Excellent. I'm glad you've been thinking about this so I don't have to. This whole thing has a very online brainrot smell about it, but it's important for people to hear voices calling them back to reason. Yours does that here. Well done.
I only know about any of this because of this piece. On (what I believe to be) the plus side, it shows me (again) that "the Discourse" is a very optional thing, and that the privilege of opting out is very worth considering, because yikes.
On the other side, that optionality further highlights the Weapon of Mob Destruction nature of social media: one can be unconnected to "the Discourse" and still find one's life massively affected by it—a tremendously bewildering combination. "The Discourse" is an embodiment of "seeking whom it may devour" at scale, and I'm increasingly concerned that one can't opt out of the potential consequences of these reindeer games, even by eschewing the toxic hellstew which spawns them. These are targeted tornadoes of devastating effect: first they flatten facts and perspectives into narratives, and then they flatten people.
As I watch friends be embroiled in and molded by "The Discourse," I can't help but think it's coming for them eventually—especially for those who've been turned to come at each other. Comments on Neil Shenvi's posts, for example, would be as hard to believe five years ago as "Donald Trump's second nonconsecutive presidency" would have been ten years ago. One of the things I find most ludicrous about "No Enemies To The Right" (or NEOTR, or whatever it's metastasized into today) is that the implied reassurance it gives is utterly false: if you look at the pattern, they *will* come for you later, with even more vitriol than you're spewing together at today's enemy.
So…yikes. For now, I still think I and the people and my life are better for not hearing about this stuff a lot of the time, but raising the flag is still absolutely in order, because the force of consequences if your number happens to come up remains hard, if not impossible, to avoid now. God, save me from ever becoming a Main Character on social media.
Great piece as always. This is tangential to what you’ve written, but I’d argue against the objectification of this woman in the other sense too: I can’t imagine wanting to make *this* particular woman into a culture war symbol. She writes “I called the kid out for what he was” near the top of her GiveSendGo appeal, as if she’s being persecuted simply for telling the truth. She doesn’t deserve to have her life ruined, but neither does she deserve any positive attention, let alone $700,000, for an incident in which she was nasty to a kid.
Without getting too far into other recent controversies, I’ve been having that reaction more and more often lately - “we’re going to the mat over *this*?” Between this and the UnitedHealthCare assassin (obviously what he did was much worse), we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for our symbols. They’re not heroes or innocent victims. If they’re good symbols of anything, it’s the increasing, general refusal to rise above retaliation in our culture. I was a kid in 2003 so my memory might be wrong, but I don’t remember a big effort to defend people like Lynndie England. I wonder how that would go now.
The epistle for the second Sunday after Easter in the 1662 BCP is 1 Peter 2:19-end. Following in his steps, who … when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; it’s truly difficult to do that. I worry that we don’t even see it as a goal anymore, just a game for suckers. In a perfect world, none of this would have happened; in a different time, these people would have been left alone to reflect on their actions; today we throw money at people who do bad things to stick it to our political opponents.
What a cluster we are. We can't even define a word we're scared to death to put in writing. We can't criticize a black kid stealing from a white baby. We can't condemn a black kid killing a white kid (let alone another black kid). I guess this is what they call white fragility, but then I don't know what that means either. Maybe culture matters, though we aren't allowed to think that, either. I had a friend named Overton once...
Just speaking for myself but I don't write the word all the way out in this context for the same reason I don't spell other vulgar words all the way out. And I certainly do condemn Austin Metcalf's murder, but I'm assuming you weren't including me in "we."
I also didn't say the kid deserved no criticism at all for going through a stranger's diaper bag. He clearly needs better parenting.
I do understand your choice not to spell certain words out. My comment was directed at the culture at large. And yes, parenting is an important consideration in all this.
Excellent. I'm glad you've been thinking about this so I don't have to. This whole thing has a very online brainrot smell about it, but it's important for people to hear voices calling them back to reason. Yours does that here. Well done.
Thanks Sam!
I only know about any of this because of this piece. On (what I believe to be) the plus side, it shows me (again) that "the Discourse" is a very optional thing, and that the privilege of opting out is very worth considering, because yikes.
On the other side, that optionality further highlights the Weapon of Mob Destruction nature of social media: one can be unconnected to "the Discourse" and still find one's life massively affected by it—a tremendously bewildering combination. "The Discourse" is an embodiment of "seeking whom it may devour" at scale, and I'm increasingly concerned that one can't opt out of the potential consequences of these reindeer games, even by eschewing the toxic hellstew which spawns them. These are targeted tornadoes of devastating effect: first they flatten facts and perspectives into narratives, and then they flatten people.
As I watch friends be embroiled in and molded by "The Discourse," I can't help but think it's coming for them eventually—especially for those who've been turned to come at each other. Comments on Neil Shenvi's posts, for example, would be as hard to believe five years ago as "Donald Trump's second nonconsecutive presidency" would have been ten years ago. One of the things I find most ludicrous about "No Enemies To The Right" (or NEOTR, or whatever it's metastasized into today) is that the implied reassurance it gives is utterly false: if you look at the pattern, they *will* come for you later, with even more vitriol than you're spewing together at today's enemy.
So…yikes. For now, I still think I and the people and my life are better for not hearing about this stuff a lot of the time, but raising the flag is still absolutely in order, because the force of consequences if your number happens to come up remains hard, if not impossible, to avoid now. God, save me from ever becoming a Main Character on social media.
Amen!
Great piece as always. This is tangential to what you’ve written, but I’d argue against the objectification of this woman in the other sense too: I can’t imagine wanting to make *this* particular woman into a culture war symbol. She writes “I called the kid out for what he was” near the top of her GiveSendGo appeal, as if she’s being persecuted simply for telling the truth. She doesn’t deserve to have her life ruined, but neither does she deserve any positive attention, let alone $700,000, for an incident in which she was nasty to a kid.
Without getting too far into other recent controversies, I’ve been having that reaction more and more often lately - “we’re going to the mat over *this*?” Between this and the UnitedHealthCare assassin (obviously what he did was much worse), we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for our symbols. They’re not heroes or innocent victims. If they’re good symbols of anything, it’s the increasing, general refusal to rise above retaliation in our culture. I was a kid in 2003 so my memory might be wrong, but I don’t remember a big effort to defend people like Lynndie England. I wonder how that would go now.
The epistle for the second Sunday after Easter in the 1662 BCP is 1 Peter 2:19-end. Following in his steps, who … when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; it’s truly difficult to do that. I worry that we don’t even see it as a goal anymore, just a game for suckers. In a perfect world, none of this would have happened; in a different time, these people would have been left alone to reflect on their actions; today we throw money at people who do bad things to stick it to our political opponents.
I just hope Shiloh Hendrix doesn’t end up getting her own podcast and meme coin out of all his.
What a cluster we are. We can't even define a word we're scared to death to put in writing. We can't criticize a black kid stealing from a white baby. We can't condemn a black kid killing a white kid (let alone another black kid). I guess this is what they call white fragility, but then I don't know what that means either. Maybe culture matters, though we aren't allowed to think that, either. I had a friend named Overton once...
Cheers.
Just speaking for myself but I don't write the word all the way out in this context for the same reason I don't spell other vulgar words all the way out. And I certainly do condemn Austin Metcalf's murder, but I'm assuming you weren't including me in "we."
I also didn't say the kid deserved no criticism at all for going through a stranger's diaper bag. He clearly needs better parenting.
I understand, and I was.
Cheers.
?
I do understand your choice not to spell certain words out. My comment was directed at the culture at large. And yes, parenting is an important consideration in all this.