Carrie Bradshaw Regrets

Two very interesting creators sat down to have a conversation. Well over an hour long, I was prepared to settle in for a while.

But 20 minutes in, one of them takes a tangent from their discussion of male and female archetypes, “The girl who wrote ‘Sex and the City’ is now like 50, and she’s alone. And she writes that she actually regrets being alone and not having kids.”

Brb

I’ll be right back – I need to go check this out!

Naturally, I had to go find out if this were true. Reading while listening to Jungian theory being too much for me, I had to dip out of the video before it really got going.

Ms. Bushnell Regrets

Searching for ‘Candace Bushnell regrets’ took me straight to her Twitter. Dated 29 July, 2019, Candace responds, “Hahaha! The opposite is true: I’ve never regretted not having children and I’ve felt compelled to have a career since I was a child.” Not slowing down enough to examine this, she goes on to plug her latest book, Is There Still Sex in the City?

Her tweet quotes an American journalist sharing The Daily Mail, itself a description of a London Times article hidden behind a paywall. As fortune would have it, this is the only subscription I have bothered to keep up with. Lucky us, right?

So, does the woman who singlehandedly made single life aspirational regret her choices?

The Daily Mail sure thinks so. Their headline – Sex and the City Writer Regrets Choosing A Career Over Having Children, is downright blunt.

But did she really say that? The issue lies in the characterization of Bushnell’s responses in the Times interview.

London Times Fangirling

2019 feels very distant now, but even before lockdowns and mask mandates Bushnell’s attitude had aged about as well as her fictional avatar. The write-up by Laura Pullman is glowing – They sent a fan, lest the Times have to edit out any critical thought regarding Bushnell’s cultural legacy. Despite this, her negativity and entitlement leap off the page.

The evident push to make her likeable is undercut by her obvious, fairly generic Boomer privilege: “Bushnell enjoyed a comfortable, horsey upbringing in Connecticut with her two younger sisters and her rocket scientist father and travel agent mother. Aged 19, she dropped out of university and escaped to New York – More specifically Studio 54, the city’s most notorious nightclub.”

A ‘horsey’ upbringing? A literal rocket scientist? But she had to ‘escape’ to the New York party scene, because… college? How edgy!

Trench Coat

I just know there’s a meaning for my life out here somewhere!

“Sitting on the sunny balcony sipping San Pellegrino, she talks about coming of age in a ‘free love kind of way’ before the AIDS crisis hit. ‘People were so interesting. The sex was good. The men made an effort. Why was it that in 1980 the men seemed really focused on making sure the woman had an orgasm?’”

I can’t say, but this didn’t die with disco. I have to wonder if it had anything to do with finding some success in the New York professional world. A drug-fueled fling is there in the moment with you, but a professional is probably looking for someone to further his own reputation. Different pools, different fish.

The Heroic Victim

Candace describes the environment she found herself in, but only has analysis for how it affected her: “She recalls how, when she was on the lower rungs of the career ladder, senior men would constantly try to coax her into sleeping her way to the top. ‘I don’t want to name every publication in New York, but every newspaper and publication had men who made it clear that that’s how they helped women get ahead.’

“It’s the reason why she worked for women’s magazines, such as the now defunct Condé Nast titles Mademoiselle and Self, instead. She laments that this meant that she wasn’t taken seriously as a writer ‘for a very long time’”.

It might have something to do with being known as a sex columnist, too. Sex makes people giggle, it might not be the best topic for someone wanting to be seen as a Serious Writer.

Teenage Party

I feel so grown up right now!

But, never fear! Candace slogged through – “Her hard work and shrewd observations have afforded her a luxurious life divided between her home in the Hamptons and her apartment on the Upper East Side, a few blocks away from her boyfriend’s penthouse.

“Now 60, Bushnell has amassed a reported $22m fortune of her own.”

Because, as we all know, sex sells.

But that victim card is too valuable to let go of – “’I often think, what would my life be like if I hadn’t had to run the gauntlet of so much sexism? How much more successful would I be? Probably a lot.’”

I imagine we all ponder this once in a while but, if you’re Candace Bushnell, you can laugh remembering how you left a Carrie Bradshaw-sized dent in the end of the 20th century, and go back to sipping your vino.

Having It All

But her lack of impact on a part of culture she totally rejected and has built a career on vilifying really gets under Candace’s skin. “Does it frustrate her that when it comes to female success, society still emphasises marriage and children?

“‘Society definitely does do that, but we all have the right to think for ourselves. We don’t have to buy that value system.’”

Speaking for myself, I got the impression growing up that women who had kids were deluded losers with no ambition. I stumbled into it and am as surprised as anyone to find myself defending it.

Refusing to roll with life’s punches leaves little room to learn from them: “Just like high-flying PR executive Samantha in Sex and the City, Bushnell has always been vocal about not wanting children. ‘I don’t want to be shot down, but now I do see that people with children have an anchor in a way that people who have no kids don’t.’” 

Our choice to take part in a whole aspect of life from which you abstain is not a static thing. There are ripple effects that creep into places you’d never imagine.

Mother With Children

Holy shit, am I… happy??

“She also writes persuasively about how, for single women with no children, there’s no set life script to follow, no comfort of knowing what’s supposed to be happening and when.” So, no expiration date, when you’re expected to just fade into the background and let the young turks get on with saving the world?

Turn And Face The Strange

“’When I was in my thirties and forties, I didn’t think about it. Then when I got divorced [from ballet dancer Charles Askegard in 2012] and I was in my fifties, I started to see the impact of not having children and of truly being alone.’”

I think this is what The Daily Mail is referring to. Candace never comes right out and says, “Wow, I sure do regret my decision to not have children!” She simply expresses that regret, in the past tense. She was going through a divorce. Framing it as if she’s desperate and lonely forever is disingenuous – She’s back in New York now and dating again.

However, it’s fair to say that’s what she’s expressing here – During and after her divorce, she really felt that silence where the voices of their children would have been. Our genes don’t just color our skin and limit our wardrobe choices – Humans have instincts just as much as any creature, and it’s much harder to ignore them in times of crisis.

