by liberal japonicus
I’m not planning on travelling anytime soon, but when I went to grad school, I chose to study Thai rather than Vietnamese because I thought that travelling to Thailand would not be as awkward as travelling to Vietnam. This was a big mistake in a number of ways. One was because I could have made a lot more progress, as well as retained more, had I done Vietnamese. But the other was assuming I might have problems when I finally did go to Vietnam. One person explained it to me that the Vietnamese felt they had won the war, so it was them being magnanimous in victory, though reading about what they suffered through, I’m not sure I would have felt as they did.
As I said, I’m not planning any travel, but if I were, I feel like anywhere I went might be a dive into awkwardness. I’m mean, I probably wouldn’t be going to Ukraine, or Iran or Venezuela, but imagine running into someone from those countries. There would be no pause between the answer ‘I’m from the States’ and the additional information ‘but I’ve lived in Japan for 30 years.’ And that is travel so some place that isn’t the US. At trip back to the US wouldn’t be the awkward in the same way, but it would be wondering who I would be talking to, sitting next to, etc.
This came to mind on reading this section in a piece in the Defector aptly titled Vivek Ramaswamy Is Going After The Abusive Parent Vote. Apologies for the three paragraphs, but it is hard to excerpt out the bits that gave me this feeling
This was true for partisans who thrilled at hearing him make explicit the implicit conservative value of hurting the most vulnerable people, and also to a significant faction of people without any other real values who mistook the brutal liberties that Trump has always taken for himself for ones that they would be able to enjoy themselves by supporting him. There is no other way to say it: Donald Trump inspired these people. He inspired them to be their worst and smallest and cruelest selves, but inspiration is a value-neutral thing. This is to say that he inspired those people to be more like him, and to live as he lives—in the indulgent certainty that even their puniest comfort or fleeting amusement or flash of childish anger was more important than anything or anyone else in the world, and then to behave accordingly. Many of these people surely had suspected as much already and moved through the world as if it were true; the carnage and stupid suffering that all that heedless, headlong motion produces is everywhere you look. Some of these people, inevitably, were going to run for political office.
People like that will always be a danger to everyone around them, but it’s at this point that they truly become everyone’s problem. There is a world in which Vivek Ramaswamy is just one of the many millions of Americans—please do not think about how many there are, how many you have met and will someday meet—who just are like this, and move through their days with what even a layperson could diagnose as “walking malignant narcissism.” But that alternate-universe Ramaswamy would be contained within some grim gated community and grim gated personal and business relationships; his capacity to do the damage such a person would invariably do would be limited to those unfortunate enough to wind up in his path. That Ramaswamy would also be an extremely odious man, a curdled being driven entirely by resentment and appetite. But very few people would ever know his name. That’s the best-case scenario.
The Vivek Ramaswamy that we got instead is a failed presidential candidate and flailing Republican gubernatorial candidate in Ohio. Our Ramaswamy is connected enough and slick enough and rich enough to have won the GOP nomination for this office, even at a moment when his party is more gleefully hostile to anyone of his background—Ramaswamy is Indian-American and Hindu—than at any other moment in my lifetime. That crude bigotry is central to conservative politics in a way that is not new, but is newly overt, and Ramaswamy himself has faced a great deal of it. It is a testament to his deep dedication to the movement’s vile anti-principles and his own singular unpleasantness that this does not really make him any more sympathetic.
I realize that there may be the impulse to decry mass accusations and guilt by association. Surely you don’t think this about ALL Americans! And I don’t. But this is a country that voted for Trump once and then voted him in again by a pretty wide margin. I sit on the tram or walk down the street here, I don’t wonder whether the person next to me is an avid supporter of the Nippon First party, or drives around a black sound truck on the weekends playing pre war Military gunka, even though it is a possibility. But going back, especially if it were back to Southern Mississippi, I don’t know…
We went to Iceland for a vacation during Goldzilla’s first term, and there were many sympathetic conversations about our circumstances with concerned Icelanders.
If I were to do it now? I’m from Canada, eh. Go Toronto!
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I am having a lot of trouble figuring out how to LIVE in a country that has opted to be as brutish, corrupt, and morally depraved as the US has chosen to be. Traveling internationally as a citizen of said country will be…awful.
And the polls show that Goldzilla’s approval rating is still an extraordinary 31%. How many adults (i.e. eligible to vote) does that mean still think he’s doing just fine, and/or making America great again? It’s unutterably depressing….
Goldzilla’s 31% loyalist-enough, or anti-Demoncrat comrades are certainly a worry. In perspective, that’s 4% more than AfD is pulling in Germany, and 3% less than Le Pen is pulling in France. What’s killing us, though, is that we have an antiquated system of government that has only continued to function through patches and handshakes. It’s not built to support modern demands or challenges.
France and Germany at least have modern political systems, and that helps.
I do sympathize. But I tnink GftNC’s note is pertinent. We are a minority; a small minority, simply because we are paying attention. The vast majority of the population is totally focused elsewhere. To the point that, when prices are up (for example, due to supply chain issues during covid which didn’t disappear by 2024), their reaction at the polls is basically “Throw the rascals out!” Likewise for any other negative impact on their personal lives.
Makes no difference whether the folks in office are responsible for creating the problem, or whether they have been fixing a problem they inherited, but the fix wasn’t instantaneous. Because they don’t pay attention to that stuff. They’re not evil, just not paying attention. You can argue that they should; the reality is that, most of the time, they don’t.
