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I Wonder What He Thinks of Me?
Everybody needs an identity. Something we can identify with, and be comfortable with. In small towns, it’s often what town you live in, which family you belong to, which church you attend, what sport you play, what you do for a living, or things like that. If you were to hang around the local Walmart or something, a lot of people would look the same to you – they dress similarly, and they don’t seem to feel the need to intentionally separate themselves from others with the way they dress or something. Perhaps because they’re sufficiently comfortable with who they are that they make little effort to change it or hide it from others.
My daughter is a scholarship athlete at Georgetown, so I’m going to DC a lot to watch her play these days. I thought it would be fun, to see the complex mix of cultures and backgrounds that make up the diverse population of such a cosmopolitan city. And in a way, it is interesting, but not the way I expected. You’ve got the rich white men in Priuses, and the rich white men on bicycles wearing silly outfits (Spandex should be illegal for anyone over 25 years old), and the rich white gay men wearing rainbow patches on their backpacks, and the rich white men driving Bentleys, and the rich white men wearing old brown T-shirts and worn-out cargo shorts, and the rich white men with laptop backpacks and electric scooters, and the rich white men with beards and flannel shirts, and the rich white men wearing Hawaiian shirts and pork pie hats, and so on and so forth. The vast majority of these people would look incredibly out of place in nearly any small town in America.
You might think that such a lily-white, insanely wealthy place like Georgetown was disturbed by their lack of diversity, so they tried to invent their own, as best they could. Safe diversity. Without any, you know, actual diversity. But I don’t think that’s it. I think that many Americans have been taught to be ashamed of their true identity. Ashamed of their skin color, their beliefs, and their country. Leftists work hard at accomplishing this. They suffer from it themselves (Barack Obama, Prince Harry, and my liberal nephew all called their grandmothers racist), but they also work at ensuring that everyone suffers from it as well. So in Georgetown, Brett is not a wealthy lobbyist from a suburb of Boston – no, he’s a socially conscious Prius driver who drinks organic coffee. He likes himself better that way…
Those of us sufficiently comfortable with who we are may find such silliness to be, well, silly. I mean, c’mon Brett – if you don’t like being a lobbyist, why don’t you go do something else? You could drop the charade. Geez – this is silly.
But firstly, there’s nothing silly about self-hate. That’s an awful place to be.
And we should also remember that those who are capable of hating themselves are also capable of hating others. It comes naturally to them, as a matter of fact. Once you hate yourself, hating others is easy.
The right focuses on what we have in common as Americans. The left focuses on that which divides us.
The unity which can be gained from what we have in common serves to make America stronger and more stable.
The hatred which results from that which divides us serves to weaken American and strengthen the left. Which is the whole point. And now, the left not only tries to divide various groups from one another, they encourage self-hate in just about everybody. If you were trying to create chaos and violence in society, this is what you would do.
Teaching people to hate themselves and hide their true identity is a terrible idea. It’s not good for anybody. Well, nobody except leftists who want power, and need social chaos and violence to get it.
Plus, if the only identity considered to be virtuous is the identity of a far-leftist, then you can get people to abandon their own hated identity for one that is more socially acceptable. If all you have to do is wear a Che T-shirt and drive a Prius to go from a hated white person to a loved leftist, why would you not do that? Harmless enough, right?
Well, maybe, except that the self-hate needed to abandon one’s identity will tend to make some of these converts hate everyone else with the passion of the newly converted. Such people can be dangerous. It doesn’t take many of them to create chaos and violence.
The people in Georgetown seem harmless enough. The men often start their sentences with ‘So…’ and end their sentences with a non-threatening upward lilt. And I’m sure they mean well. At least, they go to a lot of effort to publicly signal that they mean well.
But as I was watching people walk by in Georgetown, I was a little creeped out. I wanted to grab some random guy as ask him “You manage a $250 million hedge fund. You’re from Greenwich, Connecticut, and now you live in a $5 million townhouse in Georgetown. Why are you dressed like a beach bum? Ditch the Prius. Buy some new flip-flops, for Pete’s sake. What are you trying to prove? Who are you trying to impress? Who are you trying to be?”
I’m not sure who exactly he’s trying to be, and he’s probably not sure, either. But it’s certainly not him.
And if he doesn’t like who he is, I wonder what he thinks of me?
Postscript:
Ok, before you all start, yes, there are significant weaknesses to the way I’m trying to illustrate my point. Those who admire centralized power structures, and are willing to give up something of themselves to be part of something bigger than them, tend to be drawn to cities, and to leftism. And a bunch of bored wealthy white people playing dress-up for one another is not necessarily proof of some underlying conspiracy. And yes, I’ve long struggled with leftism’s odd combination of arrogance and self-loathing, which is not necessarily demonstrated by a rich white lady in a multi-million dollar condo wearing a floppy bohemian hippie dress and turquoise jewelry which appears to have been designed by preschoolers.
But still.
I do think that leftists understand that one way to get everyone to identify as a leftist, is to make their own real identity to be loathsome and embarrassing. And I maintain that encouraging self-hatred is vicious and dangerous. And I think that people who have been trained to hate themselves are more likely to hate others. And before you know it, we move from a united society to a tribal one. And tribal societies are inherently unstable.
Which is ok with leftists, as long as leftists are in power. Despite how things look, I really don’t think that leftists are really trying to burn down American society. I just think they’re using techniques to gain power that lead to social instability, and if American society burns down in the process, leftists don’t care. They’re trying to save the world, here. Omelets and broken eggs and all that.
So maybe I’m making too much of a rich white guy in cargo shorts. I probably should redo this essay, and try a different approach. But I’m too lazy. Perhaps I should have followed the advice of Lawst, and thought about what I was typing before I typed it.
Nahhhh…
But I think my basic point is still valid. Despite my difficulties in illustrating it.
Encouraging self-hatred leads to hatred of others, which creates social instability. So when I see a bunch of people pretending to be something other than what they are, it gives me the creeps.
What do you think?
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Hey – wear what you want. Just hide your shame with a pair of shorts over it.
I can’t run without some UnderArmour on, due to the medical condition known as FMLC*. The good doc will know what that is.
*Fat Man Leg Chafe
I think this is key to understanding our current cultural crisis. Brilliant insight.
Making America Great Again was and is about the focus on what we share as Americans: our history (not always wonderful), our values, our historic freedoms (currently eroding), our ideals as a society.
I was inadvertently thinking about this, this morning, getting coffee. Remembering things I’ve said 30 years ago, just catastrophically stupid and evil – and I still remember them. Frequently.
It’s OK to hang onto the screwups (replace a more non-CoC friendly word here in lieu of the screw). Screwups keep you grounded. They’re not meant to be anchors, but rather reminders. Lessons learned. Do not unlearn them.
Thanks Thelonious.
I don’t think you are that far apart. The leftists love themselves for being woke leftists, while they hate that part of themselves that gave the means to achieve whatever they have achieved outside of the leftist shared poverty ideal. Their cognitive dissonance allows them to ignore their other selves while the pat themselves on the back for their (goofy) leftist beliefs and hatred of those who have the good sense not to share those beliefs.
It could be that really is they way the guy is – rich white guy in cargo pants. Sometimes people only dress to impress when they have to, like a board meeting or stockholders conference.
My guess is if you walk around DC a lot, you don’t want to dress like a rich, affluent white guy. Otherwise, you might as well have “Mug Me” on the back of your $500 suit . . .
This is a real head scratcher. Why would 30 or 40 percent of the population hate themselves. Why would anyone hate himself. First I would figure that it is an extension of being displeased with oneself. Such as being displeased and frustrated with their failures, or with what people tell them are their failures, or displeasure with their lot in life, or their failure to be able to change their lot in life for the better. But though these can grow and fester into self-loathing and self-hatred, one’s sense of self-preservation fights these feelings of inferiority. And a good conscience prevents placing these feelings onto others.
