The Politics of Depression
January 24, 2024 11:37 AM Subscribe
Why Are Young Liberals So Depressed? Because they have reason to be would be the first answer. But there's perhaps more to think about. "Some of it might be selection effect, with progressive politics becoming a more congenial home for people who are miserable. But I think some of it is poor behavior by adult progressives, many of whom now valorize depressive affect as a sign of political commitment. The thing about depression, though, is that it’s bad. Separate from the Smith/Levitz project of arguing about recent political trends, I think we need some kind of society-level cognitive behavioral therapy to convince people that whatever it is they are worried about, depression is not the answer. Because it never is."
I do think that social media does tend to promote posts that are more extreme politically, and I feel there is a very strong liberal tendency to focus on the ways that our (high-level) politicians are failing us and downplay all of the ways in which they are working for us. I think this can encourage a level of political hopelessness, never mind the ways in which young liberal women are seeing their rights being eroded quite actively by governments in multiple states.
Young people are getting their news from social media, and that news is being filtered through the people who are motivated to post things and who are capable of creating content that people will look at and share. And there is very little that gives productive methods to improve things (and improving things politically is definitely a long game, starting with things like "work in local elections, participate in your local DNC" for liberals), so there is a concentration of doom and gloom and "we'll never be able to vote for someone who stands for our ideals".
Escaping your environment where it harms you can be a lot of work, and I can't think of anyone who could effectively teach young people how to do this.
posted by that girl at 11:57 AM on January 24 [8 favorites]
Young people are getting their news from social media, and that news is being filtered through the people who are motivated to post things and who are capable of creating content that people will look at and share. And there is very little that gives productive methods to improve things (and improving things politically is definitely a long game, starting with things like "work in local elections, participate in your local DNC" for liberals), so there is a concentration of doom and gloom and "we'll never be able to vote for someone who stands for our ideals".
Escaping your environment where it harms you can be a lot of work, and I can't think of anyone who could effectively teach young people how to do this.
posted by that girl at 11:57 AM on January 24 [8 favorites]
Oh, the TFA is by Matthew Yglesias and is on his Substack, so if you, like me, are boycotting that Nazi-supporting platform, don't click.
posted by smirkette at 11:58 AM on January 24 [66 favorites]
posted by smirkette at 11:58 AM on January 24 [66 favorites]
Yglesias' thesis here is total neo-liberal individualism bootstrapping BS. As a progressive adult and academic, I can promise you no one is "valorizing" depression and encouraging young people to lick their wounds and feel sorry for themselves. Instead we're frantically trying to apologize to young people for the predictable outcome that decades of social/political/economic/environmental neglect and government-backed abuse has wrought on anyone who is not White, cis gender, male, and rich. And we're begging young people not to give up completely (via suicide, nihilism, and/or joining the far-right) but instead to try to stay engaged in progressive politics and the fight for a better and more just society.
posted by sleepingwithcats at 12:00 PM on January 24 [71 favorites]
posted by sleepingwithcats at 12:00 PM on January 24 [71 favorites]
Pretty sure it’s the world ending and nobody doing anything about it.
posted by Artw at 12:02 PM on January 24 [68 favorites]
posted by Artw at 12:02 PM on January 24 [68 favorites]
According to TFA, (Which in addition to being written by a wanker, is partially cut off by a subscription or something) liberals won the Iraq war! Yay? I'm so confused by this rambling mess.
posted by Jacen at 12:13 PM on January 24 [12 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 12:13 PM on January 24 [12 favorites]
"Why are young people depressed?" ponders the man who supposedly has the ear of the President's advisors yet (among a host of other assholery) joined a thinly-disguised transphobic harassment campaign and still promotes dangerous transphobes, and called for Trump to crack protesters' skulls on Pennsylvania Ave during the 2020 protests?
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 12:18 PM on January 24 [28 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 12:18 PM on January 24 [28 favorites]
and here I was only coming in to complain that the progressive academy _is studying_ the effects of violent crime on marginalized communities, and it's coming from some great Black scholars, ya dingbat...
posted by advicepig at 12:18 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
posted by advicepig at 12:18 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
Trump to crack protesters' skulls on Pennsylvania Ave during the 2020 protests
don't doubt this but need the citation so I can add it to my list
posted by kensington314 at 12:20 PM on January 24 [6 favorites]
don't doubt this but need the citation so I can add it to my list
posted by kensington314 at 12:20 PM on January 24 [6 favorites]
Once again, it (doesn't matter what!) is the fault of the left. I'm glad Mister Bothsides, writing on the Nazi platform, shared this wisdom with us.
