#political righteousness

[infinitysisters]

“Moral grandiosity seems to have infected the nomenklatura class of giant corporations. It is not enough for them to ensure that the corporations make a decent profit within the framework of the law; they must claim to also be morally improving, if not actually saving, the world.

So it was with Alison Rose, the first female chief executive of the National Westminster Bank, a large British bank 39 percent owned by the British government. When first appointed to the position, she said that she would put combatting climate change at the centre of the bank’s policies and activities. Whether shareholders were delighted to hear this is unknown.

But the bank, under her direction, went further. Its subsidiary, Coutts, founded in 1692 and long banker to the rich, compiled a Stasi-like dossier on one of its customers, Nigel Farage, before “exiting” him from the bank, to use the elegant term employed by Ms. Rose. (Defenestration will come later, perhaps.)

Farage is, of course, a prominent right-wing political figure in Britain, as much detested as he is admired. There was no allegation in the dossier that he had done anything illegal; indeed, in person, he had always acted correctly and courteously toward staff. What was alleged was that his “values” did not accord with those of the bank, which were self-proclaimed as “inclusive” (though not of people with less than $3.5 million to deposit or borrow). Farage was depicted as a xenophobe and racist, mainly because he was in favour of Brexit and against unlimited immigration. That anyone could support Brexit for any reason other than xenophobia, or oppose unlimited immigration other than because he was a racist, was inconceivable to the diverse, inclusive thinkers of Coutts Bank.

Ms. Rose saw fit to leak details to the BBC about Farage’s banking affairs, claiming to believe that they were public knowledge already. She did not mention the 40-page dossier that her staff had put together, about Farage’s publicly-stated views. The Stasi would have been proud of the bank’s work, which comprehensively proved him to have anti-woke views.

Whatever else might be said about Mr. Farage, no one would describe him as a pushover, the kind of person who would take mistreatment lying down. Even the Guardian newspaper, which cannot be suspected of partiality for him, suggested that the bank and its chief executive had questions to answer.

It was not long before Ms. Rose had to beat a retreat. She issued a statement in which she said:

I have apologised to Mr. Farage for the deeply inappropriate language contained in [the dossier].

The board of the bank said that “after careful reflection [it] has concluded that it retains full confidence in Ms. Rose as CEO of the bank.”

The following day, Rose resigned, admitting to “a serious error of judgment.”

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐟𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐛𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 $𝟏 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧.

The weasel words of Ms. Rose and the bank board are worth examination. They deflected, and I suspect were intended to deflect, the main criticism directed at Ms. Rose and the bank: namely, that the bank had been involved in a scandalous and sinister surveillance of Mr. Farage’s political views and attempted to use them as a reason to deny him banking services, all in the name of their own political views, which they assumed to be beyond criticism or even discussion. The humble role of keeping his money, lending him money, or perhaps giving him financial advice, was not enough for them: they saw themselves as the guardians of correct political policy.

It was not that the words used to describe Mr. Farage were “inappropriate,” or even that they were libelous. It is that the bank saw fit to investigate and describe him at all, at least in the absence of any suspicion of fraud, money laundering, and so forth. “The error of judgment” to which Ms. Rose referred was not that she spoke to the BBC about his banking affairs (it is not easy to believe that she did so without malice, incidentally), but that she compiled a dossier on Farage in the first place—and then “error of judgment” is hardly a sufficient term on what was a blatant and even wicked attempt at instituting a form of totalitarianism.

This raises the question of whether one can be wicked without intending to be so, for it is quite clear that Ms. Rose had no real understanding, even after her resignation, of the sheer dangerousness and depravity of what the bank, under her direction, had done.

As for the board’s somewhat convoluted declaration that “after careful consideration, it concluded that it retains full confidence,” etc., it suggests that it was involved in an exercise of psychoanalytical self-examination rather than of an objective state of affairs: absurd, in the light of Ms. Rose’s resignation within twenty-four hours. The board, no more than Ms. Rose herself, understood what the essence of the problem was. For them, if there had been no publicity, there would have been no problem: so when Mr. Farage called for the dismissal of the board en masse, I sympathised with his view.

