aphris

[aphris]

I Wish Every Person who Says, “Bullying Saves Lives” a Very Nice Eternity in Hell

I would like to preface this with the recognition of the fact that many of the people who say this, claim to have been victims of bullying and products of its medicine themselves. Handily enough, they always give examples or provide references. Shocking no one, the behavior they describe is not bullying in the slightest-- it’s one-or-two-off insults from friends or acquaintances that hurt their feelings a little bit. I really hate to break it to you, but that is not bullying. Bullying is an actual pathology, it is a pattern of severe and ongoing physical and psychological abuse. If that doesn’t fit what you’re claiming to have experienced, it is not bullying.

But since we’re going with anecdotes here, I will share mine, which are at least accurate in their terminology. 

From second grade until 8th grade, I dealt with an unending precession of bullies of all flavors. In elementary school it was mostly boys who bulled me, presumably because they were sad I was taller and more physically capable than them at the ripe old age of 7. These boys (who made additions and subtractions from their gang based on the year/class/recess location) did all the run of the mill bully things. Constant name calling, constant teasing, hair pulling, etc. But what made it so severe what the physical stuff. They would hit me, kick me, shove me (once into freezing slush where I almost knocked my lip off with my teeth), and try (and sometimes succeed) to toss me off of monkey-bars, swings, trees, and other various playground equipment. 

Elementary school was the most wholesome bullying experience. By far.

At the start of middle school, I reconnected with this girl I knew in 1st grade. She was a lesbian at this time, apparently being very sure of herself at the age of 12-13. I was ten when it began (almost immediately). Now, I will not count this person’s sexual manipulation of my child-self as bullying. It is in a whole different ball park. But as an extension of this girl’s abuse of me, she evidently told her friends and acquaintances every detail of her exploits with me. I will never be sure about what exactly they hated me for, but their rage was seething. Here is the overall timeline of abuse: My Social Studies projects in 6th grade were defaced and destroyed on two occasions (on the second occasion the teacher, the disgusting harpy, still gave me a 45% even though it wasn’t my fault what happened to it, which I am still unreasonably salty about.). Someone wrote my name on my desk in my science class in permeant ink to frame me for the defacement of school property (which gladly never went anywhere because my science teacher was much more reasonable than my social studies teacher.). They 1) spread around photos of some kind of fetish model and claimed they were mine (never went anywhere because no one knew who I was, thank Christ)  2) spread around photos of a regular porn actress and that never went anywhere either, but one of the girls pulled me into a bathroom one day, told me about the situation, and said, “Oh well, don’t worry, no one really thinks it’s you, you’re too fat to be her :))”. And I can’t actually remember if this was in middle school or elementary school and it was just the same girl, but this one person in the bathroom on at least four occasions tried to take pictures of me changing for gym or going to the bathroom. This is serious stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. 

Now what exactly did I get out of this? Well now I’m confident in my ability to taze any wrong man who touches me, so I guess that’s a plus. But what else did I gain? More things to write about? Maybe. But what did I really get from all those years of bullying. Oh, right, early onset Schizotypal Personality Disorder, an “eating disorder” I will in all likelihood never recover from even slightly (and worse, it hasn’t even made me skinny. I’d be okay with my hair falling out if I were pretty lmao), PTSD, and I’m even more engrossed in my socially maladaptive traits than ever. 

Maybe, oh sir or ma’am on the internet, you “improved because of bullying” because you were not actually bullied. 

[aphris]

Meowry Christmas!

[aphris]

What do Progressives not Understand About History Class?

What is it with progressives and the belief that American history classes are just several years of our schooling filled with interesting tidbits from various time periods? They ask, most recently in the whole Cartoon Network Steven Universe ad about the lightbulb, “Why aren’t children being taught about black inventors (slash authors/explorers/generals/etc insert historical role here)?!”

I’ve got the answer. It is because we don’t really learn about any inventors/explorers/authors/generals/ etc of any race. I don’t know how it was when the authors of these think pieces were in school, but I know how it is now. I can recall two times in my schooling in which I learned for an extended time about a specific person for a history class. The first was in about third grade I think, when we learned about the Underground railroad and we all learned the story of Harriet Tubman. The second might’ve been in fifth grade where we were all assigned an explorer to do a project on.