posted by riotnrrd at 12:23 PM on January 24 [22 favorites]
posted by riotnrrd at 12:23 PM on January 24 [22 favorites]
I think the thing that kills me about Matt Yglesias is the extreme coddled-through-life aspect. Rich prep school kid becomes elite college student becomes blogger becomes VC-funded startup guy becomes, to everyone's surprise, someone whose life project is to . . . defend the status quo that gave him his perfect life trajectory? With a dash of the reactionary and the counterintuitive so that it looks deceptively thinky? Anyway. Tale as old as time, his entire industry is built on this, but you hate to see it.
posted by kensington314 at 12:27 PM on January 24 [36 favorites]
posted by kensington314 at 12:27 PM on January 24 [36 favorites]
"Depression is not the answer" is, well, a horrible take. Depression is a symptom. Nobody goes "I'll just start being depressed because that will make things better." Depression is a thing that *happens* to someone. Whether they want it to or not.
This is a bit of misconstruing, I think, specifically in light of the start of that same paragraph (tho I agree that Yglesias didn’t do himself any favors with his phrasing):
But I think some of it is poor behavior by adult progressives, many of whom now valorize depressive affect as a sign of political commitment.
The column as a whole appears to be a plea to stop catastrophizing and to stop treating the “We are all this is fine dog” self presentation as bad. I can’t read the whole thing (paywall), but it does appear to venture into a bit of wilder territory about the language of harm that I’m not sure I buy into.
Hating on the extreme performative apocalypticism of progressives is pretty well-trodden ground, and either you’re for it or against it. Me, I bathe in it and love it, get really sick and mad about it, tune out, and then rinse and repeat. Is adults doing the “everything sucks” dance instead of the “solidarity in the face of despair” dance good for the kids? Probably not, but lots of things are bad for the kids.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:28 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
This is a bit of misconstruing, I think, specifically in light of the start of that same paragraph (tho I agree that Yglesias didn’t do himself any favors with his phrasing):
But I think some of it is poor behavior by adult progressives, many of whom now valorize depressive affect as a sign of political commitment.
The column as a whole appears to be a plea to stop catastrophizing and to stop treating the “We are all this is fine dog” self presentation as bad. I can’t read the whole thing (paywall), but it does appear to venture into a bit of wilder territory about the language of harm that I’m not sure I buy into.
Hating on the extreme performative apocalypticism of progressives is pretty well-trodden ground, and either you’re for it or against it. Me, I bathe in it and love it, get really sick and mad about it, tune out, and then rinse and repeat. Is adults doing the “everything sucks” dance instead of the “solidarity in the face of despair” dance good for the kids? Probably not, but lots of things are bad for the kids.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:28 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
This feels like the essay-length equivalent of a guy saying "why don't you smile?" to a woman on the street? If looming fascism and the collapse of the biosphere aren't harshing his mellow, I'm not sure what say - it really is possible that the average conservative feels better because egotism and delusion do feel pretty good.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:29 PM on January 24 [46 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 12:29 PM on January 24 [46 favorites]
without having read TFA I have been thinking that exposing pro-social people to a constant firehose of everyone's individual and collective misery all the time (the Internet) is kinda leading to a memetic zeitgeist kinda thing that like, yeah it includes feeling guilty for having a nice time while people are suffering, but I think it actually goes further than that
like I don't think anyone consciously chooses to do this but actively being miserable is a thing you can do that feels pro-social when you're surrounded by people who are having a real shit time and you don't feel like there's anything real you can do to help them
then you throw in the chilling effect from the more toxic types of People on the Internet giving people shit for posting about banal neutral or positive stuff instead of adding to the mass psychic scream
only takes a couple people doing this before everyone goes "Yeesh with everything going on in the world I am just gonna not post this cute latte art picture or people are gonna think I'm not Solidarity," then you get fewer and fewer regular reminders that there is still anything good or normal in the world, and the whole internet turns into one giant throbbing emotional pain nerve you cannot allow yourself not to throb along with or you're a Bad Person Who Doesn't Care
not even mentioning all the impending future suffering that's gonna impact other people but also probably actually you, that's another thing to feel bad about
anyway just pulling this out of my ass here but my take is like OF COURSE people are depressed, FUCK
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:30 PM on January 24 [45 favorites]
like I don't think anyone consciously chooses to do this but actively being miserable is a thing you can do that feels pro-social when you're surrounded by people who are having a real shit time and you don't feel like there's anything real you can do to help them
then you throw in the chilling effect from the more toxic types of People on the Internet giving people shit for posting about banal neutral or positive stuff instead of adding to the mass psychic scream
only takes a couple people doing this before everyone goes "Yeesh with everything going on in the world I am just gonna not post this cute latte art picture or people are gonna think I'm not Solidarity," then you get fewer and fewer regular reminders that there is still anything good or normal in the world, and the whole internet turns into one giant throbbing emotional pain nerve you cannot allow yourself not to throb along with or you're a Bad Person Who Doesn't Care
not even mentioning all the impending future suffering that's gonna impact other people but also probably actually you, that's another thing to feel bad about
anyway just pulling this out of my ass here but my take is like OF COURSE people are depressed, FUCK
