#usculture — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #usculture, aggregated by home.social.
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https://bbc.com/news/articles/cr717nglye0o
Seriously, I do not think that the Washington press dinner shooting was staged by the Trump regime.
That some intelligent people think otherwise shows how deeply Trump and other right wingers have degraded public discourse in the USA.
#DonaldTrump #USPolitics #USMedia #USCulture #ColeThomasAllen #WhiteHouseCorrespondentsDinner
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When you read stuff like this, it’s good to keep in mind that all of this is a choice.
Why Being Middle-Aged Sucks So Much for Americans (and No One Else)
https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-being-middle-aged-sucks-so-much-for-americans-and-no-one-else/#aging #americandream #unitedstates #individualism #uspolitics #usculture
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🧵 1/2
https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/behind-the-hood/
I've been thinking about the hoodie recently.
>>... no other garment is so charged, or so fraught, in this country as the hoodie. <<
My own dislike for the garment makes me uncomfortable. How much of my distaste springs from ugly prejudices about race, class, and age buried within me?
Then I start to wonder how much of my agonized reflection is not only an ultimately futile attempt to suppress my own aesthetic responses but also an unproductive focus on the individual psyche rather than on the structures of society.
Working with lots of young men in hoodies prompted these thoughts, as did...
#USCulture #Hoodie #Fashion #HistoryOfDress #Race #Class #Age
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Good overview by Julia Carrie Wong of the strain of Christianity animating Pete Hegseth.
Wong mentions that the "contemporary Christian nationalist movement in the US unites Christians from disparate denominations. Hegseth represents the Reformed/Calvinist wing, which is distinct from the charismatic evangelicalism practiced by figures such as the White House “faith office” adviser, Paula White-Cain. A third camp are Catholic Integralists, who want to integrate church and state; adherents include Steve Bannon and the Project 2025 architect Kevin Roberts."
I can't decide which of these three groups is the most dangerous. I do find all of them loathsome.
To obviate misunderstanding, I am aware that a large number of Christians from diverse traditions and denominations consider Christian nationalism to be a perversion of their religion.
Image: James Kerr/ Scorpion Dagger
#Christianity #PeteHegseth #ChristianNationalism #USPolitics #USCulture
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https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/distinctly-catholic/mark-silk-history-term-judeo-christian
Excellent article telling how the term "Judeo-Christian" migrated from liberal inclusiveness to right wing bigotry.
Image: Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries
#JudeoChristian #Religion #USHistory #USCulture #Christianity #Judaism #Islam #USPolitics #Politics #RightWing #NCCJ #NationalConferenceOfChristainsAndJews
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Things France Does Better Than The US
Things France Does Better Than Th…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Frenchmeals #bfdc-freelance #foodfb #francais #france #francethings #franceversusUS #freelance-bfdc #freelance-lifestyle #French #FrenchCulture #frenchfood #frenchmeals #frenchthings #frenchwine #livinginfrance #meals #paris #paristhings #sponcon-calling-all-travel-lovers #travel #travelinspiration #usculture #Wine
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2452212/things-france-does-better-than-the-us/ -
Things France Does Better Than The US https://www.diningandcooking.com/2452212/things-france-does-better-than-the-us/ #BfdcFreelance #food #foodfb #francais #france #FranceThings #FranceVersusUS #FreelanceBfdc #FreelanceLifestyle #French #FrenchCulture #FrenchFood #FrenchMeals #FrenchThings #FrenchWine #LivingInFrance #meals #paris #ParisThings #SponconCallingAllTravelLovers #travel #TravelInspiration #UsCulture #Wine
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weapon-baby-names-trend_l_66fc3db0e4b0d70dca9f58f9
Yuk! Easy to guess how these people vote, what sort of vehicle they drive or aspire to drive, and so on...
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I really appreciated this #KnittingCultLady video about Millennials who grew up religious and what we're doing now.
https://youtu.be/RMqs-hNnB44?si=f5-7Ujtd0nRQzJwG
My own experience is similar. James Dobson was on the radio in my childhood home. Most of the people I was friends with through college did not deprogram as of when we lost touch. Lots of people stay in that world and don't question it.
#religion #evangelicals #USculture #rightwing #deprogramming
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I really appreciated this #KnittingCultLady video about Millennials who grew up religious and what we're doing now.
https://youtu.be/RMqs-hNnB44?si=f5-7Ujtd0nRQzJwG
My own experience is similar. James Dobson was on the radio in my childhood home. Most of the people I was friends with through college did not deprogram as of when we lost touch. Lots of people stay in that world and don't question it.
