If the World Doesn’t Revolve Around Me Then Burn it Down

 

In the July 29, 2019 issue of NR-on-dead-tree, James Lileks riffed on the following headline from The Philadelphia Inquirer:

To end fatphobia, we need to dismantle Western civilization, says Philly therapist Sonalee Rashatwar

Given the utter insanity of the claim and the fact that Lileks’s schtick is parody, I assumed it was a gag. But, no. Not only does Ms. Rashatwar want to shred Western civilization, she gets off on the thought:

I love to talk about undoing Western civilization because it’s just so romantic to me.

My next thought was, “Meh. Lileks is trolling. He’s found some left-wing nutcase and is implying that she’s representative of the left.” The more I think about it, though, the more I think that Rashatwar is just another run-of-the-mill claimant in the grift that is identity politics.

The con goes something like this: I’m a victim of “society.” (Rashatwar, for example, “traces contemporary fatphobia to colonial brutality and how enslaved people were treated.”) Therefore you (i.e., everyone who is not like me) must celebrate me and the choices I make and you (i.e., cis-gendered, white males) must foot the bill for my lifestyle. If you don’t, it’s because Western civilization in general – and the United States in particular – are evil and must be destroyed.

“Give me what I want, or I’ll burn it all down and bring incalculable misery on everyone” is the most infantile, selfish attitude imaginable, yet it’s routinely portrayed as enlightened and caring. And this attitude is, unfortunately, no longer the sole property of the left.

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  1. ExcitableBoy Inactive
    ExcitableBoy
    @ExcitableBoy

    She’s a therapist? The lunatics are running the asylum.

    • #1
  2. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    Walk around any public place in America and it will become undeniably clear that “fatphobia” isn’t  a real problem in this country.

    • #2
  3. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter
    @JimmyCarter

    Vance Richards (View Comment):

    Walk around any public place in America and it will become undeniably clear that “fatphobia” isn’t a real problem in this country.

    Don’t You mean, “Hoveround any public place in America….”

    • #3
  4. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    From her own website:  “Sonalee Rashatwar (she/they) LCSW MEd is an award-winning clinical social worker, sex therapist, adjunct lecturer, and grassroots organizer.”

    And…

     

    • #4
  5. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    ExcitableBoy (View Comment):

    She’s a therapist? The lunatics are running the asylum.

    Long been the case. Not every psychologist and psychiatrist gets into the business to find out what’s wrong with them, but…

    • #5
  6. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Vance Richards (View Comment):

    Walk around any public place in America and it will become undeniably clear that “fatphobia” isn’t a real problem in this country.

    I can see that looking in a mirror.

    • #6
  7. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Tex929rr (View Comment):

    …sex therapist…

    And…

    Uh, I hear there are some folks who like a little meat on the bones.

    • #7
  8. Al French, sad sack Moderator
    Al French, sad sack
    @AlFrench

    Lileks’ best line: Western civ’s idea of agriculture is mechanized and soulless, and uses genetic modifications to create innumerable soft, fresh doughnuts glistening with glaze that shimmers like an angel’s tears of gratitude .

    I’m hungry. For doughnuts.

    • #8
  9. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    ExcitableBoy (View Comment):
    To end fatphobia, we need to dismantle Western civilization, says Philly therapist Sonalee Rashatwar

    It’s always been common knowledge in medicine that those who go into Psych are somewhat crazy.

    • #9
  10. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Tex929rr (View Comment):
    To end fatphobia, we need to dismantle Western civilization, says Philly therapist Sonalee Rashatwar

    • #10
  11. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Tex929rr (View Comment):

    …sex therapist…

    And…

    Uh, I hear there are some folks who like a little meat on the bones.

    I’d like to drop her naked in the Amazon for a month so she could develop a new appreciation of “Western Civilization”.

    • #11
  12. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    This

    Kozak (View Comment):

    ExcitableBoy (View Comment):
    To end fatphobia, we need to dismantle Western civilization, says Philly therapist Sonalee Rashatwar

    It’s always been common knowledge in medicine that those who go into Psych are somewhat crazy.

    Somewhat?  There are two very important reasons, among others, for someone to avoid becoming obese. It’s unhealthy and it impedes physical performance in most cases. Yes, this is crazy.

    • #12
  13. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Incel’s gonna incel. 