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:30 PM on January 24 [45 favorites]
it really is possible that the average conservative feels better because egotism and delusion do feel pretty good
this made me wonder if the biggest reason to be right-wing right now is you don't have to worry about shit like climate change or COVID 'cause it just doesn't exist, but then I remembered you also have to be in a frothing rage about the dumbest bullshit 100% of the time... that's probably the high they're addicted to huh
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:35 PM on January 24 [23 favorites]
this made me wonder if the biggest reason to be right-wing right now is you don't have to worry about shit like climate change or COVID 'cause it just doesn't exist, but then I remembered you also have to be in a frothing rage about the dumbest bullshit 100% of the time... that's probably the high they're addicted to huh
posted by taquito sunrise at 12:35 PM on January 24 [23 favorites]
like I don't think anyone consciously chooses to do this but actively being miserable is a thing you can do that feels pro-social when you're surrounded by people who are having a real shit time and you don't feel like there's anything real you can do to help them
This but people 100% deffo also choose to do this in some situations, like adopting a conversational style at a cocktail party. You could choose to present differently, but that would take conscious work.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:42 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
This but people 100% deffo also choose to do this in some situations, like adopting a conversational style at a cocktail party. You could choose to present differently, but that would take conscious work.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:42 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
I’d like to see some data on depression in young liberals compared to depression in adult liberals, did I miss that?
posted by bq at 12:47 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
posted by bq at 12:47 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I blocked Matty Y. a long time ago, along with Nate Silver.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:49 PM on January 24 [9 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:49 PM on January 24 [9 favorites]
I am once again going to link to the Republican half of a joint Senate committee on Deaths of Despair with the graph that really spells out how bad things are.
"Why is everyone so depressed?". You're a fucking journalist Matt. That's a question with a million goddamn surface level answers and a few core answers: This era of the Precariat sucks, there's little to no momentum changing things for the better, and the talking heads won't even acknowledge how much this era sucks because Number Go Up On TeeVee.
posted by Slackermagee at 12:53 PM on January 24 [23 favorites]
"Why is everyone so depressed?". You're a fucking journalist Matt. That's a question with a million goddamn surface level answers and a few core answers: This era of the Precariat sucks, there's little to no momentum changing things for the better, and the talking heads won't even acknowledge how much this era sucks because Number Go Up On TeeVee.
posted by Slackermagee at 12:53 PM on January 24 [23 favorites]
Yes, performative and actual misery are both bad things, and they are bad things to choose, and they are bad things to love, and they are bad things for adults to foist onto children and teens in the interest of anything at all. There's always chaos, decline, and terror, but there's also always sunshine, and the wonder of nature, and planting flowers in order to see them tomorrow. If you seek misery, be sure that you'll always find it.
(I could say something about the specifics of that article, like criticize his use of the language of mental illness to his handwaving ongoing real world catastrophes, but that already seems to be covered.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:56 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
(I could say something about the specifics of that article, like criticize his use of the language of mental illness to his handwaving ongoing real world catastrophes, but that already seems to be covered.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:56 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
Mod note: Several comments deleted. It's okay to talk in strongly critical terms about people, but name calling goes against our Content Policy
posted by loup (staff) at 1:02 PM on January 24
posted by loup (staff) at 1:02 PM on January 24
I said what I said.
Matt Ys entire worthless career consists of repeatedly catastrophizing about the existence of trans people or people not being nice enough to Nazis, so he has some cheek here with this.
posted by Artw at 1:47 PM on January 24 [23 favorites]
Matt Ys entire worthless career consists of repeatedly catastrophizing about the existence of trans people or people not being nice enough to Nazis, so he has some cheek here with this.
posted by Artw at 1:47 PM on January 24 [23 favorites]
Oh, the TFA is by Matthew Yglesias and is on his Substack, so if you, like me, are boycotting that Nazi-supporting platform, don't click.
the T in TFA stands for 'the'
posted by Sebmojo at 2:20 PM on January 24 [10 favorites]
the T in TFA stands for 'the'
posted by Sebmojo at 2:20 PM on January 24 [10 favorites]
I think empathy is one of the core traits that leads people to hold progressive views. If other people’s suffering matters to you, and there’s a lot of it (and you live in an era when it’s easy to be exposed to more of it than ever before) it’s not a surprising outcome.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:23 PM on January 24 [16 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:23 PM on January 24 [16 favorites]
then you throw in the chilling effect from the more toxic types of People on the Internet giving people shit for posting about banal neutral or positive stuff instead of adding to the mass psychic scream
or for even clicking a link
posted by Sebmojo at 2:23 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
or for even clicking a link
posted by Sebmojo at 2:23 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
It's hard to see the world as it is with an optimism bias, it's hard to face it without one.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 2:25 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 2:25 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
... progressive politics becoming a more congenial home for people who are miserable.