And I can’t be the only one who’s interacted with some ‘childfree’ women and wanted to ask them just who they were trying to convince.

Candace is as out of touch with the zeitgeist as she is with herself, and asking about it is taken personally: “In 2019, writing a book about relationship dynamics and sex with no mention of the #MeToo movement seems unusual. Was the omission a conscious decision?

“’Well, where would I put it?’ fires back Bushnell, defensively.” Ever image-conscious, Candace catches herself, “She changes tack: ‘You have to remember that [I am part of] a generation of women who’ve dealt with so much of that.'”

Overshadowed

Oh Bob, you’re such a flirt!

And you totally bought into the idea of male sexuality as default, leaving any uniquely female needs or instincts completely unheeded. “In the book she also delves into what she calls ‘middle-aged sadness.’

“After one close friend takes her own life, she touches on the issue of suicide among women in their fifties – ‘If your life unravels in earlier decades, you can see a future. But in your fifties, if you’re suddenly single, you’ve not worked for years and your children have left home, then a crisis of identity hits.'”

Change Vs. Abandonment

This does sound like regret to me. Candace goes on to tell us how it’s passed now, that she’s back and better than ever. Admittedly, she doesn’t name the feeling she’s describing. And she has no real analysis of why she felt that way, or why she feels better after turning 60.

Running with the comparison she made, a mother knows before her children even exist that, someday, they will leave her. That’s the idea, really – You teach them how to live, then let them get on with it. A mother can plan for this inevitability, some of us even occasionally yearn for a day without interruptions.

Divorce is different – Your husband makes a vow, possibly in front of all your family and friends, to be with you through thick and thin, till the end. Marriage has become big business, but anyone who’s had one can tell you it’s impossible not to get a little swept up in the whole thing. We still do these ceremonies for a reason, after all.

Shock is understandable when a marriage ends. It’s not the same as spending a couple decades raising up children, who naturally look after themselves more and more.

Candace may not see the personal injustice in her situation but, as always, she’s more than ready to make it about sexual politics – “‘What is hardest about it is that when a woman, especially a woman over 50, has a hard time or things don’t go right for her, everyone blames her. It’s her fault. You didn’t do something right,’ she says, raising her voice.” 

Yep, it’s called being a woman in a male-centric social system. Making a small fortune reinforcing it all these years gives her complaints a ring of petulance, and it’s easy to see why people jumped on that Mail headline.

Glamourous Passivity

Candace Bushnell has lead a generation of women down the primrose path to loneliness, and she has not learned a damn thing.

Martini

This must be where all those cocktails figure in!

She obviously absorbed some poisonous ideas in her youth, unwittingly demonstrating why her approach is a mistake: “Plus, she adds, youth and attractiveness can often get you what you want, and now those tools are waning – ‘So you feel like you no longer have agency in the world and can no longer be effective.'” 

Candace literally measures her effectiveness in life by the response of men! Filtering it through Personal Empowerment branding only creates a Trojan Horse for patriarchy.

“‘But the interesting thing is almost everybody seems to get out of [the middle-aged sadness stage].”

‘I was sad and lonely – But it’s not because of my choices! And anyway, I’m fine now, also for no apparent reason!’ Her interpretation is very passive, especially for someone claiming to represent female liberation.

But she’s still so glamourous! “While in town she still goes out five nights a week – to parties, dinners, premieres.”

And maybe hipper, even – Get ready for Hipster Candace! “But New York is not what it was: ‘It’s a thousand times less fun.’ At the parties hardly anyone drinks, no one smokes, the people are no longer outrageous and everything has become corporate, she complains. ‘Everybody’s being watched.'”

Yeah, that’s not creepy at all. Can we stop and address this apparent mass surveillance? Didn’t think so.

I Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Far more urgent to mourn the loss of Boomer idealism for the thousandth time, “‘Manhattan was a place where you came to be free,’ she says. ‘Everybody who did not fit in was here. People with dreams. And it wasn’t about money, it was about passion.'”

We’d all like make our passion our job, but most of us can’t pretend making a living isn’t about money, honey.

Demons

I feel this weight pressing down on me!

But rather than bite into any of the these meaty offerings, Ms. Pullman brings us the juicy deets of Candace’s new love life – “So what makes it work with her and Coleman?

“‘At this age you want someone to be nice, you don’t want someone who’s critical or demeaning.'” I have felt this way at every age!

But to avoid reflecting on whether this approach has anything to do with finding herself middle-aged and alone, these toxic ideas are framed as just the natural order of things: “‘It feels like when one is younger there can be this competition between partners. Maybe that’s part of the sexual attraction, but that kind of stuff just doesn’t work when you get older.’”

When does this stuff ever work?? Maturity brings the understanding that competing for dominance is not how you build a lasting relationship. Maybe that’s what she’s talking about.

Second Verse, Same As The First

The Times is no help here, that preppy aesthetic is just so shiny and distracting! “He has a home near hers in the Hamptons, where they spend their days playing tennis and going on long walks.” Sounds pretty good to me, but I’m sure Candace will find a way to reframe this to her disadvantage someday.

“’I think romance is something where you’re not in a rush to get to the end. It’s just about enjoying each other’s company. It’s doing things together.’” This may be the most constructive thing I’ve ever encountered from Candace. For the first and probably only time, I completely agree.

“Would she get married again? ‘I haven’t ruled it out. It’s funny that it’s somewhere in the back of your brain. It never goes away,’ says Bushnell, basking in the sunshine.”

Ginger Tabby

It’s the simple things in life, don’t you think, Pussy?

It’s very like the urge to bask in the sunlight, to pause as we go about our lives and steal a moment of simple warmth. We can laugh at ourselves, remind ourselves of our dawn jog and regimen of vitamins, and go back inside. But the instinct remains, and the simple joy of a sunny day is so elemental it doubles as a universal artistic symbol.

