expurgation
expurgation
to purge or cleanse of moral offensiveness
The State maintains its monopoly on violence through a set of malleable definitions. A peaceful action gets classified otherwise if the message is unpalatable. Police brutality gets rebranded into self-defense. Survival registered as defilement.
By manipulating conditions on the fly, these forces are able to drop the pretense of restraint whenever they choose. Those who play by their rules find themselves in a rigged game. The true power of dissent can only be realized once we liberate ourselves from the authority’s terms.
A big part of freedom is knowing what orders you won’t obey. Just as certain perpetrators are always called violent, through selective framing atrocity finds a justification. We know the institutions of the State are unjust arbiters. That’s why it is more important than ever to reject their classifications for your own.
Check in with yourself. Interrogate your impulses, especially as our everyday rhetoric gets more inflammatory. Being steeped in this stuff is one of the ways the line shifts. Enough normalization and people find the excuses they need.
We are all facing pressure to let go of our humanity. Holding on to it means following your compass, not someone else’s.
ContextFall
1898 Monument and Memorial Park, Wilmington
How to Build the End of the World by Miliaku Nwabueze
Man vs. Bomb by M. Shaw