Why did neonate's archive link (posted well after this one) get pinned instead of this one?
I don't really care -- it's not a big deal to me. Mostly just curious to understand more about how HN works, and the decisions around things like this.
The problem isn't opinions but inconsistent ones which the Left is imposing on others. Here's Richard Dawkins tearing apart the Left's logic. A white woman identifying as black women is bad while a man identifying as a woman is ok.
Don’t mind me, I’ll just sit over here making sad noises while you do whatever it is you want to do. It’s your life and who am I to tell you how to live it? I only gave birth to you (27 hours!) and raised you.
Passive aggressiveness is generally the tool of those in power to deflect any potential criticisms/issue taking, and the lower rung and more powerless the worker, the less their overt aggression matters, and is much more tolerated by their same level colleagues/environment.
Down voting of this comment is aggressive or passive aggressive? The words 'coward', 'powerless' too aggressive? That's the reason this comment is getting passive-aggressively downvoted?
> passive aggressiveness is used by the powerless and the cowards.
Those are potential users of passive-aggressiveness, but if you meant an implied "it's ONLY used by...", then you're wrong. The article itself narrates an example where it's used in a context where the person is neither powerless nor a coward.
I don't think it falls under cowardice, certainly not consciously so.
I don't think human behavior can always be classified as either "brave" or "cowardly". (I also disagree that deflection is always a form of cowardice -- not wanting to deal with something directly is sometimes cowardice, sometimes laziness, sometimes tiredness, and sometimes other things).
It seems people develop certain behaviors, sometimes defensive, sometimes aggressive, sometimes something other, as they grow up, and they get deployed not always consciously. It took the Aaron of this story at least 1+ therapy sessions to partially unpack what he was doing, and possibly why.
It doesn't reek of cowardice to me. He was in a position of power (the money-maker) but wasn't afraid of his partner; rather he felt feelings of irritation which were masked with guilt.
Many people are not good with confrontation, passive aggressiveness is generally how you show aggression without confrontation.
There can be a myriad of reasons for this, but it's still cowardice.
I've read many accounts of people who have found their career's doing better once they have enough money in the bank to feel secure because they're more comfortable taking risks and being outspoken at work.
Avoiding risk is what passive aggressiveness is about, hence the cowardice.
I understand you're set in your interpretation, but this doesn't make it true.
The article describes something different, and people are not divided in "brave" or "cowards".
I also provided other examples of confrontation avoidance that are not motivated by cowardice, e.g. laziness. You can conflate everything with "cowardice", but this makes for a very boring world.
> The assertion I'm making is that words have meanings.
No, you are assigning specific meanings to words, and I'm disagreeing with them.
"That's not how aggression works" is an assertion you made without anything to back it up. It's just your opinion, and not very well justified either. (You also failed to explain how, in your opinion, aggression does work!).
The article itself doesn't show what you claim are the only possibilities for passive aggression.
Where you got stuck was in describing passive aggressive behavior as being motivated by laziness. It's a rationalization, a person could choose not to engage at all and that might be laziness, but to engage using passive aggressive behavior is to choose to be aggressive without honesty.
People do so in environments where they are powerless or cowardly.
Great! In what way do you think those dictionary definitions support your point of view?
> Where you got stuck was in describing passive aggressive behavior as being motivated by laziness
No, that was merely an example. I'm not stuck, though I think you are when you claim that only by powerlessness or cowardice can passive-aggressivity be motivated. I didn't claim laziness was the only motivation!
> It's a rationalization
This explains nothing.
> People do so in environments where they are powerless or cowardly.
That's your opinion, which you've so far failed to support. Actually, what you failed to support is that those are the ONLY environments in which people behave in passive-aggressive ways; I don't disagree they are possible motivations (before, I gave you an "out" which you didn't take, so now you're locked in a hard to justify position of "it's the ONLY motivation" -- in a sense you're truly "stuck"!).
"I was motivated to be aggressive out of laziness".
People will assume you're trying to make a joke, with good reason. Anyone seriously trying to claim they chose to be aggressive rather than silent out of laziness is involved in what's known as a post-hoc rationalization.
This stance only appears difficult to justify to you because in your head apparently words can have any meaning you want.
To draw an analogy. If I come across a child with down syndrome who vehemently argues that 1+1=3, that doesn't make it so (inb4 redefining binary operators in math). And at some point I can either care enough to try and educate this child or I can let them be with the understanding that they're going to have a harder time in life.
> Anyone seriously trying to claim they chose to be aggressive rather than silent out of laziness is involved in what's known as a post-hoc rationalization.
Thankfully that wasn't my claim, so good luck with your strawman!
You've failed to make your point. Your down's syndrome paragraph... I cannot even begin to decide whether it's offensive, or stupid, or both.
You've failed to say anything besides doubling down on your initial unsupported assertion, even after I graciously provided you with an "out".
Being powerless and being a coward are very different outsets. It's not clear that you are taking that into account, and not inventing a new and rhetorically stillborn category.
Perhaps being passive aggressive is a choice, not just something people need to do. I could use the latent, or manifest, threat of violence to get my way in relationships. I choose not to, because I like those relationships and want them to continue. Is that passive aggressive?
While interesting, I think the essay vastly oversimplifies in its effort to make a point.
My personal favorite is the third-person equivalent "if that's what makes them happy..." While this turn of phrase can be used to talk about an innocuous difference of opinion I've heard it abused a _lot_ in professional settings by low-performing obstructionists who are entrenched and upset with others that make their coasting more difficult or move on to better opportunities.
"Mary wants to go make more money at a place that doesn't play security theatre with 15-year-old EOL'd web frameworks? If that's what makes them happy..."
That's an interesting take. I use that phrase a lot, but in a sincere way.
I use it to mean - I don't understand why they're into it, but if that's what makes them happy, then that's really what's important. It's not for me, but it could be for someone else, sort of thing.
I think it comes down to tone and which word from that phrase is emphasized. But I agree with you as well, I always took it as "its none of my business and if it makes them happy then that's all that matters"
Yeah, I sometimes use that phrase in reference to a person doing something I wouldn't do but without the intention of begrudging them of it. I hate to think anyone has ever thought I was being passive aggressive over such phrasing.
IMO this is one of the annoying things about passive aggression. It has stolen the language of “I don’t get it but I’m happy for those who do” and made it into something mean spirited.
If you just sigh a "If that makes you happy" and then sulk to do whatever... that's not a positive message. Apathy, defeated, such things.
On the other hand, a sincere "If that makes you happy, let's go" is a very different thing. This is more in line with what we have at work at times - "I disagree with this plan, but it is the plan chosen by us all, so I will support it to the best of my abilities", or "I don't care either way, but you chose left, so left we go to the best of our abilities". If we can only get the right ice cream 2 hours away from here, alright? I have nothing better to do right now and if you give me a day, I have an icebox ready.
I concur. It's kind of like saying "good for you" which can be either congratulatory or completely sarcastic depending upon the context. I always try to throw in an adverb like "sincerely" or "truly" to avoid ambiguity when I say stuff like this to avoid sounding salty.
The intro had me totally stun locked, it seemed to present a complete scenario and I was struggling to understand the context. There is much more explanation significantly though the article (for others a bit confused by it).
> As society has elevated the status of victims past and present, it is unsurprising that passive aggression has become one of the dominant social dynamics of our age.
I liked this interpretation of events. Celebration of victimhood is surely at an all time high. Should we expect this trend to continue, or will we ("educated" "sophisticated" people in Western society) return to celebrating the powerful and the successful like most other societies before us?
I think this is a case of equality feeling like oppression for the oppressor.