Or secondly, someone told them to be displeased with themselves, and even to hate themselves, and their personal sense of self-preservation is not strong enough to resist this external command.
But mass self-loathing? Leading to mass loathing of others? What could cause this? Well, we know that this isn’t happening in a vacuum. People are calling on others to engage in self-loathing, especially with the advent of Social Media, and to obey this doesn’t require any deep, genuine self-loathing — merely the pretense of it, the outward show of it — what people call the virtue signaling of it.
Could a sense of achievement cause self-loathing? I would think just the opposite: achievement is hard-wired in to create a sense of self-worth. The only way that achievement could threaten one’s self-worth is if they achieved something that they know is wrong, or achieving something good using bad means.
But for that they’d need a good conscience, and good conscience does not easily turn on others. A sense of guilt would certainly turn on others. But what would these people honestly feel themselves to be guilty of?
But have these people achieved anything? Perhaps that’s just the problem, they haven’t achieved anything so mush as accepted everything from others: from their parents, from their schools, for which they borrowed money that they don’t want to pay back.
I think self-hatred perhaps plays some part in this, but it doesn’t explain the violence.
No, I think that to the degree that people know what’s good and respond to the urgings of their good consciences, this self-hatred and outwardly directed hatred is mitigated. But unfortunately, people lack a good or a strong conscience, and this allows the base side of human nature to rule the personality.
No, I may be wrong in my thinking, but I would say that we have in large part a nation of Triggly-Puffs.
I dont know many leftists. None who are young. Ive a 50+ son in law and an 83 year old brother. Ive no understanding of the son in law. Smart as hell, Yale phd, reads a lot in his ancient history and christian theology, but also reads blogs, is well connected. Cant engage him on contemporary matters, his wife my daughter doesn’t try, neither do his kids. So i have zero understanding . Perhaps its just in his interest and reality doesn’t matter, he’s a professor
Brother: Likes democrat positions on local matters he cares about and doesn’t like Republican positions. His positions on local matters are rational and not unreasonable. He’s always engaged with matters important to him. Has limited knowledge of washington or national politics and is unaware of his ignorance because his knowledge of such matters comes from mainstream media. Is also ignorant of the change in parties and supporters.
My conclusion: national politics is 99% of the problem as it is, by its nature, incompatible with representative governance.
That’s why the Democrats push the message, “You didn’t build that” and tell successful people that they are “The winners of life’s lottery.”
They need to convince people that self-respect is bad, and that is one way they do it.
Is that stuff actually comfortable? Usually I have to feel really comfortable before I am willing to look so silly.
I have no idea. I don’t think I’ve ever had any on.
It is, but mostly you can move in it. I try to not go anywhere in it if I have to get out of the car, but it’s easier to bend and squat if I’m being active. And great sleeping clothes.
I am concerned that this might be a mistake.
There seem to be a large number of people who do not share conservative beliefs about the things that we have in common as Americans. If this is true, then a conservative approach that focuses on a supposed consensus of values, which does not exist, amounts to something like unilateral disarmament, doesn’t it?
This might explain part of the NeverTrump reaction.
This is just a hypothesis. Assume that there are some conservatives who really, really don’t want to consider the possibility that a large number of people on the Left are deeply anti-American. Conservatives in this group would tend to be committed to toleration, and to a belief that free speech will lead to the inevitable triumph of their viewpoint in the marketplace of ideas. If this turns out to be wrong, then such conservatives would have a problem. The truth, in this hypothetical, would be that we face a serious problem with domestic enemies, and it would tend to undermine the world view and ideological commitments of such a hypothetical conservative.
If it turns out that Donald Trump’s tactics force such a confrontation with the truth, it is understandable that they would blame Trump. Not fair, but understandable.
It’s the new age Limousine Liberal! The Prius Liberal! It’s sort of analogous to the designer jeans with manufactured holes. You actually appear wealthier when you don’t have to. Or perhaps the psychology can be described as this: live rich, look poor, but look poor in a way that makes virtue signal. Great post, Dr. B.
