As a former law-enforcement officer-turned-philosopher-and social critic, your perspective is crucial right now. Everyone should be reading your newsletters.
This was hard to read, and honestly, I skimmed part of it near the end. I've been through way too much of this stuff.
"Women, whether as objects of lust or scorn, were to be conquered or controlled, not respected as equals."
I went through so much of this awful cruelty in the late '70s and early '80s as a high school and college athlete during the time of Title IX, and then later when I started to work and got promoted, meaning that I was often supervising other men.
The two horrid and so very offensive words that Jonathan Ross called Renee Good after he shot her were directed at me when my name and picture made the local news before or instead of the male athletes and I also heard those words a few times in my supervisory position in the early '80s, often after handing men their paychecks -- they had to come into my office to receive their paychecks...many of them didn't have offices...need I say more?
Thank you for continuing to expose the awful truth. Until we really come to grips with some deep-rooted hate and systemic privilege, we will continue to see these appalling acts and live with what so many men lamely describe as "men will be men" or "locker room talk."
Kathy, I really do appreciate you saying that, and I want to receive it with humility. I’m not brave, I’m just a man who’s seen enough to know that pretending is its own kind of harm.
Thank you for supporting me and for staying with the hard parts. If anything I write helps you feel a little less alone, or a little more clear-eyed, then the hours and the heaviness are worth it.
You have experiences and a perspective that few of us share. You spell things out in detail. You have superb writing skills. You have the patience and persistence to put those talents to use to inform your fellow citizens, or rather, fellow human beings. What's not to like?
I don't understand, if the ethos is the male gaze, why ICE follows Noem's orders with seriousness? She shows up in cosplay outfits, riding her horse, obviously underqualified for this position, and they are expected to respect her differently than just a side piece? I'm confused.
Lisa, you’re not crazy for being confused. Because on the surface it certainly does look like: “If this is male gaze culture, why are they suddenly so serious and obedient when Noem shows up playing dress-up on a horse?”
But listen that’s the trick. The male gaze here isn’t mainly about sex. It’s about power and permission. A woman can be “respected” in that world if she’s functioning like a symbol that serves the pack, and not a person who disrupts it. Noem’s cosplay reads like a ritual to them. It says: we’re the good guys, we’re the tough guys, and even the woman at the top is performing our fantasy of toughness. That’s why they’ll salute her performance, then turn around and reduce other women to “bitch” the moment those women are inconvenient.
So yeah, it’s hypocritical, but it’s a very specific kind of hypocrisy. I’m sure you already know patriarchy doesn’t have to demean every woman equally. It just sorts women into buckets. “Useful to the story” versus “in the way.” And once you see that sorting, the whole thing gets colder, and it makes sick sense.
I very much appreciate your writing the insights and truths of your experience in this unsettling, astute, wise, and explicit piece. As one not privy to your experience, nor tuned in at the level you have Voiced, thank you. It is eye opening, mind boggling, heart wrenching, and important. Sharing... and hoping it catalyzes change for The Good. May that be so...
“(ICE) and related agencies in this current surge era, have drifted into something harsher” you start with this epic understatement Xavier and then deliver the punch.
We are watching a terrible confluence of a bad job market, inflation, unhappy/angry young men and propaganda all funneled into a recruitment and training environment of manipulation indoctrination, violence and hatred.
This administration has chosen to divide us by weaponizing service while demonizing the target. It’s simply terrifying.
Thank you for describing the mechanism so thoroughly.
Ten times more to respond to than time permits, but first let me say it's a brilliant piece, and second, it is frustrating to me that legacy media too seldom employs psychological analysis, so vital, I think, to understanding what is happening.
That said, regarding this:
""The “shadow,” in Jungian terms, is the collection of repressed desires, fears, and aspects of oneself that the conscious ego refuses to acknowledge. If an individual (or organization) doesn’t confront and integrate their shadow, they will inevitably project it outward, perceiving enemies and monsters in the world that are really reflections of their own denied traits. In simpler terms: when a psyche (or a culture) can’t face its own capacity for evil, it needs an external enemy to justify unleashing that very evil.""
