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Refuge for the rational.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Catchy Lingo, Courtesy of Dr. Phil 

There are two different types of liberals. There are the ones who invent phoney catch phrases in order to better understand what is wrong with the world, in order to more effectively discuss it on online chats and in coffee houses while sporting their dog eared copies of Zarathustra. The ones who shake their heads at the atrocities of this world but are so ineffectual as to think burning flags at so-called “peace-rallies” is at all effective. They will whine and complain and take offence to just about anything that smells remotely “offensive”. They are go-getters, they go for hikes, they go running, they have dozens of children whom they fail to raise well. They like soy. They can be easily identified by their empty doe eyes and unfaltering grins. They are the people who would reek of positivity (yes, despite popular belief it does have an odour – kind of like patchouli) while staring down the barrel of a gun.

Then, there are the liberals who believe in similar things with one exception: they actually believe; it isn’t some kind of personality accessory. They have a sense of humour that often “offends” their so-called compatriots and baffles most republicans. They also like soy and they also “love life”, but in a different way than the grinny liberals. This love of life makes them desire real change and express disappointment and often anger at the way in which the world works. In fact, they love life so much that sometimes they hate it.

This first group is the focus of our discussion today. That, and the question, why do we hate ourselves?

There is a term that the grinny liberals have come up with to describe this plague. They call it self-esteem. I think it’s a little too stately to discuss something that is just a tad darker than those gosh-darn fuckers would have you believe. But, what do you expect from the PCs, they’ve never been about honesty.

This self-esteem problem is usually represented outwardly, by dissatisfaction with ones physical appearance. This is why everyone thinks they’re ugly, fat, too (insert fault of the week here) and admire people who are air-brushed and “perfect”. Now, I’m not going to start in on the usual trite bullshit about how media images hurt women. I don’t actually believe this. For one, being ‘hurt’ by a media image requires a certain degree of internalization that a woman with a healthy self-esteem would not subscribe to. The real problem here, and one that may even be perpetuated by people who whine about ridiculous media images and expectations is that physicality matters at all. The problem is not that people cannot meet expectations because they are ridiculous; the problem is that expectations even exist. Applauding a woman for undergoing mutilation in order to “feel good” about herself is like holding her hair for her while she slits her wrists. It is a mistake to endorse physical appearance as a cause for low self esteem instead of a symptom of it. This self-hatred (a much better catch phrase, I’d say) is deeper than that.

It is rampant, though. From what I can see, almost everyone hates themselves, whether it be the school bully, the girl with the implants, the girl pointing at the girl with the implants, the white kid who wants to be black, the rapist, the drug-addict…of all the people I’ve met lately, I can’t think of one who I don’t imagine going home and crying into his pillow and becoming completely absorbed in his woe-is-me nightmare. And all of these people have something in common. They believe in the surface. They believe that the surface will set them free. They believe in the surface and they try to call it practical. And despite what you may believe, the word for all of this is culture. This isn’t low self-esteem; this is our culture.
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