I would agree. However, the reference to self-hate I think refers to their hatred of history and overall identity as Americans and of western culture. Pope Benedict XVI has a great comment on this phenomena:
The liberal mind has evolved to this pathological self hatred of their general communal identity but egotistic self love of their specific individual identity. It’s the worst of all worlds.
My 87 year old mother has velcro straps for her shoes…lol.
When my jeans are dirty I’m too embarrassed to wear them until I wash them. What is the thinking of people whose jeans are too clean to wear until they dirty them?
We live by the sweat of our brows. If the purpose of hard work is to overcome the entropy of one’s earthly environment and to provide for food, shelter and clothes, and hard work causes entropic wear and tear on one’s clothes, these clothes have to be cleaned and mended to once again the overcome entropy associated with the work of overcoming entropy.
When people enjoy soiling themselves artificially, they are at root feigning hard work. This particular kind of posing (akin to all other modern posing) is admitting that they really don’t work hard, and don’t work to provide for themselves and a family.
This can only happen in a land of extreme abundance and affluence.
I see what you mean. But still, isn’t the self-love a more personal experience and a deeper spiritual characteristic and motivating force than the outward hatred of one’s society?
And… loving it.
First of all, I adopt every word of @markcamp and could not have described my impression better or in as few succinct words! Thank you for this superb post, Dr. Bastiat! I do think I’m going to follow Mark’s example and start a data bank of, for want of a better word, “Bastiat-isms” and will feel free to, in the best Joe Biden tradition, steal from each and every one of them as the occasion dictates! With full attribution, of course.
The line above reminded me of our trips to Santa Fe, which brought back mostly very fond memories as it truly lives up to its credo “The City Different”, but it is still jarring to see ladies (can I still say that?) who have, to be as polite as I can be, lived a long life with more years behind them than before them dressed out exactly as you described and it only takes a few visits to those insanely priced shops to know how much that lady paid for that jewelry designed by preschoolers! By the way, among all your literary jewels, that was my favorite, for what it’s worth!
While it’s been a while since we were making trips to DC (mostly in conjunction with a legal organization with which I was heavily involved, The American Inns of Court) one incident in a hotel lobby there furnished us with a one-word description of the kind of haughty, condescending species which seem to predominate that place — there was a conference of Federal Judges going on in town and I almost committed the crime of accidentally bumping into one of the female “Anointees”. What I got in return from Her Honor, dressed, of course, in a severe black dress with not a sign of turquoise jewelry in sight (!), was a quite audible sniff! From that time on, we have referred to many of those swamp dwellers– Pelosi, Klobuchar, our esteemed Vice President, Feinstein, obviously Hillary Rodham Clinton, Warren, the list is endless — as “sniffers.” It just seems to fit them to a “T”!
Sorry I got so verbose–occupational hazard, even at this remove!
Thanks again for your wonderful posts, Jim.
I think they feed off each other. The more one loathes one’s heritage the more self importance one gives oneself. The more self importance one has in one’s ideas the more one loathes their heritage. I see it as symbiotic.
That is very insightful.
This interrelation, I don’t see. Can you explain?
No comment.
I can only imagine…
When someone
Do they really hate themselves or do they hate others who differ from them?
Yes.
I don’t think so. I think they hate their heritage because their heritage failed to live up to their perfect ideals. Maybe they have some small splash damage hatred of themselves but mainly they hate their history I think.
The more one despises one’s heritage, the more one grows in self importance because (a) he’s now smart enough to see it, (b) smarter than the rest because they don’t see it, and (c) better than the rest because he stands outside the rest. Therefore the more then one grows in self importance, the more one sees the heritage as beneath him. I think they feed off each other.
Well, perhaps, but I see self-importance as gathering and holding important everything about one’s self. Especially his origins. I’ve never known anyone who felt better about himself for disparaging his heritage. Have you?
Prince Harry.
Every white college student in the United States.