In middle and high school, all the curriculum focuses on understanding historical concepts and patterns rather than specific events. We really don’t memorize dates of events anymore, rather we learn about what caused them on the historical and national/global/regional playing field. I cannot recall a single person who we spent more than about a paragraph speaking about other than John F. Kennedy in the last week of school due to my history teacher’s fascination for the assassination conspiracy theories. 

Even extending into other classes, in english, we don’t really study authors as much as we study technique. That is, unless they are black authors, in which case we spend entire units discussing a single black author and their role in the Harlem Renaissance. I don’t believe that to be a bad thing-- in fact quite the opposite. Not just because of my personal preference toward the Harlem Renaissance, but because I believe art in particular cannot be separated from the artist. 

The most recent person I remember learning about was this year in my stat class. We learned about Henrietta Lacks and her role in the production of the HeLa cell strain. Her story is an important lesson in statistical and biological ethics. It is relevant to the curriculum of the class. 

I didn’t learn most of the historical tidbits I know from school. I don’t know of any person, especially any young person, who did either. We learn these things from PBS, CGP Grey, wikipedia rabbit holes, etc. This is because factoid feeding is not the purpose of schooling. The purpose of schooling--good schooling at least--is to develop critical thinking skills and to grow a child’s ability to connect events and observe patterns. So of fucking course we don’t learn about black lightbulb filament inventors, we don’t learn about any inventors. 

[aphris]

[aphris]

I need an answer to the men v woman autism question

So if you’ve been on Twitter in the past few days, you’ve probably seen this video of a young woman going around professing her belief that the economy is “made up” or a “social construct”. There is not a hint of irony to her video, not a speck. She made a response video today where the professes to know “all about” economics but to believe that it’s “stupid” and “unneeded” and “made up” (again). In this video she complains about being “mansplained to by cishet incel white males”. She again, said this with no detectable sense of irony. 

Normally, this woman makes videos about autism acceptance and other autism related things, and I guess those videos are fine. They’re nothing exactly special but I suppose if they keep “autism mommies” from abusing their autistic kids, then they serve a purpose. 

But this brings me to something I’ve noticed for a long time. There is a clear split between autistic people that is generally sex segregated to such a degree that I (1) and one good friend of mine are the only two women I’ve ever met who fall on the male-typical side. On the female-typical side of autism I have yet to meet, hear of, or witness even one man who lies there. 

I will lay out the principals of the two archetypes below.

Male Typical:

These men are the reason for the 4chan autism stereotype. They’re very typically or obviously autistic. More likely to “stim” violently or self destructively. Less likely to be familiar with the discourse surrounding autism. Either incredibly adept at irony, or totally stunted. Overtly socially maladjusted, may even be extroverted but mysteriously bad at parties. Negative rather than positive expressions. Flat affect. Adept in visual art or the maths and sciences, inept in language based activities. Genuinely unfiltered. Offensive or unintentionally mean. If political, radical (likely right wing); if apolitical, entirely detached. Unfashionable. Poorly or specifically groomed. (There are probably more but that’s all I can add right now)

Female Typical:

Unlikely to be able to spot their autism, likely come across as differently mentally ill. Very up on current autism discourse. Socially capable, yet probably still introverted. Socially anxious due to being adept in social situations. Bisexual or asexual. Has a unique sense of humor to an average degree of irony detection. More likely to positively “stim”. More positive overall. Average Affect. Likely to talk about “masking”. Desperate to not offend. Kind intentionally. Adept in the sciences and in places of language or particularly acting. Inept in math. “Gifted kid burnout”. Almost always political; progressive, centrist, liberal. (Emma ACAB is probably autistic). Fashionable. Well or averagely groomed. 

I NEED to know why this is. I know why I am the way I am, I have a severe hormone imbalance that basically makes me 1/4 a man, but my one girl friend I mentioned above has no such imbalance, at least to my knowing. I must know, someone has to know. 

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1) I should clarify that despite several trips to psychiatrists, no doctor has been able to decide if I have autism or STPD. The closest diagnosis I’ve received is schizotypal-autism which is not a valid diagnosis in in the US. So, I will be diverting from my own experiences to my observations of others as my personal experience is probably skewed. 

