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otherwisepod.bsky.social
Otherwise Unbearable with Heather Smith. Culture, identity & defense through a psychoanalytic lens. New essays weekly on Substack.
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Much of what we call “moral clarity” is just a refusal to tolerate ambivalence. It feels good to be certain. But certainty isn’t the same as justice. And clarity isn’t always truth.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

I think this take overlooks something important. If someone prefers talking to ChatGPT over a human therapist, it’s worth asking why, rather than ridiculing it. 1/

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Empathy isn’t fragile. It’s disruptive. It threatens systems that rely on dehumanization—whether carceral, ideological, or interpersonal. That’s why both the far right and parts of the left find reasons to reject it. Because empathy doesn’t just feel—it implicates.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

You’re right that it’s not complex to denounce violent antisemitism. I do. Always have. It’s abhorrent. So is Islamophobia. So is anti-Blackness. So is ethno-nationalism in all forms. But naming harm clearly doesn’t require abandoning complexity elsewhere.

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Fine. Let’s talk about how this statement misses crucial nuance because it collapses a complex set of motivations, traumas, and geopolitical conditions into a reductive binary of “normal” versus “insane,” using psychiatric language as a weapon of moral condemnation.

submitted 7 days ago • 3 comments

It’s no coincidence that “emotional regulation” often gets translated as “make yourself easier to be around.” In both therapy and culture, we reward composure over connection. But regulation isn’t about being palatable. It’s about staying with yourself.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments