[Image description: text reading, #file under reasons I don't reblog activism posts with guilt trips attached /End image description.]
Not that anybody asked, but I think it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.
It's a necessary emotion. There are reasons we have it. It makes everything so. much. worse. when you use it wrong.
Shame and guilt are DE-motivators. They are meant to stop behavior, not promote it. You cannot, ever, in any meaningful way, guilt someone into doing good. You can only shame them into not doing bad.
Let's say you're a parent and your kid is having issues.
Swearing in class? Shame could work. You want them to stop it. Keep it in proportion*, and it might help. *(KEEP IT IN PROPORTION!!!)
Not doing their homework? NO! STOP! NO NOT DO THAT! EVER! EVER! EVER! You want them to start to do their homework. Shaming them will have to opposite effect! You have demotivated them! They will double down on NOT doing it. Not because they are being oppositional, but because that's what shame does!
You can't guilt people into building better habits, being more successful, or getting more involved. That requires encouragement. You need to motivate for that stuff!
If you want it in a simple phrase:
You can shame someone out of being a bad person, but you can't shame them into being a good person.
[Image description: a Bluesky post from user Marc Elias (@marcelias.bsky.social) reading: If we make it through this dark period with democracy intact, it may be because the administration's incompetence was greater than its depravity. User has shared a screenshot of a New York Times headline reading, Trump Officials Blame Mistake for Setting Off Confrontation With Harvard. An official on the administration's antisemitism task force told the university that a letter of demands had been sent without authorization. /End image description.]
So this is definitely a case of "we did not expect Harvard to fight back and we forgot they have billions of dollars and the best lawyers"
[Image description: text reading, "Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore. They joined what they joined. They lent their support and their moral approval. And, in so doing, they bound themselves to everything that came after. Who cares anymore what particular knot they used in the binding?" A.R. Moxon /End image description.]
I still get excited when my friends refer to me as their friend
"My friend said" "this is my friend" "they're my friend"
Im freaking out inside every time
[Image description: a tweet from user @thefurrow reading, Witnesses said a bus driver told an ICE agent to "gargle [his] balls" when the latter requested to enter the bus. This is a reply to a tweet from Associated Press Seattle, which reads BREAKING: Greyhound says it will stop letting Border Patrol agents conduct routine immigration checks on its buses. End image description.]
[Image description: a facebook post reads Bobby Easley is at High Caliber Tattoo... followed by I'm very proud to have been able to cover up a tattoo for a client and new friend who has changed his way of thinking about people. I'm happy I was able to make him feel better about himself and the skin he lives in. The post includes four images showing a large swastika tattoo on the back of someone's calf. The person's skin is white and the tattoo includes an American flag motif. In the subsequent images the swastika is drawn over in purple ink and finally tattooed over with a gorgeous dark red carnation. /End image description.]
Reminder: you can always just stop hating and being an asshole. You'll probably even feel better about yourself.
last night my partner held a somber little passover seder to show me what it’s about and when they got to the part where they were supposed to open the door for elijah they paused, frowned, and said “oh. huh. there is a clown.” and I looked out. and sure enough. there was a clown.
Painted rolling waves by Daniel Abel.
Fannish things, writing, other stuff. Often NSFW. My pronouns are they/them.
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