    • #13
  14. Richard Fulmer Inactive
    Richard Fulmer
    @RichardFulmer

    ExcitableBoy (View Comment):

    She’s a therapist? The lunatics are running the asylum.

    I think that there’s a big market for “experts” who will give their customers a plausible, “scientific” dispensation to continue their self-indulgent, self-destructive habits.

    • #14
  15. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    In the July 29, 2019 issue of NR-on-dead-tree, James Lilacs riffed on the following headline from The Philadelphia Inquirer:

    I feel oppressed by your spell-checker

    • #15
  16. Richard Fulmer Inactive
    Richard Fulmer
    @RichardFulmer

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    In the July 29, 2019 issue of NR-on-dead-tree, James Lilacs riffed on the following headline from The Philadelphia Inquirer:

    I feel oppressed by your spell-checker

    A Lileks by any other name…

    • #16
  17. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    “I love to talk about undoing Western civilization because it’s just so romantic to me.”

    Reminds me of something written years ago by the Italian blogger who called herself Joy of Knitting:

    Cupio dissolvi…These words have been going through my mind for quite a long time now. It’s Latin. They mean “I (deeply) wish to be annihilated/to annihilate myself”, the passive form signifying that the action can be carried out both by an external agent or by the subject himself…Cupio dissolvi… Through all the screaming and the shouting and the wailing and the waving of the rainbow cloth by those who invoke peace but want appeasement, I hear these terrible words ringing in my ears. These people have had this precious gift, this civilization, and they have got bored with it. They take all the advantages it offers them for granted, and despise the ideals that have powered it. They wish for annihilation, the next new thing, as if it was a wonderful party. Won’t it be great, dancing on the ruins?

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/44763.html

    • #17
  18. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    David Foster (View Comment):

    “I love to talk about undoing Western civilization because it’s just so romantic to me.”

    Reminds me of something written years ago by the Italian blogger who called herself Joy of Knitting:

    Cupio dissolvi…These words have been going through my mind for quite a long time now. It’s Latin. They mean “I (deeply) wish to be annihilated/to annihilate myself”, the passive form signifying that the action can be carried out both by an external agent or by the subject himself…Cupio dissolvi… Through all the screaming and the shouting and the wailing and the waving of the rainbow cloth by those who invoke peace but want appeasement, I hear these terrible words ringing in my ears. These people have had this precious gift, this civilization, and they have got bored with it. They take all the advantages it offers them for granted, and despise the ideals that have powered it. They wish for annihilation, the next new thing, as if it was a wonderful party. Won’t it be great, dancing on the ruins?

    https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/44763.html

    As my granddaughter is always saying to me: Perfect.

    • #18
  19. DrewInWisconsin, Thought Leader Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Thought Leader
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Tex929rr (View Comment):
    From her own website: “Sonalee Rashatwar (she/they)” . . .

    Wait. She uses singular feminine and plural neutral pronouns?

     

     

    • #19
  20. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    DrewInWisconsin, Thought Leader (View Comment):

    Tex929rr (View Comment):
    From her own website: “Sonalee Rashatwar (she/they)” . . .

    Wait. She uses singular feminine and plural neutral pronouns?

    She’s a big girl. She needs a lot of pronoun.

    • #20
  21. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    David Foster (View Comment):
    These people have had this precious gift, this civilization, and they have got bored with it.

    I say this to my kids all the time — the West is terminally bored.

    • #21
  22. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    David Foster (View Comment):
    These people have had this precious gift, this civilization, and they have got bored with it.

    I say this to my kids all the time — the West is terminally bored.

    Visual entertainment turns imagination off.

    • #22
  23. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    My next thought was, “Meh. Lileks is trolling. He’s found some left-wing nutcase and is implying that she’s representative of the left.” The more I think about it, though, the more I think that Rashatwar is just another run-of-the-mill claimant in the grift that is identity politics.

    As not for whom the writer trolls, he trolls for thee. Actually, these days the nutcases are representative, inasmuch as they make a claim that has a tangential connection to contemporary intersectional leftism, and requires the standard-issue leftist to consider it. To wave it away would be to marginalize and erase the anti-capitalist allies of size. 

    Once you evoke all the magic words, you have to be taken seriously. Because inclusion.

    • #23
  24. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Al French, sad sack (View Comment):

    Lileks’ best line: Western civ’s idea of agriculture is mechanized and soulless, and uses genetic modifications to create innumerable soft, fresh doughnuts glistening with glaze that shimmers like an angel’s tears of gratitude .

