Having a sense of humour – that is, preferring to have fun with, rather than at the expense of, other people – becomes a strange kind of disadvantage.īut a truly liberal (in the broadest sense of the word) society cannot function properly without humour. Online, though, in part because it’s much easier to ascertain somebody’s views than it is the subtleties of their character, we construct our social circles around shared (and strictly policed) beliefs. In the analogue world, goodnatured people of different ideological bents intermingle perfectly fine. Elsewhere, inexplicably popular “trad” Twitter accounts like “the Cultural Tutor” repeat their one tiresome schtick: that everything humans have produced since about 1910 just flat-out sucks.Įvidently, the internet is a large part of the problem. Disenfranchised teenage boys get to look up to Andrew Tate, a man I’ve never seen smile. It seems mostly to be men at various stages of nervous breakdowns staring stony-faced into TV cameras, warning us about “The Regime” or “The Machine” coming to force fried insects down our throats. Oh, and that’s before the tiresome pedants burst out from behind the bushes to inform you that, ackshually, St George was Turkish, or love is just your neurones fizzing, or every charming cultural tradition you ever cared about is just an arbitrary, worthless invention.Īlternative media isn’t much better. They’re joined by the red-faced talk radio hosts getting endlessly exasperated with the small-town dunces phoning in. It boasts the permanently frowning Jordan Peterson and faux-macho grifters whose only idea of fun is a “joy-by-numbers” routine seemingly designed just to wind up the libs – “honey, can you take a photo of me holding this raw steak and cigar?” In the middle are “sensible” centrists from the Financial Times or Economist who just wish people would stop being so damn irrational and look at the stats. We all know the “social justice” left is plagued by interaction-by-algorithm bots like Robin DiAngelo, but the other side fields an equally dour team of anti-woke critics.
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