toward die, whitey, die.
Don't chew hate gum in class.
Here's an aggression, Steve:
The Dodgers have a phenom defector named Puig who's obviously juicing; just look at the width of his face, though as a Giants fan, I guess I can't complain.
To give a serious answer to all those asking what microaggression wins out as the most offensive in the contemporary hierarchy: it has got to be the racial ones. "Racist" is the hydrogen bomb of verbal weaponry/social shaming.
"Not all of literature is confined to microaggressions, however. In The Iliad, for instance, Achilles...
This knack that the English had developed... for keeping their hostility toward each other swathed in formal manners may help explain their success at conquering other countries. The ability to keep one’s internal aggressions micro aided the British in such external macroaggressions..."
Interesting, but the funny dualistic thing about truth is something and its opposite can both be equally true.
So, one could argue that Brits were great at macro-aggression because amongst themselves they were tolerantly micro-aggressive.
But perhaps one could make the opposite argument. Brits were great at macro-aggression because they were highly intolerant of micro-aggression amongst themselves. In other words, what may have seemed like British micro-aggression were actually means to clamp down on micro-aggression. They weren't doing it so much as a social sport than a means of social control.
When we compare UK with China, Sailer seems to be right. In China, you didn't kid around much. There was no culture of witty banter or repartee(or maybe there was and we just don't know about it). Confucianism was all about social order via virtue and Legalism(derving from Han Fei Tzu) was all about social order via state control. In Maoist China, even an 'anti-revolutionary' joke could get one in serious trouble. Thus, Chinese had one-track mind.
Brits, in contrast, had two track minds. They had social order and discipline, but there was another cultural dimension, that of irony and wit where one could be tolerated or even admired for one's talent for such a thing. It's no wonder Brits were such great satirists and ironists.
But when we compare UK with Greece or Southern Italy, one could argue that the Brits were relatively far less tolerant of micro-aggressions. Brits were far more careful to not allow microaggs fester because micro-aggression could easily blow out of control into a macro-aggressions.
Thus, Brits were raised to be more reticent, restrained, and careful about what they said. Even their banter had to be in good taste or of quality(witty). And even if in questionable taste, at least wrapped in the winking veneer of respectability. So, all the double entendres and nonsequiturs and etc. Since those words came from France, I guess French were good at this sort of thing too. The difference was that the French were so show-offy than modest in their manners and temperament, and therefore they made less better ironists. Brits could be fancy in wit while coming across as modest and plain. Like Thatcher, the shopkeeper's daughter with stinging wit. French were fancy in wit and style/demeanor.
At any rate, Brits weren't so much into microaggression as into the science/art of managing and regulating microaggression so that microaggressions could not flare up into macroaggs.
But this wasn't the case with Greeks, Southern Italians, Scotch-Irish, and Irish.
A bunch of Greek women could be bitching about some little thing and then it could turn into hair-pulling and acting all crazy, and soon, blood would flow.
In Southern Italy, some guy could make a crack, and then another could lose his head, and then it was vendetta time between the families. It could be like Tommy in GOODFELLAS shooting Spider the bartender kid over nothing. Micro exploding into macro.
And there was that long lasting feud between the Scotch-Irish Hatcoys and McFields.
So, micros could easily flare into macros.
So, the real achievement of the Brits was not that they were okay with microaggs but that they tweaked microaggression into a fine art so that it didn't flare out of control into macroaggs.
So, propriety and self-control were very important among the Brits, even among the upperclasses. The social superiors in British society didn't act all flamboyant, and so this influence rubbed off on social inferiors as well. The underlings were also into manners and taking off their hats and saying 'aye guvnor'.
But the French upper classes were flamboyant and show-offy in their microaggs. And this flamboyance rubbed off on the radical bourgeoisie and the masses as well. So, the aristocrats were flamboyantly arrogant, and the social rebels were flamboyantly rebellious. French had manners but the showoffy kind among the snobs and the slobs. Just look at the painting of the French worker woman with her breast hanging out and holding a rifle. It's prole flamboyance.
One thing the Brits understood that current PC lords don't is that the best way to control microaggs is via the culture of proper manners. If the manners go, then microaggs can easily turn into macroaggs. Just look at Negroes without manners who talk shit one minute and then are pulling guns out at the next minute.