I got stuck on these words. The implication that progressive politics was once inhospitable to miserable people just boggles my mind.
posted by tommasz at 2:30 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
I got stuck on these words. The implication that progressive politics was once inhospitable to miserable people just boggles my mind.
posted by tommasz at 2:30 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
In the interest of making sure substack doesn't get a click, here is a link to the archive version. Amusingly enough, I am going to leave it at that and not contribute to the discussion as part of my effort to portion control my media intake for mental health reasons.
posted by Hactar at 3:16 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
posted by Hactar at 3:16 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
this article reminded me to delete my substack account so, like, not all bad.
posted by gorestainedrunes at 3:31 PM on January 24 [11 favorites]
posted by gorestainedrunes at 3:31 PM on January 24 [11 favorites]
Maybe articles about mental health by dudes who's qualifications are coming from a rich family and bloviating on the internet for 20 years should not be treated as noteworthy contributions to the field.
Fuck him and fuck his publishers especially. A roll call of shame.
posted by StarkRoads at 3:34 PM on January 24 [12 favorites]
Fuck him and fuck his publishers especially. A roll call of shame.
posted by StarkRoads at 3:34 PM on January 24 [12 favorites]
Apology for my comment's typo, but no apology for wanting to prevent Nazi sympathizers from making money.
posted by smirkette at 3:41 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
posted by smirkette at 3:41 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
like I don't think anyone consciously chooses to do this but actively being miserable is a thing you can do that feels pro-social when you're surrounded by people who are having a real shit time and you don't feel like there's anything real you can do to help them
Yeah, okay hi I am a Certified Depressive, for what that's worth, and I think there is something to this piece, specifically, in that while I am actually, no shit, for real depressed literally every day, the time I do not feel depressed is when I am actively working and doing real things to make the world better. Like, when I am helping get someone out of jail or even making soup and delivering it to people who want soup, I don't feel depressed. Even if I don't succeed at the big stuff, I don't feel depressed, because I am doing real tangible work to help real people. It's when I get home and I'm *not* doing that real work that I collapse onto my bed and my room becomes a subset of hell and I don't move for five hours and I think about how terrible everything is.
And I think that sometimes, when being a progressive or a liberal, there's a sense that doing the stuff like making soup and bringing it to each other, or what some of us on the left call 'mutual aid', isn't the real work, or isn't big enough, and everybody has to be doing Big Policy Work, because that's what's going to Change Everything. But I think that that stuff misses the depression-interrupting effects of doing the small tangible real stuff. And so people wind up just kind of being miserable all day, instead of only for about a third of it.
And that's different than saying you can bootstrap yourself out of depression. You can't. I'm still a depressive. I'll probably be a depressive all my life. But I can do some things that I know mean less hours of feeling shitty about myself, which make my experience and the experience of others better, and I think that's a good idea for both myself and others. I don't know if that's what the article is talking about because I refuse to read that asshole. But I do think that is real.
posted by corb at 3:59 PM on January 24 [46 favorites]
Yeah, okay hi I am a Certified Depressive, for what that's worth, and I think there is something to this piece, specifically, in that while I am actually, no shit, for real depressed literally every day, the time I do not feel depressed is when I am actively working and doing real things to make the world better. Like, when I am helping get someone out of jail or even making soup and delivering it to people who want soup, I don't feel depressed. Even if I don't succeed at the big stuff, I don't feel depressed, because I am doing real tangible work to help real people. It's when I get home and I'm *not* doing that real work that I collapse onto my bed and my room becomes a subset of hell and I don't move for five hours and I think about how terrible everything is.
And I think that sometimes, when being a progressive or a liberal, there's a sense that doing the stuff like making soup and bringing it to each other, or what some of us on the left call 'mutual aid', isn't the real work, or isn't big enough, and everybody has to be doing Big Policy Work, because that's what's going to Change Everything. But I think that that stuff misses the depression-interrupting effects of doing the small tangible real stuff. And so people wind up just kind of being miserable all day, instead of only for about a third of it.
And that's different than saying you can bootstrap yourself out of depression. You can't. I'm still a depressive. I'll probably be a depressive all my life. But I can do some things that I know mean less hours of feeling shitty about myself, which make my experience and the experience of others better, and I think that's a good idea for both myself and others. I don't know if that's what the article is talking about because I refuse to read that asshole. But I do think that is real.
posted by corb at 3:59 PM on January 24 [46 favorites]
And that's different than saying you can bootstrap yourself out of depression. You can't. I'm still a depressive.
