Thread by @brightabyss

Here’s my thesis: so many established, secure and privileged folks have an aversion to “radical” politics and discourse, where civil obedience is challenged or disagreement and conflict is intense, because *we* outsource genuine contestation to the military.

Care to discuss?

Which a to say, the desire and normative demand to not be adversarial, or to maintain civility and polite discourse, even with things that determine other people’s lives and dignity, is afforded by having cops and military use force to maintain established relations of power.

And it is this established system and culture of de-intensified political exchange — where agents are automatically expected to behave in a way that move towards consensus and peaceful co-existence — that effectively erases important and crucial world-making or remaking concerns.

For many in the privileged North, it’s more important to ‘be nice’ and build on existing dominant traditions than to make necessary deep changes made known only through conflicting truths and unpleasant conversations. It’s part of what I have termed *civilized madness.*