Middle class liberal guilt - The Thread

[Mikey Brown]

I don’t know what the point of this is or what possible discussion could come from it, but I felt like I needed to vent in some way.

What are people doing to stay sane through the horror show of right wing politics at the moment? I’ve trained myself quite well at this point to scroll past anything about Trump or ICE. It’s just sickening and hard to see a way back, let alone how we avoid these sentiments seeping deeper in to the right wing over here.

However I instinctively check all the threads in my new posts tab on here and the America thread is so fucking grim. I understand the desire to share and discuss the news, but it largely feels like a place to dump links to the most horrible, depressing news you can find.

I’m so torn over the value of keeping up to date with whatever horrendous new thing has happened, and why it is that the US situation bugs me in this way? I know there are countless atrocities going on around the world, many that have been going on for decades, in countries I’d struggle to even point out on a map, but most of those I’ve learned to push from my mind, because… ???

The common response is to get out in your community and try and make some positive change, even on a much smaller scale. I firmly believe this would be a good move personally and that the world would be a better place if the lazy and apathetic people like me did more of it, but it just feels futile? I made a couple of brief attempts to do some volunteer work and was surprised at the barriers to entry.

That’s no excuse. Someone more determined would no doubt have found a way, but eventually life gets in the way. I resent every moment of free time that my job steals from me and then spend most of it on ‘escapism’.

I’m sure I could ramble on forever about how I’m hard done-by by the man, or the system, or whatever, but I know I’ve really had it pretty easy. Anyone else just feel kind of sick with the doom all the time? I know, I know, most people are good, but how good are most people at directing that anywhere positive?

We’re at that point of really having to make a decision on having kids and I don’t know how any parent even functions with the fears about crime, politics, social media, the climate, increasing social division and isolation etc. let alone the idea you could just slip on the stairs one day.

I’ll probably delete this out of embarrassment, but it at least felt good to put words to this feeling, as pathetic as it is.

[Stom]

Logged on to the computer to reply to this, as I think it's a really important topic.

First of all, I'm in a very different situation to you. I live in what is a borderline dictatorship. But I also live in a country where the people are among the least violent in the world. Violent crime outside of the family unit is extraordinarily low in Hungary (yes, inside the family unit, domestic abuse and sexual abuse are unfortunately higher than elsewhere). So I get to experience half of the fascist hellscape every day, but the milder half, the half you can ignore because you're not in danger of being shot.

And what that means is that protests here are so...mild. So unobtrusive. And they get nothing done. They are just a group of a few hundred thousand people who march or stand around, and then go home. No violence happens. The police don't get involved, except with the few people who invariably get drunk and do silly things.

What's the relevance here? I see every day the people who do not take action, who do not get involved, who simply complain, but then do not do anything about it. If there was a world championship for complaining, Brits and Hungarians would be #1 and #2.

And living here, where the world is going to crap, that overwhelming urge to just do nothing is hard to escape from.

So I detach myself.

The stuff in the US, the trade deal with India (who are supplying Russia), Israel, Saudi, sportswashing, the treatment of migrants...I can look at it as an outsider, almost. Nothing I do is going to change anything. And I'm OK with that, because I know that my ability to change world events is not linked to my ability to change my own situation or that of my family.

And so instead, I try to do things around the house. I fixed the boiler. I cook. I clear the snow. I workout. I work on new business ideas. I do the things that can make a difference for me and mine.

And, yes, that does go slightly against my idea of how we create functioning societies. But then I help with my school. I baked bread for them for 4 years. I clean, I help decorate for special occasions, and I plan fundraising activities. It is an active role in a society that I feel a part of.

And that is what I do. Concentrate on the small details that you CAN impact in your small local society.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I don't feel much guilt. Been opposed to the same bastards for a long time now, at least since the Iraq war (before then I was on a slow political journey leftwards from what was then the centre-right). The late 90s and up to 9/11 seems to be the golden age of humanity to me. Since then it's been downhill, but in the last decade* (Austerity, Brexit, Trump I, Johnson, Ukraine, Gaza, AI, Technofeudalism, Trump II, Reform) things have gotten much worse and more frighteningly so. If I feel guilt it's that I only really find it scary when I'm in the firing line, as with Trump's threats to the world.

* I don't include Covid here (probably because no one I knew had it bad). Covid saw the world come together in many ways, so despite the criminal ineptitude and corruption of the Tories we had the misfortune to be ruled by, I saw the time as positive in some ways.

I should probably do more in the community too. I am politically active in a very low-level way, marching for Gaza and voting for the still-forming Your Party. But I could do more!

Obviously I have no idea of your situation but I'd say have kids. No regrets there for me - they are amazing. Your gift to the world (if nothing else) is to spend time with them as they grow up, trying to make them good, thoughtful people to go out into life. (Just don't let them have a screen).

[paddy no 11]

My daughter is nearly six and I guess the hard work will only really start in a year or two and yeah there are some terrifying issues on the horizon but surely most parents have had similar anxities.

Good chance they ban screens for u15 by the time ye get round to it!

Things could break your way aswell, couldn't it

[Donny osmond]

It feels like youre letting yourself be overly influenced by the news and the Internet. Its all bullshit. There's plenty of good stuff going on in the world, you just need to go looking for it cos good news doesn't sell so isn't broadcast.
/published.