Too be sure, manners aren't enough. One needs manners with a touch of 'jolly good sport', an ability to take some ribbing and laugh at oneself as well as others. Japanese had manners but no sense of 'jorry good fun', so if one samurai felt insulted, he would feel emotionally all frustrated and pull out his sword to chop someone's head off.
Japanese can dish it out but they can't take it. It's like the scene in MERRY XMAS MR. LAWRENCE where some fat japper says to Bowie, 'can you guess what I'm thinking?' and Bowie says, 'Yes, I think so. Can you?' The fat japper just can't take it and beats the crap out of Bowie.
The new 'left'--it isn't really left cuz its main issues and causes are about privileged Jews, gays, and ivy league feminists--seems to have no use for manners. It promotes the trashiness of GIRLS, shittalking rap music culture, and the likes of Sarah Silverman(and jerks like Maher and the rest.)
But how can microaggs be managed if manners are out? Ideology alone? But people without manners cannot control themselves regardless of the ideology. What does it matter that blacks are into MLK-ism if they can't control themselves in schools or buses and act like louts? And when young feminists are yelling 'vagina' and 'slut pride' all day, how can they expect people to treat them with respect?
And this microagg stuff is problematic since blacks, the people most fawned on by progressives, have the least manners and act the rudest.
Some yrs ago, there was a controversy over some black guy who signed up for a feminist class. The professor read an account of a rape, and the Negro kid snickered or laughed. Feminists charged him with male chauvinist aggression, and then he accused the feminists of 'racism' and cultural insensitivity. His argument was that black people naturally laugh at stuff, and it doesn't necessarily mean anything hostile or nasty. (This seems to be true. At showings of MENACE II SOCIETY and SUGAR HILL, blacks laughed like crazy at the violence. And I read that some Oakland middle school black kids laughed at SCHINDLER'S LIST. They weren't being antisemitic. It's just part of black culture to be laughing at shit, and if you call them out on it, YOU could be the microaggressor. At a showing of ENTER THE DRAGON in the city movie theater, when the Chinese guy with the iron fist beat Jim Kelly to death, the Negroes going 'daaaaaang, Chinese mothafucka kicking Jim Kelly's ASS!!' and laughing like crazy.
In college, some white kids complained of loud black kids in the cafeteria, but liberal white folks tried to be 'understanding' and said 'they were just having fun'. But if white kids acted that way, they would been considered rude. It's all very confusing. And then, there's the whole thing about blacks being called out for 'homophobia'. But blacks could argue that they use 'faggot' like they use 'ni--a', and it don't mean nothing personal, so it's the white liberals who are being 'racist' against black culture.)
While this microagg cult, fad, or fashion seems ridiculous, maybe the 'left' gained so much power because they are so micro-minded about everything.
Between freedom and control, the latter will always win. Even in a free society, those who are how-to-live-minded win over those who are live-and-let-live-minded.
Germans and Japanese are very micro-minded. They are every thoroughgoing about things they do. They are 'anal'. They are not slovenly or sloppy.
Jews, for 1000s of yrs, had a culture of Talmudic studies where scholars pored over and memorized every hair-splitting detail of the sacred texts.
The film FOOTNOTE offers an interesting glimpse of this world. Over 1000s of yrs, even non-scholar Jews developed a micro-mentality because there were so many rules in the Torah about eating and dealing with goyim and so etc, about cleanliness and etc. Even on the Sabbath, the day of rest, resting the wrong way could get one stoned to death. So, even in rest, Jews were mindful of micro-correct-habits. Even rest became paranoid cuz you better rest according to God's laws.
We associate Napoleon with grand plans, but he was also a tremendous micro-manager. He slept only 2-3 hrs a day and spent lots of time poring over maps. Kubrick wanted to make a film about him cuz he was like that.
Brits, before many of them became yobs, were famous for their details and details and details. They were great empiricists, researchers, and thinkers. It's no wonder that of all the 19th century Great Ideas, Darwinism is the one that had fared best. Darwin had the keenest micro-mind whereas Nietzsche and Marx eventually lost themselves in Big Ideas while ignoring the details.
Gays are very fussy wussy and into details.
