Why you should always check yourself before raising a hand, a voice, whatever.

[leahbobet]

I am still getting over whatever bug I had this week and am semi-horrifically busy besides; the Dayjob will be crazy next week, so I am stocking armaments, canned food, and hurricane lamps in preparation. Or doing laundry and putting up casseroles, whichever. In any case this means I haven't been writing, nor have I been thinking the kind of exciting! and fascinating! thoughts that merit blog posts.

So I give you Benjamin Rosenbaum, who is a fine writer and a smart man besides, on the Swiss vote to ban minarets.

Abusers typically, in the moment they are exercising their power, believe themselves to be the victims. The Nazis feared the Jews, the slaveholders feared the slaves, rapists feel humiliated and controlled by short skirts. There's something much scarier about this detachment from reality than there would be in mere cynical political manipulation. The most dangerous people in the world are the powerful caught in a fever dream of victimhood.

We will not discuss how many modern situations this applies to.

Comments

[careswen.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting. I was reading an article in a recent Psychology Today that made a similar point: Many criminals believe that their crime is just their way of evening the score. "Look at that guy, flashing all his cash. He has it so easy. He doesn't deserve it. I deserve it. I'll take it from him."

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that, but it's...I guess, not exactly surprising. We do incredible amounts of gymnastics to cast ourselves as the good guy, no matter what we're actually doing.

I wonder if anyone's ever classed narrative as a weapon. :p

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Maybe they think it's like when cats rub against the couch to say it's theirs? I have no idea.

(They are! I am pro-nice architecture.)

[haruhiko.livejournal.com]

Seriously, there are FOUR minarets in Switzerland. This ban is fucking ridiculous.

The fact that people were surprised that the referendum passed proves, once again, that a lot of racism/fear of brown people is kept under the surface.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Well, you know those minarets. They just go at it at night when you're not looking, and in the morning there are five more baby minarets squalling for food. Possibly welfare food.

[haruhiko.livejournal.com]

Those damn minarets are moving into our country stealing jobs from hard working steeples!

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Well, there's my daily dose of "Yeah, people really aren't getting any smarter."

(Er, meaning the idiot Swiss who voted for that thing, not Ben.)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Yes. I suspect Ben frequently gets smarter.

[renshai.livejournal.com]

I.....they banned an architectural feature? Seriously?

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

When you put it that way, I could totally think of fifty architectural features I would ban before we got to minarets.

We could start with those big grey faux-industrial buildings that look like they were helicoptered in after the fall of the Soviet gulags.