#religion #evangelicals #USculture #rightwing #deprogramming
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I really appreciated this #KnittingCultLady video about Millennials who grew up religious and what we're doing now.
https://youtu.be/RMqs-hNnB44?si=f5-7Ujtd0nRQzJwG
My own experience is similar. James Dobson was on the radio in my childhood home. Most of the people I was friends with through college did not deprogram as of when we lost touch. Lots of people stay in that world and don't question it.
#religion #evangelicals #USculture #rightwing #deprogramming
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I really appreciated this #KnittingCultLady video about Millennials who grew up religious and what we're doing now.
https://youtu.be/RMqs-hNnB44?si=f5-7Ujtd0nRQzJwG
My own experience is similar. James Dobson was on the radio in my childhood home. Most of the people I was friends with through college did not deprogram as of when we lost touch. Lots of people stay in that world and don't question it.
#religion #evangelicals #USculture #rightwing #deprogramming
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In September, Masha Hamilton and her son, Cheney Orr, took a nearly-2,000-mile road trip along Interstate 95 — to connect with each other, and America. The pair chronicled their experiences for this Atavist longread. "The America I’ve met on the road is also far more recognizable, resilient, and generous than the noise of now would have us think," she concludes. "Online, we’re a nation of factions. In parking lots and at picnic tables, we’re a nation of encounters," writes Hamilton.
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Overheard in Texas:
At a bus stop: "Hispanic? That's amazing, you don't look at all Hispanic!"
In a library: "So I told them, we're not like that, we're not white, we're Mexican."
I've lived in Texas for years, but I still find ethnicity here hard to understand.
#USCulture #Texas #Ethnicity #Hispanics #LatinAmerican #MexicanAmerican #Mexican #Latino #Tejano
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I recently read a couple of Elmore Leonard crime novels -- "Riding the Rap" and "Out of Sight".
I don't read that much contemporary fiction, nor do I have a deep background in crime fiction as a genre, so you'll have to make do with the remarks of a relatively ill informed reader.
I can see why Leonard is a both popular and respected writer. He knows how to structure a gripping narrative, and his dialogue rings true.
On a more critical note, I can imagine these two novels providing future students of US culture with material for a study of the anxieties and aspirations of middle class white men in an America seemingly riven with disorder.
In "Riding the Rap", Leonard's background as a writer of westerns comes across; the US marshal protagonist brings order to a lawless frontier by acting on his own initiative rather than a mere agent of a federal bureaucracy. Here though, the frontier is no longer in the west, but in Florida, and the threatening nonwhite others are no longer American Indians but a Puerto Rican hitman and a Black Bahamian immigrant who, as part of his assimilation to Black America, adopted an Islamic name.
Leonard's depiction of racial attitudes intersects with his representation of socioeconomic class distinctions. The two nonwhite criminals act for a while as henchmen to a drink and drug addled wealthy white playboy, whose kidnapping plan drives the plot forward. His exploitation of his senile mother's wealth and the revelation of her ugly racist attitudes point to the class and status tensions that exist between a decadent white upper class and the Appalachian coalmining heritage of the US marshal protagonist.
These racial and white populist themes recur in "Out of Sight", where middle aged, middle class, white bank robbers are contrasted with African American home invaders, the latter being characterized by their cruelty, treachery, idleness, lust, and greed.
In both novels the middle aged male protagonist beds a much younger female character; some readers might find these glimpses of the fantasy life of ageing men unintentionally ludicrous.
I think I'll reserve final judgment on Leonard until I've read another of his books. "Swag" is supposed to be good, but neither my local second bookstore nor my libraries have it available at the moment, and I don't want to pay full price for it.
#Books #ElmoreLeonard #USLiterature #CrimeFiction #RidingTheRap #OutOfSight #Race #Racism #Populism #USCulture
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When U.S. President Trump visited the the U.K., he wanted to give King Charles a sword from the Dwight D Eisenhower Presidential Library. The director, Todd Arrington, refused because the artifact had been accepted as a donation and therefore belongs to the American people. Now he's been forced to resign — and doesn't quite understand why. Here's more from @CBSNews.
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https://www.honest-broker.com/p/is-mid-20th-century-american-culture
Of all the authors mentioned here, the only one I would like to revisit is John Updike; I want to read the whole Rabbit series from end to end for social history purposes.
I'd rather be constipated for a week than have to read any more by the favourite novelist of the neoconservatives, Saul Bellow.
The remarks about the absence of mid-century American opera from the current repertory interested me; is this in part a consequence of new /contemporary music being programmed in the USA as "American music" in the hope of not antagonizing older, antimodernist concert season subscribers ?