Parenthood is similar. Existing independent of the sexual politics we pile on top of it, creating the next generation evokes deep instincts that our culture has no notion of. It’s safe to assume that not doing so eventually does, too.

Female Conditioning, Rebranded

I do feel a little sorry for Candace. Not only is there no social network to support her in anything other than enthusiastic rejection of maternity, there’s really no cultural framework in which to understand her struggle. If she did come right out and name her feelings, the shame would rain down from all sides.

Regret in general is frowned upon – We’re all living our best lives! Unless you’re caught up in a public shaming, expressing regret is seen as admitting defeat.

And Candace Bushnell admitting defeat would be news. It would be red meat for the culture vultures who circle feminism, plucking off the weak-minded. Because we have no way to understand the complex lives of older women other than to judge them.

Candace painted herself into a corner, but she’s made it so glamourous that other women still want to follow. She could be a strong voice for the truth about women’s lives, but she’s too dependent on her brand to ever admit she might have been wrong.

Candace’s shame reflects her female conditioning, and we must be unashamed. She will never learn anything, but we can begin the work of narrative-building. The current climate of clamping down only makes this more urgent!

Defy Your Conditioning

We’ve all used the anonymity of the online world to disguise our most distinguishing feature sometime, but one great thing we could do for ourselves is to just lay it out there. When participating in the public forum, don’t downplay your experience as a woman.

Let Your Light Shine

You mean I shouldn’t hide this??

Not to make everything about our sex, but the impulse is to downplay, disguise, disregard our thoughts or experience when they mark us out explicitly as female. There used to be an exception for Lady Things – Women’s Issues were thoroughly cordoned off from Serious Culture – And we don’t even get that anymore!

But maybe we could turn this to our advantage – Lacking any specialized spaces or resources doesn’t mean we don’t need to take care of business. We’re just gonna have to do it out in the open. And we’re gonna have to support each other.

I’m afraid Candace Bushnell can’t be helped. But women like her can serve as a good example of a bad approach. What I learned from this Times article is that it’s more important than ever not to let them dominate the conversation.

Progressive Growth – A Race To The Fascist Line

“Of course people are gonna challenge these ideas. There’s nothing really holding these ideas together, is there?”

Lovely Picture

It’s a lovely picture… What is it??

King Critical argues in a recent video that straying from Liberal orthodoxy does not a Conservative make. He describes the arbitrary groupings with panache, walking us through how going to the source material first started him asking bigger questions.

“So, I looked into Islam and I came to an uncomfortable conclusion – I literally could not believe Islam is true. Because if I did, I would have to believe lots of horrible, horrible, evil things.” 

“And I wanna stress this – I don’t mean these things were the *apparent* meaning.” He tells us he read the Koran all the way through, along with official commentaries. As always, he wanted to double-check before making up his mind.

“I don’t mean that these things were the most obvious reading, or the most mainstream reading, or the most scholarly reading. I mean these things would be the *only* reading.

“Really looking towards proper Islamic scholarship, I arrived at a conclusion – Which is no! Context doesn’t help! Interpretation doesn’t help.

“There’s no way to interpret ‘fight the unbelievers until they feel themselves subjugated, because they want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths’ other than, ‘Don’t allow people to criticize Islam, use violence to make them so subordinate that you can just impose your will on them.’

“I don’t see any other way to read that.

Hitting a wall like this will sound familiar to anyone who’s had a ‘Peak Trans’ moment. When you reach the inescapable conclusion that you are mistaken, the reasonable person will take a step back and have a long think.

Michael says all this to illustrate how quickly party orthodoxy begins to unravel once you start asking questions. “It’s kind of weird that me having a different interpretation of the Koran came to be such a monumental political event for me. Why would that be the case?

“What on earth is the association between believing in man-made climate change and believing that Surah 9:29 through 32 is actually not commanding the subjugation of all non-Muslims?”

I don’t think he means to imply that man-made climate change is nonsense. It seems to be a random example, and maybe that’s the point: “There’s no association between those two things, and yet they’re connected. 

“It’s simply because ‘Progressivism’ – as some big, amorphous blob – just decided collectively to be wrong about Islam. The result of that is, when I looked into it, turns out Progressivism is wrong.

Ice Cream Oops

Has the cheese slipped off his cracker??

“Similarly, it seems like Progressivism has just *decided*, ‘Let’s believe that biological males can be women if they say so.’ It’s so self-evident that this is nonsense.

“How could anybody possibly be surprised that a critical thinker is not going to be one hundred percent progressive – Or, indeed, one hundred percent conservative?” But the ubiquity of this inclination highlights the dearth of critical thinking out there.

Michael keeps ploughing forward toward his larger point, but his bramble of a question snagged me – What connects the ideas of so-called Progressive parties? And the answer was obvious – Money.

Down The Moneyhole

Progressive politics is all about moral mandates, more concerned with doing the ‘right’ thing than making any sense.

Despite this, after September 11, 2001 and in the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq, objections of a more intellectual bent were growing from the general atmosphere of anti-Muslim sentiment. Christopher Hitchens was a particularly loud, articulate voice, insisting the ‘religion of peace’ was really determined to convert the whole world.

He’s dead now, and his sentiment has long been drowned out by popular repetition of the Good Muslim trope. Conflicting interpretations are a common-sense explanation in a world shaped by Protestantism.

But, as Michael said, “Finding out Islam isn’t true, well, that’s no big deal.” It’s just awfully convenient how this narrative flows right along with the oil contracts we’re all pretty sure Iraq was actually about.

We have seen how the policies of each successive administration don’t actually differ all that much from their predecessor, whatever they may say. Once again, we have to break down the words they use – Neoliberalism by any other name is just as Randian, and actions tell the real story. 

Progressive generally refers to social progress, lifting up citizens’ standard of living through technological and bureaucratic innovation.

But progress also means growth, and this begins to bring things into focus.

Tied Up

Is this what he meant when he said he’d keep me tied up all weekend??

