Humans by default want to love one another unconditionally. It is how kids are, it is how our pets are. It is our biases and prejudices and labels and insecurities and traumas that have made our love for one another conditional. The whole world needed a big hug after the pandemic. We didn’t get one. We saw powerful propaganda being an effectual tool in sowing discord, and it worked by appealing to our individualism, incorrectly overriding collectivism. With the visible rise of individualism worldwide, we’re all shriveling in our lonely corners, unloved. Everyone is, not just those choosing the individualism. The world needs loving. Here’s a hug for everyone who reads this comment. I love you unconditionally.

That’s when they can’t think of any good arguments against you so they start gas lighting you and insinuating that you’re just cranky so your opinions aren’t valid

No, that’s trolling. It’s an ad hominem phrased to sound polite to other people but infuriating to whoever you’re talking to, no matter what they said. An all-purpose no-effort nuh-uh.

David Graeber called this the triangular dynamic of bullying: it creates a moral drama in which the manner of the victim’s reaction to an act of aggression can be used as retrospective justification for the original act of aggression itself.

Like telling someone “calm down, honey.” The right response is fuck off. But you have to build up to it by explaining basically this comment, to prevent the asshole making you mad from going “see, I knew you were mad.”

🩷🩷🫂🫂🫂