When I champiom the voices of victims I do so because their voices are already quietened. The voices of champions are still by far the loudest even if we do go out of our ways more than ever to include others.
I think the issue here is that people see some benefit from being able to claim victim status so there is a push to expand the definition of what a victim is.
If you want to know why people have a problem with this consider that both a genocide survivor and micro-aggression survivor will claim victim status. The latter doing so with a straight face and often more fervor.
Forcing anyone who has been subjected to anything to do so only if their suffering was as bad, relatively, as another arbitrary example, means the word "victim" has no real use, beyond some imaginary situation of absolute suffering. Anyone could challenge anyone's claim to victimhood just by pointing out a potentially worse situation for someone else.
I came from a country which was... not particularly liberal or progressive.
My dad is pushing 80.
So he has at times some pretty old school knee jerk reactions about social progress.
About once a decade he asks, somewhat grouchily, "Why are we suddenly talking so much about group X??" And the best answer I came up with, after years of conversations, to foster mutual understanding was: "because it's their turn! We made some progress with group Y, then we tackled group Z, and now we are trying to bring equality to group X. It doesn't detract from groups Y or Z we tackled in the past, the groups A & B that pretty much have power, or groups P & Q we should tackle in the future".
In this grossly oversimplifed view of progress, we worked on / fought to give women right to vote and maybe even some rights, then we worked to give all races vote and maybe even some rights, then we turned to give gays and lesbians maybe some recognition and equality, now we are working on trans, etc. It does not take away from me as a tall white male! And giving african american voting rights did not take away from women having voting rights :). It's GOOD to keep going after all inequalities, rather than saying "Group A inequality is worse, so fuck off and shut up". That's not how we progress.
Where I'm going with this - it's OK for both genocide survivor, and micro-aggression survivor, to claim victim status! We don't all have to have the same degree, and it's OK to help more and more people and fight for better and better equality :).
Another analogy, if you will - when I moved to USA after years of civil war in the old country, my host family tried to use me as a scarecrow to their kids. "Eat your dinner, think of all the people in $COUNTRY who don't have food".
That stopped when I indicated, politely & lovingly, that kids in $COUNTRY could not care less whether 9 year old Tommy in Minnesota ate his veggies or not.
So as a survivor of civil war (and attempted or successful genocide depending on which side / country / historian you listen to, they're still figuring this out:), let me assure you I am not offended by micro-aggression survivors claiming victim status :)
> it's OK for both genocide survivor, and micro-aggression survivor, to claim victim status
I think it's actually a pretty good sign of progress that if a society is worried about micro-aggressions it means that they are not worried about larger problems, like genocide.
Shouldn’t progress simply be defined as equal treatment under the law? Once we get into the mode of granting special privileges for victims (real or imaginary) I think we have a big problem.
People should aspire to achieve, not strive to complain about all the reasons (again, real or imaginary) why they couldn’t because they think they’ll get some reward for having the most victim points.
In Canada, early in the kindergarten they start teaching kids that "equal" and "just" and "same" aren't always synonyms.
A good example they use is when kids of different heights may want to see or reach something; the shorter kid might benefit from a stool. Their situation isn't the same, but the result of this extra effort brings equality.
There are still adults that will get very upset about granting the "special privilege" of a stool for the need and benefit "(real or imaginary)" of the shorter kid (I'm not sure if they too get "victim points" due to their pain and suffering over rights and privileges extended to minorities and victims), but I'm hopeful progress can be made over the course of generations :)
> There's an odd one out on your list of progressive causes: agreeing to the demands of the last group on your list actually undoes the progress made for women and lesbians.
Not every progressive woman or lesbian agrees with your statement (though some do), so you cannot state this so categorically.
In general, giving more rights to downtrodden and mistreated minorities seems right to me. Exceptions to this rule require special justification.
They are both victims. Whether someone drowns in their bath or drowns in the ocean they have drowned.I can see and accept the tragedy in both circumstances while still understanding the respective gravities of danger between bathing and ocean swimming.
I'm not sure what you mean by sharing victimhood with fervor. What emotions do the perpetrators of micro-aggressions exhibit when they commit? I would ask that we question the position of perpetrators as much, if not more, than victims.
Have you stopped to ask why elevating the voices of victims is a worthy thing to champion? How do you evaluate who is a victim? Maybe the positive consequences are obvious, but what are the negative consequences of doing this?
Often the real disagreements are the assumptions that are driving the superficial behaviors.
Assume the person you're replying to has, indeed, stopped to ask this question.
What do you think are the negative consequences of prioritizing the voices of those who have been suppressed, and de-emphasizing the voices of people who more easily get to be heard? And what do you think would be the consequences of not doing so?
See? Everyone can play this game. It's best to assume the other person has considered the consequences of doing/not doing this, and decided one is better than the other.
It's better to explain why you think that line of thinking is wrong (if that is what you think) instead of doubting the thought processes of the person you're debating with.
Listen more than you talk. Listen to first hand sources. Don't put an expectation on the oppressed to do all the work. Amplify their voices rather than putting your own voice first.
I trust that if I listen with an open heart and come from a peace of good intention then I will do the right thing.
It's certainly better than any alternative I could imagine for myself.
Ressentiment as a trope is just as old as celebration of the powerful and successful. (In fact, the two often go hand in hand; both amount to defenses of the status quo. The whole point of being a victim is that you're not among the oppressors, and conversely.) I don't think either of them is anything near an "all time high".
Ressentiment is essentially a false morality founded on the envy of the weak toward the strong. It's one thing for strength to be abused, but another thing entirely to hate strength because you are weak.
This false morality is what Nietzsche calls "slave morality", which is essentially a coping mechanism for the prideful. Whereas master morality prizes strength over weakness and expresses a straightforward and natural attitude of good and evil, slave morality begins with self-deception. It recasts that which it envies as evil in a game of sour grapes, so that the envious come out on top as the good.
This has always existed, sure, but it is also true that victimhood has been elevated and celebrated as virtuous quite notably today. It has become a manipulative instrument to dishonestly extract from and exploit others through false guilt. Nobody of sound mind celebrates victimhood. A victim can take comfort in his innocence when he is victimized, he may have a moral superiority because it is not what is done to us, but what we do that defiles us. He may be pleased that his suffering has advanced some good. But a victim of sound mind doesn't love his victimhood per se, though he may pity the perpetrator for his depravity and moral weakness.
Of course ressentiment is constant, but the question is which kind of thinking dominates society?
Historically, the pendulum has swung back and forth between what Nietsche labeled master and slave morality. The Roman empire is a typical example of master culture: it's good to be rich and powerful, and it is right for the strong to dominate the weak. There might have been ressentiment among the Barbarians the Romans conquered, but the dominant culture certainly didn't sympathize with them.
Then in Europe we get the rise of Christianity, a typical example of slave morality which regards strength and power as evil (the New Testament is full of messages like the meek will inherit the earth, it's easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter heaven, etc.)
Then Western civilization swings back to Master morality: the crusades as an early example, later manifest destiny, the white man's burden, the rise of fascism in Europe, etc. Then after WW2 fascism loses its luster and the pendulum swings back.
Western colonies which were previously considered mutually beneficial developments are now condemned as exploitative of the less advanced native cultures. People like Columbus who were once lionized for their discoveries and conquests are now condemned as villains.
You can view the American civil war as a midpoint of the pendulum's swing: while Negroes, who are poor and uneducated, are not (yet) considered morally superior to Whites, it is no longer morally acceptable to enslave them just because you can.