As for the absence of "Citizen Kane" from Netflix, what did the author expect? Netflix is awful , being difficult to search, unstable in its offerings , and a commercial enterprise with little respect for film as art and none whatsoever for film history.
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https://www.npr.org/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5546764/fcc-brendan-carr-kimmel-trump-free-speech
>>"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr told the right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson. "These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead." <<
Carr's adoption of Hollywood gangster cliche would be laughable were his actions not so dangerous. As with Trump, Miller, and Hegseth, the rhetoric suggests not just resentment towards "the libs", but an impoverished imagination trying to master surging anxieties about masculinity.
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Painful reading.
My first thought before reading the article was to wonder why on earth this couple had agreed to have their couples therapy televised.
Then I read that the couple made very little money, so the offer of a free sessions with a therapist who regularly charges $700 an hour must have been difficult to resist. As the husband/author writes, "I wanted to save my marriage. I was desperate for help."
I won't dissect the whole article but will instead note a couple of more general thoughts.
Much of the unhappiness in this marriage can be traced to the continual changes in residence, prompted in turn by scarce job prospects and insecurity in employment. One of the most ugly consequences of the neoliberal political economy pushed by "family values" conservatives is not just the wreckage of marriages by economic insecurity, but the insidious pressure on couples turn inwards and blame each other for problems generated by social forces.
Contra Margaret Thatcher, there IS such a thing as society, and a deeply inequitable society can warp intimate relationships and destroy families.
Fitting in horribly with this antisocial individualism is the deference accorded to "therapy" by so many Americans . All too often a mishmash of self help nostrums, poorly grounded popular psychology, and moralistic bullying is offered as a panacea to both individual and social problems.
Of course, psychotherapists have a legitimate function in modern society, but, in the US in particular, "therapy" has become something like a religion to a significant portion of the population. Consequently I often - as I do now - feel the stirrings of the functional equivalent of anticlericalism within my breast.
I am not recommending a turn to the "traditional" way of life advocated by conservatives. I would just plead for a turn to the social rather than the constant reduction of all problems to those of individual psychology.
Here, the combination of therapy with voyeuristic TV, itself a product of a ratings chase shaped by neoliberal values, turns out to be disastrous.
#CouplesTherapy #Therapy #Relationships #USCulture #Neoliberalism
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Journalists, publicists and college faculty have been fired after calling Charlie Kirk a divisive figure or making light of his assassination. A website called "Charlie's Murderers" circulates personal information including employment details about people allegedly endorsing the assassination — several of those on the list have received death threats. @RollingStone takes a look at the irony of all this when juxtaposed with Kirk's ostensible philosophy of debate, open discussion, and free speech.
#CharlieKirk #FreeSpeech #USPolitics #USCulture #Politics #Conservatism
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https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/fashion-secrets-sorority-rush-experts
Conservative culture in the USA:
“You never know when you’re going to meet your future employer or future husband,” Newberry says, “so why don’t you go ahead and put on an outfit you feel cute, classy, and confident in for move-in day? Because one, you might bump into an active in a sorority. Two, you might bump into your future employer. Maybe, like, a dad on the floor that’s moving his daughter in; they might try to hire you one day. So you want to put your best foot forward in all facets of life that’ll help you for rush, but then also for years to come after that.”
Newberry's business is a consultancy for those anxious to get into a sorority.
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STAYC -- I Want It
https://youtu.be/is03siMfTU0?si=Ts_kxxlIju-DR-NtI enjoyed this stage, both for the performance and the outfits.
Looking at not just the outfits but also the American West inspired imagery projected behind the group, I am reminded how rich a source of myth and symbol the US in general and the US West in particular have been in global popular culture.
I'm aware, of course, that the US West is a real place, with its own history populations, and challenges, as opposed to being merely a location for frontier "process" or myth .
Yet its mythic function does exist and does matter to the global imagination -- the west, and perhaps the US more largely, imagined as a place of openness, abundance, youth, freedom....all suggested in this and a million other pop videos.
How deeply rooted is this myth? Will it survive the years of cruelty, tyranny, and the inward looking closure of opportunity and of minds that MAGA is bringing to us?
#Kpop #STAYC #IWantIt #USCulture #PopularCulture #AmericanWest #MAGA
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Is The Man in the Pink Polo Shirt as unhappy as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit was in the mid fifties?
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🧵 3/3
...Chris Brown -- Back to Sleep
https://youtu.be/OQLuhelCaDQ?si=xdbJNEJ2rT_Aqbx7The songs do differ, so it's not a case of plagiarism, but it's quite clear that "Crash" draws on the older song.
