New email signature just dropped

It is safe to say that this thread by Rt Hon Steve Baker FRSA 🗽 has brought out the worst elements on all sides of the ideological and psychological spectrum. Still, it gives one hope to see it has received quite a high level of support, as well.

"There are, of course, people who are primed to torment others, people who feel best about themselves when they are degrading and dominating others" —John Munder Ross, The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life (They didn't even have socia media when he wrote this…)

1/ I made a list a while ago, about therapy🚩 that should make you think long & hard about whether you’re seeing right therapist Starting another, please add -agrees with nearly everything you say -diagnoses people in your life -gives you advice -mawkish displays of “empathy"

Not everyone needs to hear this, but some people definitely do: Trauma doesn’t grant you a license to be an asshole. Trauma might *explain* harmful behaviors, but doesn’t *excuse* them. Trauma most likely wasn’t your fault—but it is unfortunately your responsibility to manage.

This should be self-evident.

The focus of so many social media therapy “influencers" is self. Self-help. Self-love. Self-care. Self-talk. Self-healing. Self self self self. Far too often, it is the very disease it purports to cure👇

A global pandemic and a large war in eastern Europe. Perhaps you've heard about them...?

1/ One of most important things I've learned: Severe personality problems find *camouflage.* No one thinks “I’m a sadist” or “I'm a malignant narcissist.” They find a belief system/social group that validates their most hateful, destructive impulses & construes them as virtues.

A wide range of public history and a narrower strand of family history gave me some idea of what it was like to leave Germany or a German-occupied country after 1934. To compare it to a decision not to use a large social media platform because of its owner’s views is distasteful

“I thought it might be nice to go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves, including a fun fact.” You thought wrong.

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” —Albert Schweitzer

“Untermensch” means “sub-human”, the Nazis' way of referring to Jews, Roma, and other peoples they targeted for genocide. It doesn’t mean standing in a fucking passport queue.

You may start off young and poor in academia, but after years of hard work you will no longer be young

You ever read an academic argument so confusing you're left thinking, "one of us shouldn't have a PhD"?

“I'm just asking questions about received wisdom and official history!” and the question is like “is Hitler actually good”, no, you waste of space.

Autumn is a time of unassuming, effortless beauty. I love it not just for the muted colours and misty mornings, but for the scent of woodsmoke and damp earth, and that sense of stillness that hangs in the air like a physical presence. #peakdistrict

Soon we’ll be saying that breathing unfairly disadvantages dead people

Repost to share the reminder this #WorldSuicidePreventionDay 👇 Sometimes the hardest words to say are the most important. By having more open conversations, we give people the chance to express how they feel and get the support they need. It could even save a life. 💚