Today, the pendulum has swung fully towards slave morality. You should check your privilege, and shut up, so the oppressed may speak. Representation is important. The rich and powerful are almost by definition evil. Bill Gates and Elon Musk won't be remembered in the same way as Rockefeller or Ford. Racism is no longer racism, as it was in Martin Luther King's time, but now it's prejudice PLUS power (also everyone has racial bias, so by the very definition, the powerful are evil, while the powerless are innocent).
So while you can argue that the pendulum has swung back and forth on this topic through history, and it's hard to say if slave morality is currently at an “all-time high”, I think it's undeniably true that we are currently heavily biased towards celebrating the powerless over the rich and powerful.
I think this is too much of a simplification to be a useful guide. First the older stuff can be discounted because there just isn't enough written evidence to know what the general Roman population was thinking.
Columbus wasn't generally lionised and celebrated during his lifetime, a lot of the mythology about him comes later
> As a colonial governor, Columbus was accused by some of his contemporaries of significant brutality and removed from the post.
But I think the weakness of this argument is apparent when you consider the modern examples. Gates and Elon have been lauded and praised and reviled and criticised at various levels at different times. There has always been a plurality of opinion about successful celebrities, modern and historic.
So I don't see that there is a master/slave swing. Rather perhaps the issue is that recently we've come into a situation where everyone's voice can be broadcast and opinion written. In the not so distant past the writing of the majority either didn't exist or wasn't available for consumption by society in general, and only the writing of influential people survived for us to read later. The grumbling of the masses was only apparent when it boiled over into action.
> Columbus wasn't generally lionised and celebrated during his lifetime, a lot of the mythology about him comes later
Right, but the point is he was lionized during a period where people found his conquests more important than the atrocities he committed, as is consistent with master morality of the time, even if it was not during Columbus' own time.
Similarly, Christianity only became really popular long after the death of Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean his viewpoints aren't an example of slave morality.
> There has always been a plurality of opinion about successful celebrities, modern and historic.
That's a fair point; obviously this obfuscates the situation a bit, but I don't think it disproves the general trend.
> In the not so distant past the writing of the majority either didn't exist or wasn't available for consumption by society in general, and only the writing of influential people survived for us to read later.
Also a fair point, but the observation doesn't rely on learning what the masses think (which I suspect is mostly what they're told to think). We see the same shift in attitude among the powerful elites.
For example, President Joe Biden picked a non-white woman as his vice president, and later vowed to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, to increase representation of underrepresented minorities. If any past president made such a declaration it would have been on record too.
The same is true about a lot of other topics. Homosexuals have existed forever, but large corporations didn't find it necessary in the past to dedicate a month per year to celebrating them, and there are plenty of historical records to prove that.
And so on, and so forth. I think it's hard to deny overall that it's a sign of the times we live in that we must praise and promote the marginalized and oppressed, and criticize and penalize the powerful.
> we must praise and promote the marginalized and oppressed,
I have to wonder why this is a bad thing?
To be a bit pedantic, the use of the words "praise and promote" is a bit... loaded, isn't it? This really seems like a simplification of civil rights movements. To be a bit more pedantic, "must" is a pretty strong word. Why "must" we praise the marginalized?
Because the positions being idolized are weak and cannot exist if they don't get everybody to agree. It's all built on moving sand, it cannot be a long-term proposition.
And if a majority of society would adopt the behaviors/values of the minorities being praised it would be in deep shit, especially for survival/reproduction. In the end, nature doesn't care much about your feelings...
Those things only happen in "good times", a period of ultra abondance where even the weakest is well off. It is not a coincidence that right-wing politics are rising everywhere. When times get harder, competition for ressource is increased and people collectively agree that they don't have time/ressources to celebrate the weak anymore...
> celebrating the powerless over the rich and powerful
Surely by "celebrating" you mean with words and gesturing? Because in actual practice, the rich and powerful are as rich and powerful as ever, if not more so.
The whole argument is about “words and gesturing” aka the prevailing attitudes regarding which qualities and behaviors are supported/celebrated and have power in discourse.
I don’t think the parent comment was trying to say that when the mentality pendulum swung after the US civil war era in the direction of the oppressed (as they claimed it did), suddenly the liberated former slaves became the ones in power of controlling politics/economy/etc.
That aside, yeah, you are correct, in the actual practice the rich and powerful are rich and powerful. The difference that the pendulum makes is about whether they are treated by the public as Fords and Rockefellers or as Musks and Thiels, which is just about the prevailing attitudes.
Understood, but what I'm saying is that it's hypocritical and shallow gesturing. Just words, and not even deeply felt. In practice the world still admires the rich and powerful.
Re: the Musks and Thiels of this world, it probably doesn't help their public image that the modern world makes their bizarre opinions and outright arrogance more easily communicated. If Ford was arrogant or held freakish opinions, it was a little harder for the common man to find out. Now Musk can call a scuba diver a pedophile or spout conspiracy theories and this reaches tons of people almost immediately.
That’s a really good point I haven’t thought about before. For all I know, Ford indeed could’ve been even less revered than Musks and Thiels in the timeline where internet was already commonplace back then. Legitimately thanks for bringing it up.
That makes quite a lot of things about the current time more difficult to comprehend using historical precedence. Because a lot of the fundamental things about living in our present time are exactly the same, yet unprecedented in significant ways. I guess the same could be said about almost any time period in history though.
Then what about the pilgrims, who were historically in America because they were too extreme for UK? They’re all about being a victim. Or the no taxation without representation, protesting the injustice against them?
> Then what about the pilgrims, who were historically in America because they were too extreme for UK? They’re all about being a victim.
Going out into the world (literally to another continent in the pre-plane era) to solve your problems your own way is imo the opposite of victim mentality.
Victim mentality would be just complaining and seeing yourself as a victim or trying to use the victim status as a power move to make things go your way. Walking out of the situation and getting things done the way you want to elsewhere, despite it being dangerous and potentially deadly, ain’t a victim move at all tbh.
American which trials were a thing, but a very minor one in historical terms — dwarfed in comparison with Scottish ones. Why would you say that America was founded on them?
"Virtue signalling" in European-rooted cultures stems from classical Protestant (especially Calvinist and Puritan) esteem for right belief over good works. Good works were seen as cheap and fake and worldly, while right beliefs indicated alignment with a more eternal truth.
While not the only current in American history by any means, it's profoundly American, and you can draw a straight line of intellectual heritage from that core Puritan/Calivinst theology on through to Rauschenbach's Social Gospel theology and onto the modern secular Social Justice movement, spanning hundreds of years of American history.
Historians of the future will have been trained in the postmodernist university system of today.
The core tenet of postmodernism is that there is no objective truth, everything we see in the world is a societal/human construct. It's a pants-on-head extremist outloook that allows absolute insanity to parade as intelligence. It's reasonable to assume that there is at least some semblance of objective truth and argue about the degrees.
> Should we expect this trend to continue, or will we ("educated" "sophisticated" people in Western society) return to celebrating the powerful and the successful like most other societies before us?
I find this to be a bizarre false dichotomy. Why not, for example, celebrate the virtuous instead? A society that valued kindness, bravery, temperance or whatever would seem a lot better than either of your options. I'm sure other people could think of plenty of other options as well.
> Why not, for example, celebrate the virtuous instead?
Because it's hard to celebrate the intangibles, that is why virtue signaling gets the spotlight instead. But action and achievement are tangible and can be celebrated (if they're good for society).
This is not a "bizarre false dichotomy". This is a perfect example of dichotomy: do you celebrate actions or intent?
More importantly the society has sent the clear message that even the law system will bend to this victimhood narrative, and victimhood will be compensated.