An Oily Business

Exxon knew they were screwing us all back in 1982. Their own scientists expressed concern about what their business practices were doing to the environment, and their models looked pretty bad. They tried to cover it up, but by the end of the decade it was widely accepted that greenhouse gas emissions were a problem.

By 2003, the board had been tilted such that George W Bush removed carbon dioxide from the list of regulated pollutants altogether. It’s probably the methane from all those damn inefficient cows, right?

Along a similar timeline, plastics went from modern miracle to environmental disaster. Recycling was everywhere – A system so official, I know plenty of people who saw the reports about Chinese landfills, but still manage several bins as they cling to that sense of control. 

Visiting South America in 2003, filmmaker and author Naomi Klein found herself with the vista to see a bigger machine in motion: “If we look at the history of this really quite radical economic model – of privatizing key state assets, deep cuts to these social assets that people tend to protect like healthcare and education – When politicians try to do this under normal circumstances, people tend to organize and resist.”

Pesky populace, wanting their fair share of resources!

“So, the use of crisis for political ends has been a part of the advancement of this ideology.” Naomi laid out her ideas in a book she called Shock Doctrine, “The shocks are getting bigger, a debt crisis isn’t enough to disorient a whole society and convince them to accept their bitter medicine. Crisis is required to rationalize policies that would be rejected under normal circumstances.

“The legacy of this economic system is tremendous inequality.” Traditionally, inequality begets instability.

Leviathan Sheds Its Skin

Naomi’s distant perch and well-developed political vocabulary presented her with an opportunity to connect the dots, “There were all these things going on in Latin America that were all connected in rejection of this economic model. They saw a real connection between their rejection of these policies, and the fact that the same economic program was being imposed in Iraq through tremendous violence. 

“You really saw and felt those connections – Bechtel, just thrown out of Bolivia, suddenly shows up in Iraq with the exclusive to rebuild their water system.” How convenient! “It felt like this model that had been imposed peacefully – through the International Monetary Fund, through the World Bank, through the World Trade Organization – that wasn’t working anymore.

“The legacy of inequality was so dramatic that the sales pitch of, ‘just wait for the trickle down’ wasn’t working anymore.” Not only is the trickle not coming, the top layer is designed to absorb it. People decided they were sick of this shit in the 19th century! But the demand for infinite growth means infinite consumption  – And eternal colonization.

Space Couple

Jesus, Gary – What the hell did you get us into this time??

“Now there was this new phase – And it wasn’t even asking, and it wasn’t even negotiating, it was just imposed through raw violence. We’ve entered this phase of disaster Capitalism, using a shock to impose what economists call ‘economic shock therapy.’ Austerity measures we know are hard on the poor, but sacrifices must be made for the bottom line. And anyway, if they were productive workers, they wouldn’t be poor! 

“Water privatization, electricity privatization, displacing poor people on the coast with hotel developers – A social re-engineering of society in the interest of corporations, which is what we’ve been doing under the banner of Free Trade.” Rolling in elements of social control has allowed the same colonialist consumption mechanism to keep running in the background, an escalator to nowhere.

“But now, it’s under the banner of post-disaster reconstruction.” This always seemed like a weird flex after decades of fearmongering about over-spending, but it’s all about emphasis – In an atmosphere of anxiety, logic gives way to instinct and we become easily lead. 

Atmosfear

We have to cut the school lunch program – Do you want your kids to be owned by China? We had to invade Saudi Arabia Iraq because our guy  Saddam wasn’t doing what we wanted playing by the rules! Clearly, a bad apple…

This angle makes the old-fashioned theocratic aspirations of the right wing look almost quaint. Trump’s tendency to tell on himself by accusing his opponents of his own tactics might suggest so-called ‘Progressive’ politics should be scrutinized for their obsession with moral mandates. Single-sex spaces were only ever really a moral mandate, unenforceable as our Trans friends have made a point of demonstrating. And when the narrative began to shift, we took too much for granted.

Because there can be no dissent if you don’t ask for consent. Innovation – the very Future itself – is at stake! Climb aboard, and take the endless ride to nowhere.

And I think that’s the twist – A lot of us missed it because the fascist’s mythical shared past has been replaced with a mythical future. The strip mines were necessary, you know – We needed the minerals to power our space-ready gadgets.

Innova-shunned

Most pro-Capitalist arguments are made by those who believe wealth drives innovation. They must have some of their own hearts propped up with this idea, because innovation is part of the human psyche. Innovations in trade and commercial enterprise is what got us here. 

True innovation is a group-level effort. Materialists appreciate that real, lasting social progress requires a collective push. ‘Progressives’ may twist language in knots and say anything to feed the bottom line, but they understand the importance of materials.

Bolt Of Fabric

If we make them pretty colors, they won’t notice they’re all the same!

Opposition is strangled in the cradle as the ultimate narcissist in our midst rationalizes away all the bad thoughts. The right wing wags its finger at you, but their God is waved away as easily as they invoke him.

‘Progressives’ are delivering us to their very real corporate overlords with a smile. Borrowing from power grabs past to dampen dissent, they reassure us while Capital continues to evolve and spread. 

What can we do? For now, I think it’s important more people recognize we’re being played by both sides. Yes, Republicans want to take away women’s healthcare. But Democrats are doing their part to make even discussing such things impossible. 

Will we be forced to bend the knee for Abraham’s God or Uncle $am? It’s a race to the Fascist line! 

The Cure For Victimhood

There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. Why? Because, while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. 

My DVD copy of V For Vendetta froze about halfway through, not so much as a smudge on it. Not currently available on any streaming service, the eloquence of the fictional freedom fighter was out of my reach.

Binoculars

I almost saw it!

Strangely fitting for this Guy Fawkes Day, when even words have fallen under suspicion. Transwomen are women, and women are birthing people. 

Words offer the means to meaning and, for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?

As ravenous Capital tightens its grip, controlling the narrative becomes more imperative. Censorship methodically blocks off neglected corners of culture, authoritarian crackdowns increasingly enabled by the nasty – but very quiet – contagion of learned helplessness.