There is, of course, the question of the competence of the bank’s management. Last year, the bank’s profits rose by 50 percent (I wish my income had risen by as much). I am not competent to comment on the solidity of this achievement: excellent profits one year followed by complete collapse the next seem not to be unknown in the banking world. But the rising profits under Ms. Rose for the four years of her direction seem to point to, at least on some level, of competence. How many equally competent persons there are who could replace her, I do not know.

Still, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐟 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐬, as illustrated in this episode, is worrying. Would one trust such people if the political wind changed direction? Their views would change, but the iron moral certainty and self-belief would remain the same, like the grin of the Cheshire Cat. How many meetings have I sat through in which some apparatchik has claimed to be passionately committed to a policy, only to be just as passionately committed to the precise opposite when his own masters demand a change of direction?! The Coutts story is one of how totalitarianism can flourish.”

—

Theodore Dalrymple

[terryfuckingturniptruck]

Alright, here we go again. I'm sorry that you all want to feel righteous and just but not voting or voting third party is only going to make everything worse. Of course the dems are fucked up politicians too but if you are going to just not vote for anyone bc of the genocide, then you are voting indirectly for that orange fucker to be back in office. And not only is he for the genocide in Palestine, he is for various other types of genocide and other egregious behaviors as we've seen.

[ryukisgod]

TRAs talking about how history will judge us poorly reminds me of that quote “isn’t it an amazing coincidence that the good guys won every war?”

[philosophybits]

Great Tao rejected: benevolence and righteousness appear. Learning and knowledge professed: great hypocrites spring up. Family relations forgotten: filial piety and affection arise. The nation disordered: patriots come forth.

Laozi, Daodejing, Addiss & Lombardo tr. (Ch 18)

[labyrynth]

ok so your first problem was assuming mdzs is a story where Good People are Rewarded and Bad People are Punished.

your second problem was assuming that MXTX—who goes out of her way to showcase unresolved, tragic, undeserved endings in all of her works—would ever write a story with such a shallow notion of “deserving.”

the only reason wangxian makes it out unscathed is because they’re literally the protagonists. authorial intent and plot armor ensure their happy ending. that’s it.

[moe-broey]

Guy who digs his claws into everything he touches whether he likes it or not vs guy who constantly feels like it's on borrowed time and is generally unwanted and easily replaceable. Fight

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

mongwoo playing baduk against the qing ambassador is . very symbolic. THEYRE GONNA TEAM UP IM CALLING IT. (she and the king.) they compliment each other incredibly well, were one has a weakness the other is strong. mongwoo is frankly shit at schemes when real people are involved, and the king is too laden by real-people events and a certain kind of viewpoint when playing baduk. he cant entirely free himself from the strategist he needs to be as the king of a court of vipers, making him worse at baduk than mongwoo. meanwhile mongwoo has the mental flexibility and freedom to see things from unsuspecting angles; she seems to have ingraved the baduk rules in her heart and is now applying them expertly. but a baduk board is different from a real country with real people; her stakes when playing were never big enough to carry that burden. but should they team up they could compliment each other‘s strengths and weaknesses and they could take advantage of mongwoo‘s unique position as a woman crossdressing as the king‘s favourite official. she can go to places the king cant. she has access to the common people, his countrypeople, in a way he hasnt and never will. if they apply their combined smarts, cunning, and good heartedness to handle the precarious situation with the qing things would start to take a turn

[kelean]

got tagged by @orzamara a few days ago to make a poll with 5 of my favorite antagonists this time!! thank uuuuuu

tagging @lexsnotdead @saronchan @vspin @spectrealenko @frogmorton

@scalpelsister 

oh and you can interact with this post if you want to be included in any tag games in the future!!

