When is anger justified?

MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2022

Guggenheim "Karen" exposed: When is anger justifiedperfectly sensible, even? 

When is anger something different? When might it showcase a possible human imperfection within our own blue tribe?

For people interested in such questions, we'll recommend Helen Lewis' new report for The Atlantic, which appears beneath this title plus synopsis:

The Guggenheim's Scapegoat.
A museum curator was forced out of her job over allegations of racism that an investigation deemed unfounded. What did her defenestration accomplish?

According to Lewis, a black curator accused various Guggenheim officials of racist conduct. According to Lewis, the curator responded in the following way when she was asked for an interview:

LEWIS (10/3/22): In August, I sent an Instagram message to LaBouvier asking if we might speak for this article. In her reply, LaBouvier castigated The Atlantic for not having covered her Guggenheim exhibition or its fallout. “Where were you in 2019 or 2020?” she asked. “Fuck you and your arrogance.”

LaBouvier followed up by email, copying the executive editor at the magazine. “I am not interested in participating in a piece that through lack of expertise, thoroughness, research or fortitude will resign me as a footnote and amplify a glorified publicity stunt,” she wrote, calling me “another example of a clueless, rapacious White woman.”

“I am so tired of scavenging journalists attempting to speak for me, or depict me. I am nothing if not direct, and I have always said it from my chest, and with my name on it.” She closed with a warning: “Should you fuck this upwhich you willI will be on your ass like white on rice on a paper plate in a snowstorm at a KKK rally.”

For the record, the episode in question is rather complex. We can only offer Lewis' account of the episodebut along the way, a Karen lost her job.

When is anger justified, constructive? Can it ever happen that members of our own blue tribe behave in ways which are less than perfectly wiseand if so, are members of the Other tribe sometimes able to see this?


12 comments:


  1. "Can it ever happen that members of our own blue tribe behave in ways which are less than perfectly wise..."

    Ha-ha, a good one, dear Bob.

    Can it ever happen that they don't? Don't behave as totally full of themselves, extremely unpleasant, borderline sociopathic, good decent persons...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In terms of basic maturity and wisdom, this person could be your soul mate.

      Delete
    2. You forgot a comma between borderline and sociopathic.

      Delete
  2. It's interesting that Bob has adapted the slur "Karen." I believe in early writing he decided it (with justification)
    as liberals thinking up names to call people.
    Whatever, it would be interesting to know if Bob thinks
    people would be justified in being angry at Alex Jones.
    I doubt he would ever say.

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    Replies
    1. From the article:

      ‘“he zeroed in on Spector, the woman who had brought her into the museum’s orbit but who, according to LaBouvier, was “trying to co-opt my work,” and likened her to Amy Cooper, the “Central Park Karen,” a white woman who had recently been in the news after she called the police on a Black bird-watcher.”

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  3. Now that the story about Herschel Walker paying for an abortion, is out, two things will certainly happen.
    1) Republican voters who care about babies being murdered through abortion will never vote for Walker.
    2) Walker will not lose any votes from Republican voters.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He denied it but even if true, if every Republican senator that confirmed the justices that overturned Roe and also was associated with an abortion was replaced with a Democrat, we would have had a pro abortion court and millions more legal killings. No one is stupid enough to get millions of innocents killed to punish one politician who will prevent it.

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    2. "No one is stupid enough to get millions of innocents killed to punish one politician who will prevent it."

      The Trump 2020 election campaign, shows you don't know what you're talking about.

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    3. 11:15,
      You mis-overestimate Republican voters.

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    4. Is 11:15 a Republican who doesn't care about innocent babies, or is 11:15 someone who cares about innocent babies, and is therefore, not a Republican?

      Delete
  4. Oh no. You dih-unt. Slid into that "Karen" meme-sphere cloak for all the "we don't have to think this through" shortcut value it seems to provide. Perpetuating the name-shaming of all those real people who don't share any qualities with the "self-entitled white women" that some buffoon labeled for their bad behavior, setting off waves of casual carelessness for the consequences of such easy labels. Your new task: find a better way to reference such types.

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