Fear and Self-Loathing

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.  —Ambrose Bierce

It happens, and I have to check myself from time to time. Reading stuff on the Internet for the sole purpose of pissing myself off. So weird how we become addicted to things like that. 

In the course of checking myself this time, deliberately swearing off some Web sites, I’ve come to a startling conclusion: so much out there is directed at making us hate ourselves. 

Who’s us? Mainly Americans, of course, though I expect some of this can apply throughout the Anglosphere. For my part, I’m guilty of it, too. Looking down at people for being such and such a way and hating myself for the same. Not that some of this isn’t entirely justified. Still, it’s curious that we are the citizen/ subjects of the most advanced civilization in history (no irony) and we are expected to hate ourselves for 

* Being privileged to enjoy the comforts of modern civilization

* Being fat

* Being lazy

* Watching too much TV

* Being a “sheeple”/“drinking the Kool-Aid”

* Being startled to learn the obvious (seriously, you’re only now just noticing?)

Again, some of this could be justified. For instance, hating myself for being fat is a powerful motivator to watch what I eat and get my fat self exercising.

One could also say it’s a brilliant mass culture psyop. Make people doubt themselves. People who hate themselves and each other aren’t coming together to threaten anyone’s status quo.

Of course, that presumes someone is getting a memo to push this. It also discounts the sheer meanness of people in general, the way we like to build ourselves up by tearing others down. We like feeling superior to the morbidly obese, to the Teabilly, to the libtard, that scrawny little thing with the stupid-looking glasses, etc.

Whatever the case, what a hoot! We’re citizen/subjects of the biggest, richest empire in the history of human civilization—and we hate ourselves! One can only wonder what the ancient Romans would have made of this.