[aphris]

*+:｡.｡ 🐸☂️🌲  ｡.｡:+*

　　

[aphris]

People who Fervently Hate Children/Babies Need Psychological Help

There is no shame in not wanting children. In fact, if you don’t want kids, you shouldn’t have them. People who don’t want kids generally make bad parents. People who simply have no desire to have kids are not who I’m taking about. 

Who I’m talking about are people with an active hatred for children or babies. I am talking about the individuals who make jokes (which become less and less ironic) about eating babies or “punting toddlers into the sun”. I’m talking about people (oddly usually women) who are filled with genuine abject disgust when they see a baby either in person or in a picture. That is who this is about.

I have a sister who is like this and I honestly couldn’t give you a single reason why she hates children, but I believe she is a good case study on all the little things that add up to culminate in a person with a horrible hatred for kids. 

1) Friends who Uplift This Thinking: I see the way these people talk in their group chats. They name their group chats some variation of “Fetus Destroyer”. If one of them has family that comes over, they sneer at the children and send pictures to these GCs with captions like, “If it starts crying, I’ll feed its toes to the dog.” A family member will announce that she’s pregnant and these individuals will issue a formal and sincere apology, as if she’d just witnessed her dog be run over. Because of the echo chamber, child-hater’s in these friend groups go from a mild dislike of some children to a vitriolic hatred of all children. 

2) Pathological Deviance in a Socially Acceptable Way: The people who severely hate children are rarely antisocial or even asocial. They’re not NEETs or people completely rejected from society. They could easily get a job, get into college, etc. They have friend groups of likeminded people who are pathologically deviant in similar ways. Typically, it’s mentally ill biological women/girls. Mind you, they are not mentally ill in a way that is permanent; which I suppose is to say they don’t have Autism, any kind of personality disorder, or any neurologically concrete disorders. They have issues like depression, social anxiety especially, or self harm disorders. This is what makes me believe that their hatred for children is really a hated inward. They clearly hate themselves which is incredibly sad, and this hatred of children is it’s expression. Children, your children, are the perfect combo of you and the person you love (ideally). What people who indiscriminately hate all children are essentially saying is that they do not see themselves as worthy to have children. 

3) Societal Indoctrination: This one is pretty simple and pretty obvious. It’s romanticized in pop-culture to remain childless if not forever, then to the very last possible second. There are tons of propaganda campaigns citing eugenic “overpopulation” theories for the reason the world supposedly sucks. It’s couldn’t be because people are acting unsustainably or that globalization for necessities is out of control. No no, it must be Jenny and Greg and their five horrid “crotch goblins”. Poorly preformed study after poorly preformed study (coincidentally all produced by childless old people) shows us that unmarried and childless people are happier. How do these studies define “happy”? Well, it’s along the same lines of how someone with a heroine addiction would describe happiness. There are curiously no anti-child studies that focus on long-term fulfillment which most people would argue is more significant than “happiness”.

4) Pain of Childbirth and Pregnancy: It is no question that pregnancy is difficult and that childbirth is the single most painful thing a human body can naturally go through. But the horror stories that go viral go viral for a reason-- they are uncommon, they are spectacular and terrifying. There is the possibility that in child birth a woman could (uh, trigger warning: graphic??) rip her perineum severely, it is possible that a woman could hemorrhage to death, it is possible that your cervix could turn unfortunate colors (but who except your baby and gyno are ever going to see that??), and it is possible that in child birth a woman could permanently damage her clitoris. But guess what? All of these are rare complications that are unlikely to happen if you have children responsibly when you are young and healthy. Even among high risk individuals, these are relatively rare complications and they are definitely not a reason to hate all children. 

Someone hating children should be an immediate red flag for any interaction. Any. 

[aphris]

In the Final Days of November, here are My No Nuance November Takes (mostly about frivolous things)

- Cologne is generally better than perfume as far as common sent profiles and staying power goes. 

- Neo-Western 1800s fashion is unbeatable I will die on this hill.

- Active modesty does not mean not beautiful. But Active modesty does mean not sexy. But secular modesty can be super sexy. 

- Dogs are cooler than cats but people who *dislike* cats are weird.

- The primary reason masks suck is because people get to carry around a constant slogan of their insufferable political views.