As Murray wrote in COMING APART, while liberals say they are for permissive culture, elite liberals are extreme micro-managementalist in their self-image, education of their kids, and etc. (Maybe Murray the detail-nut feels affinity for gays cuz gays are also so habitually detail-oriented.) They are Harry Potter parents than Bad News Bears parents. Indeed, Sarah Palin is more of a Bad News Bears parent or Moose Mother(than a tiger mother), and look at her not-so-sterling bunch of kibblers. Liberal mothers may not all be tiger mothers like Chua but they are still collie mothers who collar their kids and keep their kids herded and guided the right way.
Especially in the South, lots of cons are nice people but not micro-mentalist. They have a live and let live attitude and take things easy. They are not into details and fussiness. They aren't the types to become computer geeks whose minds are filled with codes or data-poring academics.
One reason why Russia lost the Cold War to the West and then lost the post-cold-war to China is the Russians are an imprecise slovenly bunch. Jews and wasps may be a pain in the ass, but they care about details. Chinese may be crooked and corrupt, but they too are into details--if only to cheat. But Russians? Like Southern cons happy with Bible thumping, ass tattoos, guns and Nascar, plenty of Russians think life is wonderful with vodka, dancing on tables, and wrestling with bears. That is no way to gain power. If Russia weren't so big and filled with natural resources, Russian people would be no better off than modern day Greeks.
Why did the Bolshis win the Civil War. They were led by intellectuals with tremendous power of details and micro-management. Whites, in contrast, had lots of tough warriors, but lacked organization and unity.
And though Southern Christianity is still strong while Northern Mainline Christianity is on the wane, it's the Northern Yankee types who are more successful in elite areas because they are more micro-managmentarian and detail-oriented whereas lots of Southern Christians just like to holler Hallelujah, stuff themselves with fried chicken, and act like megamall hillbillies.
So, even though this microagg thing is silly, the mentality behind it offers a glimpse as to why the 'left' gained more elite power than the right.
Just like micro-mental Brits achieved a lot more than sloppy-minded Italians and lax-mentality of Mexicans, the more fussy mentality of the 'left' has made it more formidable than the more live-and-let-live and take-it-easy style of the American Right.
Paradoxically, those who are most microaggressive complain most about micraggression.
It's like Lucy Van Pelt is the most aggressive person in PEANUTS but also notices most of the aggressions(mostly imaginary) directed at her.
"What about my part? What about the Christmas Queen, hmm? Are you going to let all this beauty go to waste? You do think I'm beautiful, don't you, Charlie Brown? You didn't answer right away! You had to think about it first, didn't you? If you really thought I was beautiful, you would have spoken right up! I know when I've been insulted! I KNOW WHEN I'VE BEEN INSULTED!"
Lucy insults Charlie Brown but accuses Brown of insulting her.
In the US, Jews and blacks--and increasingly gays--are the most insulting and aggressive people, but they are also the ones who see the most insults--against mostly imaginary--directed at them.
Neocons are the most aggressive and intolerant people in the GOP, but they accuse other cons of not being tolerant enough.
Mother Hepburn. Ultra-micro-aggressive Yankee hen who just can't tolerate the micro-aggressions of others.
It all comes down to my 'micro-aggression is superior to yours, so shut up.'.
It's almost like the super-yuppies comparing business cards in AMERICAN PSYCHO.
Micro-aggression-fussing is the haute form of PC. With 'progressives' becoming ever richer and more privileged, this should be expected. They are all turning into Mother Hepburns.
If white anglo-saxon protestants are wasps, shouldn't
white ashkenazi-zionist globalists be called wazgs?
I just can't stand it anymore. As an Indian ("south asian" whatever pc term is now), I just cannot handle these fragile minorities blaming whites for freaking everything. Thin-skinned whining weaklings.
How kids movie and culture have changed. Now, it's all about Harry Potter. Order, organization, seriousness.
That's not the theme of the Harry Potter series at all, if the movies are any reflection of the books. The protagonists rail against too-controlling order and break rules left and right. Most notably, the fifth book/movie features a minor villain who's basically what Nurse Ratched would be like as a schoolteacher.