Is it a surprise that it's so popular today and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of every cause imaginable.
Engels-style Marxist ideology weaponizes our typical in-group / out-group social dynamics to define those groups solely in terms of oppressor and oppressed. Only the oppressed, the victims, are part of the in-group.
It is visceral, effective, compelling, and utterly destructive to civil society. But that's the point: To construct an us-and-them narrative to excuse any evils done to "them" in the name of righteousness. Radicalization operates on the same pattern that gave us the Crusades, that gives us jihad, and that still drives people to full-throated defense of political purges.
Defense of the individual, divorced from group dynamics, was the clear, shining achievement of classical liberalism. Personal rights, privileges, and equal treatment under the law regardless of which group you belonged to, or what your status in society is. Our school systems are vigorously working to pull that apart.
A widespread sense of entitlement is indeed a mark of high civilization. Of course as a lagging, not leading, indicator. I wonder if things like a sense of certainty in moral convictions also necessarily goes with it -- i.e. a triumphant civilization giving itself a pat on the back for its accomplishments with the recognition that it has after all achieved the capital-T truth.
The big question is how low the upcoming trough needs to be for us to get the next peak we expect.
I'd say Musk or Trump are quite celebrated in our society, or the Kardashians if you like. And we are definitely not living in different societies, so one of us is definitely missing something. Or maybe the article writer.
The industry and institutions of victimhood are well funded and growing. With the free flow of money they are able control much of media and social interaction. It will continue to grow as the money flows into the machine.
The "victim" class has become a political and social weapon. It's label can be used to shame and force others into making accommodations, even if it is to the detriment of others. Coupled with righteousness indignation it has become a potent weapon to silence critics.
> Should we expect this trend to continue, or will we ("educated" "sophisticated" people in Western society) return to celebrating the powerful and the successful like most other societies before us?
This feels like a false dychotomy. There are various possibilities, not just two. I'm not in favor of celebrating the powerful and successful as many of them turned out to be sociopaths. I prefer to celebrate people of science, who through their talent and hard work advance our civilization, including victims, the powerful, and all the rest of us.
> Should we expect this trend to continue, or will we ("educated" "sophisticated" people in Western society) return to celebrating the powerful and the successful like most other societies before us?
False dichotomy.
We could celebrate people who exhibit some tenet of higher principles, people we find inspiring. That's often not the same as victimhood or success.
I wonder if overuse of false dichotomies is a subset of the passive aggression surge.
I honestly don't understand this attitude. There is without doubt members of our society who have been victimized. How we respond to that as a society is important. Part of the goal of any society should be to look out for others, otherwise what's the point of society?
I'm not advocating for the "celebration" of victims, but rather to minimize victimization in society. I also would not advocate for celebrating the "powerful" (as that is essentially useless as evaluating whether someone is worthy of adulation).
I would celebrate the people who have the most benefit for society: those who are kind, compassionate, and make the people around them even more so.
As an Eastern European, also on the spectrum, this nature of passive aggressive communication proliferating especially in the Bay Area really grates me. I prefer to resolve conflicts directly; it's more efficient.
it might be your preference, but what happens when you can't? e.g. when someone you can't confront directly says or does something that's really not to your liking?
You mean can't as in "directly affects the outcome of the present situation"? Like when I'm at a bureaucrat's office and he's going to hand me the document I need? Or trying to close a deal? Then I just shut up.
Or do you mean can't as in "the person is in a more powerful position in general"? Then I'll tell them directly but in a polite way. In the worst case we won't make business together.
I'm not too fussy about efficiency, but one of the things about passive aggression that drives me crazy is the pretence. Passivity makes the communication as though it never happened, except everyone knows that it did. To many autistic people this seems literally insane.
Central Asian is a good balance between Eastern European directness and rudeness, and Asian politeness. It is about as polite as English culture but direct when necessary (perhaps due to long Russian influence).
I usually don't have much patience for passive-aggressive people in general. If you want to say something, just say it. It's not efficient otherwise.
That being said, passive-aggressiveness is also communicating something extra on top of the question at hand.
That's what makes it infuriating for me because now we're discussing two issues, the actual issue and your hidden interpersonal issue. Both are probably valid things to discuss but in clear way, not with constantly second guessing.
You dislike something, disapprove, or disagree, but express that disagreement through something like simply not inviting the person you disagree with to the next meeting rather than telling them you disagree and why.
Passive: Uh, your code looks great!
Aggressive: Your code is garbage!
Assertive: Your code is broken.
Passive-Aggressive: It's great that you think your garbage code is great!
I'll add to what the others have said with an example. The scenario at the start of the article is an example of passive aggression, but it's quite subtle and not explained until later on. Jim has made the effort of cooking pasta for him and Aaron. Carbonara in particular deteriorates quite quickly, so after 10 minutes it won't be very good. We see from the story that Aaron is stuck on the phone with work, and once he finally breaks free, the pasta is spoiled and Jim rather annoyed.
Where's the passive aggression? Later on, the article hints that before this played out, Aaron was annoyed at Jim. He intentionally spoiled the dinner (e.g disrespecting the effort Jim invested) by staying on the phone, but because he pretended to be unable to avoid the call it's passive — he can claim not to have spoiled it intentionally.
In contrast, it would be regular aggression if he'd thrown the pasta into the sink.
Outside of weird edge cases, most aggression has a root cause. If the root cause is not removed, how is it that it magically "ends there"? expressing irritation seems like only the beginning and not the end at all.
Absolutely. The aggressive alternative to "I'm sorry you feel that way" is "I'm not interested", "I'm not going to help you with this", or even just "No". I'd also like to point out that saying these things isn't necessarily morally wrong - it depends on the circumstances.
I guess it can depend but in my experience men solve interpersonal issues with noise and aggression, and it very quickly disappears after because it is addressed. I’ve noticed women do the exact opposite which makes them hate each other for years
It resolved because one party established dominance over the other. And for decisions that don't matter, that's a fine way of making them, if a bit unfair to those who are more timid and less aggressive. For decisions that are important, they are usually best resolved through a trusted conversation about diverse opinions.
That sounds very feminine and just the same thing in different forms. Men need to establish themselves. “Talking stuff out” doesn’t make anyone feel better you need to express yourself
Without the ability to handle confrontation in a way that does not lead to violence our weapons are limited.
The most common methods are employed by infants and children like volume and tone until the attack evolves past the material of the confrontation (ideas, actions, response) to the extensions of the person starting with identity (individual), reputation (community), and eventually societal (race, gender, occupation, legal, citizenship).
I would say based upon my understanding and history that once you attack the societal element of a reasonable person they will respond with violence - or their aggression will become not-passive.
Today, for a variety of reasons, I believe that identity has shifted from self to societal which is why there are some people that if you disagree with their personal choices will respond with violence. These people cannot be reasoned with nor have productive discussions about the topic without personal, reputation, or societal attacks.
A. Something there is no way to provably measure;
B. a claim the article provides no data to prove has increased;
C. and a potential "diagnostic" that says more about the person diagnosing the problem than anything else.
All of the articles broad claims are just … things being said.
It's been trending this way for a couple years at least, but yes its been particularly bad in the past few months. Feels infested with schizoposters and their the idiot reply guys and the 50 year old reactionary tech dweebs who suddenly things they're part of some sort of master race and spout undergrad tier philosophy knowledge to look smart.
I'm the last person that will defend HN. Outside of very narrow technical subjects, it is chock full of terrible takes, clearly written by fairly ignorant people that think very highly of themselves. This is especially prominent in topics that touch upon economics, politics or philosophy.
