Friday, January 03, 2020

Witch hunting

Famously, there are a number of tribes in the Congo area among which there is no such thing as "death by natural causes." If an adult dies unexpectedly, a witch is to blame.

The authorities look for and punish the witch. There are some usual suspects, of course: albinos, twins, people who inspire envy... But the blame can fall on anyone.

We'd never do anything like that here.

Here, if someone has had unhappy luck in life and can properly define their intersectionality, the bad luck is someone else's fault, and the self-appointed authorities look for and punish the guilty party and group. There are some usual suspects, of course: "patriarchs", "capitalists", "cis-normatives," etc, but anyone who has at any time failed to abide by the party's rules from the past, present, or future, is vulnerable.

These things are nothing like each other, of course.

1 comment:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

The desire to externalise the reasons for one's unhappiness does seem to be common.