YFNA on Nostr: I have an idea I'm trying to flesh out, and could use help from theorizing-types, if ...
I have an idea I'm trying to flesh out, and could use help from theorizing-types, if anyone has time to think about this. Please note that the following is a political critique, not an attack on anyone who uses this as a coping strategy, because I’m pretty sure most of us do this.
It seems to me that there is an abuser logic present when we minimize our own suffering because “others have it worse.” This is something we are taught to do, usually early in life. However, when I say “I can’t complain” (because others have it worse), I’m participating in an economy of suffering where only the most horrific examples are worthy of attention. Such a system rewards ever more heinous violence, oppression, and abuse. If I’m grieving a devastating personal loss, but hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing their homes due to ongoing genocides, those horrors become the latest example of others having it worse. That fact effectively invalidates what might have otherwise been a legitimate “complaint.” As long as there is something *worse* happening in the world, our private pain does not get the attention and care it needs. I'm not saying dictators and genociders are deliberately distracting people from their private pain - they're obviously not thinking about that - I'm saying there is an abuser logic at work in the emotional coping method of minimizing one's own suffering and we should reconsider it.
That’s the gist of it, now I need help linking this to other theory. I know this isn’t a new idea, but I’m not sure where to dig into it more. It sounds like the kind of thing Lee Cicuta (aka butchanarchy) has written about, maybe?
It seems to me that there is an abuser logic present when we minimize our own suffering because “others have it worse.” This is something we are taught to do, usually early in life. However, when I say “I can’t complain” (because others have it worse), I’m participating in an economy of suffering where only the most horrific examples are worthy of attention. Such a system rewards ever more heinous violence, oppression, and abuse. If I’m grieving a devastating personal loss, but hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing their homes due to ongoing genocides, those horrors become the latest example of others having it worse. That fact effectively invalidates what might have otherwise been a legitimate “complaint.” As long as there is something *worse* happening in the world, our private pain does not get the attention and care it needs. I'm not saying dictators and genociders are deliberately distracting people from their private pain - they're obviously not thinking about that - I'm saying there is an abuser logic at work in the emotional coping method of minimizing one's own suffering and we should reconsider it.
That’s the gist of it, now I need help linking this to other theory. I know this isn’t a new idea, but I’m not sure where to dig into it more. It sounds like the kind of thing Lee Cicuta (aka butchanarchy) has written about, maybe?