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Tuesday 31 August 2010

This angry resentment is periodically a major force in American politics. It is a destructive force — destructive of self and destructive of the whole (self-destructive people always have bad aim). The Resenters rejoice when others mourn and mourn when others rejoice and their politics of resentment has the crabs-in-a-bucket effect of making things worse for everyone, themselves included — making sure that nothing ever improves, that no problem is ever solved. The politics of resentment can never be for anything. That which benefits others will provoke resentment, even if it benefits all, including the Resenters themselves. They will still manage to resent the benefit to others — mourning at their rejoicing — convincing themselves that they might have benefited more if those others hadn’t also been unjustly included in the common good. The politics of resentment is clearly illiberal, but it is not conservative either. It doesn’t present a coherent political ideology. That’s part of why the purveyors of this resentment so often seem to contradict themselves. Fox News, for example, portrays itself as conservative, but it’s real guiding principle is that of pebblish resentment. slacktivist

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  1. bluntlyblue reblogged this from azspot
  2. nothingshortof reblogged this from azspot and added:
    Ah, the “politics” of No.
  3. rudimentaryirvin reblogged this from azspot
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