[FRIAM] More distraction

[David Eric Smith]

No, I think Merle has put her finger exactly on something for which I have been looking, in irritation, for years.

Cassandrafreude is another form of vanity.

On my farmer list, we have a couple of people who are constituted of it.  I don’t think there is anything else left of their personalities any more, and they annoy the hell out of me.  (Interestingly and not incidentally, they are not farmers; maybe part-time hobby-farming academics or other professionals, at best.)  The essence of every email from them is to stand out wailing in the public square, passing judgment on everybody, disingenuously flogging themselves (only not really), and asserting “All is lost!  And it is our own disgusting fault!  And nothing could be better, because we are all awful evil sinners who deserve what will happen to us!”  etc.

The reason they irritate me is that I know there are lots of others who receive the list but rarely post, who are busy out in the world, looking for something they can solve to help someone or something that can be protected, with their attention on what is good rather than on themselves.

The cassandrafreudes want to be the ones to set the frame for what reality is, and they make lots of noise so that attention can go to them and to how bad they claim to feel.  It’s just parading the fact that they no longer want to make the hard effort to try to figure out what is good and to do some part of it, acknowledging the uncertainty of whether they can succeed, and understanding that to try to do what is right is still the best choice available.  Those latter are the people who should be setting the reality.  By making noise and constantly trying to put themselves in the way, the cassandrafreudes commit the second sin IMO of being disrespectful, driven by their own vanity, of what actually deserves respect.  

Merle emphasized the vanity of standing in judgment on others, which is also there, but I think the difference between standing in judgment on others, and lugubrious public self-flogging, is small compared to the core that they share.

Not as graceful a term as something German might have lent itself to, but maybe thereby the need for it is more sharply acknowledged.

Eric



> On May 28, 2020, at 5:46 AM, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
> 
> Merle -
> 
> Is this of your coinage?  As a word monger (munger?) I do appreciate it's aptness for the moment.
> 
>>  Cassandrafreude. 
>> One definition offered is "the bitter pleasure of things going wrong in exactly the way you predicted but no one believed you when it could have made a difference."  
> However...
> 
> I think like many sharp things, it cuts both ways.   I'm sure there are any number of Red Staters (with or with Red MAGA hats) saying emphatically "I TOLE YA!" about the complement of things that Blue Staters (with or without Bernie or Biden 2020 hats) are saying.
> 
> Remember, my sympathies are mostly with the Blue Caps, but...
> 
> People living in small, remote, rural towns where the social distancing is built in somewhat and where R0 is naturally lower (and subsequent rates of infection)  than in say downtown NYC or Rome or Tehran or Delhi or Tokyo, may be saying "see I TOLE YA that citified living is dangerous"  or the same people who might only take one airline flight in a year or decade or lifetime might say "see I TOLE YA that flitting all around the world is crazy business and would lead to no good!" or even more judgementally "see I TOLE YA excluding Furriners would keep us safe!" or "see I TOLE YA that office/retail/service work ain't righteous, you gotta get yer hands dirty!"
> 
> In any case, I enjoyed Cassandrafreude and will probably find it springing to mind for the duration...
> 
> - Steve
> 
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