All These Isolated Incidents
Jun. 11th, 2009 06:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yelosonEndgame vol. 1, Derrick Jensen:
(Emphasis mine)
One need never mention nor object to "normal" things. In fact, it is taboo. One thing Jensen does particularly well in his writings is tie the behavior of abusers- silencing, minimizing, the desperate need to indoctrinate and normalize the abuse- to the larger scale of culture- that the culture, too, does the same thing.
Who doesn't get to matter.
And, who is entitled to decide that. Who isn't penalized for enacting force and violence. Who doesn't get to be called on their shit. Whose systemic violence isn't "politicized", but normal.
I often say internalized self hatred is culture wide Stockholm Syndrome. The self hateful are just as dangerous as the abusers- the only difference is that while both may have been tools of the system of violence and indoctrinated as such (see what happens to men ally with women controlling their own bodies?), one group has been indoctrinated by receiving violence and one group has been the perpetrators OF violence.
A link Jensen does make elsewhere in the book: Abusers most frequently kill their victims when they try to escape the relationship.
In the normalized kyriarchy, "Freedom or death" might be the only possibilities of our society.
My understanding came when I happened across a line by Nietzsche, "One does not hate when one can despise." I suddenly understood that perceived entitlement is key to nearly all atrocities, and that any threat to preceived entitlement will provoke hatred.
....
From the perspective of those who are entitled, the problems begin when those they despise do not go along with- and have the power and the wherewithal to not go along with- the perceived entitlement. That's where Nietsche's statement comes in, and that's where hatred of the sort I'm trying to get at in this book becomes manifest. Several times in this book I have commented that hatred felt long and deeply enough no longer feels like hatred, but more like tradition, economics, religion, what have you. It is when those traditions are challenged, when the entitlement is threatened, when the masks of religion, economics, and so on are pulled away that the hate transforms from its more seemingly sophisticated, 'normal', chronic state- where those exploited are looked down upon, or despised - to a more acute and obvious manifestation. Hate becomes more perceptible when it is no longer normalized. Another way to say all of this is that if the rhetoric of superiority works to maintain the entitlement, hatreda and direct physical force remain underground. But when that rhetoric begins to fail, force- and hatred- waits in the wings, ready to explode.
....
From the perspective of those who are entitled, the problems begin when those they despise do not go along with- and have the power and the wherewithal to not go along with- the perceived entitlement. That's where Nietsche's statement comes in, and that's where hatred of the sort I'm trying to get at in this book becomes manifest. Several times in this book I have commented that hatred felt long and deeply enough no longer feels like hatred, but more like tradition, economics, religion, what have you. It is when those traditions are challenged, when the entitlement is threatened, when the masks of religion, economics, and so on are pulled away that the hate transforms from its more seemingly sophisticated, 'normal', chronic state- where those exploited are looked down upon, or despised - to a more acute and obvious manifestation. Hate becomes more perceptible when it is no longer normalized. Another way to say all of this is that if the rhetoric of superiority works to maintain the entitlement, hatreda and direct physical force remain underground. But when that rhetoric begins to fail, force- and hatred- waits in the wings, ready to explode.
(Emphasis mine)
One need never mention nor object to "normal" things. In fact, it is taboo. One thing Jensen does particularly well in his writings is tie the behavior of abusers- silencing, minimizing, the desperate need to indoctrinate and normalize the abuse- to the larger scale of culture- that the culture, too, does the same thing.
Who doesn't get to matter.
And, who is entitled to decide that. Who isn't penalized for enacting force and violence. Who doesn't get to be called on their shit. Whose systemic violence isn't "politicized", but normal.
I often say internalized self hatred is culture wide Stockholm Syndrome. The self hateful are just as dangerous as the abusers- the only difference is that while both may have been tools of the system of violence and indoctrinated as such (see what happens to men ally with women controlling their own bodies?), one group has been indoctrinated by receiving violence and one group has been the perpetrators OF violence.
A link Jensen does make elsewhere in the book: Abusers most frequently kill their victims when they try to escape the relationship.
In the normalized kyriarchy, "Freedom or death" might be the only possibilities of our society.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 03:14 pm (UTC)Their world in which we are not-beings is the expectation.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 03:27 pm (UTC)You might still get knocked around, but you won't be buying into 'If only you didn't annoy me, weren't so loud, were a better person' etc...
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 03:58 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for this, Yeloson. Very welcome right today.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 04:13 pm (UTC)