Date: August 26th, 2013 2:13 PM
Author: .,.,...,..,..,:,,:,...,::,.,.,:,.,.:...:.,:.::,.
List the phases of this mental disease
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2346143&forum_id=2#23935276)
Date: August 26th, 2013 3:11 PM
Author: SR
1. She learns about civil rights movement in grade school. Worries about whether she would have been on the right side. Resolves to always help the poor and downtrodden and make sure to be on the right side of history.
2. She goes to college as a liberal young democrat, proud of her political beliefs. She wants universal health care and supports gay rights. Thinks Obama is pretty great, but reads NYT columns and is starting to worry that he may be a little too cozy with Wall Street and too quick to use Drones.
3. She sits in a college seminar and realizes there are all kinds of instances of oppression and discrimination in the world that she didn't even realize were happening. From rape culture to systemic racism to the capitalist exploitation of the 3rd world, there are so many injustices in the world that she feels bewildered and her head starts to spin. She feels stupid and naive for not recognizing her own privilege and complicity in racism and global oppression and resolves to attempt to make up for these. By this point in her life, being morally superior and on the side of the less advantaged has become part of her self-identity. The sudden realization that she is not so morally superior and that there are causes she wasn't even aware of creates a sort of identity crisis. She takes comfort in the small degree to which she herself is a victim, of rape culture and other threats to modern women, but realizes that her pre-college moral sensitivity was clearly defective.
4. Rather than fashion a new, healthier, self-identity, she resolves to reclaim her moral superiority. She begins informing herself of the various oppressive structures in the world through seminars and teach-ins. Eventually she develops a more complete understanding of the various worthwhile grievances in the world and a command of the lingo necessary for expressing them. She has once again attained a level of moral sensitivity capable of satisfying her self-image.
5. But one can never be secure in one's moral superiority -- especially on a college campus with so many people with similar inner lives, constantly trying to prove their own moral superiority by decrying that of others. She'll never forget the time she helped organize a sit-in for transgendered rights and was challenged by a real life black woman(?) who accused her of being insufficiently attuned to the interests of transwomen of color and promptly led a walk-out of the sit-in for those attuned to the importance of intersectionality in fighting oppression. She learns from this and later finds herself pointing fingers across the seminar table at other alleged allies, castigating them for their own failures of sensitivity. I can't believe you just said that, check your privilege!
6. Really, it all starts to seem a little bit too much. But it's okay. Soon she will be out in the real world where she can finally stop arguing about this stuff and actually do something! She applies for a number of paid positions -- with an AIDs clinic, with a gay rights organization, with a labor union, with a few select democratic congresswomen, with an African relief organization. All rejected. She is depressed, but resolved to carry on and eventually find a way to help in the world.
5. Finally she accepts an unpaid position for a liberal magazine in New York. It isn't going well. They are only having her do bitch-work whereas she had dreams of impressing them with her writing and quickly becoming a columnist. It must be because she is a woman and unfraid to speak her mind. To vent, she starts a feminist blog.
6. As time goes by, she realizes she needs a change. Her parents' patience is growing thin. They can't pay her big city rent forever. She applies for a few more paid nonprofit positions. She is rejected from all of them. Maybe she needs to go back to school. She was comfortable there and, besides, school could help set her up for the kind of job she wants. Maybe a Ph.D? No, her grades weren't really good enough and, besides, she really wants to DO something. Maybe a masters in social work. Yes, that sounds great.
7. But she starts to notice those fashionable women she sees in MFH, laughing on the street outside expensive restaurants she can't afford. It all looks so much fun. But no, she can't give into that... she won't be one of the stupid women with their wall street boyfriends, she is going to devote her life to others and make the world a better place. But, then again, can't she help others AND maybe make enough money for some nice shoes and mixed drinks and an apartment in a fun neighborhood?
8. She applies to law school.
to be continued
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2346143&forum_id=2#23935589) |
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