Jung wrote before current levels of investigation, aided by technology he could not (literally) have imagined, was developed, and we now have. And it has taught us that in terms of morphology and chemistry, human brains vary, but also are malleable, with nothing about the way we think set in stone, although how malleable also varies individually.
So I think it is not just that there is "repression" happing, or the conscious ego refusing to acknowledge that which you (and I and ever so many) may see as obvious, it may be that either they cannot, because of characteristics of their brains beyond their knowledge or control, or to do so they need sort of a kick-start, reboot, like that lady who turned down Trump's pardon because she came to realize how wrong she had been to believe him, or that idiot who stormed the pizza parlor in D.C. to rescue children from a pedophile ring operating out of a basement that did not exist. Both recanted, but it took significant outside pressure to trigger the cognitive reboot.
For a growing number of MAGAs Trump's obvious lies were either believed and of little personal consequence when shown to be untrue (Mexico did not pay for a wall which was never, at any rate, fully built, for an obvious example) and thus given little to no weight, or put down as Trump-being-Trump hyperbole or humor (cue Levitt). But now that they directly effect them where it hurts, financially, finally, far too late, voter's remorse is staring to kick in, second doubts occurring, and Trump's idiocy and vileness increasingly exposed to increasing numbers of Americans.
A view from behind the blue line. Instructive, and worrisome. Thank you again for sharing access to your fully loaded perspective. We can all benefit from crime scene assessment skills, and awareness of specific groupthink and pod mentality.
As a former law-enforcement officer-turned-philosopher-and social critic, your perspective is crucial right now. Everyone should be reading your newsletters.
This was hard to read, and honestly, I skimmed part of it near the end. I've been through way too much of this stuff.
"Women, whether as objects of lust or scorn, were to be conquered or controlled, not respected as equals."
I went through so much of this awful cruelty in the late '70s and early '80s as a high school and college athlete during the time of Title IX, and then later when I started to work and got promoted, meaning that I was often supervising other men.
The two horrid and so very offensive words that Jonathan Ross called Renee Good after he shot her were directed at me when my name and picture made the local news before or instead of the male athletes and I also heard those words a few times in my supervisory position in the early '80s, often after handing men their paychecks -- they had to come into my office to receive their paychecks...many of them didn't have offices...need I say more?
Thank you for continuing to expose the awful truth. Until we really come to grips with some deep-rooted hate and systemic privilege, we will continue to see these appalling acts and live with what so many men lamely describe as "men will be men" or "locker room talk."
I support you because you speak the truth, even when it hurts so much! You speak from experience.
Thank you for your courage and your voice.
Kathy, I really do appreciate you saying that, and I want to receive it with humility. I’m not brave, I’m just a man who’s seen enough to know that pretending is its own kind of harm.
Thank you for supporting me and for staying with the hard parts. If anything I write helps you feel a little less alone, or a little more clear-eyed, then the hours and the heaviness are worth it.
You have experiences and a perspective that few of us share. You spell things out in detail. You have superb writing skills. You have the patience and persistence to put those talents to use to inform your fellow citizens, or rather, fellow human beings. What's not to like?
I don't understand, if the ethos is the male gaze, why ICE follows Noem's orders with seriousness? She shows up in cosplay outfits, riding her horse, obviously underqualified for this position, and they are expected to respect her differently than just a side piece? I'm confused.
Lisa, you’re not crazy for being confused. Because on the surface it certainly does look like: “If this is male gaze culture, why are they suddenly so serious and obedient when Noem shows up playing dress-up on a horse?”