That said, I don't really see passive aggressiveness as a problem. I mean, if people decide to be passive about their aggression, this gives me free pass to be passive about my disdain too.
A sincere "sorry you feel that way" is only passive agressive in a culture that prefers emotional gestures like shame and contrition to practical gestures like reciprocity and restitution.
In a culture that inverts those preferences, it's an acknowledgment of a new debt of reciprocity. "I recognize that you're negatively impacted and ask you let me make you whole again"
We're in a bit of a weird and untenable cultural moment right now, where we allow anyone to call themselves a victim and insist that some other admit to an internal feeling of contrition. When that contrition isn't sincerely felt, which is natural in many cases, that's when we end up with both the vacuous and passive agressive "sorry you feel that way" and the equally vacuous and performative public apology.
In a world where we focus more on exrtrinsic actions and reciprocity rather than making demands of each others internal state, both forms of vacuousness go away: people do step on each others feet now and then, as happens, but the stepper helps the stepped find their footing again and both move on with their lives.
Yeah - I take "I'm sorry you feel that way" as a way of blaming the victim for their feelings, as a subtle way of blaming them for having inappropriate or out-of-control feelings. And sometimes that's true, but, the majority of the time, that's the wrong reason.
Yes, you're articulating the bizarre dance of people trying to have a say in each others internal state. The victim wants the offender to feel contrite and the offender wants to the victim to feel less hurt.
Since nobody seems to have complete control over these seemingly internal states, and no reliable way to measure them in each other, you end up with this unresolvable performative dance where each party tries to control the other's subjective experience. And what shakes out of that is people inevitably calling each other insincere, insensitive, passive agressive, out-of-control, etc
> common expression of fear of dependency, latent in us as well as family and colleagues
I thought this alternative definition was interesting. In a society that is increasingly interdependent, doesn't that make this fear stronger than ever?
"Aaron could find some emotional relief because he caught sight of the anger and resentment he had so long been denying. Once he had this knowledge, the question of whether his anger was justified fell away; no longer bearing down on him in secret, its force simply faded."
So Aaron briefly realizes his own resentment and anger toward his musician husband's lifestyle. Then can't he be even more angry about it?
The idea is that you can have a belief and derive emotion from it without ever consciously acknowledging the belief.
Aaron had some deep-down, partially-formed belief that he worked harder than his partner Jim, without even knowing it. That subconscious belief led him to be passively aggessive.
By acknowledging that belief and the associated anger, he can now look at the belief logically and solve it. Does Aaron truly believe that he is a harder worker than Jim, and is that a problem? If so, he should talk to Jim about taking on a side job or more chores, or maybe break up with him. If not, then he should consider what might be fueling that belief. For example, Jim might work his ass off practicing and performing and cooking good food, and perhaps Aaron could do more to appreciate that.
Except the article (seems to) claim that mere cognizance of self-denied thoughts and feelings is enough to make those "fall away", "force faded". There was no intermediate step of logic or problem solving involved. So, I don't get that magic leap argument in the article.
Disclosure, I guess maybe I'm more of the "openly hostile"/IDGAF camp like some of the other commenters have expressed, so I find it harder to imagine Aaron's position where they are not even in touch/aware with their inner feelings of anger and resentment about something. Then again the author says everyone is susceptible to being passive aggressive.
The original passive-agressive response sucks, because you can't just deal directly with the problem - you have to manage the emotions the other person projects on to the situation. You just have to know the person well enough to tell if those emotions are from, for e.g., job stress or a lack of sleep, or from some deep childhood trauma.
I think that the bigger problem is that passive-aggressive responses tend to bleed out into all sorts of other, unrelated situations. At least they do if they aren't talked about. It can be really difficult to discuss as a friend. It can be almost impossible in a work setting.
- In the past, your words were not permanently recorded, so it was much less likely your words could be used against you.
- It's not just that we celebrate victims more now. Our level of education now allows us to identify root causes better, meaning we realize that we are victims of our circumstances more than we did before.
The thing that seems to be missed here is that passive aggression is a perfectly valid way to deal with direct and immature aggression, such as you get with personality disorders. Maintaining a level of deniability isn't always a bad thing. And any idealization of "direct aggressiveness" is just an excuse for psychopaths (or NPD, BPD, etc). Of which I've had enough in my life, thank you very much.
It's sad that much of the discussion here is effectively excusing fascism. Another case where passive aggression is a perfectly valid and mature coping mechanism.
Oh absolutely. The phrase "I'm sorry you feel that way" disconnects you from the other person, and if that is an appropriate thing to do, then it's an appropriate phrase to use. If someone is trying to guilt-trip you into action that you don't morally need to take and don't want to take, then use this phrase. It asserts your boundaries.
Also, I'd take issue with the phrase always being passive-aggression. Sure, in certain circumstances it can be used as a passive-aggressive move, but in a situation where you are using it to handle someone who is coming at you with a terrible manipulative sob-story to try to pull you into their fantasy world where you have to help them at every turn, then using this phrase is not passive-aggressive - it's just protecting yourself.
Other similar useful phrases are: "I'm sorry to hear that", "That's terrible", "Okay", "Right", "I see".
168 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 217 ms ] threadI don't really care -- it's not a big deal to me. Mostly just curious to understand more about how HN works, and the decisions around things like this.
if you weren't powerless you wouldn't need to be passive aggressive and if you weren't a coward you'd take the risk associated with being truthful.
“My Free Speech Means You Have To Shut Up”
https://popehat.substack.com/p/my-free-speech-means-you-have...
Passive aggressiveness is generally the tool of those in power to deflect any potential criticisms/issue taking, and the lower rung and more powerless the worker, the less their overt aggression matters, and is much more tolerated by their same level colleagues/environment.
Since bosses are disproportionately narcissistic, there’s going to be some correlation there.
Those are potential users of passive-aggressiveness, but if you meant an implied "it's ONLY used by...", then you're wrong. The article itself narrates an example where it's used in a context where the person is neither powerless nor a coward.
If you were powerful or not a coward you wouldn't need to deflect for dissemble.
When people talk about FU money, this is what they're talking about.
I don't think human behavior can always be classified as either "brave" or "cowardly". (I also disagree that deflection is always a form of cowardice -- not wanting to deal with something directly is sometimes cowardice, sometimes laziness, sometimes tiredness, and sometimes other things).
It seems people develop certain behaviors, sometimes defensive, sometimes aggressive, sometimes something other, as they grow up, and they get deployed not always consciously. It took the Aaron of this story at least 1+ therapy sessions to partially unpack what he was doing, and possibly why.
It doesn't reek of cowardice to me. He was in a position of power (the money-maker) but wasn't afraid of his partner; rather he felt feelings of irritation which were masked with guilt.
"Cowardice" is not how I would describe it.
There can be a myriad of reasons for this, but it's still cowardice.
I've read many accounts of people who have found their career's doing better once they have enough money in the bank to feel secure because they're more comfortable taking risks and being outspoken at work.
Avoiding risk is what passive aggressiveness is about, hence the cowardice.
The article describes something different, and people are not divided in "brave" or "cowards".
I also provided other examples of confrontation avoidance that are not motivated by cowardice, e.g. laziness. You can conflate everything with "cowardice", but this makes for a very boring world.
That's not how aggression works. That doesn't mean people won't rationalize, but it certainly doesn't change the cowardice.
Human behavior doesn't always get to be divided between "bravery" and "cowardice". There's a full range of behaviors you're failing to acknowledge.
The behavior this article and the rest of us are describing is a little more complex.