Freedom of speech is the bedrock of a free society, but saving it won’t accomplish much if we are unable to speak.

Existential Agency

New research brings new words that may be the right reinforcement for our crumbling collective consciousness. In a recent interview, podcaster Chris Williamson spoke with an expert in the emerging field of existential psychology.

Dr. Clay Routledge’s work, examines how the human need for meaning in life influences and is influenced by different cognitive processes.” He tells Chris how fascinated he is with “existential agency” –  The belief in our own ability to determine our life’s meaning. “You need to feel like you have the ability to take action,” rather than just accepting an externally-imposed purpose.

Sad Seamstress

One of these days, I am so out of here!

“This is very, very early work, but it seems like people who have a strong sense of existential agency are the most motivated, they’re the most driven, they’re the most resilient. They feel like, when life feels meaningless, they can change it.”

But he’s not talking about some bootstrap bullshit wrapped in statistics – “This isn’t to take away from real structural challenges that people face. But if we’re only talking about those things that we think of as outside of people’s control, we’re neglecting the fact that humans have all this cognitive horsepower.”

Chris Williamson latches onto the inspirational implications of this and runs with it: “I think that people intuitively are aware of it. Think about why anyone finds it emotionally fulfilling to see those transformation photos – They’ve done that through their own agency.” 

External Control

The last few years have seen the inspirational narrative of transformation being subsumed more and more by the concept of transition. The story of finding the True Self through long-term medical assistance has been framed as the path to Salvation.

And where once, you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.

Your True Self isn’t within you, it’s in a surgeon’s office.

Dr. Routledge addresses this more broadly, “Part of the reason I wanted to really start to figure that out is because I feel like we are increasingly living in a society where people are acting like you’re not in control of anything.”

Pouty

You don’t understand – She made me hit her!

“There are privileges and advantages but, regardless of that, there’s something going on within humans that gives us a great deal of cognitive freedom – If we choose to act on it.”

Getting excited, Chris fills in the rest – “The victim mentality outsources existential agency. And if Man can make a Heaven of Hell and Hell of Heaven, then your ability to interpret the world is more than fifty percent of the battle.

“You have people in terrible situations who are able to be relatively fulfilled, and people that seemingly have everything that kill themselves. Your material situation is an influence but it’s not a determinant.”

“It predisposes but it doesn’t predetermine.

“I think framing things that way – ‘Take advantage, take control of the direction your life is going’ – I think that’s a smart area of research.”

Science For Better Living

Dr. Routledge is gracious, bringing the discussion back down to earth. “You summed it up perfectly. Your example’s a dramatic one, but even little things – There’s lots of little things that people do every day.” He uses the example of simply deciding to walk more, or take the stairs instead of the elevator. 

But he also pulls in some heavier stuff: “The victimhood narrative – which you see a lot – is, ‘alcohol abuse isn’t really a choice because it’s a genetic disposition, and it’s a disease.’ But, thanks to our scientific understanding of genetic vulnerabilities, you just armed somebody with information.

“Learning about genetics gives me information about my personality, my vulnerabilities. That doesn’t mean you’re just being pushed around by these external causes, they’re information that can help you make choices to live a better life.” Except that self-reliance is out of fashion. Independent thinkers tend to be subversive, and not very kind!

Gloves Off

I have opinions, and I’m not afraid to use them!

“But my feeling is, that’s a minority position in modern day Western scholarship. The more we learn scientifically about that, the more people intuitively seem to think that you have no control over it. People seem to think, ‘here’s another reason why it’s not your fault.'”

Thing is, if it’s your fault, you might be able to fix it. 

How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well, certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But, again, truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease – There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.

Fear got the best of you.

Fear Of The Unknown

The pioneers on the frontiers of human understanding are just beginning to conceptualize existential agency, and not a moment too soon. As communication has become easier than ever, the deluge of information was infused with contaminants. Bedrock has been eroded and our course has become murky. 

Preserving a popular sense of our ability to write our own stories may be the most effective tool against external control. 

Our authoritarianism is gentler, with no High Chancellor to rally against. But those who would control us for their own ends benefit from every unasked question, every unpondered thought. Controlled speech is controlled speech, whether the mechanism is shame or black bags.

Symbols are given power by people. Alone, a symbol is meaningless, but with enough people…

…We can change the world.

Handing over our agency in exchange for safety never works. Putting everything in the hands of authority just spreads the insecurity of relying on others for meaning. We have all lost something of ourselves to the growing climate of fear on all sides. Many of us have even lost our words.

…For now. Material reality is still out there, and a rose by any other name will still prick you. New terms like existential agency can help us find our way through choppy seas to make our stand on solid ground. 

Capitalism Hates Moms

This week, Senator Joe Manchin insisted any extension of the Child Tax Credit payments should include a work requirement.

Bread

Wtf does it look like I’m doing??

“Before you start saying, ‘is it going to be permanent?’,  let’s see how we’re doing this. Let’s make sure that we’re getting it to the right people.

And who would that be, Joe?

“There’s no work requirements whatsoever. There’s no education requirements whatsoever for better skill sets – Don’t you think if we want to help the children, the people should make some effort?” 

Strong words from a fellow whose entire industry takes August off work like classical Versailles. But I guess budgeting has never been politicians’ strong suit.

According to Fortune, “The amount of the credit is based on a family’s modified adjusted gross income, with payments starting to phase out for single parents (filing as head of household) earning $112,500 a year or $150,000 among those who are married and filing jointly.”

Six figures! Those rich bastards don’t need government handouts!

…Except that $112,000 is almost double the 2020 median national income of $67,521. The majority of Americans will never see that kind of money, despite $150,000 being named as the minimum “to lead a good life” by Business Insider… in 2012. 

Joe Manchin is using a very old trick – He’s invoking class resentment to rein in government spending, you know, on the people that government represents!

Then we have Sherrod Brown naming the elephantCaregiving is work.

