6 tweets · April 2024 · 18 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
yeah there's a move that I might call "counter-entitlement", which is a flavor of victimhood where someone makes themselves hard to interface with then gets annoyed when people don't want to interface with them because it's not fair because they tolerated others' bs for so long
typically shows up in oppressed people, by which I would include minorities and women the canonical refrain is "it's not our job to educate you". or "we shouldn't have to always be one of the good ones" & this is entirely true! a moral demand that they interface well is fucked
I feel inclined to name that also one of my main case studies of this pattern is not a minority or woman but a guy who was abused a fuckton as a kid and keeps whining at the status hierarchy basically saying that's not fair and asking when it'll be his turn to be abusive
@aneeshm in both cases like yeah, what happened to you was fucked up, and we want to build a world that sets things right, and there's a separate question of whether what you want in this moment is for your pain to be eased or for it to be righteous
@aneeshm and it's not that I'm saying that I have an entitlement to listen to others' pain when it presents itself to me abrasively or in ways that cause me pain but I might not wanna. I might not bother. I might feel like doing something else instead and do it instead
@aneeshm and yes, in doing that, I am exercising my de facto power to do so but (in my books) that's not moral superiority any more than it's moral superiority when a bird flies away if you run at it.