Absent-mindedness as dominance behaviour
I am tired of this worldview in which every personal behavior that we don&#x27;t like is <i>actually</i> a secret manifestation of power dynamics. Nothing ever <i>means</i> anything except as endless jockeying for social position. Nothing is good or bad or true or false or beautiful or hideous: only advantageous or disadvantageous. It&#x27;s a terrible way of thinking about the world.<p>This nonsense is not conducive to building or maintaining a civilization. It doesn&#x27;t create shared understanding: instead, it supposes that any shared understanding is actually some kind of ploy to reinforce privilege or something. It&#x27;s an endless grievance machine that magnifies our worst mental impulses: suspicion, ingroup-outgroup double standards, and of course fundamental attribution error. This crap shouldn&#x27;t be part of respectable discourse.