Saturday, August 29, 2015
Stolen Valor, a Footnote
TOF missed a point in his post "Bruce Jenner, Rene Descartes, and Stolen Valor" that examples of stolen valor include not only those who claim medals but never served, but also white women who imagine they are black. This latter is not quite the same as men who imagine they are women or Frenchmen who imagine they are Napoleon because there is a quite evident need/desire to join oneself to a good and triumphant cause/group. It is related to the enormous surge in Irish-Americans round about every 17 March, when famously "everyone becomes Irish." We see it too among those who kvell over standing up to "microaggressions" or "trigger words" as if that were the same thing as marching across the bridge at Selma, or even standing up to the "great wall of hate" on the viaduct in Milwaukee. The ranks of the Old Guard very likely swelled after they were wiped out -- Frenchmen claiming that had served among them. The number of Southerners participating in Pickett's Charge undoubtedly increased as time went on. People often long to have been there "with the heroes," like generals always fighting the previous war.
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Actually "trigger words" are themselves an example of this. It's actually a technical term of therapy; those with PTSD are "triggered" by things that remind them of the trauma in question - firecrackers for a veteran, being touched for sex-abuse victims, etc. For the people for whom "triggers" are not a buzzword, there actually is courage involved in standing up to them.
ReplyDeleteIronically, the abuse of "triggers" is basically "appropriation", which SJWS claim to hate.
Of course, trauma isn't the only kind of therapy where "triggers" come up. The circumstances where an alcoholic drinks are his "triggers"; funny how you don't hear people talking about family cookouts as being "triggering", despite there being, I believe, a lot more alcoholics than people with PTSD.