Multiple Connotations of the Word "Sacrifice"

[rinue]

It's been amazing to watch some of the rich people around me huffily put their kids in private schools so they can return to the classroom experience. What an amazing way to use money: angrily put your kids at higher risk of death because the state won't do it for you. I have seen other forms of wealthy death-seeking, like skiing, eating blowfish, doing designer drugs, and flying small private planes, but with those the adrenaline thrill of risk is somewhat the point. With this one, it seems more like a bedrock belief that if you're rich enough, disease won't happen to you. The rich haven't been hit hard yet because they're able to socially distance, and now they don't want to, because the disease doesn't hit rich people. It's stunning.

There is an extremely obnoxious parent group in my town who are screaming at the school district for not being "creative" enough because they haven't entertained suggestions like commandeering several of the town's churches for extra classroom space or discovering a treasure chest full of $6 million. This group intends to petition the governor to make the teachers and staff return to full in-person staffing.

I can't imagine, in a realistic instead of fantasy way, how they picture this would work. Do they think the state is going to nationalize church properties? Do they picture the national guard marching elderly women into classrooms at gunpoint?

The main emotional/intellectual reference I have at this point is various old texts about white colonists in the Americas, Africa, and India. That, and continuous attempts to get rid of homelessness by making it illegal. I want it, and therefore it should be, and is reasonable, and everyone else will have to work it out somehow. I am a friend of the king. I don't think it's exactly the same as thinking other people aren't people, so much as a sense that everyone who wants something different than you is lying out of laziness, which must be met with a stern hand.

Comments

[sovay]

What an amazing way to use money: angrily put your kids at higher risk of death because the state won't do it for you.

This presents such a conundrum because I don't wish harm on the children, but I can't even wish that this lethal selfishness would rebound on the parents because that would also harm the children.

I don't think it's exactly the same as thinking other people aren't people

It does read that way to me, because it has passed the point of expecting other people to inconvenience themselves for your comfort and reached the point of demanding they literally die for your whims. If they are recognized as people, they are not the kind of people who matter. Not our kind of people. Not real.

[rinue]

"not our kind of people" is probably right - it's tricky, because it reminds me of a lot of oppressor knotwork (I don't know what else to call this) like how Mexicans are deadly efficient at taking our jobs but also lazy and welfare dependent, and women are silly and foolish but also brilliant schemers, and kids don't know anything yet but also are completely formed and permanent and should be tried as adults, and gay men are effeminate sissies but trying to rape us while simultaneously stealing our girlfriends. They're people, so you can hate and fear them like people, but also don't matter like people do.

I don't actually think it's been thought through particularly, the question of whether other people exist or don't exist. It feels more like the reasoning chain:

- I can't accept the idea of my kids dying
- Therefore my kids can't die
- Therefore it's safe
- Therefore everyone is being absurd about precautions

[sovay]

oppressor knotwork (I don't know what else to call this)

I like that term. I tend to think of it in terms of conspiracy theory, where all information is bent even or especially if it's self-contradictory, because anti-Semitism can famously be demonstrated to work this way (on top of being a literal conspiracy theory) and I suspect so can other axes like the ones you cite, since so many of them depend on defensiveness at the idea of Them getting something of Ours for nothing, or at all.

- Therefore everyone is being absurd about precautions

Between step two and step three, a miracle happens.

[sabotabby]

Remember all those years ago when "reality-based thinking" and "reality-based community" were terms that got thrown around? This is what the return-to-school plans remind me of. Almost everyone involved is cognizant of the fact that a certain number of kids will die if we return to school without a vaccine, but they're deluding themselves into believing that it might not happen, or that it'll be someone else's kids who don't matter, or whatever.

My current favourite is the word "creative." It's used to designate a scenario that is impossible (say, having extracurricular activities, or singing) but that the bureaucrat in charge does not want to admit is actually impossible, so will download the responsibility and subsequent fallout from either implementing the solution in a dangerous way, or failing to implement it, onto the classroom teacher.

[rinue]

"You disgusting greedy teachers who are total idiots that can't solve basic problems must immediately return to the classrooms to be a beacon of reassurance and educate our children in your ways"

[sabotabby]

We’re Schroedinger’s teachers: simultaneously too stupid to do math or teach their kids anything and also experts in public health and epidemiology.

[rinue]

Maybe it's like in anime where sometimes you dress in all black and are your evil aspect and sometimes you dress in all white and are your holy aspect.

[sabotabby]

Ah, there’s my problem. Monochromatic wardrobe.