- Women who cover their hair for modesty reasons, yet show their chest, neck, shoulders, thigh, etc, might as well be wearing nothing at all. Covering your hair doesn’t make up for completely bare tatas. 

- The Israel/Palestine conflict is the dumbest thing for any non Israeli or non Palestinian to care about. Both countries are in the wrong about so much, it’s so awful.

- Thanksgiving is on of the best non-religious holidays.

- Men and women are equally flawed and sinful, just in mostly sex-segregated ways that most often effect the opposite sex beaus they’re not used to it. That is why so many people are misandrists or misogynists. 

- Skincare gurus are scams. Just talk to a doctor if you’ve got really bad acne and asside from that, just wash, shrink, moisturize, and drink water and have a good diet. 

[aphris]

Gay Men, Newsflash, are Still Men

Growing up, I never really had a lot of slumber parties. Before high school, I only had sleepovers with two girls from my Girl Scout troop (and I guess camping trips if that counts). In high school I only had one sleepover with the kids from my department. The only people to come were all girls. 

But from the course of conversations with female friends and interactions with media, I realized it was a common occurrence to have a gay man included in “all girl” sleepovers. The logic was, as I came to know it, “He’s gay, he’s not attracted to me, so it’s okay to include him in this.” This logic carries over to all sorts of realms. From girl-talk to graphic and intimate discussions of guy problems, these women treat these men (and these men treat themselves) as if they are women and belong in women’s spaces. 

In fact, an adult gay man who went to my school (turned 18 junior year, 19 senior year type thing) had this habit of barging indiscriminately into the women’s restrooms. Did a teacher ever do anything about this? Of course not. Why would they? After all, he’s gay, it’s not like he’s going to do anything to the girls. Moreover, none of the women who witnessed this or who heard about this ever complained to any administrator. Why didn’t they? Well because he’s gay. What would he want to do to them?

Well it turns out he did do things to girls and not just in the bathroom. He openly groped his female classmates chests and rear-ends. But no one complained, so no one must’ve been bothered, right? Wrong. Privately, among actual women, these girls disclosed to me and their friends that they were made horrifically uncomfortable by this grown homosexual man’s advances. But they thought, because he was gay, that he must not have meant anything by it or that he didn’t know better(1). 

But gay men do know better. This particular gay man was was not medically delayed in any way. The only explanation of this behaviors is that like all predators, he had no respect for the personhood or bodies of the people he aggressed upon. Gay men, no matter how feminine, are still men. Thus, we should not normalize (as has been normalized for decades) the practice of treating them as such. Do not include your gay male friends in single sex sleepovers. Do not include them in discussions of lady problems or “guy problems” you would only tell other women. Do not let gay men traipse into women’s spaces (restrooms, locker rooms, hell-- conferences specifically for women) because you believe him to be limp-waisted enough to be hardly a man in the first place. It’s wrong, factually speaking, and it’s insulting; gay men are fully men. It also places you and your fellow woman in danger physically and psychologically(2). Simply do not take that risk. 

This brings me to a discussion of transsexual men. Transsexual men are men and deserve to be treated as such. They have been known to cary the exact same risks of every other variety of man. 

There was one transsexual man in my class of 10. He had begun his transition before high school even started. To me and most other people, he looked exactly like a 14 year old boy. That’s what he ways. So it both amazed and disgusted me when the girls and my class (and the female teacher) would begin talks of “lady problems” or subjects like that would normally only be discussed around women. There is a man sitting right next to me and I am hearing discussions of period “globs”. I can feel him sinking into his seat and below the table-- as any other boy would. 

Along with the fact that transexual men are equally capable of predation as cis men, it adds insult to a person already struggling with their gender identity. And regardless of what you think of transsexuals, upsetting them just to be an asshole for 15 minutes should not come before keeping women safe. 

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1) Can we take a moment to acknowledge how insulting this is to gay men to pretend as if an individual’s habit of groping women is a symptom of gay men “simply not knowing what that means to girls.” Give me a break. Gay men are full people and are as capable as anyone else to understand how their peers feel and they are most definitely capable of understanding consent and interpersonal discretion. 