That’s what’s burning Trump (and, by association, Republicans) now: prices are up, and the voters don’t like it. Similarly, their neighbors, coworkers, employees, etc. are getting swept up by ICE for no obvious reason. They don’t like that either. It’s not that they voted for Trump knowing (because he said it early and often) he was going to do something like that. They weren’t paying attention to that. They honestly didn’t know, hard thogh that is for many of us to grasp. When they say “This isn’t what I voted for!” they’re being honest and sincere — they just voted to throw the rascals out, nothing more.
Sure there’s the quarter of the population who are enthralled by Trump and/or agree with what he’s doing. But I suspect every country has its fraction of crazies and scum. What matters is getting that 50% of the country which mostly doesn’t pay attention to connect the guilty to the crimes. That seems to be happening, for the moment. The trick will be to keep that message fresh thru 2028.** And, at least as important, thru 2030, when we elect the state legislatures who will do the next redistricting.
** An investigation, and publication, of the Epstein files would likely be just what the doctor ordered. Not to say that putting a spotlight on corruption isn’t helpful. Or trying to cram thru various important policy changes. We should do that. (Even though probably they mostly won’t notice.) But child molesters are revolting to pretty much everyone who isn’t one. That will have the 50% paying attention.
The rule of thumb is that 1 in 7 is incorrigible more or less independent of the topic or country. It’s not necessary the same 1 in 7 but the overlap is large. E.g. in Germany 1 in 7 holds strong antisemitic prejudices and 1 in 7 firmly believes in the existence of witchcraft. I would bet that the majority of both are religious conservatives* but the distribution among those will (to-day) tend more towards evangelicals for the latter and Catholics for the former.
*there is now also a radical antisemitic fraction on the far left but very few there will also see black magic as a public threat.
Hartmut:
1 in 7, or, about 14%
Which is very close to the percentage of “left-handed” people, IIRC. Not that it has anything to do with witchcraft, but the fraction of lefties is an interesting number. Presumably related to brain-development, rather than genetics or environment, but I don’t think anyone really knows. Similar to sexuality: not an individual choice, just happens.
Okay, maybe it’s Loki’s doing. That’s almost as good a hypothesis as any.
France and Germany at least have modern political systems, and that helps.
Doesn’t matter much if the country’s “mostly peaceful” inhabitants burn it all down.
A couple of things. First, a historical note: in medieval Europe, being left handed put you at serious risk of being accused of witchcraft. (It certainly wasn’t the only risk factor, but it definitely was one.) So, for practical purposes, being left-handed did have something to do with witchcraft.
Second, “left-handed” and “right-handed” aren’t really a binary. (Or, if we include “ambidexterous” 3 distinct caregories.) Rather, they are vague points on a continuum.
Thanks to a cultural prejudice (perhaps a residue of the former prejudice?), we have long encourage (to put it mildly) those who are left-handed to function like they are right handed. In grammar school, I can remember getting taught to write. “Pick up your pencils. Put it in your right hand…” [emphasis added] So if someone writes with their right hand, that doesn’t really indicate that they aren’t left handed; just that they aren’t so strongly left handed that they simply can’t adapt.**
As far as I’ve seen, there one test for whether you are, however slightly, left handed: fold your hands together, interlacing your fingers. Don’t thing about it, just do it. Now look: which index finger is on top? If it’s your left index finger, congratulations, you’re left handed. Whether you know it or not. I’m guessing that the real percentage of left handers is substantially higher than the 11% snarki mention. (Hmmm. I wonder how close it is to the 27% figure I keep seeing for the cultists who make up the unreachable core of Trump’s support….)
** Our world is set up for right-handed people. Try using a pair of scissors or pruning shears left handed. Doesn’t work, for simple mechanical reasons. And, if you write a language that is written from left to right (as European languages are), trying to write it left handed has the tip of your writing instrument constantly poking into the writing surface. Not to mention smearing the side of your hand over what you just wrote. That’s why lefties typically use such contorted positions when writing.
wjca: I’m well aware of the old-tyme suspicion of the “sinister” lefties.
As for “left-handed” vs “right-handed” vs “ambidextrous”, I, for one am proudly “adextrous”.
I’m more interested in understanding how it is that the brain can wind up in those categories. It’s too persistent, across time and culture, to be something that isn’t very fundamental.
PLUS, if anyone can create a “righty-to-lefty” switch, MLB will beat a path to your door.
Gotta keep those Fox screens filled with something. If it’s not Paris, it’s Minneapolis, or Portland, or footage from Minneapolis played behind news of Portland protests. Or footage from overseas played behind…
The peasants are revolting!
The peasants are revolting!
I’m sure everyone has seen this, but if the French can be relaxed about it, I’m not sure why you need to clutch your pearls so hard, Charles
https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/couple-goes-viral-seen-sipping-163409421.html
I’ve seen that interlaced fingers test before: it says I’m left-handed. But I do everything right-handed, and I’m clearly less clumsy with my right hand.
I also naturally kick a ball with my right foot. (I don’t know to what extent Americans are aware of this test, but in England in my childhood we spent a lot of time playing football (that is, soccer).)
So I’m sceptical about the test.
I experimented with my children when they were very young by passing them things mid-line. They took them with their right hands.
I must say I’m delighted by Snarki’s coinage of “adextrous”!