Three lines of thought came to mind.
In the first place, I wondered - not for the first time - how my feelings about Kpop would change if I listened to more western popular music.
A quick look at the Wikipedia entry on "Back to Sleep" made it clear to me how well known the song had been on its release in 2015. I felt taken aback; am I the only "Crash" listener not to have been aware of the songs' similarities? What would have been my initial reaction to "Crash" had I heard the Chris Brown song first?
Of course Kpop recycles western popular music, just as western popular music in the past (certainly) and in the present (probably) recycles both its own products and music from other sources. Consequently, my feelings are not those of the viewer abashed when the painting one has admired turns out to be a forgery, but rather those of a reader who, on turning from a mass market paperback version of a beloved text to the annotated scholarly edition, discovers all the sources and allusions previously unnoticed.
These thoughts on background knowledge reminded me of a consideration about our responses to music and art in general: just as perception is never simply an impression via the senses on a tabula rasa, so we never look at the visual arts with an "innocent eye" or listen to music without pre-existing concepts, sensibilities, and memories. That tabula full of ideas, far from being an obstacle to our disinterested appreciation, is what what makes our aesthetic experience possible. Without the tabula plena, we would be hard put to recognize the art and the music within our visual and aural experience.
My final thought concerned the lyrics and visuals of the Chris Brown MV. "Crash" was a B side for which no MV was made, but even so one can see from the stage how it differed in feel from the erotically charged American video. In addition, the Korean lyrics have nothing like the explicit sexual language of "Back to Sleep". As such, a comparison reveals a striking difference between South Korea and the USA with regard to the representation of sex in popular culture. Whether one is "better" than the other is a question that interests me less than why these two cultures differ so much in this respect.
#Kpop #RandB #RnB #ChrisBrown #BackToSleep #Crash #Aesthetics #PopularCulture #AmericanCulture #USCulture #SouthKoreanCulture #Korea #Sex
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What word do you use for a carbonated soft drink? @TheConversationUS takes a look at the origin of some of the most common terms in the U.S. — soda, which likely comes from "sodium," pop, an onomatopoeia, and coke — as a generic term for all drinks, not just cola. We want to know, what do you say?
#Language #Linguistics #English #Food #FoodCulture #Drinks #USCulture #Lifestyle
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Is it a uniquely American cultural peculiarity to promote your food brand by driving a giant version of a sausage or spud around the country? Atlas Obscura looks at how Blue Diamond's Nutty Cruiser (a 20-foot-long almond on wheels with a nut-shooting cannon on its front) is joining the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and the Big Idaho Potato Truck on the road. “It is a very smooth ride,” says marketer Ralph Failla. “[The drivers] said it feels like driving on air.” Tell us in the comments if your country has a Poutine Machine or Camembert Camion (or make up your own version for our collective entertainment).
Link: https://flip.it/zOsLQH
#Food #FoodCulture #USCulture #Culture #Lifestyle #OscarMayerWienermobile
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Intellectual diversity matters, but recent events, common decency, and your sanity and mine mean that US conservatives can never again be taken seriously on this topic.
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I finished this book earlier today.
I'd recommend it as a way into the minds, and, more importantly, the hearts of a significant slice of Trump voters.
Arlie Russell Hochschild deserves credit for solid sociological field work. Rather than just dropping in for a week, she spent time really getting to know a corner of Appalachia, immersing herself in the Pikesville community and carrying out more than eighty interviews. At times I found the book a tough read, because Hochshild is exploring senses of loss and hurt amongst people some of whom I found difficult to sympathize with. That difficulty on the part of people like me is, of course, actually part of the larger story.
Stolen Pride | The New Press
https://thenewpress.com/books/stolen-pride
#USPolitics #USCulture #StolenPride #ArlieRussellHochschild #Sociology #CommunityStudy #Kentucky #Appalachia #DonaldTrump
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Trump's attachment to kitsch like "Cats" and "Phantom of the Opera" is all of a piece with his dishonesty, cruelty, and antintellectualism.
Trump's Kennedy Center fantasies are chasing away its primary audiences
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-kennedy-center-audience-rcna197179
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Striking insight:
>>In Jennifer Silva’s fine study of working-class couples, “Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty”, she found they made up their own versions of the American Dream. Instead of describing their journey to the dream as getting richer, buying a house or car, they describe an ascent from abuse to full recovery – a journey to the emotional American Dream.<<
Arlie Russell Hochschild, Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right (The New Press, 2024), 128.
