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The Age of Grievance
The Age of Grievance | Frank Bruni
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From bestselling author and longtime New York Times columnist Frank Bruni comes a lucid, powerful examination of the ways in which grievance has come to define our current culture and politics, on both the right and left. The twists and turns of American politics are unpredictable, but the tone is a troubling given. Its one of grievance. More and more Americans are convinced that theyre losing because somebody else is winning. More and more tally their slights, measure their misfortune, and assign particular people responsibility for it. The blame game has become the countrys most popular sport and victimhood its most fashionable garb. Grievance neednt be bad. It has done enormous good. The United States is a nation born of grievance, and across the nearly two hundred and fifty years of our existence as a country, grievance has been the engine of morally urgent change. But what happens when all sorts of grievancesthe greater ones, the lesser ones, the authentic, the inventedare jumbled together? When people take their grievances to lengths that they didnt before? A violent mob storms the US Capitol, rejecting the results of a presidential election. Conspiracy theories flourish. Fox News knowingly peddles lies in the service of profit. College students chase away speakers, and college administrators dismiss instructors for dissenting from progressive orthodoxy. Benign words are branded hurtful; benign gestures are deemed hostile. And theres a potentially devastating erosion of the civility, common ground, and compromise necessary for our democracy to survive. How did we get here? What does it say about us, and where does it leave us? The Age of Grievance examines these critical questions and charts a path forward.
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JenniferEgnor
The Age of Grievance | Frank Bruni
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I‘m a leftist. The policies I want to see enacted are basic, and just common sense. I started paying attention to politics late in the game, and I‘ve learned a lot since then. One thing I‘ve learned, is that it‘s ugly. It‘s dirty. There is constant infighting, especially on the left. Things work, when we work as a team. I get really irritated sometimes when the fighting is petty; I‘ll give some examples. At clinic, we suddenly had an⬇️

JenniferEgnor interest from others in the community to come stand at the fence as clinic defenders, to counter the harassers. I saw so much fighting between them, and that didn‘t help us, the staff, or the patients. They would fight each other over ridiculous things. Two of my closest guy friends used to be cops; we met long after this. When clinic defenders learned this, they hated them and refused to speak to them. When Roe was about to fall, one of⬇️ 2mo
JenniferEgnor those close guy friends, put together a rally and invited everyone to come and speak. Some of the clinic defenders were enraged that a man organized it, and utilized a megaphone to share. How dare he! (We need men to stand and speak with us—they‘ve been silent for too long). There was another time when one of my clinic escorts was talking to a clinic defender, and the subject of shampoo arose. It led to the caution label, warning not to⬇️ 2mo
JenniferEgnor ingest. The escort said that it was common sense not to eat it; the defender said that he, was being ableist by stating this, because, he was autistic and might want to taste it. I can assure you, this kid was not autistic. One more example. I have heard it said to not use the word ‘crazy‘ or ‘insane‘ because it offends someone who isn‘t mentally well. I get it, but at the same time…to say it‘s wrong to use the words even in a general way,⬇️ 2mo
JenniferEgnor not referring to any individual…is just a bit much. So with all of this being said, I could go on. I don‘t agree with everything the author says, but I get where he‘s coming from and I do understand a lot of it. What we must always remember is to think, speak, and act in a way that reflects love, never hate. Be on guard for the vile things you know are wrong and call it out every time you see it. Because there are some things, that we cannot⬇️ 2mo
JenniferEgnor agree to disagree on. Fascism is on the rise…again. And it has no place anywhere, ever. 2mo
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Megabooks
The Age of Grievance | Frank Bruni
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I don‘t pay for the NYT, so I don‘t get to read all of Bruni‘s columns, but I‘ve started paying more attention since he became a professor at Duke, my alma mater. He rails against the overuse of grievances in today‘s society, but I found him a bit tone deaf to others‘ particular struggles and why they might find them more difficult than he sees. Books like this often come off a bit too judgmental for me, but I‘m glad I read it.

Centique You put that so well about the “tone deafness”. I have been thinking something similar (less coherently!) about some online essays on the same theme. They had some good points but glossed over the context of all the many years (sometimes generations) where a grievance (and associated pain/damage) went unheard and ignored. 7mo
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