2) I don’t mean to seem like I believe men to be inherently predatory. I don’t believe they are. But everyone must admit that men pose a greater danger to women than fellow women do. Men are physically stronger, that’s just a fact, and studies have seemed to show you’re more likely to be affected by the bad actions of the opposite sex rather then your same sex-- likely because your own sex is more familiar. 

#LGBT #women #keep women safe #gay #lesbian #bisexual #transexual #trans #transgender #gender #gender roles #traditional #sexsegregation #sleepover #slumber party

[aphris]

Flashback of the day: Ron Paul at the 4th Republican primary debate in 2008.

“I would leave completely. Why leave the troops in the region? […] They don’t want our troops in the Arabian peninsula. And going into Iraq and Afghanistan, and threatening Iran is the worst thing we can do. I am less safe, the American people are less safe for this - it’s the policy that is wrong. Tactical movements, and shifting troops around, taking in 30 more, reducing by five, totally irrelevant! We need a new foreign policy that says we ought to mind our own business, bring our troops home, defend this country, defend our borders…”

“So Congressman Paul… You’re basically saying we need to take our marching orders from Al-Qaeda?“

“NO! I’m saying we should take our marching orders from our constitution. We should not go to war without a declaration!”

[aphris]

Firefighter demonstrates how to put out a kitchen fire

[aphris]

You are not a “Working Mommy” Someone Else is Mothering your Children

I will never lose my rage at the fact that the reason so many children are abused is because their mother didn’t feel like doing her part of the parenting equation and placed more value in having a rudimentary 9-5 than keeping her children safe. 

Let me tell you the story of this woman I know: She was married in her late 20s and never planned on having kids. Children bored her. But in her mid 30s, she was faced with the possibility of never having kids (infertility problems causing other problems, something like that). So her ovaries kicked her into gear and she decided she actually does want kids. So at age 36 and 38, she had her children. Besides the fact that this is FAR too late to be having children if you want them to come out fully baked, this woman had a “career”(1) she wanted to maintain.

So when she had her first child, she enlisted her grandmother to help with the parenting while she was at work. This sounds so sweet, doesn't it? Well, let me tell you about this grandmother. From the time this woman was in her 30s, she had been ravaged with violent mental illness. She was a veritable cluster B personality disorder sampler platter who on many occasions domestically abused her husband and on at least one occasion stripped naked for a stroll down her block in which she attacked passerby. Clearly, this woman was the obvious choice for someone to put their children in the care of. 

After the grandmother had a years long stint at various mental institutions and was released in the early 90s, the family of this mother began to accept her back into their lives. It didn’t seem so bad inviting an assuredly recovered mentally ill, violent individual (and sex offender?) into one’s home to take care of the kids. She was family and all that was in the past after all. 

This story, like so many other regalements of the situations of children left in the close care of individuals who are not their parents, ends in abuse, trauma, and a family that will never be able to repair itself. This supposedly recovered mentally ill and violent individual abused the first born of her charges into PTSD and inversely abused the second born charge into narcissism and social anxiety.  

I tell you all this story not out of the desire of petty for this family, but to demonstrate a point. When children are left in the care of people who are not their parents, abuse rates skyrocket. Abuse statistics are known to say that child abuse is most commonly carried out by family members and this is indisputable. However, what makes this claim so indisputably true is the fact that grandparents, uncles, cousins, aunts, etc., also count as family members. 

This is not even to mention the increasing plague that is public caregiver abuse in programs like the Boys and Girls club, Girls Inc., or other after-school programs. Particularly in the inner cities where fatherlessness is an epandemnc and low income mothers are forced to work, this abuse, especially of a sexual nature, is much more pronounced. 

At the end of the day, the best way to assure that your children do not end up traumatized, abused, maladjusted, or damaged is to keep them out of needless scenarios where those are likely outcomes. I understand that not every woman or every family can afford to live on a single income but those people are not what this is about(2). This is about cushy women living cushy lives who, out of greed or vanity, choose keep a career instead of parenting their children who they chose to have. This is also about women who have children out of thoughtlessness (avoiding getting pregnant, even if you’re sexually active, is not that difficult), and women who have children out of boredom, or a belief outside of themselves that they ought to have children which they know they will never truly love. 