I would not say the cult of Microagressions is male Steve. Women are perfectly capable of SYSTEMATIZING when it comes to manners, social conformity, herd behavior, fashion, etc. Just look at how teen girl, to adult female fashions change, mutate, and merge in swarm like actions. There's a whole host of systematizing among women, on the correct and incorrect clothes to wear, opinions to express, and men to prefer.
Moreover, almost ALL MEN will LOSE in microagression cults; already some woman at a tech conference was "offended" by overhearing a joke about a "dongle" and "forking" code and got the joke teller and laugher ... fired! And is bragging about it (the two guys were not ... hot obviously and worked at another company).
Microaggression is merely transforming witch-hunts from rural and conservative Whites in the hinterland to beta White males around them. It is the purge of all non-sexy dominant men. And is as much the product of straight female rage than lesbian rage.
If you are a lesbian, do you care much at all about straight White guys? I would be surprised if lesbians really cared, as Beta Male White guys just would not be interested in them, and vice versa.
What causes rage, and really HATE HATE HATRED, is for Straight White women of good but not great looks, being approached by beta White males. To them it is a mortal insult, given that they picture Beta White males no matter how attractive physically or not, as the natural pairing of land whales and cig staches. A beta White male showing interest in a woman of average attractiveness is like calling her fat and ugly. And worse, it might discourage an Alpha. Women find 80-90% of all men repulsive to sexually invisible, so this is no joke.
[A beautiful woman by contrast simply expects a male gaze, and the most beautiful are intimidating to most beta males, while she is secure in her attraction to Alphas.]
Microaggression is merely a way to purge all Beta Males out of White women's areas.
I would have to say it started with men. Specifically, older liberal WASP men. They made it possible; they set up the framework for it decades ago. They made the mistake of forsaking their poor white brothers...
"Decades"? This happened at Jamestown in 1619!
"That's not the theme of the Harry Potter series at all, if the movies are any reflection of the books. The protagonists rail against too-controlling order and break rules left and right."
You're falling for the false hype.
Everything today is packaged as fighting for 'equality' and 'freedom', but look closely and it may be something quite different. Look at the style and form of the thing for the true answer.
Adults love HARRY POTTER because its sense of tightknit community of special kids promotes the idea of order and discipline and form.
In contrast, BAD NEWS BEARS says kids should be accepted for what they are: bunch of boogers. A lot of boys and girls in the 70s were like the Bad News Bears. I was on the softball team for Boys and Girls Club in the 70s, and the favorite movie of our coach was BAD NEWS BEARS and we didn't take anything seriously. It was all just for fun. Then, things got tightened up in the 80s as boomers became parents.
If you wanna know the TRUE message of something, don't pay attention to what it says but focus on HOW it says or shows it.
For example, the official message of SCARFACE is 'drugs are bad'. But the real message is 'being a gangster is so badass and cool'.
This is why WALL STREET was a total failure in terms of message. Its official message is 'greed is bad', but its stylistic message is 'greed is cool!'
I think Oliver Stone is a natural Nietzschean fascist who is drawn to power, mastery, and glory, but he can't admit it, so he hides behind a kind of neo-Marxism, which serves as a kind of moral crutch.
But just look at the kind of stuff that really excites him: Jim Morrison, Alexander the Great, football players.
And Buchanan too. He's a natural fascist but can't admit it, so he hides behind Catholicism.
I'm not saying that Stone and Buchanan are being consciously dishonest. They are prolly sincere in what they say.
But underneath their professed convictions, both guys are obsessed with the game and the sport of power.
"How do you deal with microagression without manners?'
Why do you think the people so aggrieved at everything are so hot to disarm the populace at large?
Buchanan had a pretty effective way of dealing with microaggs as I recall.
In RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING, he says some guy in journalism class made a snide comment and he suckerpunched him and knocked the daylights out of him.
Bruce Lee takes cue from Buchanan at microagg. No such sign really existed though.
There is also a funny incident where Buchanan had a friend over for dinner. The guy was talking about the rape scene in VIRGIN SPRING, and Buchanan's father took it as a terrible microagg at the dinner table and hollered, 'WE DON'T TALK ABOUT SUCH THINGS IN FRONT OF LADIES AT THE DINNER TABLE'. The kid wasn't trying to be offensive, but he offended the old patriarch.
