#it works.

At the center of my vision is the recognition that above all, it is the community surrounding a Conflict that is the source of its resolution. The community holds the crucial responsibility to resist overreaction to difference, and to offer alternatives of understanding and complexity. We have to help each other illuminate and counter the role of overstating harm instead of using it to justify cruelty. I suggest that we have a better chance at interrupting unnecessary pain if we articulate our shared responsibility in creating alternatives. Looking for methods of collective problem-solving make these destructive, tragic leaps more difficult to accomplish. People who are being punished for doing nothing, for having normative conflict, or for resisting unjustified situations, need the help of other people. While there are many excuses for not intervening in unjust punishment, that intervention is, nonetheless, essential. Without the intervention that most people are afraid to commit to, this escalation cannot be interrupted. In other words, because we won't change our stories to integrate other people’s known reasons and illuminate their unknown ones, we cannot resolve Conflict in a way that is productive, equitable, and fair.

REALISTICALLY, I THINK THE CONDESCE WOULD BE MORE LIKELY TO BE REHABILITATED THAN YOURSELF, AND SHE'S DEAD. BUT I'LL SAY THIS ONCE:

IF YOU WANT ME TO "HANG OUT" (WHICH, FOR THE RECORD, IS A STRANGE WAY TO DESCRIBE BEING TRAPPED IN THE SAME ROOM WITH YOU WHILE YOU TRY TO JUSTIFY WHATEVER SCHEME YOU'VE INVENTED THIS WEEK), YOU NEED TO START DEMONSTRATING GOOD BEHAVIOR.

AND BY "GOOD BEHAVIOR," I MEAN SUSTAINED, EVIDENCE-BASED IMPROVEMENT.

VOLUNTEERING, MAYBE. CIVIC SERVICE. APOLOGIZING TO ANYONE STILL ALIVE WHO KNOWS YOUR NAME. STOP BEING A CASTEIST GENOCIDAL FREAK.

IF YOU CAN MANAGE EVEN A FRACTION OF THAT WITHOUT STARTING A NEW INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT, THEN MAYBE I'LL CONSIDER MAKING EYE CONTACT WITH YOU IN A PUBLIC SPACE.