Because, lest we forget – This money is only being dished out to parents, assuming most of us will prioritize our children’s wellbeing. Joe Manchin’s implication that parents can’t be trusted to have our kid’s best interests at heart is horrific as well as insulting.

Kids

Some of us have a lot of practice!

But parenting is not equal, and its effects on income are well-known. Mothers earn less while fathers earn more, and we all know who does most of the shopping, housework and childrearing. It’s pretty clear who Joe Manchin is really threatening here.

Working Girls

The push to get women into the workforce has become increasingly transparent. I recently responded to an article titled American Motherhood Vs. The American Work Ethic – A bland confection of classic feminist workplace improvements that have never materialized, with a thick icing of pandemic sob stories to disguise the familiar taste.

The Market has spent decades nodding and smiling at our ideas, and then disregarding them. Instead of flexible schedules and on-site daycare, we have longer workdays and expensive institutions. Ironically, the cost of daycare keeps us working longer hours to make ends meet.

The average cost of childcare was $340 a week in 2020. Even taking the average hourly wage of $11.25 in August, 2021 (and forgetting all taxes), that’s 30 hours a week just to pay for daycare! That’s usually enough to qualify as Full Time, which requires your employer to offer you healthcare. So, most places won’t give you that many hours.

This leaves many mothers scrambling to coordinate two unrelated work schedules, along with her kids’ pick-up and drop-off times. Forget doctor’s appointments or family trips. Heaven forbid there’s ever an emergency.

And don’t ask Dear Old Dad to help with much of this – He’s stuck working even longer hours! Forty years of wage stagnation mean he’s scraping by while she’s paying for gas from what’s left after daycare.

And what help do we get? American Motherhood Vs. The American Work Ethic The same song-&-dance they have been doing since the 1970s, feel-good solutions with no plans for practical implementation. With a big helping of shame disguised as sympathy.

Say what you will about the Biden administration, but they are the first ones in this country to put any of this into practice on a large scale. Caregiving – mothering – is work. But this slogan is having trouble finding traction, because mothering is not efficiently productive enough to be much use to the Market.

It’s pretty clear they have been trying to milk moms for ages, as we are marketed to more than any other demographic. The revenue vectors are plentiful – We want to be good mothers, appealing partners, have clean homes, do what’s best for our children and make the world a better place.

And, along with our much-discussed conflicting insecurities, we tend to make a lot of household purchase decisions.

After decades of this – Of creating needs and filling them – someone seems to have noticed that more women in the workforce meant more women contributing directly to the economy. And this might actually be good for Capital.

Salesman

I’m telling ya, honey – I got a great opportunity for ya!

Women are much more productive as workers.

Revolution, Industrial-Style

…But let’s rewind for a minute. A common rebuttal to this line of thought is to point out that only middle class women had been able to stay at home, anyway. That a Friedanian, white suburban reading of class struggle leaves out the working class and most people who aren’t white.

We have the Industrial Revolution to thank for this. Before mass production, most people lived and worked in the same small area their entire lives. The home and the farm or business were the same place.

Men may have functioned as the public face of the family but, in private, they had all different types of arrangements with the women in their lives, just like today. The general recognition of this fact is only to the good, of course.

But other facets of daily life haven’t benefitted from the soulless libertine influence of Capital. As the wealth of the Industrial Revolution built more and more larger and larger companies, the rising tide did not lift all boats. Anyone who missed it was left floundering and scrambling to make a living, usually in factories. Men and women both left the home to bring back pennies, often taking their children with them.

Those with full pockets distinguished themselves from the unwashed masses by pursuing a lifestyle only they could afford.

The rampant corruption and abuse of this period shows us how rapid change can overwhelm society. The early decades of the 20th century were a direct response to these horrors – Labor laws, especially child labor laws, were put in place to keep business owners from creating systems of glorified indentured servitude.

This period gave us the concept of Full Time vs. Part Time work. Our beloved Weekend, so much a thing of myth these days, was part of a schedule theorized and designed to maximize individual health and happiness. We need eight hours or so of sleep, leaving 16 hours for other activities. This was split into half work and half leisure time, in an inspired, ahistorical recognition that people are human.

But Capital didn’t like any of this very much. Winded after The Great War, it took a different tack and tried monetizing leisure time. This is what the modern middle class was built on. The luxuries of the few were mass-produced and marketed. Advertised as necessary status symbols.

New Clothes

Clothes make the girl, you know!

This worked really well for a long time. Generations fed Capital their time and a small fee, in exchange for a glamourous thing or experience. But the tiger of Capital outgrows every cage, inevitably turning on whoever is silly enough to think they’ve tamed it.

Eventually, in order to keep growing and keep growing faster, monetization wasn’t enough. The shit really hit the fan in the 1980s, a market bubble we are still riding toward a sheer cliff face. The cultural pendulum swung hard in the direction of women’s independence and, in a capitalist system, that means earning our own money.

The influx of Boomer women in their 20s and 30s meant employers could offer less, both because of increased demand for jobs, and just because they could get away with paying women less. And nothing’s changed much since then.

In fact, it’s become assumed that a woman will have her own job, her own career, and this is the road to personal fulfillment. Even the pay gap has been swept away with a little fancy math! Mothering is seen as a one-size-fits-no-one affair, the job market being depicted as a wish-fulfillment generator.

They Said I Could Be Anything, So I Became A Disappointment

What do you want to do with your life? Teenagers hear this way too often, and it’s something we all ask ourselves. It’s worth taking the long view of our achievements, but that’s not really what this is, is it?

There’s an implied urgency – What do I want to do with my life right now? The present moment telescoped to encapsulate all of time, every action of great importance and meaning. Completely ignoring the way the years add up in practice.

The simple solution to most of this, and a pretty common one, is to just not pair off and reproduce at all. Go to school, get a job, get an apartment. Get together with friends, travel, read books and watch movies. There is plenty to do in life without engaging in any of these topics at all. 

But this doesn’t solve the issues on a larger scale, and they just keep on getting worse, don’t they? The escalating trends from 40 years ago find many of us back facing indentured servitude to make ends meet, only this time we can’t bring the kids with us.

