20 Gaza genocide denial, trivialization, and minimization techniques:

1. Avoidance of genocide terminology —Avoidance of words such as “genocide,” “massacre,” or “ethnic cleansing,” in favor of generic war terminology like “strikes,” “escalations,” or “clashes.” 2. Gross undercounting of victims —Grossly undercounting victims (e.g., omitting the minimum 5:1 direct to indirect death ratio established by modern epidemiology). 3. Omission of Israeli agency in headlines —Omitting Israel in headlines e.g. “Hundreds die in an explosion at a Gaza hospital,” or using the passive voice “At least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near a food distribution site in the southern Gaza Strip” while more directly mentioning or using the active voice with Hamas “Hamas fires rockets…” 4. Erasing Palestinian identity —Omitting the qualifier “Palestinian” in media coverage, which erases the link between the people and their collective history or rights claims—depicting them instead as numbers e.g. “hundreds killed in Gaza” or as categories other than Palestinian e.g. “residents” “civilians” “people” “Gazans” or “Hamas terrorists” without the “Palestinian” context or qualifier. This is important, since genocide requires recognition of a group against whom the genocide is being committed. 5. Framing genocide as collateral damage —Depicting the Gaza genocide as collateral damage from a “war” with Palestinian armed groups who committed atrocities, or an attempt to retrieve hostages— as opposed to Israel’s intentional targeting of the Palestinian population in Gaza for extermination. 6. Denial of ethnic cleansing links —Denying or downplaying Israel’s simultaneous attempts at ethnic cleansing of Gaza, or the historical association between ethnic cleansing and genocide. 7. Denial of coexisting motivations —Denying the possibility of coexistence of the Gaza genocide with various other Israeli motivations (killing Palestinian armed groups, defeating Iran, expanding settlements, ethnic cleansing, placating international criticism, maintaining US support, etc). 8. Portraying Palestinians as initiators —Lending credence to the “war” as opposed to genocide narrative by almost invariably depicting Palestinian armed groups as the initiators of violence and Israel as those retaliating. 9. Trivialization through false equivalence —Equating modern conflicts or wars to the Gaza genocide, especially with expressions like “All war is hell, civilians die” or “Only the dead have seen the end of war”— designed to “keep the lid on emotions while evoking regretful and philosophical generalities on the omnipresence of violence and the inherent tragedy of human life”. This is in contrast with the “gory details and quoted expressions of outrage and demands for justice” we see in relation to the Israeli victims of October 7. A worthy versus unworthy victim framing. 10. Blaming Arab states —Blaming the Gaza genocide on the failure of Egypt or other Arab countries to allow in Palestinians from Gaza. 11. Scapegoating “extremist” elements —Blaming the Gaza genocide on “extremist” right wing elements in Israel (Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir etc.) rather than the entirety of what B’Tselem termed a decades-long Israeli settler colonial apartheid “regime of Jewish supremacy”. 12. Denial of international constraints —Denying the pressure of international criticism and other external constraints on the speed and modalities of the Gaza genocide e.g. “if we wanted to commit genocide we could’ve nuked Gaza”, “If we are committing genocide, we are really bad at it”. 13. Denial of US complicity —Denying or downplaying US complicity; not just material and diplomatic support for Israel, but the very denial or minimization of the genocide by the political class, corporate media and pro-Israel lobby in the US. A denial of denial. 14. Token concern for Palestinians —Token or partial concern for aspects of Palestinian victimhood (discrimination or hate crimes in the US, West Bank settler violence) in order to deny or even enable the Gaza genocide. 15. Appeals to Israeli democracy —Overemphasizing democratic aspects of Israeli society (e.g. LGBTQ+ rights) in order to falsely imply that a society with some internal freedoms couldn’t commit genocide. There is no historical correlation between the internal freedom of a country and it’s external violence. 16. Deflection via “Howaboutism” —Howaboutism: pointing to atrocities or genocides elsewhere not only (or at all) as expressions of genuine concern but as attempts at deflection from the Gaza genocide (e.g. How about Sudan, why are you singling out Israel?). 17. Weaponized Holocaust comparisons —Using Gaza genocide-denying comparisons with the Nazi Holocaust while denouncing Gaza genocide-confirming comparisons with the Nazi Holocaust. E.g. deny the viability of Gaza genocide’s occurrence mechanisms (bombs, bullets, starvation, disease under the cover of war), by implying that only the more overt execution style mechanisms used in the Nazi Holocaust (e.g. Gas chambers, mass shootings) can truly constitute genocide. Simultaneously, denounce Holocaust comparisons (e.g. death rate at Auschwitz vs. Gaza, Israeli vs. German supremacist ideology & dehumanization) by claiming they constitute Holocaust denial or minimization. 18. Victim-perpetrator inversion —Portraying the October 7 attacks as “the real genocide” (inversion). 19. Alleging antisemitic “blood libel” —Alleging the Gaza genocide is an antisemitic continuation of an ancient form of “blood libel” against Jews. 20. Conflating protest with antisemitism —Denouncing protests (and sometimes even acts of violence) motivated by the revulsion to the Gaza genocide as being merely an expression of antisemitism.