Your argument boils down to "some people are missing limbs therefore they must not be human since the claim is that humans have 2 arms and 2 legs".
> Human behavior doesn't always get to be divided between "bravery" and "cowardice".
Thankfully we're specifically talking about passive aggressiveness rather than all human behavior.
No, you are assigning specific meanings to words, and I'm disagreeing with them.
"That's not how aggression works" is an assertion you made without anything to back it up. It's just your opinion, and not very well justified either. (You also failed to explain how, in your opinion, aggression does work!).
The article itself doesn't show what you claim are the only possibilities for passive aggression.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aggression
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/passive-aggressiv...
---
Where you got stuck was in describing passive aggressive behavior as being motivated by laziness. It's a rationalization, a person could choose not to engage at all and that might be laziness, but to engage using passive aggressive behavior is to choose to be aggressive without honesty.
People do so in environments where they are powerless or cowardly.
Great! In what way do you think those dictionary definitions support your point of view?
> Where you got stuck was in describing passive aggressive behavior as being motivated by laziness
No, that was merely an example. I'm not stuck, though I think you are when you claim that only by powerlessness or cowardice can passive-aggressivity be motivated. I didn't claim laziness was the only motivation!
> It's a rationalization
This explains nothing.
> People do so in environments where they are powerless or cowardly.
That's your opinion, which you've so far failed to support. Actually, what you failed to support is that those are the ONLY environments in which people behave in passive-aggressive ways; I don't disagree they are possible motivations (before, I gave you an "out" which you didn't take, so now you're locked in a hard to justify position of "it's the ONLY motivation" -- in a sense you're truly "stuck"!).
"I was motivated to be aggressive out of laziness".
People will assume you're trying to make a joke, with good reason. Anyone seriously trying to claim they chose to be aggressive rather than silent out of laziness is involved in what's known as a post-hoc rationalization.
This stance only appears difficult to justify to you because in your head apparently words can have any meaning you want.
To draw an analogy. If I come across a child with down syndrome who vehemently argues that 1+1=3, that doesn't make it so (inb4 redefining binary operators in math). And at some point I can either care enough to try and educate this child or I can let them be with the understanding that they're going to have a harder time in life.
And so it is that I leave you.
Thankfully that wasn't my claim, so good luck with your strawman!
You've failed to make your point. Your down's syndrome paragraph... I cannot even begin to decide whether it's offensive, or stupid, or both.
You've failed to say anything besides doubling down on your initial unsupported assertion, even after I graciously provided you with an "out".
And so I too must bid you adieu.
And since I have no doubt this isn't going to be understood, passive aggressiveness can be employed by different categories of people.
While interesting, I think the essay vastly oversimplifies in its effort to make a point.
"Mary wants to go make more money at a place that doesn't play security theatre with 15-year-old EOL'd web frameworks? If that's what makes them happy..."
I use it to mean - I don't understand why they're into it, but if that's what makes them happy, then that's really what's important. It's not for me, but it could be for someone else, sort of thing.
Language is weird.
If you just sigh a "If that makes you happy" and then sulk to do whatever... that's not a positive message. Apathy, defeated, such things.
On the other hand, a sincere "If that makes you happy, let's go" is a very different thing. This is more in line with what we have at work at times - "I disagree with this plan, but it is the plan chosen by us all, so I will support it to the best of my abilities", or "I don't care either way, but you chose left, so left we go to the best of our abilities". If we can only get the right ice cream 2 hours away from here, alright? I have nothing better to do right now and if you give me a day, I have an icebox ready.
I liked this interpretation of events. Celebration of victimhood is surely at an all time high. Should we expect this trend to continue, or will we ("educated" "sophisticated" people in Western society) return to celebrating the powerful and the successful like most other societies before us?
When I champiom the voices of victims I do so because their voices are already quietened. The voices of champions are still by far the loudest even if we do go out of our ways more than ever to include others.
If you want to know why people have a problem with this consider that both a genocide survivor and micro-aggression survivor will claim victim status. The latter doing so with a straight face and often more fervor.
Forcing anyone who has been subjected to anything to do so only if their suffering was as bad, relatively, as another arbitrary example, means the word "victim" has no real use, beyond some imaginary situation of absolute suffering. Anyone could challenge anyone's claim to victimhood just by pointing out a potentially worse situation for someone else.
My dad is pushing 80.
So he has at times some pretty old school knee jerk reactions about social progress.
About once a decade he asks, somewhat grouchily, "Why are we suddenly talking so much about group X??" And the best answer I came up with, after years of conversations, to foster mutual understanding was: "because it's their turn! We made some progress with group Y, then we tackled group Z, and now we are trying to bring equality to group X. It doesn't detract from groups Y or Z we tackled in the past, the groups A & B that pretty much have power, or groups P & Q we should tackle in the future".
In this grossly oversimplifed view of progress, we worked on / fought to give women right to vote and maybe even some rights, then we worked to give all races vote and maybe even some rights, then we turned to give gays and lesbians maybe some recognition and equality, now we are working on trans, etc. It does not take away from me as a tall white male! And giving african american voting rights did not take away from women having voting rights :). It's GOOD to keep going after all inequalities, rather than saying "Group A inequality is worse, so fuck off and shut up". That's not how we progress.
Where I'm going with this - it's OK for both genocide survivor, and micro-aggression survivor, to claim victim status! We don't all have to have the same degree, and it's OK to help more and more people and fight for better and better equality :).
Another analogy, if you will - when I moved to USA after years of civil war in the old country, my host family tried to use me as a scarecrow to their kids. "Eat your dinner, think of all the people in $COUNTRY who don't have food".
That stopped when I indicated, politely & lovingly, that kids in $COUNTRY could not care less whether 9 year old Tommy in Minnesota ate his veggies or not.
So as a survivor of civil war (and attempted or successful genocide depending on which side / country / historian you listen to, they're still figuring this out:), let me assure you I am not offended by micro-aggression survivors claiming victim status :)
I think it's actually a pretty good sign of progress that if a society is worried about micro-aggressions it means that they are not worried about larger problems, like genocide.
People should aspire to achieve, not strive to complain about all the reasons (again, real or imaginary) why they couldn’t because they think they’ll get some reward for having the most victim points.
A good example they use is when kids of different heights may want to see or reach something; the shorter kid might benefit from a stool. Their situation isn't the same, but the result of this extra effort brings equality.
There are still adults that will get very upset about granting the "special privilege" of a stool for the need and benefit "(real or imaginary)" of the shorter kid (I'm not sure if they too get "victim points" due to their pain and suffering over rights and privileges extended to minorities and victims), but I'm hopeful progress can be made over the course of generations :)
Not every progressive woman or lesbian agrees with your statement (though some do), so you cannot state this so categorically.
In general, giving more rights to downtrodden and mistreated minorities seems right to me. Exceptions to this rule require special justification.
I'm not sure what you mean by sharing victimhood with fervor. What emotions do the perpetrators of micro-aggressions exhibit when they commit? I would ask that we question the position of perpetrators as much, if not more, than victims.
Often the real disagreements are the assumptions that are driving the superficial behaviors.
Assume the person you're replying to has, indeed, stopped to ask this question.
What do you think are the negative consequences of prioritizing the voices of those who have been suppressed, and de-emphasizing the voices of people who more easily get to be heard? And what do you think would be the consequences of not doing so?
See? Everyone can play this game. It's best to assume the other person has considered the consequences of doing/not doing this, and decided one is better than the other.
It's better to explain why you think that line of thinking is wrong (if that is what you think) instead of doubting the thought processes of the person you're debating with.
Yes, I have.
> How do you evaluate who is a victim?