Tuck In

Don’t worry – Mama already put in the request for time off on your birthday!

Most women will have children, the average age of first-time Millennial mothers in 2020 being 26. It’s funny to me how Forbes present this as, Millennial Women Delaying Having Kids – Isn’t that just waiting until you’re fully an adult yourself? My grandmother’s generation got married at 18, so I think the stats may a little skewed here.

But the slow drip condenses into a wave of negativity toward all things motherly. Even the word is unflattering, set against the icon of the perpetual teenager forever turning his back on Mom to seek his fortune. And we’ve allowed him to write the story, trying to follow along instead of using our newfound voice to tell our own.

Mass Reproduction

And the next frontier, they’re saying, is just around the corner! Artificial wombs (and surrogacy…) will free us from the bonds of maternal flesh altogether! And won’t that be grand?? We can pay someone to make our baby for us while we’re at work, then keep on working to pay someone else to raise them! Liberation!

Once again, I feel obliged to say that, if you don’t want kids, do that. I strongly feel that forcing such a massive life choice on anyone is extremely wrong. But, ‘write what you know,’ right? Stay in your lane? This isn’t the role I expected, but I’m playing it to the hilt!

And I can’t help but notice the silence from one of the largest groups in the world. We don’t see ourselves as mothers – We see ourselves as Americans, as Gamers, as Fans, as Consumers, as Organizers and Activists. As Liberals, Conservatives, Women, Transmen, Type-A or Submissive, Christian or Muslim or whathaveyou – with mothering pushed to the corner. Taken for granted. It’s an uncomfortable fact that we don’t let define us… Or inform anything about us, we promise!

And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just give it up and be free, like men?

But what are we giving up?

Mama And Baby

I think someone said you’re the future, or something…

What does life look like without the messy, visceral, human parts? We may not be born to be mothers, but we’re definitely not born to be workers!

And I hate to say, ‘won’t somebody please think of the children?‘, but somebody should! Mothers should be unified and loud on basic concepts of parenting, like feeding and clothing them – People like Joe Manchin should get laughed out of the room for implying we don’t know what we’re doing!

We even already have a system in this country for ensuring parents are doing our job – It’s called Child Protective Services! If Joe Manchin is so worried about the deadbeat parents getting handouts, he might shore up that sorely underfunded, understaffed organization!

No, it’s sadly obvious that people like him are using the same old emotional appeals to invite us to undermine ourselves. He works for Capital, and Capital hates moms.

 

Is Trans A Form of C-PTSD?

If someone’s identity is built on lies, refusing to play along might be a kindness.

Hold Still

Hold still! You look ridiculous…

Tough love is out of vogue, but it has its uses. As we argue in circles while Identity Politics and Gender Ideology rewrite our cultural rules, it’s worth considering this as a possible strategy.

An Uncommon Manifestation Of A Common Problem

Why are young girls rejecting their developing bodies in droves? Why do men want to escape manhood?

I really think it could be an unrecognized presentation of C-PTSD.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a newish idea. Psychology has been shaken recently by lots of famous experiments failing. Decades of results have suddenly been called into question.

Since no one really knows what’s going on, I humbly suggest this interesting diagnosis.

PTSD is caused by a single event so jarring, it scars you for life. Complex PTSD comes from ongoing trauma, such as childhood abuse. Or maybe from living in a system that’s rigged against you.

The symptoms of C-PTSD are

  • Reliving the traumatic experience

Obsessive behavior is often related to this, as the subconscious mind tries to reactive the emotional cycle to resolve it and begin healing

  • Avoiding certain situations

Like anything that might trigger dysphoria?

  • CHANGES IN BELIEFS ABOUT SELF AND OTHERS
  • Hyperarousal (anxious, jittery, paranoid)
  • Somatic symptoms

Male periods, anyone?

  • Lack of emotional regulation

It’s MA’AM!

  • CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS

Like perceiving yourself as something you’re not?

  • Negative self-perception
  • Difficulty in relationships
  • DISTORTED PERCEPTION OF ABUSER

Many trans-identified females have been abused by men, and I’m willing to bet many Brave&Stunning transwomen were abused as small children by a woman who was supposed to care for them

  • LOSS OF SYSTEMS OF MEANING

But this is probably the clincher – This disorder can cut you loose from reality.

It’s not surprising how well this fits – I think most of us are suffering from some level of trauma just from living in this modern world.

Hush Little One, Mommy’s Self-Soothing

Maslow’s name may be on the chart, but he didn’t create the Hierarchy of Needs. At the bottom of the pyramid, Tier 1 contains basic physical things, like food and shelter. Tier 2 is stuff like safety and security.

…And this is where most parenting stops. We ensure our kids have new shoes on their feet and clean sheets on their bed, inspect that they’ve eaten their vegetables and brushed their teeth. Homework and sports are often made to stand in for personal development.

Tier 3 is the warm fuzzy stuff – Belonging, friendship and love. This is where we fumble – As parents, as partners, as people. As a civilization.

Underparenting is an epidemic. Boomers love to call Millennials entitled and self-absorbed, forgetting who our role models are. They invented Latchkey Kids and sent the divorce rate into the stratosphere.

Red Teddy

Mr. Bear gets to sit up front because he’s been with me longer than you!

Do you really think growing up as a societal preoccupation prepped them to be doting parents?

According to Very Well Mind, “What does the uninvolved parenting style look like? These parents have little emotional involvement with their kids. While they provide for basic needs like food and shelter, they are, for the most part, uninvolved in their children’s lives. The exact degree of involvement may vary considerably.

But, to be fair, our grandparents didn’t know what they were doing, either. They won the war, alright, but they were raised by Victorians during the Great Depression. The amount of cultural knowledge lost in the shuffle of the early 20th century is mind-boggling.

Mom, You Ruined My Life!

Healthline blames the mother, of course: “Thanks to psychologist Mary Ainsworth and her attachment theory, we know that the trust that a mother instills in childhood positively affects not only the child’s present, but also their future relationships.