There needs to be a societal reckoning about the role of parents in children’s lives. There needs to be a societal reckoning about the role of the family unit in society. Recognizing the bedrock importance of the family in the lives of every individual is the only practical way to end this clear tendency to abuse. Every one of us must believe that children are precious and that they deserve to be brought up in stable homes, parented by their mothers and fathers as opposed to distant relatives or strangers hired to “keep your child safe”. 

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(1) When I and most other people say career, we mean a job you are needed for, a position of ownership, something not easily replaceable, or something in which you are moving up and making waves, etc. Interestingly, all these “working mommies” seem to consider a career to be anything that makes money from a lab assistant to a secretary. It is my suspicion that they do this to create a sense of importance around their job so they feel justified in valuing it over their child or children.

(2) There wholeheartedly needs to be a discussion about making motherhood more accessible. The first part of this talk needs to be about sexual health and education. Single mothers in the inner cities often received piss-poor sexual education and unbelievably were sometimes unaware that what they were doing was sex, or that sex is what makes babies. The other part of the discussion is that it is perfectly achievable to be a mother on tight cash supply. Just not when your family is fatherless and you live in a city with rent prices that would make that one absurdly wealthy Moroccan prince say, “that’s far too expensive”. Ending the epidemic of fatherlessness is a talk for another time as well is the discussion of the poison of cities. But the immediate solution in my mind as I think about this is churches. I don’t know what the Catholic or Orthodox (or various American cults of Christendom) are up to, but I know what the Methodist church is up to, and that is a whole lot of food drives. This is admirable, but microwave mac and cheese doesn’t help keep the lights on, it doesn’t pay for doctor’s appointments, and it doesn’t pay for adequate non-abusive child care. 

#motherhood #tradwife #stayathome #stayathomemom #housewife #acetic #asceticlifeofmotherhood #mother #mom #children #keepchildrensafe #signs of abuse #accessable motherhood #working mom #stay at home dad #traditional femininity #fatherlessness

[aphris]

The Worst Argument in Favor of Abortion

Regardless of your personal and governmental stance on abortion is morally/legally, I never want to hear this argument again. It concerns specifically teen and college mothers and goes along the lines of, “When women in that age group are seen/thought/heard to be pregnant, their peers are vicious to them and it can cause legitimate mental health issues in the young mother.” 

Now, we will set aside the fact that this is not an across the board occurrence because that is not important-- this activity is a noticeable and tragic trend among young mothers. That is undeniable. 

What this argument says, basically, is that rather than improving the condition of young mothers with extra attention, protection, and resources, it is better to kill a child who never asked to be conceived. Instead of making a young mother’s peers behave like civilized human beings and treat their fellow student with plain decency (if not kindness and understanding), they would prefer to throw away the life of an innocent human. 

The problem with this argument in favor of abortion is that it has absolutely fuck all to do with abortion. The problem in the scenario of a young women being pregnant and her peers bullying her for it is not the fact she’s a mother. It is the fact her peers has no idea how to behave, it is the fact that not enough people recognize motherhood as inherently honorable. This demonstrates a problem with how our society views pregnancy and motherhood. There are schools ashamed parents can send their pregnant daughters where they are shut out of society to “save them embarrassment”. The girls there, who are almost always minors, are treated horribly, they are treated like lepers who have committed some sort of crime. THAT is the problem, not the baby. 

I could say it confuses me as to why people seem more comfortable with killing another person than they are with confronting one about unacceptable and shameful behavior. It does not confuse me. In my generation and the generations immediately before and after me, it is somewhat of a trend to be bad with people. To be awkward or incompetent in dealing with your fellow man is highly quirky and relatable for the teens. This horrific trend in the direction or purposeful social ineptitude and anxiety has lead people down the path of literal child killing. 

Thank you Buzzfeed, very cool. 

[aphris]

i knew the state of society’s view of children was bad but i didn’t realize just how dire the situation was was until the lockdown began. this last month or so has really opened my eyes to how much people dislike children, even their own children, simply because they exist and they need them because you know… they’re small humans without the capacity to care for themselves.  it seems harmless but memes talking about how parents need alcohol to deal with their kids or can’t wait for their kids to go back to school so someone else can deal with them does harm in that it dehumanizes children and puts blame on the children for existing when it’s not the child’s fault they were brought into the world. it also brings about another uncomfortable fact: if you don’t like the way your children behave, barring them having a behavioral disorder or disability, you’re probably to blame and need to reevaluate how you’re raising them. children are more than innocent bystanders… they are helpless and absolutely reliant on the adults around them to not only provide for them, but to show them love which in turn sets the precedent for how they will love in the future. this attitude implying they asked to be here and that it’s okay to joke about how annoying they are has got to stop. 

