VERBALE MIKROAGRESSION.
Microaggression exists and comes in many forms. Verbal form or as an expression of undesirable behavior in many social situations. . Applied consciously or unconsciously. Microaggression thrives like a virus in interpersonal communication and relationships between people. Even among friends and in private circles, I notice that it threatens to spread like a polarizing disease. What do I mean by microaggression? In the broadest sense, it is any emotional exchange that does not lead to a physical altercation but in which the emphasis is strongly placed on one’s own rightness through micro- or medium aggression at the expense of reasonableness. A discussion that leaves a bad taste in your mouth and calls your feelings toward the other person into question. It raises the question: are we friends, can we remain friends, and if so, on what basis? While the other person invariably claims that it wasn’t meant that way. That it’s because of your lack of humor. While the other person invariably claims that it wasn’t meant that way. That’s your lack of humor. Your lack of empathy.
The term “misplaced hypersensitivity” quickly comes to mind, while the joker fails to realize that he is essentially invoking his own superiority.
In a narrower sense, these are subtle behaviors, such as raising your voice during a disagreement. Not letting others finish speaking, preventing them from explaining their arguments. Ridicule the other person’s arguments. Bringing up arguments that are unrelated to the topic of conversation. Or at most only tangentially related. Demanding that others listen to you. Trying to silence the other person by unobtrusively demanding more speaking time. Speaking louder and faster in a group discussion. Playing on mutual relationships to gain an apparent majority. Emphasizing that you are right. Not listening to others or filling in your opinion for that of the other person. Misinterpreting their intentions. Constantly speaking in an aggressive tone to force the other person onto the defensive. Not facing up to your biases and generalizations, while the debate continues based on generalizations and unproven assumptions. This will rarely lead to a micro-truth finding!
Perhaps it would have been better if I had never become president of the Demosthenes* debate club in high school. But hey, someone had to do the hard and, above all, thankless job of steering the conversation in the right direction.
And yet, both in public debate and in private, this authoritarian form of conversation is being used more and more often. People are attacking others directly based on their narrative and anecdotal evidence. In the long run, this leads to a deterioration, a toxic mutation of overly individualistic liberalism. A distorted personal freedom in which there is no place for others except in a subordinate position. This leads to a limited degree of everyday aggression. Something that, in everyday life, can be considered micro-fascism.
Now I know that the days when you could convince people with arguments are long gone. That nowadays, your reasonable arguments and evidence can at best reinforce the group feeling of like-minded people. That empathy for others only applies to your supporters. As a result, every discussion nowadays begins to resemble the bloody trench warfare currently being waged in Ukraine. Where the only correct answer seems to lie in a barrage of emotions to overwhelm the other person.
This is reflected in the Israel debate, in which I still try to let reason prevail. Just like in the presentation of evidence in court. My argument is that emotions are often absolute. They leave no room for other opinions. People tend to take cause and effect out of context and exaggerate them based on their self-created absolutism. This is based on negative causality. *
This week, I unwittingly got caught up in a discussion that left a nasty bitter aftertaste. It started with what many people see as a wolf crisis. The emotional reaction to the fact that a toddler was recently bitten by a wolf on the Den Treek estate. His reaction, which I reasonably opposed,
The Netherlands is too small for a wolf population. Wolves do not belong here. They constantly kill sheep, which does not make it any easier for farmers to keep sheep. It costs him money. Conclusion: all wolves out of the Netherlands.
I didn’t entirely agree with that. Foremost, I tend to draw parallels with history and similar events. I ask myself the question: when has eliminating problem cases ever led to a definitive solution? The unresolved assumption that the so-called Endlösung was partly responsible for the downfall of Nazism flashes through my mind. That it fundamentally mutated into an unviable form. That with every change, especially when the pace is unprecedentedly high, half of the child is left behind when the bathwater is drained. This causes a backlash. The same arguments, albeit phrased slightly differently, are also used in the asylum debate. To put it mildly, it is blaming the victim, and with grim clarity, this series of emotional arguments forms the breeding ground for ultranationalist baby fascism.
As the conversation continued, we started talking about the murder of the girl from Abcoude. The tricky thing for my conversation partners is that, thanks to my vast amount of free time and wide range of interests, I have the necessary factual knowledge without having to use AI or my smartphone. I know, it appears pretentious and know-it-all. Nevertheless, in my quest to become an intellectual, I read up on all kinds of things. This gives me food for thought and leads to an independent perspective.
During the conversation, I remarked that physical violence is worse than verbal violence. I did not have the opportunity to explain or elaborate on my comment. My conversation partner immediately jumped on me. No, verbal violence was much worse! As a Jew, he knew this and could also speak on behalf of his son-in-law. I was accused of arguing everything to death. I had to restrain myself from pointing out that this was a highly sought-after trait in the legal profession. A profession that seems to be dominated by nitpicking Jews.
So the discussion came to a standstill. The asylum seekers and illegal immigrants remained the source of all the misery. Even though I wanted to say that the source of much of the violence can be found partly in the overcrowded asylum seeker centers. The pressure this puts on staff. Which increases the chance of mistakes. Something we also see in healthcare.
Those women can certainly hold their own when it comes to verbal abuse. That part of the problem lies in the glorification of violence, nowadays propagated as a solution by visual culture, and in the past by reading material or literature. Or that war is a noble cause where the highest good is to die for one’s country. Without anyone questioning whether this violence is also a grim reflection of many social issues. The hopelessness and powerlessness caused by issues that have been around for decades. Where polarization makes it seem that the only solution can be a one-party system, with a strongman at the helm.
And what also leads to a wider spread of contempt for death and the powerlessness of one’s own will. The will to end it by means of violence prevails. Why do I think that? The answer lies in studying the fin de siècle, the First World War, and the interwar period. This is why I see the 20th century as the history of fear. Not only in and through political events, but largely through the reaction of the will-less and powerless people to give direction to their desires for safety, peace, and security. Something in which political interests clash with those of the people. Degenerating into a sharp increase in distrust of politics. Even though mutual trust forms the basis for any successful form of government or barter. The uprooting and hopelessness of one’s own fate where ordinary people are concerned. Due to the disrupted interaction in the balance of power between the individual and their community, they lack the courage to share their responsibility.
And again, it is not easy. Especially when the opponent in this case is the state of Israel, which is kicking wildly around like a mule. It remains important to question the responsibility of the Jews in that state time and again. Not to deny their human value or to take it away from them, because human dignity as a whole is separate from temporary criminal behavior. That a thief does not always have to continue stealing. No matter how strong that may seem.
For your own peace of mind and dignity, it is necessary to repeatedly investigate the pure causes that lie hidden in reason. Because it still applies: panta rhei kai ouden menei, which applies to every aspect of life on earth. At most, we can ask ourselves how fair it is if only humanity or the Western world determines the flow rate or channels the flow. Often not based on self-criticism and pure reason, but through the superiority of the brutal emotionality that is characteristic of a subcutaneous, warlike violence.
LUDO 08/28/2025
* barrage, an artillery barrage, widely used during World War I to disorient the enemy before the planned assault.
Negative causality: the reversal or merging of cause and effect in statements such as :If not that, then not this either. Typically used in theology, such as God must have created man, otherwise we would not exist.
Micro-truths are a limited application of a broader, morally grounded positive truth. This is a truth that does not conflict with the facts or the laws of nature or the laws of living nature.
panta rhei kai ouden menei: everything flows (changes) and nothing remains. A statement by the Greek natural philosopher Heraclitus. A statement that is falsifiable when used in a figurative sense.