I'm also a depressive (real real bad brain day yesterday actually so I took an Adderall at 10 PM & am still up ill-advisedly posting here & doing hypomanic shit, so apologies in advance) and if it sounded like I was saying you could do this I didn't mean to?
I mean like this is a thing on TOP of any other depression, like I was talking to a friend of mine who's been deep in the hole for years since losing her son & her chronic pain is getting worse & she said whenever she starts having a moment of joy taking pictures of flowers or whatever her brain is immediately like "you should not feel happy right now because Palestine" and she crashes again
my bad for not communicating this well enough in the previous post but yeah I categorically don't think the internet causes clinical depression, I think it exacerbates it & makes people who are not clinically depressed completely reasonably bummed out, so, sorry about that
posted by taquito sunrise at 4:16 PM on January 24 [10 favorites]
I'm also a depressive (real real bad brain day yesterday actually so I took an Adderall at 10 PM & am still up ill-advisedly posting here & doing hypomanic shit, so apologies in advance) and if it sounded like I was saying you could do this I didn't mean to?
I mean like this is a thing on TOP of any other depression, like I was talking to a friend of mine who's been deep in the hole for years since losing her son & her chronic pain is getting worse & she said whenever she starts having a moment of joy taking pictures of flowers or whatever her brain is immediately like "you should not feel happy right now because Palestine" and she crashes again
my bad for not communicating this well enough in the previous post but yeah I categorically don't think the internet causes clinical depression, I think it exacerbates it & makes people who are not clinically depressed completely reasonably bummed out, so, sorry about that
posted by taquito sunrise at 4:16 PM on January 24 [10 favorites]
A more succinct version of the article
posted by Going To Maine at 4:25 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 4:25 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
The TFA would be the “unlicensed medical advice from someone acting like they are a THERAPIST but they are FUCKING not and yet again they are placing anyone idiotic enough to take them seriously at risk with this ARTICLE” article.
There’s no actual medical advice in the article, I don’t think, beyond Yglesias mentioning some stuff he learned from practicing CBT. Maybe that’s in the part below the paywall? Certainly there’s nothing in it that seems like it would be placing someone “at risk”.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:36 PM on January 24
There’s no actual medical advice in the article, I don’t think, beyond Yglesias mentioning some stuff he learned from practicing CBT. Maybe that’s in the part below the paywall? Certainly there’s nothing in it that seems like it would be placing someone “at risk”.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:36 PM on January 24
I think there is a pressure on progressive social media for affective solidarity as well as, or even, effectively, in place of, political solidarity, and it is extremely misguided. You want your friends and loved ones, your therapist, your faith leader/community if you have one, to share and validate your feelings of suffering. You want your political allies to work on your shared goals to alleviate the conditions that give rise to that suffering. Even the hardiest soul cannot spend their days empathizing with you and millions of other strangers while still being able to get out of bed.
For example, I saw a person with a marginalized identity extremely upset at people on social media because they wanted people not marginalized on that axis to sit down and actually watch and listen to a speech by a politician announcing policy aims very harmful to people marginalized in that way. The watching and listening was very important to them; it was not enough just to learn of the contents of the speech. They were frightened and angered by the speech, very understandably; but they wanted all of leftist America to spend their time in a symbolic holding of their hand through the experience of seeing this speech, where many leftists would say that there is no benefit to spending time immersing themselves in this politician's horrible rhetoric and loathsome personal affect, and indeed drawbacks for some (I deliberately refuse to watch or listen to certain politicians even though I follow their politics because I find their manner so upsetting). I didn't want to pick on this person--they were right to be upset about the speech--but I did want to tell them that what they need is not me, a stranger, burning resources to symbolically hold their hand, what they need is me, a stranger, continuing to work politically against the marginalization this person is experiencing.
Anyway, I think if you're not hard-headed or experienced enough to know that you need to manage your emotional resources wisely in political engagement just as you do all your other resources, you can get sucked into a lot of misery-sharing. It does not improve one's state of mind.
(And even on here I sometimes have to eject from a thread because the doomerism accomplishes nothing except stoking despair...)
In conclusion: Matt Y still sucks.
posted by praemunire at 4:41 PM on January 24 [7 favorites]
For example, I saw a person with a marginalized identity extremely upset at people on social media because they wanted people not marginalized on that axis to sit down and actually watch and listen to a speech by a politician announcing policy aims very harmful to people marginalized in that way. The watching and listening was very important to them; it was not enough just to learn of the contents of the speech. They were frightened and angered by the speech, very understandably; but they wanted all of leftist America to spend their time in a symbolic holding of their hand through the experience of seeing this speech, where many leftists would say that there is no benefit to spending time immersing themselves in this politician's horrible rhetoric and loathsome personal affect, and indeed drawbacks for some (I deliberately refuse to watch or listen to certain politicians even though I follow their politics because I find their manner so upsetting). I didn't want to pick on this person--they were right to be upset about the speech--but I did want to tell them that what they need is not me, a stranger, burning resources to symbolically hold their hand, what they need is me, a stranger, continuing to work politically against the marginalization this person is experiencing.