[spiltcandycoatedpunkblood]

if the tory government gives a shit about dead people and how we "should be respecting them this day", why don't they look at the massive fucking wall in London of hundreds of thousands of people dead from Covid that THEY THEMSELVES CAUSED

[aingeal98]

Idk man but like. There were people who insisted the Russia Ukraine situation was too complicated to support one side and then dedicated their time to making Ukrainians and their supporters seem as evil as possible while mocking anyone who thought it was fucked up Russia wanted to slaughter them all and calling them stupid childish liberals. And it was blatantly clear to everyone with a brain not full of propaganda that these people did not care about the Ukrainians at all and saw them as subhuman. They're still doing in now with Iran, because the girls beaten to death by the morality police are an acceptable sacrifice to them.

And now there's people insisting the Israel Palestine situation is too complicated to support one side and then dedicating their time to making Palestinians and their supporters seem as evil as possible while mocking anyone who thinks it's fucked up how Israel wants to slaughter them all and calling them stupid childish leftists... So I hate to break it to them but no one is believing you care about Palestinians when you can't even acknowledge what Israel has done and is currently doing to them. Just like you rightfully didn't believe tankies cared about Ukrainians. Your dehumanisation and appalling lack of morals doesn't suddenly become justified because the team you hate is supporting the resistance this time and YOUR team is supporting the fascists. You're both awful because it should never be about teams in the first place lol. Tankies and Biden fanatic Liberals/Centrists hate each other more than they care about any human life as anything other than a news update they can use to mock "the other side" with. Caring about atrocities is met with sneering disdain, tankies say liberals only care because it serves American interests. Liberals say that leftists only care because it goes against American interests. The idea that there are people who can be horrified by both Ukraine and Palestine, as well as Syria, the Congo, Armenia and many other atrocities happening, is a thought that neither side can acknowledge. Because if they stop making sweeping generalisations about The Enemy they'll be forced to confront the evil rotting their own mentality.

They're usually more polite and well adjusted than Republicans. Republicans will just come out and say that everyone who's not them deserves to die. These two groups will go "Yes obviously we don't want anyone to die BUT-"

Take away the bullshit and the core is the same. Callous indifference towards any suffering innocents not belonging to their "in group", often masked with false righteous fury. Yes we support these people losing their liberties and lives but look at the slogan they picked to protest their right to be considered humans deserving of dignity and respect. Isn't it a little too distasteful? A little too ominous towards their oppressors? Let's ignore the dead bodies and fascist governments and spend the day talking about that instead.

[thatrandombystander]

Saw a USAmerican saying not to vote for Biden since he's not doing enough to stop the genocide, in the vein of "nobody is free until we're all free"

Ma'am I get it, but your two party system means you are voting between "some people are free" and "even less people are free"

Your current political system dictates that your country will be run by Biden or Trump. If you're advocating for people not to vote Biden, what is your alternate actionable plan here to change your political system by November to avoid the "even less people are free" option.

[trulyiamjustmaleficaring]

Sebastian Vael is such a profoundly lonely character

[backpackingspace]

once again I am on my it's hilarious that lan wangji is chief cultivator bs

[barbedwirechain]

gen z keeps finding new ways of reinventing christianity/christian morality and they’re arguably worse for it since they swear they’re above that

[gastlygallows]

Had a little over a week with my bf and spent the whole time smoking weed but now he's back home (2000 miles away) and it's time to take a break from the smook and focus on my Career Writing

Imma be honest with ya chat I struggle with a staggering insecurity despite the fact that I know I've got talent People enjoy my fanfiction and what original stuff I've published sits at 4.5 stars minimum on the kindle store

Imposter Syndrome is real and I wish I could share my original work more casually but with how cancellation is a thing and people freak out over the least little shit and also because I'm white (nothing worse to openly be in a creative field than white)

I absolutely must separate me the original author from me the fanfic author :( and it means that I suffer alone a lot on that front

[moe-broey]

Me trying to explain the importance of unpacking internalized ableism and standing in solidarity with more stigmatized disorders and BEARS REPEATING the internalized ableism that comes with being a high-masking "functional" autistic for most of my life (and somehow this correlates to my philosophies on Queerness and calling myself a Faggot as a rallying cry): "It's exactly like the nazi bar problem, you can't house both sheep and wolves, and also the leopards WILL eat your face."

My therapist:

Me:

me: "Are you familiar with any of that or"

My therapist: "I may need more context."