But listen that’s the trick. The male gaze here isn’t mainly about sex. It’s about power and permission. A woman can be “respected” in that world if she’s functioning like a symbol that serves the pack, and not a person who disrupts it. Noem’s cosplay reads like a ritual to them. It says: we’re the good guys, we’re the tough guys, and even the woman at the top is performing our fantasy of toughness. That’s why they’ll salute her performance, then turn around and reduce other women to “bitch” the moment those women are inconvenient.
So yeah, it’s hypocritical, but it’s a very specific kind of hypocrisy. I’m sure you already know patriarchy doesn’t have to demean every woman equally. It just sorts women into buckets. “Useful to the story” versus “in the way.” And once you see that sorting, the whole thing gets colder, and it makes sick sense.
Thank you for this. It's way more complicated, devious, contrived, and nauseating than I've thought.
Could it be because she so willingly submits to Trump? She understands her role.
She allows them off the leash. If she tried to rein them in, it would change in a heartbeat.
I very much appreciate your writing the insights and truths of your experience in this unsettling, astute, wise, and explicit piece. As one not privy to your experience, nor tuned in at the level you have Voiced, thank you. It is eye opening, mind boggling, heart wrenching, and important. Sharing... and hoping it catalyzes change for The Good. May that be so...
“(ICE) and related agencies in this current surge era, have drifted into something harsher” you start with this epic understatement Xavier and then deliver the punch.
We are watching a terrible confluence of a bad job market, inflation, unhappy/angry young men and propaganda all funneled into a recruitment and training environment of manipulation indoctrination, violence and hatred.
This administration has chosen to divide us by weaponizing service while demonizing the target. It’s simply terrifying.
Thank you for describing the mechanism so thoroughly.
Ten times more to respond to than time permits, but first let me say it's a brilliant piece, and second, it is frustrating to me that legacy media too seldom employs psychological analysis, so vital, I think, to understanding what is happening.
That said, regarding this:
""The “shadow,” in Jungian terms, is the collection of repressed desires, fears, and aspects of oneself that the conscious ego refuses to acknowledge. If an individual (or organization) doesn’t confront and integrate their shadow, they will inevitably project it outward, perceiving enemies and monsters in the world that are really reflections of their own denied traits. In simpler terms: when a psyche (or a culture) can’t face its own capacity for evil, it needs an external enemy to justify unleashing that very evil.""
Jung wrote before current levels of investigation, aided by technology he could not (literally) have imagined, was developed, and we now have. And it has taught us that in terms of morphology and chemistry, human brains vary, but also are malleable, with nothing about the way we think set in stone, although how malleable also varies individually.
So I think it is not just that there is "repression" happing, or the conscious ego refusing to acknowledge that which you (and I and ever so many) may see as obvious, it may be that either they cannot, because of characteristics of their brains beyond their knowledge or control, or to do so they need sort of a kick-start, reboot, like that lady who turned down Trump's pardon because she came to realize how wrong she had been to believe him, or that idiot who stormed the pizza parlor in D.C. to rescue children from a pedophile ring operating out of a basement that did not exist. Both recanted, but it took significant outside pressure to trigger the cognitive reboot.
For a growing number of MAGAs Trump's obvious lies were either believed and of little personal consequence when shown to be untrue (Mexico did not pay for a wall which was never, at any rate, fully built, for an obvious example) and thus given little to no weight, or put down as Trump-being-Trump hyperbole or humor (cue Levitt). But now that they directly effect them where it hurts, financially, finally, far too late, voter's remorse is staring to kick in, second doubts occurring, and Trump's idiocy and vileness increasingly exposed to increasing numbers of Americans.
Great work!!!! Sensational.
This is how civil wars and holocausts start.
A view from behind the blue line. Instructive, and worrisome. Thank you again for sharing access to your fully loaded perspective. We can all benefit from crime scene assessment skills, and awareness of specific groupthink and pod mentality.
Redoing my tight retiree budget to become a paid subscriber. Because you GET IT. Deeply.