Anyway, I think if you're not hard-headed or experienced enough to know that you need to manage your emotional resources wisely in political engagement just as you do all your other resources, you can get sucked into a lot of misery-sharing. It does not improve one's state of mind.
(And even on here I sometimes have to eject from a thread because the doomerism accomplishes nothing except stoking despair...)
In conclusion: Matt Y still sucks.
posted by praemunire at 4:41 PM on January 24 [7 favorites]
Or, to put it more succinctly, "To make injustice the only/
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil."
posted by praemunire at 4:42 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil."
posted by praemunire at 4:42 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
I thibk there might be a bit of a nod to KOSA in the mention of social media. Needless to say it fucking sucks and it’s harmful to trans people so MattY is going to be all over it.
posted by Artw at 4:56 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 4:56 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
Depressing outlook/gloomerism will kill progressive politics every time. And frankly, I think it's comforting for many to share the gloom. Which I also think is a kind of gross pathology, but hinders actual progress. Self sabotage? Maybe. The sad thing is that focusing on the gloom is so self reinforcing and clouds out both actual progress that has been accomplished, and that which is well under way. Both on a personal level, and on the whole.
I think there's a matching dynamic on the conservative side that plays out differently. MAGAs are plenty miserable. They think the world is going to hell. But over and over, they turn out to have little reason to complain much, and have often done quite well for themselves. The guy with a million dollar home, a couple cars, and a boat feels everything's gone to shit and is willing to burn it all down, even though he's looking forward to his retirement. People just like this asshole.
I do think this is a serious problem for progressive politics, and I don't think those in the throes of it are capable of helping themselves. It induces a kind of political catatonia, where people, at best, are enamored with the process and show more than the result. It's obvious to outsiders, and that's why progressives are so often dismissed as unserious. I've often though it was something one displays for group cohesion and solidarity. But the danger is when the show becomes your reality, when you convince yourself.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:52 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
I think there's a matching dynamic on the conservative side that plays out differently. MAGAs are plenty miserable. They think the world is going to hell. But over and over, they turn out to have little reason to complain much, and have often done quite well for themselves. The guy with a million dollar home, a couple cars, and a boat feels everything's gone to shit and is willing to burn it all down, even though he's looking forward to his retirement. People just like this asshole.
I do think this is a serious problem for progressive politics, and I don't think those in the throes of it are capable of helping themselves. It induces a kind of political catatonia, where people, at best, are enamored with the process and show more than the result. It's obvious to outsiders, and that's why progressives are so often dismissed as unserious. I've often though it was something one displays for group cohesion and solidarity. But the danger is when the show becomes your reality, when you convince yourself.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:52 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
Being despondent about the state of the world is what got me involved in progressive organizing—in 2003. Anyone who wasn’t gloomy during the Bush years wasn’t paying much attention.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 10:56 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 10:56 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
Thank you, corb, for the things you do. These are the sorts of actions I urge on folk when I hear they won't or can't vote. I think this sort of direct involvement is more powerful than electoral politics.
Hearing about it is a little ray of sunshine in an otherwise grey void of ghost world
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 1:49 AM on January 25 [6 favorites]
Hearing about it is a little ray of sunshine in an otherwise grey void of ghost world
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 1:49 AM on January 25 [6 favorites]
New civil war just kicked off, clearly progressive kids weren’t smiling hard enough.
posted by Artw at 4:49 AM on January 25 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 4:49 AM on January 25 [4 favorites]
For those still reading this thread, I give you "Self-Compassion and Burnout in Socially Progressive Student Activists: Hope and Hopelessness as Mediators" and "Joy in Black organizing and activist culture is not ‘unprofessional’" and "Exploring Climate Joy in Activism" to do with as you will. Self-compassion looks different for different people, of course, so far be it from me to harsh anyone's favorite coping strategies. (For me, self-compassion is removing this thread from my "Recent Activity," and I wish y'all long days and pleasant nights.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:30 AM on January 25 [8 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:30 AM on January 25 [8 favorites]
He could have written this, but he never would:
"Some of it might be selection effect, with right wing politics becoming a more congenial home for people who are filled with rage. But I think some of it is poor behavior by adult conservatives, many of whom now valorize rage-filled affect as a sign of political commitment. The thing about rage, though, is that it’s bad. Separate from the Smith/Levitz project of arguing about recent political trends, I think we need some kind of society-level cognitive behavioral therapy to convince people that whatever it is they are worried about, rage is not the answer. Because it never is."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:00 AM on January 25 [8 favorites]
"Some of it might be selection effect, with right wing politics becoming a more congenial home for people who are filled with rage. But I think some of it is poor behavior by adult conservatives, many of whom now valorize rage-filled affect as a sign of political commitment. The thing about rage, though, is that it’s bad. Separate from the Smith/Levitz project of arguing about recent political trends, I think we need some kind of society-level cognitive behavioral therapy to convince people that whatever it is they are worried about, rage is not the answer. Because it never is."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:00 AM on January 25 [8 favorites]
Of course it's depressing to be a young Ardent Progressive.
