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Getting fit is great – but it could turn you into a rightwing jerk [Grauniad]
Manchester Guardian ^ | Mon 3 Jun 2024 10.02 EDT | Zoe Williams

Posted on 06/07/2024 10:10:31 PM PDT by Olog-hai

The more self-actualized you become, the higher you are on self-righteousness, blaming other people’s problems on their failure to be as healthy as you.

OK, this is going to sound a little hypocritical, as I have hard-recommended every activity and pursuit, every wellness wheeze and rejuvenation exercise the modern world has dreamed up. […]

But there is a dark side to wellness, which I always, for shorthand, thought of as political: getting fit makes you more rightwing. The mechanism is incredibly simple: you embark on this voyage of self-improvement, and more or less immediately see results. You feel stronger and more energetic, probably your mood lifts, and pretty soon you think you are master of your own destiny. You’re still not, by the way: destiny does not care about your step count. But until that fact catches up with you, which it may never, there you are, high on self-righteousness. You can tell this has happened to you when you start inhaling performatively, like the hero of an Ayn Rand novel.

Inescapably, you start to situate other people’s problems within their failure to be as fit as you. This is particularly true if you don’t know them and they’re just a bunch of numbers. All those statistics — depressed people, obese people, people with IBS — imagine how much better they would be if only they took responsibility for their health, the way that you have.

And yet that harsh, judgmental inner voice will never be satisfied just shouting at numbers, so sooner or later you’ll turn it back on yourself. Fitness has a capitalist logic — I guess because there’s so much money in it? — so nothing is ever enough. …

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Humor; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: fitness; grauniad; rightwing; unitedkingdom; zoewilliams
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Everything Zoe characterizes as right wing is actually left wing, particularly self-righteousness.
1 posted on 06/07/2024 10:10:31 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: Olog-hai

There is absolutely no one else responsible for your health BUT you.

Your problems are your problems. We can help each other, though.


2 posted on 06/07/2024 10:13:33 PM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: Olog-hai

This reads like somebody doing a great deal of projecting, and trying to convince herself that she isn’t.


3 posted on 06/07/2024 10:17:57 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: Olog-hai

Poor Zoe. For her, every day is a bad hair day.


4 posted on 06/07/2024 10:22:44 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (Stormy Daniels is a McGuffin)
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To: Olog-hai

All I see is the leftist socialist DEI folks lecturing us on how virtuous they are and how wrong we are.


5 posted on 06/07/2024 10:31:12 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Olog-hai

Zoe is mentally unstable. Exercise can help stabilize the mind.


6 posted on 06/07/2024 10:34:50 PM PDT by TigersEye (Our Republic is under seige by globalist Marxists. Hold fast!)
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To: Olog-hai

Personal responsibility and all that.


7 posted on 06/07/2024 10:56:13 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie (Hamas <3 Biden.)
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To: Dr. Sivana

Every day is a brain dead day for her.


8 posted on 06/07/2024 10:56:24 PM PDT by Jean2
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To: Olog-hai

Basically, the suthor is saying that healthy and fit people are conservatives. Sick, demented individuals are liberals.

Okay. I can agree with that.


9 posted on 06/07/2024 10:57:18 PM PDT by Jemian ("I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.")
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To: Jemian

She uses the oxymoron “rightwing jerk”.

She however cites herself as a fitness freak, but everything she describes as right wing is left wing instead.


10 posted on 06/07/2024 11:03:07 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Dr. Sivana

It would help if she washed her hair every month or so


11 posted on 06/07/2024 11:40:08 PM PDT by albie
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To: albie

She could also use some make-up tips. It’s not going to make her into a knockout but she’d definitely look better.


12 posted on 06/07/2024 11:55:18 PM PDT by princeofdarkness
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To: Olog-hai

That is absolutely right.


13 posted on 06/08/2024 12:20:45 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Secret Agent Man

They’re just projecting, as usual.


14 posted on 06/08/2024 12:21:58 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Olog-hai

So I guess that means that all of the slovenly fat slobs I see every day are Democrats.


15 posted on 06/08/2024 1:10:21 AM PDT by Trump_Triumphant ("They recognized Him in the breaking of the Bread”)
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To: ConservativeMind

This story is c r a p but being in good physical conditioning will equal a good life.

Look at people that retire young and are snowbirds for your examples.


16 posted on 06/08/2024 1:31:55 AM PDT by jdt1138 (Where ever you go, there you are.)
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To: Olog-hai

Because people don’t want to hear HER whine and complain about HER self-inflicted problems, they are therefore right-wing.


17 posted on 06/08/2024 2:02:24 AM PDT by mikey_hates_everything
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To: Olog-hai
Zoe is a gender-neutral name of Greek origins, meaning “life.” In the third century, Alexandrian Jews translated the Hebrew name Eve to its Greek equivalent, Zoe.

--Courtesy of Google.

18 posted on 06/08/2024 2:34:54 AM PDT by 4Runner
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To: Olog-hai

Gaslighting at its best. Leftists are toxic.


19 posted on 06/08/2024 2:43:27 AM PDT by Chickensoup
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To: Olog-hai
For a happy life:
Do not care what other thinks about you.
Don't let lefties tell you what you feel.

20 posted on 06/08/2024 3:14:02 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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