Image: Recovery Fair 2010 -- T-shirt provided by Maine Alliance of Addiction Recovery (MAAR) -- Portland Prevention -- Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 -- Wikimedia Commons
#USCulture #WorkingClassCulture #Abuse #Recovery #AmericanDream #JenniferSilva #ArlieHochschild #Sociology
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In the summer of 1956, 15-year-old Kathy Kohner Zuckerman learned to surf, and she recorded her experiences of riding waves and the people she met in a diary. Everyone had a nickname — Tubesteak, Lord Blears, Thrifty Phil — and Kathy wanted one too. Soon, she became Gidget, a portmanteau of "girl" and "midget." Her story went on to become a series of novels, a movie starring Sandra Dee, an ABC series starring Sally Field, a stage musical co-written by Francis Ford Coppola, and more. And, Defector's David Davis argues, it also was an inflection point in surf culture, turning it from "a sleepy pastime to a billion-dollar mainstream commodity." Kohner Zuckerman dipped out of the limelight in the 1960s before re-embracing it over the past couple of decades. Davis spoke to her about her early experiences, her unique place in American culture, her life as Gidget and beyond, and what she saved from the LA fires that razed her home of 60 years.
#Gidget #PopCulture #USCulture #Culture #KathyKohnerZuckerman #LAFires #Television #TV #Film #Surf #Surfing
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🧵 1/2
Thomas Chatterton Williams on the failure of identity politics:
https://www.msn.com/en-my/news/editorpicks/is-this-what-cancel-culture-achieved/ar-AA1yOsQm
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Super red baby name choices are so revealing about the values and self-image of today's US "conservatives".
The Reddest and Bluest Baby Names | Nameberry
https://nameberry.com/blog/the-reddest-and-bluest-baby-names
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🤮
Experts Alarmed By Weapon Baby Name Trend | HuffPost Life
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/weapon-baby-names-trend_l_66fc3db0e4b0d70dca9f58f9
#BabyNames #ToxicMasculinity #Onomastics
#USCulture #GunCulture -
https://youtu.be/qVl0AuoWukM?si=h-W5pl3YoSBCsLLv
Irresistible Gracie.
Now that California has eclipsed Calvin in US culture, what should the other four letters of TULIP stand for?
#USCulture #AmericanCulture #AmericanStudies #Calvinism #GracieAbrams
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Trump FLEES from Debate Plans as Harris Breaks Fundraising Records! | #ResistanceLive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AWTH7XrA5g#ChallengeYourPerception #ChallengeYourPrejudice
Challenge:
#InternalizedRacism
#IntenralicedMisogyny
#InernatlizedSexismSupport & Defend:
#WomensRights
#WomensAutonomy
#Wokeness
#Equity #DEI
#Democracy#USCulture #Harris2024 #Politics #GrassrootAction #Democrats #MobalizeVoters #CheckYourVoterRegistration
💙💙💙💙💙 -
Read this piece by a US conservative for a reminder that, amongst other ugly passions, racial hatred continues to seethe away on the white christian right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/opinion/presbyterian-church-evangelical-canceled.html
#USPolitics #USCulture #PresbyterianChurchOfAmerica #DavidFrench #USConservatism #RightWingExtremists #Racism #ChristianNationalism #ChristianRight
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Read this piece by a US conservative for a reminder that, amongst other ugly passions, racial hatred continues to seethe away on the white christian right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/opinion/presbyterian-church-evangelical-canceled.html
#USPolitics #USCulture #PresbyterianChurchOfAmerica #DavidFrench #USConservatism #RightWingExtremists #Racism #ChristianNationalism #ChristianRight
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Read this piece by a US conservative for a reminder that, amongst other ugly passions, racial hatred continues to seethe away on the white christian right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/opinion/presbyterian-church-evangelical-canceled.html
#USPolitics #USCulture #PresbyterianChurchOfAmerica #DavidFrench #USConservatism #RightWingExtremists #Racism #ChristianNationalism #ChristianRight
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Friedman makes an important point about the complexity of the issue here:
>>you’ve got two opposing trends: One is people with serious mental illness are undertreated, and those with mild illness may be, depending on your view, overtreated.<<
In addition, the tendency, so widespread in the USA, to reduce the political and the ethical to the therapeutic worries me.
I worry, too, that this medicalization is taking hold beyond the boundaries of the USA.
Anglophone countries will obviously be particularly prone to US influence here, but I would be interested to learn whether a similar process is taking place in other countries, especially those like Argentina, in which psychoanalysis has long been important.
#Therapy #Psychotherapy #Medicalization #USCulture #Argentina