You've not yet sorted out that older Ardent Progressives cannot for the life of them understand that it's counterproductive to drive away anyone even the tiniest bit to the center by implicitly or even explicitly calling them stupid, deluded, or evil for not wholeheartedly embracing their Progressive Utopia.
You're in a progressive fake-news bubble (Common Dreams, Truthout, Truthdig, Democracy Now, The Intercept, Salon, etc.) where you're simultaneously the avant-garde and also What the Mainstream Ackshually Wants, so you haven't yet sorted out that you're part of one distant wing, a small one, of the huge and rickety coalition that is the only way to stop fascism.
Your Ardent Progressive elders can't be assed to participate in local races where it might matter, but every four years like clockwork they try to hold the presidential election hostage by sneeringly claiming their votes "need to be earned" or voting for the Vegan Pony party and throwing the presidency to the Republicans. And their heads are still so far up their asses that they refuse to understand that they're part of the problem, and that the rest of the coalition regards them not as the thought leaders or the avant-garde, but rather as the worst and shittiest of allies, who even if the rest of the coalition bent over backwards to cater to them (and thereby lose all but the most gerrymandered of blue districts) they'd still look down their nose and say it wasn't enough.
Sooner or later, you sort all this out, understand that 90%+ of Americans don't want to live in that Progressive Utopia, and do what you can to keep fascism at bay. But that is indeed kind of depressing.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:27 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
You've not yet sorted out that older Ardent Progressives cannot for the life of them understand that it's counterproductive to drive away anyone even the tiniest bit to the center by implicitly or even explicitly calling them stupid, deluded, or evil for not wholeheartedly embracing their Progressive Utopia.
You're in a progressive fake-news bubble (Common Dreams, Truthout, Truthdig, Democracy Now, The Intercept, Salon, etc.) where you're simultaneously the avant-garde and also What the Mainstream Ackshually Wants, so you haven't yet sorted out that you're part of one distant wing, a small one, of the huge and rickety coalition that is the only way to stop fascism.
Your Ardent Progressive elders can't be assed to participate in local races where it might matter, but every four years like clockwork they try to hold the presidential election hostage by sneeringly claiming their votes "need to be earned" or voting for the Vegan Pony party and throwing the presidency to the Republicans. And their heads are still so far up their asses that they refuse to understand that they're part of the problem, and that the rest of the coalition regards them not as the thought leaders or the avant-garde, but rather as the worst and shittiest of allies, who even if the rest of the coalition bent over backwards to cater to them (and thereby lose all but the most gerrymandered of blue districts) they'd still look down their nose and say it wasn't enough.
Sooner or later, you sort all this out, understand that 90%+ of Americans don't want to live in that Progressive Utopia, and do what you can to keep fascism at bay. But that is indeed kind of depressing.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:27 AM on January 25 [1 favorite]
Yeah, thats the kind of dominant centrist nonsense everyone is exposed to that keeps everyone depressed.
posted by Artw at 11:50 AM on January 25 [9 favorites]
posted by Artw at 11:50 AM on January 25 [9 favorites]
90%+ of Americans don't want to live in that Progressive Utopia,
Your opinions are not facts. If you had receipts you could bring them. You don't have them, because your numbers are made up, your statements are ignorant, and your position is anti-democratic.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 12:30 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
Your opinions are not facts. If you had receipts you could bring them. You don't have them, because your numbers are made up, your statements are ignorant, and your position is anti-democratic.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 12:30 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
Do elections count as receipts?
