I think that the "left" (in general) is stuck in the external locus of control spot, where they think things just happen to them, and it has a lot to do with not taking personal responsibility. I don't know which came first, the not wanting to take responsibility for things or thinking that the world affects them so much that nothing they do could matter.
But when you have an external locus of control you feel absolutely powerless, like you're a leaf in the wind of life. As a young lady growing up, hearing the idea that women are marginalized, it just never rang true to me. The men I met always were uplifting, and many of those males I met were teachers from the STEM subjects. But I grew up in a more rural location before this Diversity stuff seemed be integrated everywhere.
The key to feeling truly powerful is taking personal responsibility with an internal locus of control. Anyone who says anything different than that is either ignorant, lying, or trying to keep a slave. I do think there's an unconscious desire in the democrat party to keep people down and from succeeding because if the supposed marginalized people succeeded, then the democratic party couldn't play the savior and keep their jobs in the political sphere. Democrats are always dangling a carrot in front of people claiming to be their only way to salvation.
Nov 20, 2022·edited Nov 20, 2022Liked by Holly MathNerd
Insightful and well-written. Your expression of your own history re "woke-ism" helps to (slightly?) soften my views toward its adherents. While I hold deeper animosity than I think is healthy toward those I believe knowingly propagate these distortions for their own gain, I haven't had very much empathy for the rank-and-file embracers of victimhood.
I certainly remember the idealistic mindset of adolescence, as well as the basic disposition that the older generation was entrenched in a "primitive" mechanistic mindset that caused the social problems that existed then. It seemed all too obvious that they were blind to the advanced insights that we were enlightened with. Yet, somehow there was a latent sense of personal responsibility for my life that emerged more and more as I experienced the ramifications of living out my desire to be independent. And as years passed, and life-experience broadened, my empathy with the generations that went ahead of mine has pretty much reached symbiosis.
However, I somehow have serious doubts about such maturation developing among the current young adults embracing woke-ism. I have observed certain generational differences in the parenting motifs, such as the idolization of children, parental hovering to protect kids from any negative or unpleasant experiences possible, propagation of "positive self-image" to the extent that there can be no losers, and so on, that seem to have cultivated a seriously flawed orientation to life. My caricature of the young progressives today is one of being enraged that they haven't been getting life-participation trophies for getting up every morning, and that is utterly incompatible with their innermost archetype of what life is supposed to be. And their conclusion is that the older generations greedily stacked the deck so that they could gobble up all the trophies, so now there aren't any left for them.
I will try to remember your story in hopes that it may take a little of the edge off of my (cynical?) perspective - or, at least, broaden it a little.
Thanks for a splendid essay, Holly. I know that your current professional path rests in STEM, but you're a brilliant writer, and I hope you continue to share your incisive, thoughtful essays. You're ferociously intelligent and personally and intellectually heroic, and I'm always keen to know what you think about the issues of the day.
I think that the "left" (in general) is stuck in the external locus of control spot, where they think things just happen to them, and it has a lot to do with not taking personal responsibility. I don't know which came first, the not wanting to take responsibility for things or thinking that the world affects them so much that nothing they do could matter.
But when you have an external locus of control you feel absolutely powerless, like you're a leaf in the wind of life. As a young lady growing up, hearing the idea that women are marginalized, it just never rang true to me. The men I met always were uplifting, and many of those males I met were teachers from the STEM subjects. But I grew up in a more rural location before this Diversity stuff seemed be integrated everywhere.
The key to feeling truly powerful is taking personal responsibility with an internal locus of control. Anyone who says anything different than that is either ignorant, lying, or trying to keep a slave. I do think there's an unconscious desire in the democrat party to keep people down and from succeeding because if the supposed marginalized people succeeded, then the democratic party couldn't play the savior and keep their jobs in the political sphere. Democrats are always dangling a carrot in front of people claiming to be their only way to salvation.
Insightful and well-written. Your expression of your own history re "woke-ism" helps to (slightly?) soften my views toward its adherents. While I hold deeper animosity than I think is healthy toward those I believe knowingly propagate these distortions for their own gain, I haven't had very much empathy for the rank-and-file embracers of victimhood.
I certainly remember the idealistic mindset of adolescence, as well as the basic disposition that the older generation was entrenched in a "primitive" mechanistic mindset that caused the social problems that existed then. It seemed all too obvious that they were blind to the advanced insights that we were enlightened with. Yet, somehow there was a latent sense of personal responsibility for my life that emerged more and more as I experienced the ramifications of living out my desire to be independent. And as years passed, and life-experience broadened, my empathy with the generations that went ahead of mine has pretty much reached symbiosis.
However, I somehow have serious doubts about such maturation developing among the current young adults embracing woke-ism. I have observed certain generational differences in the parenting motifs, such as the idolization of children, parental hovering to protect kids from any negative or unpleasant experiences possible, propagation of "positive self-image" to the extent that there can be no losers, and so on, that seem to have cultivated a seriously flawed orientation to life. My caricature of the young progressives today is one of being enraged that they haven't been getting life-participation trophies for getting up every morning, and that is utterly incompatible with their innermost archetype of what life is supposed to be. And their conclusion is that the older generations greedily stacked the deck so that they could gobble up all the trophies, so now there aren't any left for them.
I will try to remember your story in hopes that it may take a little of the edge off of my (cynical?) perspective - or, at least, broaden it a little.
Thanks for a splendid essay, Holly. I know that your current professional path rests in STEM, but you're a brilliant writer, and I hope you continue to share your incisive, thoughtful essays. You're ferociously intelligent and personally and intellectually heroic, and I'm always keen to know what you think about the issues of the day.