Ancestors

Toot

Written by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) on 2025-01-22 at 20:03

"Despair is a black leather jacket that everyone looks good in. Hope is a frilly, pink dress that exposes the knees." @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

[#]hope #hopepunk #solarpunk #fascism

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Descendants

Written by John Lusk on 2025-01-22 at 20:10

@susankayequinn

"Despair is a black leather jacket." [Rebecca Solnit, for those who aren't clicking through to context.]

Brilliant. Thanks.

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Written by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) on 2025-01-22 at 20:12

@tarheel From Rebecca Solnit, and I can't remember if it's from her book HOPE IN THE DARK, but that's very worth the read, regardless

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Written by Elliott on 2025-01-22 at 20:25

@susankayequinn love this!

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Written by JackieM on 2025-01-22 at 20:25

@susankayequinn

And Toni Morrison

β€œIt's a nice big fat philosophical question, about: how do you get through? Sometimes you don't survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It's not about that solution. It is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances. It's that, that makes it elegant. Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding.

1/

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Written by JackieM on 2025-01-22 at 20:26

@susankayequinn

Cont…

Evil is silly, it may be horrible, but at the same time it's not a compelling idea. It's predictable. It needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs blood, it needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybody's attention. But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance, those things are just more compelling intellectually if not spiritually, and they certainly are spiritually. This is a more fascinating job.

2/

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Written by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) on 2025-01-22 at 20:46

@Jackiemauro 100% πŸ’š

Is the second piece also part of the Morrison quote?

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Written by JackieM on 2025-01-22 at 20:49

@susankayequinn yes! Sorry should have made that more clear.

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Written by Leigh Silvester on 2025-01-22 at 21:13

@Jackiemauro @susankayequinn

While this is about fiction, luckily most people have had little close contact with violence and 'evil'.

It's not nice and most criminals are not the smartest people. Contrary to what books, TV and film like to portray, there is rarely any thought or planning.

In my role as a forensic scientist I would receive samples to analyse and all the case notes. Most of them made pitiful reading. Sad people in sad situations.

One still stays in my mind decades later. Barbaric

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Written by Leigh Silvester on 2025-01-22 at 21:21

@Jackiemauro @susankayequinn

Might be a tangent, however there was a series of Reith lectures about criminality evil presented from a prison. This includes contributions from some inmates.

By forensic psychiatrist Dr Gwen Adshead.

Fascinating and why I put 'evil' in quotes.

If you can access it I would recommend it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9/episodes/player

If anyone really wants them but can't access these can be downloaded

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Written by Joby :gts: (he/him) on 2025-01-22 at 20:54

@susankayequinn I have this theory of why evil keeps winning that feels related: I call it "the relentless assholes theory of human behavior"

Basically it boils down to the fact that being a reactionary asshole is simple and low-latency, so they always move first, and never run out of gas. In fact, if somebody is a reactionary asshole, the more tired and beaten down they get the better they become at making reactionary asshole maneuvers.

Meanwhile, being thoughtful and kind and proposing good courses of action that are well-reasoned and strategic takes more time and energy. People doing that kind of work get tired and burn out and can't keep up with the endless torrent of bullshit that reactionary assholes can effortlessly summon.

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Written by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) on 2025-01-22 at 20:57

@joby I like your theory but I think it has to be understood in the context of the social system in which the assholes and the thoughtful people exist. If the system is self-reinforcing of good and punishing of assholishness, then it will quickly reverse the energy calculation.

To some extent, we have pockets of this called "friends" & "family" where the asshole behavior will usually (but not always) cost you a LOT. It's easier to be "nice" and cooperative (which can have its own problems too)

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Written by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) on 2025-01-22 at 20:58

@joby in the larger world of neoliberalism and capitalism, assholishness gets endlessly rewarded (but mainly if you're a straight white male, try being an asshole black man or woman of any color and see how far that gets you)

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Written by Jeff on 2025-01-22 at 21:23

@joby @susankayequinn

This makes me think of Spaceballs where the villain declared "Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb!"

In a way, I feel like that's right. The givers have a limit to how much they can give, but the takers have no such limit. The good people don't want to inflict harm even on those who would harm them.

Being good does have rewards that might be uncharitably described as smug self-satisfaction, but it is an internal feeling that feeds itself, rather than needing to be continually fed from the outside; and as noted, that feeding comes easier to some privileged groups than others.

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Written by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) on 2025-01-22 at 21:40

@evilotto @joby

this idea that good's only reward is smug self-satisfaction is such a corruption of what humans have been really good at recognizing literally through all of our history: we gotta stick together to survive, cooperation is our primary skill, living a "good" life is the route to longer, fuller, happier lives. Why do you think we have whole religions who purport to have a laundry list of how to achieve it? The "afterlife" is only one aspect and a fairly recent one...

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Written by Jeff on 2025-01-22 at 21:53

@susankayequinn @joby

You're completely right; I did not mean to say that it is only about self-satisfaction or bragging about how much better you are than others; that is indeed a corruption of the whole idea.

Living a fuller, happier life is the reward. Or being good is it's own reward.

What's more, good people generally don't turn on each other, while evil ones seem to invariably do so.

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Written by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) on 2025-01-22 at 21:42

@evilotto @joby

To understand the fundamental truth of this, just look to the basic unit of society: the family. When we have a family unit based on what you describe "the only reward to being good is smug self-satisfaction" we recognize that those families are horribly abusive and broken

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Written by Susan Kaye Quinn 🌱(she/her) on 2025-01-22 at 21:43

@evilotto @joby

It's also ironic that you quote Spaceballs because that entire movie was about how evil is tremendously dumb

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Written by JW Prince of CPH, Radicalized on 2025-01-22 at 21:31

@susankayequinn In a world of cruelty kindness is punk.

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