[aphris]

things you can do to be happier

Go to bed earlier

Finish things ahead of time

Eat whole-food

Exercise

Be present

Organize

Listen to music

Think positively

Drink lots of water

Journal

Read

Be productive

Eat fresh fruit

Breathe deeply

Go for a bike ride

[aphris]

leftists really fetishize a resistance to “aesthetics” but they sure do think you need to be pretty to be a revolutionary

[aphris]

“The West” Only Dies if You Let it

I hear a lot of culturally conservative people and Western chauvinists raise a fuss about “The Death of The West”, which they define as the collective decline of typically European or Christian culture.*1 What is the cause of this supposed decline? Where is the evidence for said decline? Let’s grant this argument some legitimacy here with the most prominent recent example of the destruction of a Western cultural monuments, Hagia Sophia and its transformation from an Orthodox church to a Masque. But the cause of this wasn’t islamic migrants or something-- Turkey is a Muslim country. Turkish nationalism and religious supremacy killed Hagia Sophia, not diversity. 

But that example is not a European one and I have a sneaking suspicion that there are certain breeds of people particularly concerned with the West would not consider Orthodox Christianity Western in any sense. Further, Islamic supremacy and Turkish nationalism isn’t at play in the vast majority of countries anyone would consider Western. So let’s take an example closer to home; the destruction of statues in America. The historical context of these statues range from the founding of America and the confederacy, to apolitical charitable individuals, abolitionists, and integrationists. Both in formal public extractions and slapdash riots, these monuments and statues have been destroyed. But “why?”, again is the most important question. 

If you notice, most people calling for the destruction of these artifacts are not immigrants, they are not in the lower-classes, they are not members of non-Western religions. They are native-born, white, upperclass-born Americans who’s whole destructive ideology is out of the womb of Western academia. Nigerians, Saudis, Algerians, Nicaraguans, Indians, and Mongolians did not produce Marxism, postmodernism, egalitarianism, Critical Theory, or Liberalism. It is Westerners ourselves who have inflected that upon ourselves. What endowed our Antifa friends with the desire to destroy their own culture is not some invasion of Latinos or Somalians. This problem of cultural destruction is home-grown-- a result of degenerating individuals in a degenerating society, crumbling with cracks it caused. 

I am by no means a person who thinks diversity is inherently a strength or something like that. Diversity is not a strength, it’s a neutrality. It is a simple fact that “diversity”*2 has never been a significant downfall of an internally robust nation, people, or region. Rome did not fall because too many Germans decided they wanted to live in the empire, it fell because of internal decadence and a loss of morality. Just the same, “The West” is falling not because there is a falafel stand on your corner or a taco truck in front of City Hall, but because you and your neighbors need to better yourself and have been failing to do so. 

The maintenance of a good, whole, and strong society, culture, nation, and people is up to the individual and tangentially the family. It is up to people having the will and strength of character to keep in good standing in community networks. If your culture cannot survive amongst others it’s either inherently weak or the individuals within it are crippled in their character. 

*1. It should be noted that the cultural alarmist’s definition of what exactly Western denotes differs depending on what kind of person you’re dealing with. If they’re more economically concerned, they’re define the West as capitalist and the East as what is Marxist. Likewise, if they’re religiously concerned, Christian (or “judaeo-christian”, as to encompass Abrahamic faiths with the exception of Islam) Nations are Western and non-Christian nations are non-Western. So on this methodology is applied to each cultural concern and “concern”.

*2. What many of these people consider “diverse” aka non-Western are actually very Western. It is basically true that Mexicans (and other central and South Americans) are inherently Western because they share a European and Christian tradition just as much as America or Canada. Likewise it is equally arguable that Arabs and Middle Easterners are Western, but this is clearly not what Western Chauvinists are concerned about.