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Honestly, reminds me of catholicism vibes when I think about it. And to be clear, I mean whatever brand of catholicism I grew up with in the US, I can’t speak for every form of it across the world. But anyway, the reason I think of it is because of the mindset that can surround penance and confession and the like. Notably (to my knowledge/experience with it) confession is fundamentally centered around penance and forgiveness, rather than around solving the problem. That’s not to say a priest would never give advice if you asked, but the structure of it is like that. When I used to be catholic and would go, it was never like, “Okay, what are you going to do to act differently?” It was like, “For your penance, say five hail marys” or whatever.
There might be theologians who would disagree with me, but to me it’s this thing kind of like, “As long as I feel pain by taking note of your pain, I in some way make up for your suffering.” When the reality is that if someone is in a burning building, they don’t want you to cry and sob and wear a hair shirt and give up sweets for a month, they want you to get them out of that building ASAP before they die. They don’t care if you are depressed or ecstatic doing it, they just want the help.
And I mean, there are cases, like with Palestine, where helping put a spotlight on it is something, however small it can seem. But Palestinian people don’t need you to spread the word because they need you to secondhand suffer for them. They need you to spread the word in order to resist imperialist narratives and stay alive more effectively. Among other reasons like building pressure for boycotting and so on.
Anywho, this is my scattered attempt at unraveling where some of this comes from.
Honestly, reminds me of catholicism vibes when I think about it. And to be clear, I mean whatever brand of catholicism I grew up with in the US, I can’t speak for every form of it across the world. But anyway, the reason I think of it is because of the mindset that can surround penance and confession and the like. Notably (to my knowledge/experience with it) confession is fundamentally centered around penance and forgiveness, rather than around solving the problem. That’s not to say a priest would never give advice if you asked, but the structure of it is like that. When I used to be catholic and would go, it was never like, “Okay, what are you going to do to act differently?” It was like, “For your penance, say five hail marys” or whatever.
There might be theologians who would disagree with me, but to me it’s this thing kind of like, “As long as I feel pain by taking note of your pain, I in some way make up for your suffering.” When the reality is that if someone is in a burning building, they don’t want you to cry and sob and wear a hair shirt and give up sweets for a month, they want you to get them out of that building ASAP before they die. They don’t care if you are depressed or ecstatic doing it, they just want the help.
And I mean, there are cases, like with Palestine, where helping put a spotlight on it is something, however small it can seem. But Palestinian people don’t need you to spread the word because they need you to secondhand suffer for them. They need you to spread the word in order to resist imperialist narratives and stay alive more effectively. Among other reasons like building pressure for boycotting and so on.
Anywho, this is my scattered attempt at unraveling where some of this comes from.
I think you might be on to something here.
Thoughts and prayers
I think this is an excellent and accurate analysis, I have similar thoughts.