When leftists post stuff like this, it’s a deep betrayal of their psychology. The inadvertently say the quiet part out loud. It’s the culmination of a desire to see their enemies suffer, the worship of low culture, Soviet-tier word games… And unfathomably massive cope. The leftist approach to shortages is never to fix them, or improve the situation. They see it as a vindication of their ideas — an opportunity to “bring people to their side” and to punish their enemies.
When energy or food shortages affect their designated enemies (normal, well-turned-out white people with families) they loudly pray for them to get worse. On that level, it’s simple envy expressed as a revenge fantasy. But this is where the delusion comes in — they imagine their enemies as ultra-rich, coddled trust fund kids who have never tied their own shoes, much less “survived” They fantasize about being thrown into a tough situation with these people, wherein their “grit” will triumph. Of course, the most outspoken leftists *are* those coddled trust fund kids. They’re never people doing real work, or living in harsh climates, or producing their own food. Their most loyal, rabid base is the Starbucks-worker class.
However, they want to imagine that on a “level playing field” of absolute poverty, they’re better than their enemies. That they’re more in-touch, more gritty, more durable. Again, this isn’t the case — but that’s the delusion. The other element is a phrase I’ve used a couple times but never really explained: the worship of low culture. Leftists, despite often coming from coddled backgrounds, are obsessed with the practices of the poor, the isolated, the foreign.
They always reference the lifestyles of peasants, of isolated hunter-gatherers. They’re fascinated by the quaintness of the Congo village, the Asian shoebox-apartment, the Eastern European hovel, the favela. The Longhouse. In times of struggle, they smugly say “well *some* people don’t have bread and eggs, or indoor heat, or cars. They’re really a luxury!” As if that standard of living is something to aspire to.
Despite the fact that most of them are oversocialized hyper-urbanites, they imagine that they’d be able to embrace such a lifestyle — that of a tribesman, or a third-world urban worker — with ease. In this fantasy, the kulaks (read: you) would suffer and die. Again — not reflected by reality. It’s the chuds that step up and thrive during utter devastation. Conversely, any attempt by leftists to be protective, supportive, etc. comes off as ineffectual and lame — utter LARP.
But I digress. We saw similar rhetoric in the early USSR. This is where the wordplay, the doublespeak, enters. During regional famines or shortages, the regime’s public stance was “some of your comrades survive with less — do you dare think yourself better than them?” They have a borderline-fetishistic desire to watch you suffer and smugly act like it’s normal. We saw this extensively during COVID. Watch for more of this rhetoric as energy shortages cause further misery in Western Europe. It’s present on social media, and the seeds are planted in government rhetoric and mainstream media.
To be clear, *I don’t think we’re heading for some Mad Max collapse where everything is off the shelves — our infrastructure may be weakened, but it’s far too robust for that future. However, energy shortages & local crises? Absolutely. And we’ll see even more of this rhetoric. Tl;dr — it’s the original “learn to code”, but this time instead of jobs it’s basic necessities.
Also there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the graphic at the beginning of the thread — it’s good info in case you lose power. It’s the tone and discourse that surrounds things like this during potential shortages that I’m analyzing. FYI this is not even remotely about climate change or energy reduction for environmental goals, though that language is certainly used as well. I meant to write this about actual shortages, natural disasters, etc. and the Discourse that erupts from them.
And for more examples of the discourse I’m talking about, look at the replies — The funniest rebuttal is the implication that if you want indoor heating, you’re somehow “soft” or “not tough enough”. They’d tell you the same thing about food and clean water if it came down to it.