I use my moral compass. YMMV
> Maybe the positive consequences are obvious, but what are the negative consequences of doing this?
I'm not sure, can you see some?
In other words "I may get it wrong, therefore I won't do anything" is unacceptable to me.
I trust that if I listen with an open heart and come from a peace of good intention then I will do the right thing.
It's certainly better than any alternative I could imagine for myself.
This false morality is what Nietzsche calls "slave morality", which is essentially a coping mechanism for the prideful. Whereas master morality prizes strength over weakness and expresses a straightforward and natural attitude of good and evil, slave morality begins with self-deception. It recasts that which it envies as evil in a game of sour grapes, so that the envious come out on top as the good.
This has always existed, sure, but it is also true that victimhood has been elevated and celebrated as virtuous quite notably today. It has become a manipulative instrument to dishonestly extract from and exploit others through false guilt. Nobody of sound mind celebrates victimhood. A victim can take comfort in his innocence when he is victimized, he may have a moral superiority because it is not what is done to us, but what we do that defiles us. He may be pleased that his suffering has advanced some good. But a victim of sound mind doesn't love his victimhood per se, though he may pity the perpetrator for his depravity and moral weakness.
Historically, the pendulum has swung back and forth between what Nietsche labeled master and slave morality. The Roman empire is a typical example of master culture: it's good to be rich and powerful, and it is right for the strong to dominate the weak. There might have been ressentiment among the Barbarians the Romans conquered, but the dominant culture certainly didn't sympathize with them.
Then in Europe we get the rise of Christianity, a typical example of slave morality which regards strength and power as evil (the New Testament is full of messages like the meek will inherit the earth, it's easier for a camel to pass through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter heaven, etc.)
Then Western civilization swings back to Master morality: the crusades as an early example, later manifest destiny, the white man's burden, the rise of fascism in Europe, etc. Then after WW2 fascism loses its luster and the pendulum swings back.
Western colonies which were previously considered mutually beneficial developments are now condemned as exploitative of the less advanced native cultures. People like Columbus who were once lionized for their discoveries and conquests are now condemned as villains.
You can view the American civil war as a midpoint of the pendulum's swing: while Negroes, who are poor and uneducated, are not (yet) considered morally superior to Whites, it is no longer morally acceptable to enslave them just because you can.
Today, the pendulum has swung fully towards slave morality. You should check your privilege, and shut up, so the oppressed may speak. Representation is important. The rich and powerful are almost by definition evil. Bill Gates and Elon Musk won't be remembered in the same way as Rockefeller or Ford. Racism is no longer racism, as it was in Martin Luther King's time, but now it's prejudice PLUS power (also everyone has racial bias, so by the very definition, the powerful are evil, while the powerless are innocent).
So while you can argue that the pendulum has swung back and forth on this topic through history, and it's hard to say if slave morality is currently at an “all-time high”, I think it's undeniably true that we are currently heavily biased towards celebrating the powerless over the rich and powerful.
Columbus wasn't generally lionised and celebrated during his lifetime, a lot of the mythology about him comes later
> As a colonial governor, Columbus was accused by some of his contemporaries of significant brutality and removed from the post.
But I think the weakness of this argument is apparent when you consider the modern examples. Gates and Elon have been lauded and praised and reviled and criticised at various levels at different times. There has always been a plurality of opinion about successful celebrities, modern and historic.
So I don't see that there is a master/slave swing. Rather perhaps the issue is that recently we've come into a situation where everyone's voice can be broadcast and opinion written. In the not so distant past the writing of the majority either didn't exist or wasn't available for consumption by society in general, and only the writing of influential people survived for us to read later. The grumbling of the masses was only apparent when it boiled over into action.
Right, but the point is he was lionized during a period where people found his conquests more important than the atrocities he committed, as is consistent with master morality of the time, even if it was not during Columbus' own time.
Similarly, Christianity only became really popular long after the death of Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean his viewpoints aren't an example of slave morality.
> There has always been a plurality of opinion about successful celebrities, modern and historic.
That's a fair point; obviously this obfuscates the situation a bit, but I don't think it disproves the general trend.
> In the not so distant past the writing of the majority either didn't exist or wasn't available for consumption by society in general, and only the writing of influential people survived for us to read later.
Also a fair point, but the observation doesn't rely on learning what the masses think (which I suspect is mostly what they're told to think). We see the same shift in attitude among the powerful elites.
For example, President Joe Biden picked a non-white woman as his vice president, and later vowed to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, to increase representation of underrepresented minorities. If any past president made such a declaration it would have been on record too.
The same is true about a lot of other topics. Homosexuals have existed forever, but large corporations didn't find it necessary in the past to dedicate a month per year to celebrating them, and there are plenty of historical records to prove that.
And so on, and so forth. I think it's hard to deny overall that it's a sign of the times we live in that we must praise and promote the marginalized and oppressed, and criticize and penalize the powerful.
I have to wonder why this is a bad thing?
To be a bit pedantic, the use of the words "praise and promote" is a bit... loaded, isn't it? This really seems like a simplification of civil rights movements. To be a bit more pedantic, "must" is a pretty strong word. Why "must" we praise the marginalized?
Surely by "celebrating" you mean with words and gesturing? Because in actual practice, the rich and powerful are as rich and powerful as ever, if not more so.
I don’t think the parent comment was trying to say that when the mentality pendulum swung after the US civil war era in the direction of the oppressed (as they claimed it did), suddenly the liberated former slaves became the ones in power of controlling politics/economy/etc.
That aside, yeah, you are correct, in the actual practice the rich and powerful are rich and powerful. The difference that the pendulum makes is about whether they are treated by the public as Fords and Rockefellers or as Musks and Thiels, which is just about the prevailing attitudes.
Re: the Musks and Thiels of this world, it probably doesn't help their public image that the modern world makes their bizarre opinions and outright arrogance more easily communicated. If Ford was arrogant or held freakish opinions, it was a little harder for the common man to find out. Now Musk can call a scuba diver a pedophile or spout conspiracy theories and this reaches tons of people almost immediately.
That makes quite a lot of things about the current time more difficult to comprehend using historical precedence. Because a lot of the fundamental things about living in our present time are exactly the same, yet unprecedented in significant ways. I guess the same could be said about almost any time period in history though.
Which is the opposite of the old american dream, focused on acting.
Historians will have a blast about this.
Going out into the world (literally to another continent in the pre-plane era) to solve your problems your own way is imo the opposite of victim mentality.
Victim mentality would be just complaining and seeing yourself as a victim or trying to use the victim status as a power move to make things go your way. Walking out of the situation and getting things done the way you want to elsewhere, despite it being dangerous and potentially deadly, ain’t a victim move at all tbh.
While not the only current in American history by any means, it's profoundly American, and you can draw a straight line of intellectual heritage from that core Puritan/Calivinst theology on through to Rauschenbach's Social Gospel theology and onto the modern secular Social Justice movement, spanning hundreds of years of American history.
The core tenet of postmodernism is that there is no objective truth, everything we see in the world is a societal/human construct. It's a pants-on-head extremist outloook that allows absolute insanity to parade as intelligence. It's reasonable to assume that there is at least some semblance of objective truth and argue about the degrees.
I find this to be a bizarre false dichotomy. Why not, for example, celebrate the virtuous instead? A society that valued kindness, bravery, temperance or whatever would seem a lot better than either of your options. I'm sure other people could think of plenty of other options as well.
Because it's hard to celebrate the intangibles, that is why virtue signaling gets the spotlight instead. But action and achievement are tangible and can be celebrated (if they're good for society).
