power structures and dynamics

Millions of people — and white people in particular — would rather endure physical isolation, generalized loneliness, caregiving exhaustion, and financial precarity than relinquish some of their societal power. That’s a far less optimistic foundational myth than individualism. But it’s a far more honest one.

“beauty is supposed to serve power’s interests.”

The problem, in other words, isn't intermediation – it's power . The thing that distinguishes a useful intermediary from an enshittified bully is power . Intermediaries gain power when our governments stop enforcing competition law. This lets intermediaries buy each other up and corner markets. Once they've formed cozy cartels, they can capture... See more

I have also come to understand that trying to fit into society’s understanding of a “good girl” is a trap, the same way that the “model minority” and the “good gay” and the “good fatty” are all traps. Even when you succeed at it you lose, because these roles are all ultimately means of containment: of circumscribing power by putting exacting,... See more

These women have thoroughly internalized the male gaze, their to-be-looked-at-ness, and arrived at a place of incredible power — as objects. Their struggle, as evidenced by the ample time we spend with those who’ve “retired,” is figuring a sense of self outside of that objecthood.

In the end, this quest for a moral billionaire forced me to confront my own beliefs about wealth, power, and the nature of goodness in a complex world. I finished the exercise with hope—not because I found a simple answer to the question of what it means to be both wealthy and virtuous, but because I have discovered that even among the most... See more

And in America, no matter how much you’ve got, someone next to you has more. This is what Chris Hayes once described to me as “fractal inequality.” America’s top 10 percent are far, far better off than the other 90 percent, but the top 1 percent is far, far better off than the 10 percent, and the 0.01 percent is far, far better off than the 1... See more

And here’s the hard part. You can’t just decide fuck individualism, I’m blowing it up . You have to replace it with a better, more equitable story of who we are as a country and how we organize our society. Which, for a lot of people, would mean giving up a modicum of power. Liberal white people can loathe the effects of individualism and still... See more

It’s easy, I think, to understand how patriarchy feeds on apathy, and jealousy, and white women protecting their small spheres of power. It’s harder, or at the very least sadder, to think about just how much of it runs on women’s deep, abiding sorrow.