Tall Tales
Lifted from the comments, a spot of anthropology. In which, a progressive woman seeks irritation, some cause for concern – and, with effort, finds it:
What’s amusing about these displays of woke piety is, I think, the eerie uniformity, the contrivance, the same weird psychology.
Ms Jeffery, the editor-in-chief of Mother Jones, is not only ostentatiously vexed by an unremarkable expression of politeness and goodwill – such that she feels a need to alert her 134,000 likeminded followers to the imminent Christian Nationalist uprising – but we’re also expected to believe that her account of events is entirely true. That her peculiar disapproval was shared, audibly, by many other passengers, which, frankly, seems unlikely.
Oh, and she’s also revealed in the subsequent thread to be something of a hypocrite, and a repeated user of the same, supposedly offensive term. The latest instance being a mere three days earlier. I’m sure you’re all shocked. Do take a moment to steady yourselves.
As Clam adds in the comments,
It does suggest being accustomed to getting away with it. An expectation of mutual dishonesty, in which no-one pulls at the obvious threads, lest the favour be repaid and their own pronouncements receive an unwelcome scrutiny.
I suppose we could see the dubious story above – in which an innocuous expression of politeness is proof of “creeping Christian nationalism” – as a new spin on the woke eight-year-old phenomenon from 2016, in which countless progressives, including MSNBC “analysts” and editors of leftist magazines – and including Ms Jeffery herself – started tweeting, competitively, about their small children, all aged eight, supposedly saying Oddly Precocious And Terribly Progressive Things:
As I said at the time,
The phenomenon was seemingly contagious and quite bizarre, a collective fit of transparent fabrication, and soon became a mocking meme. But I think we’re seeing much the same psychology. The same telling of tall tales in order to assert status and to fuel some progressive psychodrama.
For grown adults, our supposed moral betters, this is… odd behaviour.
Update, via the comments:
Rafi quips,
The urge to inflate grievances, and indeed to fabricate them, to balance umbrage and chest-puffing on the merest mote, is a progressive credential. Theirs is a hamster-wheel world of competitive indignation. But when you’re very publicly complaining about a flight attendant using the word blessed, as if this one word signalled some impending theocracy – and when you’re using your eight-year-old child as a political ventriloquist’s doll – then we’re in the land of make-believe. And possibly, anti-psychotic medication.
Ms Jeffery seems oblivious to how petty, presumptuous and mean-spirited she sounds. As if complaining about a commonplace word of kindness, a courtesy, and construing it as offensive and vaguely sinister, were what righteous, well-adjusted people do. As if it were something one should boast about, publicly, while waiting for applause.
Ms Jeffery goes on to complain about disrespect – as if she had been violated by someone wishing her well – and she depicts herself as being oppressed by some “dominant culture.” In which flight attendants say nice things to passengers.
Readers are invited to imagine what it must be like to publicly mouth some bizarrely implausible claim, for no discernibly pressing reason, knowing that the bullshit-like properties of your claim, and your own hypocrisy, can easily be discovered, in a matter of seconds, and to mouth it anyway. And then, when challenged, to double down on the implausible and bizarre. Again, it strikes me as an odd compulsion.
Ms Jeffery is now calling those mocking her “so, so, so dumb.”
It’s only odd for grown adults who aren’t woke progressives. For woke progressives it’s totally normal behaviour.
It would seem to be very common, yes.
And academia is soaked in this culture of dishonesty, from lie-filled “scholarly” papers which cite equally fraudulent papers, to professors and administrators who brand any debunking as “uncollegial” behavior and any expression of dissent as (of course) racism, sexism, classism, transphobia, islamophobia, etc.
I knew of some staunch athiests who would make these claims about their son.
When he was 3 or 4, in response to a woman saying ‘oh my god’ he spontaneously retorted, ‘oh my flying spaghetti monster!!’
I was over these sorts of stories, so naturally I took it very seriously. ‘Wow he was able to link two very abstract concepts together and apply it successfully out of context. That demonstrates very advanced verbal and logical reasoning skills for his age. Have you had him tested? Surely he might benefit from some form of extension program…’ I stopped short of suggesting a Nasa internship. I didn’t want to be obviously sarcastic.
Heh. Well, quite. Thing is, there’s no shortage of people actually saying dumb or objectionable things, so the urge to fabricate grievances, to balance so much umbrage and righteous chest-puffing on the merest mote, is, again, a little odd.
For grown adults.