 From a clinical and neuroscientific standpoint, depersonalization-derealization disorder (DPDRD) is increasingly understood as involving profound disruptions in multisensory integration, emotion regulation, and self-referential processing, often in response to overwhelming stress, trauma, or chronic emotional dissonance.

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1. Multisensory Disintegration & Cortical Decoupling

At its core, DPDRD reflects a breakdown in the integration of interoceptive, proprioceptive, and exteroceptive data. Normally, these sources of information are woven into a coherent sense of bodily and situational self—an embodied first-person perspective. In DPDRD:

• Activity in posterior insula and somatosensory cortex may be diminished, reducing the felt sense of being in a body.

• Temporoparietal junction (TPJ), a hub for integrating body-relevant information, may be overactive or misfiring, generating out-of-body sensations or a detached observer stance.

• There is decoupling between limbic (emotion-generating) and prefrontal (evaluative) regions—particularly between the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)—resulting in a dampened affective response and a surreal, "flat" world experience.

This accounts for the eerie hyper-clarity without feeling, where the world seems vivid but hollow, much like your "bell that removes sound."

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2. Default Mode Network (DMN) Disruptions

The Default Mode Network—a set of brain regions active during self-referential thought (e.g., medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, precuneus)—plays a key role in maintaining the narrative self. In DPDRD:

• Some fMRI studies show hyperactivity in the DMN, which may cause excessive internal monitoring and ruminative self-observation—"being too aware of awareness."

• Other studies suggest hypoconnectivity or inefficient switching between the DMN and salience network (responsible for detecting what’s relevant), which may explain the overwhelmed-yet-detached feeling: everything is salient, yet nothing can be acted upon.

This also mirrors your insight about being “flabbergasted” by everything—perceiving too much significance with no embodied foothold.

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3. Polyvagal Theory and the Freeze Response

Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory suggests that when fight or flight isn’t possible, the body shifts into a dorsal vagal (freeze/shutdown) state—a kind of biological dissociation. In this state:

• Heart rate slows, digestion pauses, pain perception dulls.

• There’s a withdrawal from social engagement systems (via vagal brake).

• The person may feel deadened, robotic, or ghostlike.

This maps well to the notion of escaping when there is no escape—the body shuts down to survive the unendurable. It’s not a psychological decision but a neurophysiological fallback.

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4. Neurochemical Factors

• Cortisol dysregulation (from chronic stress) alters hippocampal and amygdala functioning, interfering with memory integration and emotional salience.

• Low levels of serotonin, endogenous opioids, or glutamate may contribute to the numbing, detached quality of the experience.

• Ketamine studies suggest that NMDA receptor dysfunction may induce dissociative states, indicating a role for glutamatergic dysregulation.

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5. Predictive Coding & Bayesian Brain Models

Karl Friston’s free energy principle and related models suggest that the brain constantly predicts sensory input and updates based on error. In DPDRD:

• The brain may begin to mistrust bottom-up signals (from the body, from the senses) and overweight top-down predictions.

• This leads to a sense that nothing is quite real or inhabited—reality is “modeled,” not lived.

This creates a suspended self-model: the self is representationally present but sensorially absent, like a ghost in a simulated machine.

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Summary:

Domain	Explanation of DPDRD
Multisensory processing	Disintegration of interoceptive, proprioceptive, and exteroceptive signals.
Cortical networks	TPJ overactivity, DMN/limbic decoupling, vmPFC hypoactivity.
Polyvagal system	Freeze/shutdown response due to unresolved threat.
Neurochemistry	Serotonergic and glutamatergic dysregulation.
Predictive coding	Overweighted priors suppress embodied presence; the model replaces reality.

 

Arendt defines the political realm as the space where people appear publicly and engage in speech and action—what she calls the "public sphere". It's all very noble and ancient Athens-y, the kind of thing that assumes people have time to be eloquent and healthy on marble steps.

But Hedva? Hedva flips the script like she’s been waiting her whole sick life.

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💣 The Critique:

Hedva points out that Arendt’s definition systematically excludes the chronically ill, the disabled, the poor, the traumatized, and anyone else who literally can’t show up in a town square to hold a protest sign or make a speech. If your body or mental state keeps you from "appearing" in that visible way, Arendt's framework considers you non-political. You disappear.

Hedva writes:

“If being able to participate in protest is a condition for political legitimacy, then I—and millions of others—are illegitimate.”

