I isolated myself from criticism so I could behave badly without losing my sense of righteousness.
. . .
I told him that Melissa thought he was ‘pathologically submissive’ and he said it would be a mistake to assume that meant he was powerless in relationships with women. He told me he thought helplessness was often a way of exercising power.
. . .
To love someone under capitalism you have to love everyone.
. . .
Of course it’s really about power, Bobbi agreed. But it’s harder to work out who has the power, so instead we rely on ‘niceness’ as a kind of stand-in. I mean this is an issue in public discourse. We end up asking like, is Israel ‘nicer’ than Palestine.