I mean, when you’re very publicly complaining about a flight attendant using the word blessed, as if this one word of goodwill signalled some impending theocracy – of, presumably, white supremacists and assorted monsters – and when you’re using your own eight-year-old child as some political ventriloquist’s doll – then we’re in the land of make-believe.
And quite possibly, anti-psychotic medication.
Or better a Maoist struggle session. It is, after all, Mother Jones.
Based on her track record I bet none of it happened.
Setting aside the air of fabrication, Ms Jeffery seems oblivious to how petty, presumptuous and mean-spirited she sounds. As if complaining about a commonplace word of kindness, a courtesy, and construing it as offensive and vaguely sinister, were what righteous, well-adjusted people do. As if it were something one should boast about, publicly, while waiting for applause.
She goes on to complain about disrespect – as if she had been violated by someone wishing her well – and depicts herself as being oppressed by some “dominant culture.” In which flight attendants say nice things to passengers.
…a flight attendant using the word blessed, as if this one word of goodwill signalled some impending theocracy – of, presumably, white supremacists and assorted monsters…
Particularly the Montgomery yte supremacists because Alabama Xtianists take a backseat to no one, her imaginary rowmate will have you know. I’m surprised that she didn’t mention that the stewardess had a firey cross lapel pin.
She had a choice, of course, of Montgomery or Selma, that being the only towns in Alabama these idiots know. When in doubt, invoke Alabama only because she could not name a town in Mississippi, Arkansas, or anyplace in the South other than Atlanta, Miami, or New Orleans and they wouldn’t fit the stereotype.
She goes on to complain about disrespect
This is the same “the world must conform to me” mindset of the “body positive” Brobdingnagians demanding free seats and the like.
You want to talk respect? As I have mentioned before I am a devout Apathetic Agnostic and don’t give a damn what anyone believes as long as I am not trying to be either converted or killed because of it.
“Have a blessed day” is no more offensive then “have a nice day”, and the proper respectful response is “thanks” or “you too”. Totally painless.
I have yet to feel compelled to go down to the river and get Baptized of speak in tongues while handling snakes because some one said “have a blessed day”, not that blessings are confined to Christianity anyway.
From the previous thread:
In light of which, the behaviour above may start to make a kind of sense.
She should try Air Afrikaans.
While there no limit to the things Mother Jones types will compel you to do (and not do.)
Don’t forget their tendency towards narcissism, psychopathy, machiavellianism, and sadism.
Well, the lady has been well and truly ratioed (ratiod?), the winner of the thread (and possibly the Internet) being Mr Probosiec: https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1840013681511313866
I’ve never heard a Christian use that phrase. I _have_ heard a self-proclaimed “witch” wish for her audience to be “blessed,” so maybe the Alaskan flight attendant had a broom in the overhead bin.
Before the internet, people would have a small bubble of friends who would do this, and it would be ideosyncratic to their locale. They were called mean girls. Now, these same twits have “deep” opinions on all the world issues, about which they know nothing. So you get western women supporting terrorists who raped on Oct 7, protected by their force shield of reality denial.
What also strikes me about these people is they are snobs of a sort but without anything to be snobbish about. It is pretend snobbery. They act as if they are high culture, high wealth, old money, but are not. As if they are accomplished intellectuals, but are not. It is all fake, They hold all the “proper” views without a clue what it is about. Thus the need to shut down debate.
And still should be, I’d suggest.
Ironically, I have heard many hippie dippy types, who do not go to church or “believe” but are “spiritual” people, say “have a blessed day”. Lots of people also say “bless you” after you sneeze.
Some of them fully understand what it’s all about. But they chose the other side.
Given that the plane was arriving in San Francisco, it’s possible that more than one of the passengers sneered at the flyover-American manners of the stewardess. A heroic stand against Handmaid’s Tale-ism? More like the mopping-up stage of a decades-long campaign to erase even implicit/legacy/historical Christianity from American life. They’re not so brave or principled about the creeping territory marking by hijabs not only on the street but in government and corporate messaging.
A vague and flexible “spirituality” which never gets in the way of their desires. I’ve known a lot of people like that.
A religious woman wishing y’all the Lord’s grace. This is easily the worst thing happening in the world today.
Heh.
Can’t believe I’m here, toiling away, at the weekend.
Bloody outrage.
But I thought you liked us?
And I haven’t said “al-oo-min-um” in months and months.