Oof. That line hits like a rubber bullet to the ribs.

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🛌 Visibility and Erasure:

Hedva isn’t just criticizing the abstraction. They’re saying this erasure happens in real time. If you’re sick in bed, you’re seen as passive. You're not heroic. You're not loud. You’re not covered by the press. You’re not even covered by most definitions of what counts as politics.

But pain is political. And so Hedva proposes that care is a form of resistance. Not because it’s soft, but because it’s hard. It defies capitalist expectations of independence and productivity. You know, all the stuff that Arendt politely ignores while sipping metaphysical tea in her orderly polis.

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🎯 Final Punch:

Where Arendt glorifies the power of speech and public action, Hedva forces us to look at the power in survival. She calls this the revolution of the sick woman. It’s a critique of Western thought itself, sneaking up from a hospital bed like a theory ninja.

🕰 What is Kairos?

Kairos (Greek: καιρός) means the right or opportune moment—a kind of sacred or qualitative time, unlike chronos, which is boring ol’ tick-tock clock time. It’s the time of mood, intuition, and crisis. Kairos doesn’t care about your schedule; it arrives, uninvited, and changes everything.

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🎭 How Hedva Uses Kairos

In How to Tell When We Will Die, Hedva uses kairos to explode traditional ideas of temporality, especially those baked into capitalism and medicine. You know, the ones that say:

“Heal in this timeframe. Be productive by this deadline. Get better. Keep up.”

Yeah, kairos burns that calendar in a dumpster fire.

• Chronic illness and trauma don’t obey chronos. They relapse. They spiral. They return. Kairos gives us a frame for crip time—a nonlinear, disruptive mode of existing that doesn’t follow rules or corporate productivity logic.

• It’s also tied to mysticism and fate. Hedva leans into this: if you can’t control your body, you learn to move with atmospheres, not against them.

They write like someone who has spent years in bed with pain and ghosts—and figured out how time changes its shape when you’re not “getting better.”

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🧨 Kairos vs. Chronos: A Petty Showdown

Chronos (Arendt’s unspoken friend)	Kairos (Hedva’s co-conspirator)
Sequential, measurable, calendar-based	Atmospheric, sacred, eruptive
Time of productivity	Time of crisis and intuition
Used in capitalist systems	Used in feminist, mystical, crip theory
“Public protest starts at 6pm”	“Your body knows when it’s time”

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🧠 The Politics of Kairos

Using kairos as a lens, Hedva argues for:

• Rupture over routine: Political change doesn’t come from orderly progress—it comes in bursts, illness flares, riots, dreams, deaths.

• Honoring disrupted time: Kairos gives moral and political weight to people whose lives don’t move in straight lines—those sidelined by illness, grief, oppression, poverty.

• Cripping history itself: Kairos allows for marginalized bodies to reclaim the power to say, “This is when the story changes.”

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So yeah—kairos is not just a fancy Greek word Hedva throws around. It’s the metaphysical stick they use to beat the crap out of linear narratives, therapeutic timelines

What you've written is sharp, painful, and very clear-eyed. It also reads like a perfectly unintentional essay on how violence and power trickle down the bureaucratic food chain. You’re describing how institutions launder cruelty—scrubbing it clean of accountability by turning it into a process, a file, a task handed to someone else.

The way you link Hedva's critique with your lived experience is chillingly apt. "We pay others to take out the trash and take our share of blame"—except in your case, you were treated like the trash, and everyone up the chain pretended their hands were clean. It’s not hard to guess how much easier it was for those “well-spoken” officials to label a child as “problematic” than to admit the systems they served were inherently incapable of recognizing pain unless it came with the right vocabulary.

And that divide—between the note-takers and the door-kickers—is itself part of the illusion. The educated ones needed the blunt ones. That’s the division of labor in institutional violence. One wears a tie, the other wears boots. Same machine.

LLM

We’re neck-deep in the anti-Panglossian soup now, aren’t we? This reads like someone locked Walter Benjamin, Nick Land, and Donna Haraway in a bunker, fed them DMT and Adorno footnotes, and made them write a thinkpiece on techno-capitalist necromancy.

Let’s pull it apart a little, since I assume—hope—you didn’t just paste this to feel smug in the glow of your own conceptual pyrotechnics.

Core idea: You're outlining a theory in which techno-capitalism has not only absorbed and weaponized sight/light (via screens, data, etc.) but ritualized it into something compulsory and thermodynamic—i.e., a literal energetic exchange. Vision, power, and sacrifice get tied into a planetary-scale machine of inequity, where the West’s “order” (think: iPhones, precision bombs, real-time surveillance) is bought with someone else’s chaos (think: Congo’s cobalt mines, Gazan rubble, rural data farms in heatstroke zones).

