power structures and dynamics

“It’s not singlehood, dear friend, that hurts; it’s not casual sex, the fluidity of our bonds, nor their ephemeral nature that causes pain.” Rather, it’s the way that power operates in relationships. Desire isn’t a spontaneous, apolitical passion; it’s shaped by the world around us, and by what we’ve been taught to value. Romance operates like a... See more

Telling stories is a process of mattering. Who matters? When we tell stories, we make ethical choices about who to bring in and who to leave out. We cannot bring in all of the voices. The voices themselves only come to exist once we recognize them. The in-between power increases the probability that we notice the voices, listen to the voices and... See more

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.

— H. L. Mencken

Chomsky and Robinson also acknowledge that other great powers acted in much the same way that the United States has, and these states also invented elaborate moral justifications—the “white man’s burden,” la mission civilisatrice, the need to protect socialism—to whitewash their atrocious conduct. Given that this behavior preceded the emergence of... See more

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

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.

Now, the GoFundMe and DonorsChoose thing is closely related, but it gets its own throughline. These platforms emerge to seemingly supplement gaps in the public safety net for things like education and health care. But instead, they’re in a kind of enabling feedback loop: instead of your taxes ensuring that kids have desks and cancer patients can... See more

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.