posted by ph00dz at 1:15 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
posted by ph00dz at 1:15 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
Your Ardent Progressive elders can't be assed to participate in local races where it might matter
LOL Ardent Progressives young and old have been running and winning local races all over the country in large part by not aping the national party or toeing their lines, i.e. "don't fight the culture wars" while LGBTQ people were being legislated out of existence, or shitting on abortion activists the day Roe was overturned, and so forth. In fact, they were winning important races in the Dem political machine centers like Chicago and San Francisco, so leadership and a large part of their base decided that the best tactics are to punch left as hard and often as they can. Some, like Chesa Boudin, were basically the victim of astroturfed defamation campaigns from their supposed allies, while criminals and fools like Eric Adams were held up as the future of the party.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 1:52 PM on January 25 [8 favorites]
LOL Ardent Progressives young and old have been running and winning local races all over the country in large part by not aping the national party or toeing their lines, i.e. "don't fight the culture wars" while LGBTQ people were being legislated out of existence, or shitting on abortion activists the day Roe was overturned, and so forth. In fact, they were winning important races in the Dem political machine centers like Chicago and San Francisco, so leadership and a large part of their base decided that the best tactics are to punch left as hard and often as they can. Some, like Chesa Boudin, were basically the victim of astroturfed defamation campaigns from their supposed allies, while criminals and fools like Eric Adams were held up as the future of the party.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 1:52 PM on January 25 [8 favorites]
I didn't read all tfa, but I think what is most offensive to me (Aside from the source himself) is that part of this is framed as 'just normal political pendulum swinging ' and thus, any fears from the left are overblown. And I can't even
posted by Jacen at 5:25 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
posted by Jacen at 5:25 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
Climate Anxiety Is Not a Diagnosis, It’s a New Reality
posted by Artw at 5:39 PM on January 25 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 5:39 PM on January 25 [3 favorites]
Is it generalized anxiety disorder if just about everything seems to be worth being anxious about? And yes, I know the different between GAD and being anxious about something in particular (ask me how I know).
posted by mollweide at 5:52 PM on January 25 [2 favorites]
Sometimes you can have GAD and things can be real. A lot of the time in fact.
posted by Artw at 6:01 PM on January 25 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 6:01 PM on January 25 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I know.
posted by mollweide at 6:16 PM on January 25 [1 favorite]
posted by mollweide at 6:16 PM on January 25 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure why so many here are so confident that to confront the terrible things in the world is to become depressed. Most adult progressives I know are not actively depressed, and we worry about the ones that we know who are. Depression is a terrible thing and not a guaranteed outcome of recognizing and fearing the inevitably of climate change or any of the other innumerable bad things happening in the world. Reading this thread you'd think it was better to be depressed just to spite yglasias. Depression sucks, and if knee jerk disagreeing with someone you don't like causes you to defend it as anywhere near an acceptable norm rather than something to figure out how to address and improve, that's kind of sad. And no, insisting the world immediately fix all of its innumerable problems is not a realistic approach, it's just encouraging the catastrophizing that seems likely to be contributing to it.
posted by ch1x0r at 1:10 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
posted by ch1x0r at 1:10 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
I have conflicted feelings towards Yglesias at best. #growing
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:33 AM on January 26
Reading this thread you'd think it was better to be depressed just to spite yglasias. Depression sucks, and if knee jerk disagreeing with someone you don't like causes you to defend it as anywhere near an acceptable norm rather than something to figure out how to address and improve, that's kind of sad.
What? Fuck no.
Depression is a real and serious thing to at exists entirely independently of what Yglesias, a person with no expertise on the subject, thinks about it.
Nobody is leaning into it to spite this asshole.
Nobody is pretending the world is worse than it is to “catch” depression, the world just sucks right now in a way that is genuinely wearing on people’s mental health. No degree of gaslighting about that is actually helpful.
Oh and absolutely nobody is expecting anyone else to “fix” anything - certainly nothing to do with climate or authoritarianism. Nothing is going to be fixed and every indication is that all institutional power, such as that held by those who pay Yglesias, is going to be expended on pretending problems don’t exist and pathologizing those who don’t go along with that.
posted by Artw at 8:45 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
What? Fuck no.
Depression is a real and serious thing to at exists entirely independently of what Yglesias, a person with no expertise on the subject, thinks about it.
Nobody is leaning into it to spite this asshole.
Nobody is pretending the world is worse than it is to “catch” depression, the world just sucks right now in a way that is genuinely wearing on people’s mental health. No degree of gaslighting about that is actually helpful.
Oh and absolutely nobody is expecting anyone else to “fix” anything - certainly nothing to do with climate or authoritarianism. Nothing is going to be fixed and every indication is that all institutional power, such as that held by those who pay Yglesias, is going to be expended on pretending problems don’t exist and pathologizing those who don’t go along with that.
posted by Artw at 8:45 AM on January 26 [6 favorites]
Mod note: Another comment deleted. Same as the previous note. Cursing on the site is fine, but cursing at someone else is not okay, as per our Content Policy
posted by loup (staff) at 11:35 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]
posted by loup (staff) at 11:35 AM on January 26 [1 favorite]
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posted by evilangela at 11:50 AM on January 24 [81 favorites]