PS. Power of concepts is funny. The concept focuses our minds on the suddenly-noticed-and-categorized-concept, and suddenly, we are seeing it EVERYWHERE.
It's like microaggs are the new phallic symbols. Ever since that concept came into vogue, people were seeing phallic symbols whenever they saw something pointy.
But as Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
There was a time when bullies got away with a lot of bad stuff. Some of the accounts in the documentary CRUMB is kinda sad about childhood in the 1950s.
So, initially the revenged of the bullied made some sense.
But all these current forms of PC seem to be creation of people who grew up as verbal and intellectual bullies from cradle. I doubt if the likes of Lena Dunham were bullied. They seem to be bitches who talk shit all their lives and got away with it.
A lot of boys and girls in the 70s were like the Bad News Bears.
Maybe that's why there are so many boys named Tanner today? The name cracked the top 100 in 1993, and is still in the top 200.
Smart people come up with new concepts. Dumb people apply them to everything. Clever people market them and make profit.
Theorists, commissars, and sellers.
The crackdown on "microagressions" is basically crimestop max for straight white gentiles. Don't do or say anything that expresses anything less than total submissiveness to the protected classes. It's zero tolerance time,
Yes, the whole concept does seem pathetic and ridiculous, but they're quite clearly deadly serious about it, and just you watch it gain traction in public life in general in the years ahead.
Currently having fun adding some links to the Wikipedia page on Microaggressions, under "See Also"
@ Anonymous at 11:25pm 3/19/13
Those weren't microagressions, they're macroagressions in those times/places. So far at least in the US, a microagression is something that won't lead to death (unless you microagress a group of black thugs at 2am in a dark alley). But a couple of decades from now, I wouldn't be surprised at the rate things are going if it might well get you prison or death penalty. Already in England it can get you prison time.
"I hear a TON of micro aggressions...
Most of the time it comes from non-whites
"That white girl" "You know..the white girl"
That type of stuff. "
That's true- the microagressions towards white men vastly outmatches those towards minorities. We should report them as they come up. Probably the PC Drone working the site will not post them, but at least they will have a headache having to do more mental gymnastics to justify it.
What I think is new about microaggressions, culturally speaking, is that there is now a sort of cultural cachet attached to pointing out one of them.
And since the aggressions are, by definition, "micro", any actual pain experienced by the "victim" of a microaggression is outweighed by the positive feelings of superiority that come from experiencing one.
So you can see this leading to a feedback loop, where women and minorities go out of their way to be obnoxious, just to increase the likelihood of a "microaggression" being directed at them.
Isn't this basically what a SlutWalk is? Dress like a slut, so that you'll get called a slut, all so you can feel superior to those horrible men who used such an awful word.
This happened before. I went to college in the late nineties, at the tail end of the first great wave of PC. There was a general feeling like this sort of thing was burning itself out. I hope it does again. I can't imagine the future of a culture that rewards aggressive jerks who whine about people fighting back against them.
I can assure you, though, that I am incredibly glad I am not a college student today.
http://www.amren.com/news/2013/03/philadelphia-magazine-story-discussed-with-philadelphia-association-of-black-journalists/
Micro-truth met with macro-rage.
How can what they are doing be called "dumb"? They are winning the country.
Nonsense. They're creating a monster that's going to devour them. They just don't realize it yet.
Anon sed:Suppose you're part of a white minority living in a black majority-ruled nation. Do you want blacks with majority power to think in racial terms and theorize about racial differences? What if blacks were to demagogue the racial issue?
So, even if you know about the truth of race, you would not want blacks to think about race. Instead, you'd try to calm the blacks that we are all the same.
SOrry but this is crap. WHites in South Africa suffer exactly because blacks employ policies which are apparently colorblind, but in actual fact designed to drill them down to black standards, whilst stealing their money.
Whites in South Africa would prefer blacks openly think and talk in racial terms, instead of their underhanded way of talking about racial-equality but using their majority status to force whites down to black standards and override them on all issues.
Whites in South Africa, who have the fate of peers in RHodesia or Mocambique in mind, have valid existential fears. Microagressions and the groups that push this rubbish are all about political power and social dominance. Their only deep fear is losing their privileged and unjustified special position.
Anon, just write a goddamn book or start a blog already.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz...
