The Appeal of Martyrism

Conjecture that enables the abdication of responsibility for reality has nothing to do with the content. The concept is enough.

There is a bottomless market for arguments that sell people on the idea that whatever adversities are happening in their world are intentional acts committed by agents. All the better they are malevolent and conspiratorial. Whatever the content, however absurd, is irrelevant.

One example:

A Kansas lawmaker joined the ranks of those who have compared covid restrictions to the holocaust.

If you ask, why can’t we just look in the mirror and accept responsibility, consider this: For many, manifested personal outcomes weighted against the expectations of a lifetime are too much to bear. Surely someone else is responsible. Surely.

If you are educated, be grateful. It is clearer and clearer that education is the primary bulwark against the psychological jiu-jitsu required to deny or fabricate reality.

From Tyler Cowen:

Spend less time scrolling through news sites and more time reading books and non-news sites about how your issues of concern have played out in the distant past. If you are young, spend more time talking to older people about what things were like when they were growing up. If you had applied those techniques, Russia’s interest in taking over more parts of Ukraine would not be very surprising.

And if the burden of a mask feels to you on par with whatever you imagine the experience of a chlorine gas chamber, in the grand scheme (e.g. Maslow’s hierarchy) of things, you are probably doing just fine.