This is not a "bizarre false dichotomy". This is a perfect example of dichotomy: do you celebrate actions or intent?
Depends. Which actions and which intent do you mean?
Is it a surprise that it's so popular today and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of every cause imaginable.
What examples come to mind that make this a clear message?
It is visceral, effective, compelling, and utterly destructive to civil society. But that's the point: To construct an us-and-them narrative to excuse any evils done to "them" in the name of righteousness. Radicalization operates on the same pattern that gave us the Crusades, that gives us jihad, and that still drives people to full-throated defense of political purges.
Defense of the individual, divorced from group dynamics, was the clear, shining achievement of classical liberalism. Personal rights, privileges, and equal treatment under the law regardless of which group you belonged to, or what your status in society is. Our school systems are vigorously working to pull that apart.
The big question is how low the upcoming trough needs to be for us to get the next peak we expect.
This feels like a false dychotomy. There are various possibilities, not just two. I'm not in favor of celebrating the powerful and successful as many of them turned out to be sociopaths. I prefer to celebrate people of science, who through their talent and hard work advance our civilization, including victims, the powerful, and all the rest of us.
False dichotomy.
We could celebrate people who exhibit some tenet of higher principles, people we find inspiring. That's often not the same as victimhood or success.
I wonder if overuse of false dichotomies is a subset of the passive aggression surge.
I'm not advocating for the "celebration" of victims, but rather to minimize victimization in society. I also would not advocate for celebrating the "powerful" (as that is essentially useless as evaluating whether someone is worthy of adulation).
I would celebrate the people who have the most benefit for society: those who are kind, compassionate, and make the people around them even more so.
Example please.
Or do you mean can't as in "the person is in a more powerful position in general"? Then I'll tell them directly but in a polite way. In the worst case we won't make business together.
Continental Europeans seems to show a greater directness.
That being said, passive-aggressiveness is also communicating something extra on top of the question at hand.
That's what makes it infuriating for me because now we're discussing two issues, the actual issue and your hidden interpersonal issue. Both are probably valid things to discuss but in clear way, not with constantly second guessing.
at workspace, it may mean saying "go away, I don't want to talk about your bs", but saying it directly is against rules.
:)
https://archive.ph/RdtTX
This could be many things. As the article says, it could be as simple as procrastination.
It could also be something more insidious, like Bob works late every evening, so Sally forgets to feed Bob's dog in the morning.
Passive: Uh, your code looks great! Aggressive: Your code is garbage! Assertive: Your code is broken. Passive-Aggressive: It's great that you think your garbage code is great!
I love how you can just wear anything.
Which is a subtle way to say your clothes are trash and I wouldn’t be caught dead with those even in the same room as me.
You’re slagging the listener while sounding like you’re giving a complement.
Where's the passive aggression? Later on, the article hints that before this played out, Aaron was annoyed at Jim. He intentionally spoiled the dinner (e.g disrespecting the effort Jim invested) by staying on the phone, but because he pretended to be unable to avoid the call it's passive — he can claim not to have spoiled it intentionally.
In contrast, it would be regular aggression if he'd thrown the pasta into the sink.
Examples from the past:
Andrew Jackson shot Charles Dickinson to death in a duel over an insult to his wife.
Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton to death in a duel.
Alexander the Great threw a javelin at his friend Cleitus the Black (who had saved his life) killing him during a drunken dispute at a banquet.
I much prefer the passive aggressive variety.
Passieve aggressiveness is a damocles sword.
The most common methods are employed by infants and children like volume and tone until the attack evolves past the material of the confrontation (ideas, actions, response) to the extensions of the person starting with identity (individual), reputation (community), and eventually societal (race, gender, occupation, legal, citizenship).
I would say based upon my understanding and history that once you attack the societal element of a reasonable person they will respond with violence - or their aggression will become not-passive.
Today, for a variety of reasons, I believe that identity has shifted from self to societal which is why there are some people that if you disagree with their personal choices will respond with violence. These people cannot be reasoned with nor have productive discussions about the topic without personal, reputation, or societal attacks.
A. Something there is no way to provably measure; B. a claim the article provides no data to prove has increased; C. and a potential "diagnostic" that says more about the person diagnosing the problem than anything else.
All of the articles broad claims are just … things being said.
That said, I don't really see passive aggressiveness as a problem. I mean, if people decide to be passive about their aggression, this gives me free pass to be passive about my disdain too.
In a culture that inverts those preferences, it's an acknowledgment of a new debt of reciprocity. "I recognize that you're negatively impacted and ask you let me make you whole again"
We're in a bit of a weird and untenable cultural moment right now, where we allow anyone to call themselves a victim and insist that some other admit to an internal feeling of contrition. When that contrition isn't sincerely felt, which is natural in many cases, that's when we end up with both the vacuous and passive agressive "sorry you feel that way" and the equally vacuous and performative public apology.
In a world where we focus more on exrtrinsic actions and reciprocity rather than making demands of each others internal state, both forms of vacuousness go away: people do step on each others feet now and then, as happens, but the stepper helps the stepped find their footing again and both move on with their lives.
For some people, the latter is implicit in the former, but for some people it's not and then it becomes very shallow.
Since nobody seems to have complete control over these seemingly internal states, and no reliable way to measure them in each other, you end up with this unresolvable performative dance where each party tries to control the other's subjective experience. And what shakes out of that is people inevitably calling each other insincere, insensitive, passive agressive, out-of-control, etc
Sometimes I’m just lazy…
I thought this alternative definition was interesting. In a society that is increasingly interdependent, doesn't that make this fear stronger than ever?
"Aaron could find some emotional relief because he caught sight of the anger and resentment he had so long been denying. Once he had this knowledge, the question of whether his anger was justified fell away; no longer bearing down on him in secret, its force simply faded."
So Aaron briefly realizes his own resentment and anger toward his musician husband's lifestyle. Then can't he be even more angry about it?
Aaron had some deep-down, partially-formed belief that he worked harder than his partner Jim, without even knowing it. That subconscious belief led him to be passively aggessive.
By acknowledging that belief and the associated anger, he can now look at the belief logically and solve it. Does Aaron truly believe that he is a harder worker than Jim, and is that a problem? If so, he should talk to Jim about taking on a side job or more chores, or maybe break up with him. If not, then he should consider what might be fueling that belief. For example, Jim might work his ass off practicing and performing and cooking good food, and perhaps Aaron could do more to appreciate that.
Disclosure, I guess maybe I'm more of the "openly hostile"/IDGAF camp like some of the other commenters have expressed, so I find it harder to imagine Aaron's position where they are not even in touch/aware with their inner feelings of anger and resentment about something. Then again the author says everyone is susceptible to being passive aggressive.
I think that the bigger problem is that passive-aggressive responses tend to bleed out into all sorts of other, unrelated situations. At least they do if they aren't talked about. It can be really difficult to discuss as a friend. It can be almost impossible in a work setting.
- It's not just that we celebrate victims more now. Our level of education now allows us to identify root causes better, meaning we realize that we are victims of our circumstances more than we did before.
It's sad that much of the discussion here is effectively excusing fascism. Another case where passive aggression is a perfectly valid and mature coping mechanism.
Also, I'd take issue with the phrase always being passive-aggression. Sure, in certain circumstances it can be used as a passive-aggressive move, but in a situation where you are using it to handle someone who is coming at you with a terrible manipulative sob-story to try to pull you into their fantasy world where you have to help them at every turn, then using this phrase is not passive-aggressive - it's just protecting yourself.
Other similar useful phrases are: "I'm sorry to hear that", "That's terrible", "Okay", "Right", "I see".