Have kids. It'll be the best thing you ever do. And you get to mould them into awesome, beautiful little humans, who will grow into awesome beautiful big humans, and look after you when you're old and the world really has gone to shit, which will be not long after your knees and back go to shit.

[Donny osmond]

And also, don't get your world view off of the politics board on RR.

[Sandydragon]

And also, don't get your world view off of the politics board on RR.

Good advice (both posts).

[paddy no 11]

Lol, so go read the telegraph and blame all your woes on foreigners

I'm not sure that's where MB was going

[Sandydragon]

Lol, so go read the telegraph and blame all your woes on foreigners

I'm not sure that's where MB was going

I suspect the Telegraph would be a horror show too far for most posters on here. Even worse is the online comments section.

I like to look at the big picture. Things will move back towards sanity. Populists, of any colour or orientation, will be found out and some sanity will be restored. Just got to roll with the punches until that happens.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Lol, so go read the telegraph and blame all your woes on foreigners

I'm not sure that's where MB was going

I suspect the Telegraph would be a horror show too far for most posters on here. Even worse is the online comments section.

I like to look at the big picture. Things will move back towards sanity. Populists, of any colour or orientation, will be found out and some sanity will be restored. Just got to roll with the punches until that happens.

What does sanity look like for you? Cameron? Blair?

[Mikey Brown]

Oh, here we go.

[Donny osmond]

you had to expect that surely?

Have you signed up to any positive news broadcasts? I find they help.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Well, it is the politics board

[Donny osmond]

Of course, what no one tells you about having kids is that they will invariably choose 6N days to insist you taxi them around town so they can get their shit together for a party that you aren't invited to.

[Sandydragon]

Lol, so go read the telegraph and blame all your woes on foreigners

I'm not sure that's where MB was going

I suspect the Telegraph would be a horror show too far for most posters on here. Even worse is the online comments section.

I like to look at the big picture. Things will move back towards sanity. Populists, of any colour or orientation, will be found out and some sanity will be restored. Just got to roll with the punches until that happens.

What does sanity look like for you? Cameron? Blair?

Yes actually. As previously stated I’m a centralist. I can live with New Labour and the One Nation Tories. Not keen on the extremes of either party.

[Sandydragon]

Of course, what no one tells you about having kids is that they will invariably choose 6N days to insist you taxi them around town so they can get their shit together for a party that you aren't invited to.

Clear answer to that one - ‘ask your Mum’.

[Sandydragon]

you had to expect that surely?

Have you signed up to any positive news broadcasts? I find they help.

Are there any positive news podcasts? I listen to a range but not yet found one I would label as positive.

[Donny osmond]

Of course, what no one tells you about having kids is that they will invariably choose 6N days to insist you taxi them around town so they can get their shit together for a party that you aren't invited to.

Clear answer to that one - ‘ask your Mum’.

Of course, there are some 6N days I'm happy to miss the rugby

[Donny osmond]

you had to expect that surely?

Have you signed up to any positive news broadcasts? I find they help.

Are there any positive news podcasts? I listen to a range but not yet found one I would label as positive.

I subscribe to this newsletter and they've just launched a podcast. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, so no promises.

https://www.positive.news/

[Sandydragon]

you had to expect that surely?

Have you signed up to any positive news broadcasts? I find they help.

Are there any positive news podcasts? I listen to a range but not yet found one I would label as positive.

I subscribe to this newsletter and they've just launched a podcast. I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, so no promises.

https://www.positive.news/

Nice one thanks

[Son of Mathonwy]

I suspect the Telegraph would be a horror show too far for most posters on here. Even worse is the online comments section.

I like to look at the big picture. Things will move back towards sanity. Populists, of any colour or orientation, will be found out and some sanity will be restored. Just got to roll with the punches until that happens.

What does sanity look like for you? Cameron? Blair?

Yes actually. As previously stated I’m a centralist. I can live with New Labour and the One Nation Tories. Not keen on the extremes of either party.

Thanks - just checking.

[Sandydragon]

What does sanity look like for you? Cameron? Blair?

Yes actually. As previously stated I’m a centralist. I can live with New Labour and the One Nation Tories. Not keen on the extremes of either party.

Thanks - just checking.

Currently signed up to Prosper UK, an attempt to drag the Tories back to the centre. Not that you asked, but I'm plugging them at every opportunity.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Yes actually. As previously stated I’m a centralist. I can live with New Labour and the One Nation Tories. Not keen on the extremes of either party.

Thanks - just checking.

Currently signed up to Prosper UK, an attempt to drag the Tories back to the centre. Not that you asked, but I'm plugging them at every opportunity.

If Ken Clarke is involved then it's indeed at the sane end of the Tories, or ex-Tories. I see that chancer Matt Hancock has slipped in, probably when no one was looking.

[Sandydragon]

Thanks - just checking.

Currently signed up to Prosper UK, an attempt to drag the Tories back to the centre. Not that you asked, but I'm plugging them at every opportunity.

If Ken Clarke is involved then it's indeed at the sane end of the Tories, or ex-Tories. I see that chancer Matt Hancock has slipped in, probably when no one was looking.

Matt Hancock is ne of those political cockroaches who just reappear. The the rest of the supporting cast is sane, and Hancock is more pathetic than extreme.