I had an idea while I was sleeping. It went like this:
The main way Reeducators and Reeducands catch their prey is by saying, “We know you think you are better than we are, but you aren’t. We know you think you are better than we are, but you aren’t. We know you think you are better than we are, but you aren’t. We will call you elitist and say you are in denial. We will call you elitist and say you are in denial. We will call you elitist and say you are in denial. We know you think you are better than we are, but you aren’t.”
This always amazed me because although in early childhood I was told we were better than the neighbors I did not believe it, there was no evidence of it. I furthermore realize I am from a country which gives, or at least used to give one a number of advantages, so that if one rose high it was not out of a superior nature but because one had had support. I could speak at length of all the evidence I have always had of equality among persons and the universal right to dignity. So I was amazed to be told in Reeducation that I thought I was better than others. It was a great way to guilt trip me into hobbling myself so that my intellectual powers and optimistic attitude would not seem so scary to certain souls.
But while I was asleep it occurred to me: what if I really am better than all of these Reeducators and Reeducands? What if they really do live in the gutter and I do not? What if they really do have inferior minds and souls? What if they really have decided to take the low road in life? What if it is actually my responsibility to use what I have been given, as opposed to deny or destroy it? (Is this not what Jesus would have said, O ye who seek God’s love?)
I decided this might be true and that henceforth I should perhaps just tell all Reeducators and Reeducands YES, I am definitely better than you are, so do not bother me. It is quite sad to think how much time and energy I have wasted trying to diminish myself so as to fit the paradigm of lesser beings. I do not want to believe it was a waste, and I continue to believe these beings are actually more valiant and deserving people than they themselves think.
Still, perhaps I really am better than many — if not most or all — of these crazy Catholics, Christians, drug addicts, Reeducators, Reeducands, Twelve Steppers, Magazine Readers, New Agers, Hippies, and Acolytes of Self Help Books. I had not thought of it, but they have accused me of it (or of thinking it, or realizing it) so many times that I should perhaps honor their perception.
As I say, I find this probable truth sad, but overwhelming evidence points in its direction. Maybe there is a reason other than unacknowledged privilege and a falsely inflated sense of self (what Reeducation assumed) that I am not lying up in some crack house but working as a professor.
Then I woke up and read Jennifer‘s comment:
I think what is relatively easy in life is to deal directly with its trials and tribulations. That is why a socialist (materialist) approach to treating people who have sustained emotional injuries is appropriate. A rational attitude that “yes these things occur, and there is nothing wrong with you because something happened to you that you didn’t anticipate” would improve the running of society altogether.
Instead, we have systems of power and belief that are entirely irrational, and which make things worse by rubbing salt into acquired wounds.
When those who have come under the influence of the patriarchy insinuate to a woman that what she has experienced, by way of personal injury, was not caused by anything outside of her own head, said patriarch is making a direct assault on that woman’s sanity.
Like I said, one battles life’s trials and tribulations relatively easy, because they are material, and can be understood to be so. But attacking somebody’s mind and making her doubt her own perceptions is for those whose hatred or stupidity knows no bounds.
I agree with it all but I am lifting this to quote and repeat to the person who made the comment I have been railing against: attacking somebody’s mind and making her doubt her own perceptions is for those whose hatred or stupidity knows no bounds.
I could ask a very untoward set of questions to the person who made the original comment. How much hatred and self hatred does ze still harbor? How much of hir activities in life are actually designed to hide this hatred and self hatred, and hide from it? Is ze trying to dump hir own hatred and self hatred on me?
Except: I do not have enough knowledge and authority to ask these questions, which are loaded with presuppositions and fueled by my anger. I have not been asked by this person to focus that kind of analytic lens on them. I do not feel it to be my place to try it. And in my culture we do not do that kind of modern violence to people, anyway (remember, I am Mayan).
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
And this post sounds terribly mean, I realize, but I got a lot done today because writing it was so freeing. I mean, really.
And I know the 12 Stoners only mean it was hard for them to accept that their addicted family member really was an addict, and they expect you will have a hard time with that too, so when they say “you are just like us/we are just like you” they are ostensibly trying to take the heat OFF, not put it on.
Yet I notice that:
1. If you take the bad news more easily than they did, they are not happy. They think it is because there is *worse* news that you *are* hiding, or because you have “no feelings.” They will not consider the possiblity that you just might be grown up and/or just able to handle things. Or you might not be acculturated to feel shame at this news, so it might not be so hard for you to take in as it is for some people.
2. They do NOT actually limit their diminishing speeches to the instance of discovering that someone is an addict. I REALLY THINK that that “you are not better than us” speech means something more like “you may not suffer less than us” or “you may not achieve more” or “you may not free yourself faster than us” or any other similar statement. So when they keep saying “you think you’re better, you think you’re better,” what they really mean is that they want a hierarchy to exist and they want to be in the top group.
What those people want is for you to accept that you are broken. But you aren’t. They are.
And/but one needs to be kind. 12 Stones are based on (a) not having any internal structure and (b) being dependent on drugs and things.
So, one would need, instead (a), the 12 Stones, and instead of (b), God.
It is better than drowning — a lot better — but it just isn’t optimum, and for me, to take on that model (or even to try to) is to go DOWN to a much greater level of self destruction than I ever started out at … it is not progress.
And – thanks, Hattie. Yes. Although I hate to think they are, either — just under an evil spell or something, I don’t know.
But another thing is “self esteem.” People who don’t respect themselves, I have learned, feel that people who like them are also not worth of respect.
I don’t relate — I was an insecure teenager, for instance. But when people I admired liked me, I didn’t think it meant they were secretly flawed or broken, I thought it meant I was less odd than I feared.
Insisting, and insisting, and insisting that someone is “broken” is really pushy and it is amazing to me that these 12 steppers, who are supposed to have relinquished power over others, try so hard to take it.
And I feel mean criticizing because the person in question has a harder life than I. But still I think this whole self helpy cult has to be put in its place.
But this is a matter of life and death. I know I sound dire, but I’m 20 years down the line from you, and I see people dying from bad ideas.
You’re quite right and I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks so. I keep thinking I have to be “fair” and so on. But it really is life and death and I have already given these people much more of my life than I ought to have done. So yes, it’s dire. Which is why: no prisoners.
And there’s also what this IRL friend said on Facebook about an earlier, but similar incident: “These are not friends of yours but hateful people for whom you should stop providing an audience.”
Not pleasant to hear since it’s so simple — I could have dumped a lot of stuff so simply — but there’s a lot of truth in it.
And — it really is sinking in how life and death this is.
I keep thinking I have to be “fair” and so on.
How does one “be fair” to those who have become inwardly depraved? One can’t be fair by accommodating them, or compromising with their values. That just makes them disrespect you — or, having given them an inch, they get a taste for your flesh, and feel they own you.
So the only way to be fair is to set a different example of what a human life can be. That way you are fair and just in relation to the principles of the universe, which reward an uncontorted version of the human self.
And you give these others one last ditch possibility of a life line — your example of a genuine and undamaged human nature, incase they ever want to reform.
Right — and they’re not fair, even though they “sound” fair (or diplomatic, or manipulative). And my impulse to be “fair” is out of pity … BUT they’re worse off than I, SO I should be tolerant … that’s fine except at the point where they want me to join them. This is where I get into this tug of war with these people, since I also don’t realize their goals aren’t mine / think (mistakenly, as they do of me) that they are walking on my path.
The cure for that feeling of pity is when you give into it and you find that they drag you down as low as they are and even lower. That is not something you can easily forget.
Yes — because it shows that they are not benign. I tend to think that because I am on the higher path, I am stronger, but they are more destructive.