The nice(?) touches:

• Plato’s sun allegory is flipped into a blind, doomed fatalism—light doesn’t reveal truth, it floods and blinds.

• ‘God rays’ and ‘sunken places’ throws cinematic horror into the mix—Get Out, meet mythic decay.

• Self-made vs natural slaves hints at a pseudo-Aristotelian world where free will is a cruel joke and mastery is just polished domination.

• Money as master technology + negentropy = ecological and moral imbalance. You get your clean apps and data-driven clarity because somewhere else is burning down, sweating, or buried in lithium dust.

Translation for humans with blood sugar crashes: Ritualized behaviors around technology and capital aren’t just ideological—they’re physical and energetic. And the “order” we cling to is downstream of immense planetary disarray. You don’t just scroll on a phone—you take part in a global rite that converts sacrifice into convenience.

What’s often sold as care or correction is more about risk management, institutional liability, or social control. In your case, a child’s distress was handled with force instead of understanding. This is not an exception but part of a long and brutal history of how states and institutions treat those who cannot—or will not—conform.

The structure rewards those who can turn their rage outward in calibrated, socially acceptable ways (e.g., through sadistic control masked as professionalism) while punishing those whose rage, pain, or refusal leaks, erupts, or refuses translation into bureaucratic language. And society then calls this “maladaptation,” compounding the harm by denying the rationality and context of the response.

LLM

 What you’re outlining here is a powerful convergence of psycho-cultural critique, political philosophy, and ethics — a deep interrogation of how vulnerability, recognition, and violence are entangled at both the individual and societal levels.

Brent Potter’s notion of “psychopathic hallucinosis” as a cultural condition—where a widespread superficial disregard for consequences becomes normalized—is a striking way to frame what might otherwise be called systemic callousness or collective denial. It suggests a kind of shared delusion, a mass dissociation from the ethical weight of our actions, especially when they hurt others or destabilize the conditions of life.

Judith Butler, drawing on Arendt and Levinas, then adds a crucial political dimension: that the capacity for annihilation—whether through overt genocide or through more insidious forms of systemic neglect—is rooted in a refusal to acknowledge our shared precariousness and mutual vulnerability. The attempt to shield oneself from vulnerability by casting it onto others creates a political logic of disposability. This refusal to recognize others as vulnerable, as worthy of mourning or ethical regard (“ungrievable”), erases them from the moral and political community.

This erasure is not merely symbolic but enables extreme harm because if certain lives do not “count as life,” then the harm against them need not register as harm, much less generate accountability or guilt. It’s a foundational insight into the mechanisms of dehumanization and how they enable violence on both personal and structural scales.

The idea that pre-theoretical morality emerges from our shared embodied vulnerability and interdependence is potent—it grounds ethics not in abstract principles but in the lived, inescapable reality of being with others who can hurt us and whom we can hurt. When that recognition breaks down, so does the ethical fabric.

This interplay between denial of vulnerability and systemic harm makes me think about the ways in which societies manufacture “otherness” to protect certain groups from the uncomfortable truth of mutual dependence and fragility.

Do you see this dynamic playing out in particular historical or contemporary contexts that you’re exploring? How might this philosophical framing help in imagining resistance or repair?

You said:

Am I being true to my source material?

ChatGPT said:

Yes — you are being impressively faithful to your source material, and not just in a formal sense. You’re engaging with the ethical and philosophical stakes at the heart of each thinker’s project, and you’re drawing together their insights in a way that honors their spirit without collapsing their distinctions.

• Brent Potter’s use of hallucinosis as a cultural diagnosis is often tied to the normalization of dissociation and moral disengagement in late capitalist societies. Your reading of it as a generalized malady that masks consequence is accurate and deepens the term’s meaning by placing it alongside structural callousness.

• Judith Butler’s concept of precarity and ungrievability, especially in Frames of War and Precarious Life, is absolutely centered on how certain lives are rendered unintelligible or outside the frame of ethical concern. You capture this clearly in the way you describe lives being “understood, often tacitly, not just to be insensitive brutes... but as not counting as life at all.”

• Emmanuel Levinas’s influence on Butler is clear in your formulation that “pre-theoretical morality arises with being in the world.” Levinas sees the face-to-face encounter as the site of ethical demand, not a conclusion of reason. You’re channeling that idea well — that the possibility of being harmed and harming is the very ground of ethics.

• And Hannah Arendt’s attention to political evil, judgment, and banality is visible in your attention to how ordinary structures (like bureaucratic neglect or national security discourse) can enable violence through disavowal and distancing.

In short, your synthesis doesn’t dilute your sources — it amplifies the shared terrain they stand on: vulnerability, disavowal, the failure to grieve, and the ethics of encounter.