Take a deep breath – We can’t defensive here, because I think they’re onto something important.

Mothers have a unique window of influence. Like it or not, we are the ones who have the babies. I’ve heard an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and a little extra effort in those early days has a powerful effect.

Longitudinal studies by Stanford University showed, “significant disparities in vocabulary and language processing efficiency were already evident at 18 months” when infants were spoken to more often. “By 24 months there was a 6-month gap between groups in processing skills critical to language development.

Our preoccupation with prestige is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It stunts our development and perpetuates generational abuse.

It’s always the Capitalism! Isn’t that weird?

We want to skip to Tier 4, that shiny prestige and accomplishment everyone is talking about. Who needs love when you have respect? Instagram followers can’t break your heart.

But thousands of Likes can’t fill that hole. Dopamine hits don’t really make up for feeling disconnected from everyone around you.

And no one will ever get to Tier 5 – Self-Actualization – if we all skip Tier 3 and go straight for that shiny trophy.

Those Pesky, Icky Feelings

Family life is almost quixotic these days, generation upon generation playing house when the mood strikes. The rituals of daily life ring hollow for us, we have forgotten the meaning behind any of it. Our cultural obsession with proving our merit leaves little room for connection without transaction.

The inability to form organic, non-transactional connections with others is the hallmark of narcissism.

But we have to prove our worth if we want any hope of getting a slice of the pie. And the pressure ratchets up as there seems to be less and less pie to go around.

This might get me hate but, – Almost no one gets their own emotional house in order before having kids. The blind lead the blind through childhood, faking authority even as we cringe at our own issues.

A lot of us are preoccupied with our own shit the whole time we parent. My own parents definitely were. Putting someone else’s needs first requires a level of emotional maturity many breeders have not reached. 

So, the cycle repeats. They say we each make our own mistakes, no matter how hard we try. No parent is perfect, but some of us are downright awful. My generation got screwed pretty bad, and we’re well on our way to passing on this new tradition.

Little Girl With Baby

Thank heaven for vino!

Some of us bury ourselves in work. Some of us drink. There are carefully cultivated drug habits, Collectible collections, bouts of binge eating, hours upon hours of TV and video games.

Some of us obsessively exercise or count calories. There are the tattoo addicts, even a few who adore plastic surgery. Then there’s the crowd who cut to the chase and just reject their identity entirely.

They said we could be anything, and damned if we didn’t take them at their word.

Post-Traumatic Disorder Complexes

Generational trauma, stripped bare by Postmodern rejection of everything, has swirled us up in a dust devil of dissociation. Previous generations dealt with war, plague and politics, but they had some pretty rigid social structures to fall back on. It was much harder to act out your mood back in the day, so it didn’t matter so much if everyone was kinda crazy.

These days, we have the terrifying freedom to think and do just about whatever we want, minute to minute. But even the greatest explorer has a home port to return to.

The recommended treatments for C-PTSD include psychotherapy, EMDR and medication – Therapy. My Ph.D. is in Armchair Psychology, and even I can see evidence of failure at every level. Failure to give us the internal tools we need to build meaningful lives.

Adrift in a sea of filtered faces, we latch onto whatever or whoever gives us the feeling we finally belong. Or at least something that drowns out the howling wind in the void.

I dare anyone to find another explanation that covers so much without relying on Ladybrain

Or an ethereal female essence

Or sex-role stereotypes.

Something that justifies sterilizing children. I won’t be holding my breath.

Regardless, maybe we should treat our adversaries like the cranky little kids they are – By enforcing Nap Time.

Corrupt Authority Crushes Feminists And Redditors Alike

The story of the Reddit attack on Wall Street is being twisted in some strangely familiar ways.

Patch Him Up

It’s OK, I’ve dealt with this kinda thing for ages!

Today on Secular Talk, host Kyle Kulinski shows us how tech companies and publications are working together to paint the Redditors as right-wing extremists.

He pulls headlines from Business Insider describing Discord banning r/Wallstreetbets for “hate speech”, and Newsweek claiming it’s all a cover for recruitment.

Kyle points out Discord’s convenient timing, “It’s not a coincidence that the day they took them down is the day that they were bankrupting hedge funds and taking down wealthy and powerful people.”

Look at the trick – What’s the first thing they go for? Censorship. They go for censorship, and they go for political correctness – ‘Oh, you’re gonna defend them? I guess you like hate speech … I guess you are those things, if you’re defending them!’

Hmm, where have I heard this before??

They are painting these rebels as fringe weirdos no one should listen to, with exactly the same tactics used against us so-called ‘TERFs’!

The retail investors from r/Wallstreetbets are not extremists. This story has nothing to do with bigotry, except against the extremely wealthy.

Anybody who ever cheered on censorship, this is the logical conclusion. You thought it was only gonna be used against genuinely bad people? Are you kidding me? Of course censorship will always be used against the powerless when they go after the powerful!”

We don’t have much in common with these small investors on the surface, but we are both collections of independent thinkers determined to make trouble for a corrupt establishment. That Wall Street and the Woke Mob are two parts of the same machine just keeps getting more obvious.

Space Race

The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh Gary?

They were never taken down from Reddit, but they were taken down from Discord and I think that’s been reversed, but then that gets to the next trick – 

The next trick is try to conflate any of the stuff that they’re doing with far-right extremism … they were just taking down hedge funds for being incredibly greedy, and squeezing out of existence a company they like … they were doing intelligent investing, and they were going after the people who constantly rig the markets and always win.

So, it has nothing to do with far-right extremism. It’s about discrediting subversive ideas before they can take hold of the public imagination. It’s the same thing that’s been done to feminism.

And then they came for me, right boys?

I don’t expect Kyle or any other lefty commentators to put this together any time soon. But it’s nice to see that news is finally getting around how the old pillars of a free society are being threatened. Defense of free speech is a defense of us all, even if Kyle doesn’t see the bigger picture.