    I’m hungry. For doughnuts.

    This reminds me that I want to see if I can find the Krispy Creme doughnuts recipe online.

    Seriously though, because fat people have experienced a lot of cruelty and bullying, and because we feel hunger pretty acutely, this lady’s nonsense is more alluring than you’d think. And it’s dangerous. It’s just unconscionable she’s encouraging people to ignore a health problem that greatly diminishes the quality of people’s lives—-I’m talking about severely aching joints, shortness of breath, decreased mobility, urinary incontinence, difficulty maintaining hygiene—- before it costs them their lives. I mean, why don’t we just encourage people to drink themselves into alcoholism ? (What with the bar fights, the sexual misunderstandings and the traffic accidents, you’d dismantle Western Civilization a lot quicker.) What she’s recommending is hateful.

    I’d be open to the possibility that this woman  had healed herself (that’s what she seems to be claiming) and had anything helpful to offer anyone else, if she were just harmlessly chubby, and had a record of maintaining that without gaining, instead of morbidly obese.

    • #24
  25. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    My next thought was, “Meh. Lileks is trolling. He’s found some left-wing nutcase and is implying that she’s representative of the left.” The more I think about it, though, the more I think that Rashatwar is just another run-of-the-mill claimant in the grift that is identity politics.

    As not for whom the writer trolls, he trolls for thee. Actually, these days the nutcases are representative, inasmuch as they make a claim that has a tangential connection to contemporary intersectional leftism, and requires the standard-issue leftist to consider it. To wave it away would be to marginalize and erase the anti-capitalist allies of size.

    Once you evoke all the magic words, you have to be taken seriously. Because inclusion.

    • #25
  26. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Kozak (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    My next thought was, “Meh. Lileks is trolling. He’s found some left-wing nutcase and is implying that she’s representative of the left.” The more I think about it, though, the more I think that Rashatwar is just another run-of-the-mill claimant in the grift that is identity politics.

    As not for whom the writer trolls, he trolls for thee. Actually, these days the nutcases are representative, inasmuch as they make a claim that has a tangential connection to contemporary intersectional leftism, and requires the standard-issue leftist to consider it. To wave it away would be to marginalize and erase the anti-capitalist allies of size.

    Once you evoke all the magic words, you have to be taken seriously. Because inclusion.

    If it’s true, as she claims, it’s alarming, because of what she’s telling people, that this woman’s popularity has greatly increased.

    • #26
  27. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    This is weird though: why is it a lot of us, including me, didn’t see the same hatefulness, fifty years ago, in people advocating sexual promiscuity to dismantle the patriarchy that I see in this woman’s nonsense now ?

    • #27
  28. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    She’s very pretty, though.

    Her problem isn’t that she’s fat. Lots of us are fat, and most are fatter than we wish we were. 

    Her problem is that she’s silly.

    I’ve discovered—having gained a bit of weight these past few years—that there are advantages. First, you find out that nobody actually loved you just for your gorgeous bod …because they still love you without it. This is surprisingly revelatory even for those of us who rationally claimed to believe as much.

    Next, if you work primarily with members of the opposite sex and wish to be seen as grandmotherly rather than, y’know, hot…the pounds help. Especially if you actually are a grandmother. (I’ve got the specs, and now I’m working on the rosy cheeks).

    When Andrew Klavan tells me I should really buy reserve food supplies in case it takes two weeks for first responders to reach me after the Big One…I smile smugly and say “got it (and the chair) covered.”

    Completely unrelated note: A mother and four baby bobcats were in our garden this morning! No wonder the red squirrel population has been mercifully reduced as of late! 

     

    • #28
  29. DrewInWisconsin, Thought Leader Member
    DrewInWisconsin, Thought Leader
    @DrewInWisconsin

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    Completely unrelated note: A mother and four baby bobcats were in our garden this morning! No wonder the red squirrel population has been mercifully reduced as of late! 

    “Liked” for baby bobcats.

    • #29
  30. GrannyDude Member
    GrannyDude
    @GrannyDude

    DrewInWisconsin, Thought Leader (View Comment):

    GrannyDude (View Comment):
    Completely unrelated note: A mother and four baby bobcats were in our garden this morning! No wonder the red squirrel population has been mercifully reduced as of late!

    “Liked” for baby bobcats.

    Not for my fatness? Bigot.

    • #30
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