It is more of a rural, southern thing. I don’t believe that I have ever heard it used in my (admittedly limited) travels to other countries in the Anglophone world. With the increasing time I have spent in Appalachia I find it slipping into my own end-of-transaction dialogue. Usually with cashiers or whatever who are especially nice such that I get a sense that they’re churchy. And at the liquor store.
A perfect distillation of DARVO, A strategy Machiavellians and malignant narcissists employ against their victims. It means: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. I learned about it, I think, from James Lindsay.
She is on the cultural offense, driving out all signs of the Christian culture that preceded us all by 1,500 years. But she claims victimhood because she hasn’t driven it all out yet. Even the tiniest sign of non-compliance must be met with as much force as she can muster.
It’s a manipulative abuse tactic, a macroaggression.
She’s a liar.
So you’ve read Mother Jones then?
I have. 🙁
Mein Gott in Himmel, our host offers blessings, a spate of them quite recently, yet I don’t see him passing Dixie® Cups of Kool-Aid® about.
It is a publication for which certain feats of imagination – or outright fabulism – would be a credential.
No peeking ahead in the script.
It’s not out of the ordinary to hear it in the Southern US.
some impending theocracy
The only impending theocracy is an Islamic one. and it will be “women (although possibly not children) hardest hit”. Yet these idiots keep blathering on about “Christian Nationalists” and “Handmaids Tale”. Are there any non-Islamic theocracies in the world anymore? Israel, possibly, but even they are pretty secular. France went total secular.
I live in a hot, humid, southern city in Bible Belt USA. The university has a very large population of international graduate students, many from theocratic countries, and all of those with their body-bagged women in tow, pushing strollers of small children. Theocracy alive and well, and ruthlessly implemented, but definitely not a Christian one.
Don’t dog-ear the pages then.
I often think of such blatherings as a kind of displacement activity. A way of avoiding the reality of a situation.
They can’t express disapproval of Islam without running the risk of being . . . educated . . . à la Charlie Hebdo.
I’m trying to imagine what it must be like to publicly mouth some bizarrely implausible bullshit, for no discernibly pressing reason, knowing that the bullshit-like properties of your claim, and your own hypocrisy, can easily be discovered, in a matter of seconds, and to mouth it anyway – and then, when challenged, to double down on that same bizarrely implausible bullshit.
It strikes me as an odd compulsion.
Ms Jeffery is now calling those mocking her “so, so, so dumb“:
It’s boggling stuff.
David, you know what I like about your site? You laugh at this stuff. I need help seeing the funny side of these people.
I am drinking a gin and tonic.
as if this one word of goodwill signalled some impending theocracy
Civilization “literally” hangs in the balance
[ Strokes gin and tonic. ]
“Have a blessed day” is no more offensive then “have a nice day”, and the proper respectful response is “thanks” or “you too”. Totally painless.
‘Round these parts, the brown people working in service businesses like to say, “Have a good one!” [ in affected south asian accent ]
I always do my best to comply.
Yes indeed.
But it is also (or rather continues to be) an inventing of enemies which are needed to scare people into supporting leftists.
@David, who said:
I fear that there isn’t enough gin and tonic in the world to render these caricatures of human beings at all humorous.
And that if I essayed an attempt at discovering just how much gin and tonic it would take by way of experiment, I’d likely be dead of alcohol poisoning within the day.
I’d like to point out how this incident highlights the futility in trying to please these people. If they are people, which I am increasingly leaning towards excluding from the class…
I can remember being told, by one of the prototype “woke” sorts, back in the day, that any form of vaguely Christian greeting was anathema, and that I ought, instead, use something multi-denominational…
Like, ya know… “Blessed”.
I am not joking: This was once a “taught thing” by the early wokesters, who earnestly endorsed it.
So, you see this, here? It tells the rest of us that there’s no point to even vaguely humoring these people. What that nice aircrew lady should have told this woman would have been more in the line of “Well, fine… F*ck off, then…”
Of course, that’s what “Bless your heart…” is supposed to mean, to a refined Southern lady.
<sigh> I really do not know what is to be done with the sorts of people that blow these things up into such massive issues. I have come to believe that there is such a thing as a “histrionic narcissist disorder”, and that the entirety of the “activist” world has it.
Bob Newhart had the solution for it:
https://youtu.be/85xjGEi89aI?si=F1t7UZzoleA0TfYE
My only addition to his course of treatment would be the provision of a large-caliber leaden pill behind the ear for subjects failing this therapy.
Wait till they come for the squirrels.