Whiskey, you're off the sanity res.
That is all.
"....at colleges such as Oberlin, Smith, Scripps, and similar advanced, lesbian-heavy institutions..."
The Flannel League
"The Brits may be the all-time world champs at blandly hurling microaggressions from their stiff upper limits."
A friend of mine pointed out that the English have a capacity for making even a routine pleasantry sound like an insult: "Good day to you, Sir!"
"Microaggression" would not exist had a certain skein of Americans not grown micro-thin skin as a socio-political tactic: it's nothing more than the odious Marxist tactic of denunciation to destroy and eliminate social and political enemies. In short: "microagression" complaining is nothing more than a brazen power grab to assert that the complainant is now the "Who" who gets to do the dirty with impunity to the "Whom."
How can what they are doing be called "dumb"? They are winning the country.
Steve did not actually say that they were dumb or that what they were doing was dumb, but that their actions including "dumbing down" America. In other words, they are trying to make everyone else dumb, and to make the allowable limits of discussion dumb, so that they can control it.
The point is, for everyone who does not stand to benefit ideologically or otherwise from such manipulation, to accept the terms the leftists set out is dumb.
Bottom line is, since HBDers aren't pro-White, there is now way for them to really put up a defense on issues like open borders, etc.
They can at least be anti-anti-white. There is so much ridiculous anti-white nonsense out there they'll never lack for material.
Anti-anti-white is more in line with what behavioral psychology has discovered about people anwyay - that we're more concerned and conscientious about protecting what we have then attempting to gain something new. "Pro-white" all too often reduces to chest-beating about "White race, f--k yeah!" or hating other races in ways that strike non-racialist people as insane; that's only ever going to have limited appeal.
How can what they are doing be called "dumb"? They are winning the country
Not so sure about that; reality does tend to impose natural limits on feeding your ego. Win the battle, lose the war. Of course, there can be multiple losing parties too
"Nowadays offense is taken--snatched and grabbed--as if offense were something valuable to own." -P.J. O'Rourke
Great quotation (to aid a further analogy of mine over at the link). The micro-stuff is like Pokemons--gotta catch 'em all
Anonydroid at12:06 PM said: Like Southern cons happy with Bible thumping, ass tattoos, guns and Nascar, plenty of Russians think life is wonderful with vodka, dancing on tables, and wrestling with bears.
Hunsdon replied: Jane, you ignorant slut.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUdZL7eZdcI
Japan micro-aggressions.
Book is terrific, the movie much less so. Badly cast. The woman in AMELIE would have been perfect for the role.
And though Southern Christianity is still strong while Northern Mainline Christianity is on the wane, it's the Northern Yankee types who are more successful in elite areas because they are more micro-managmentarian and detail-oriented whereas lots of Southern Christians just like to holler Hallelujah, stuff themselves with fried chicken, and act like megamall hillbillies. "
That stereotype is old dude. The south is indeed rising again.
The economy in southern states is far healthier in the northern states.
And until Obama, it was almost mandatory that the President have a southern accent or otherwise have southern roots or western(Reagan) roots of some sort.
However how much of the economic success is due to native southerners or entrepreneurial Yankee carpet baggers fleeing excessive taxation of the northern states.
We associate Napoleon with grand plans, but he was also a tremendous micro-manager. He slept only 2-3 hrs a day and spent lots of time poring over maps. Kubrick wanted to make a film about him cuz he was like that. "
Yup. Kubrick did make Clockwork Orange's Alex as a Napoleanic character who even listens to "Ludvig Van's Ninth" which was composed in honor of Napolean.
Truth be told ,I like Kubricks movies but dont love them.I admire that they are they are so immaculate and cerebral but they always leave me cold and gloomy.I suppose thats what he intends.
OTOH, wouldnt the average Hollywood director also make a fantastic movie if he dedicated more than half a decade to one researching meticuloulsy, shooting and reshooting endless takes exhausting all parties ?
Interestingly, anti-microaggression is just another form of microaggession, like in OLEANNA."
Thank you bringin up OLEANNA, a great example by Mamet how two utterly clueless and self righteous individuals abuse and misunderstand words and clumisly articulate their worldviews not realizing what it means to the other and how it can lead to disaster.
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