(Audio reading of this piece. Don’t tell Rebecca I made it at 1:00 AM this morning.) I hesitate to allude again to a problem of human sin that has made at least two recent posts already… but we are living, right now, through the repetition of an historical cliché for how malevolence gets justified. And, although I would like to believe the situation will clear itself up, there is at least a good case to be made that:
With respect to the Seattle Times opinion, what's disturbing isn't that people have such opinions, it's that the cultural gatekeepers are publishing, promoting, and attempting to profit from the expression of the opinions.
There's a "the adults have left the room" quality to life these days. I'd like to say it's worse here than in other countries, but then you look at Australia, Canada, Italy, and so on.
I am amazed at how common the rants like the one you shared from the Seattle Times are becoming. It really feels like people have jettisoned civil discourse with respect to this vaccine exclusively, and believe they're entirely justified targeting palpable rage at those who don't have the vaccine. I've experienced it personally from someone who'd I'd normally say is pretty calm and civil and it's quite a bizarre phenomenon.
And yeah, it's important that people start acknowledging that things really are especially bad right now. Everywhere you look, we're beyond the pale (have you read or listened to Abigail Shrier on the trend of teenage girls receiving testosterone injections...without their parents consent?!) When people say 'now, now, we've been through bad times before' they're less likely to face these issues constructively. Because they're not appreciating what we're up against.
You can see the trouble with your prescription. If the church drafts such a speech, it is prevented from delivering it because it will offend leftists and emotionally-minded members.
So the question I have, was the church wrong for entering into previous "thick discourses?" Were they less pious and more distracted to discuss slavery abolition?
Were the German protestants more pious to be quiet and conflicted (like we are now) in the 1930s? They didn't offend the fascists in their midsts - shall we congratulate them on their comity and restraint?
"...the real divide in America is no longer left/right, but between those who will accept a technocratic biosecurity surveillance regime and those who will resist it."
This is becoming more apparent to me as time goes on, but it's still frustratingly entangled with many other issues and cultural categorizations. It's frustrating to me that many of the other people with whom I find agreement on this issue are not on the same wavelength as I am on many other issues (political, cultural, religious). I'm probably a sort of suspicious "progressive" in many ways that would make me anathema to some of these people I want to claim as common allies. I don't have a problem with them -- I recognize that the "biosecurity surveillance regime" should shift many other points of disagreement onto the side burner -- but I also know that many of them wouldn't understand this, and wouldn't want to be associated with me.
Conversely, many of the people who match up with me in other cultural ways (say, my college and grad school friends, with a couple exceptions) are increasingly alien to me on this set of issues, and regard me as having completely lost my mind. So I've lost status, respect, and friendship from one group of people, without really gaining it with much of anyone else. (Present company excepted, of course!)
With respect to the Seattle Times opinion, what's disturbing isn't that people have such opinions, it's that the cultural gatekeepers are publishing, promoting, and attempting to profit from the expression of the opinions.
There's a "the adults have left the room" quality to life these days. I'd like to say it's worse here than in other countries, but then you look at Australia, Canada, Italy, and so on.
I am amazed at how common the rants like the one you shared from the Seattle Times are becoming. It really feels like people have jettisoned civil discourse with respect to this vaccine exclusively, and believe they're entirely justified targeting palpable rage at those who don't have the vaccine. I've experienced it personally from someone who'd I'd normally say is pretty calm and civil and it's quite a bizarre phenomenon.
And yeah, it's important that people start acknowledging that things really are especially bad right now. Everywhere you look, we're beyond the pale (have you read or listened to Abigail Shrier on the trend of teenage girls receiving testosterone injections...without their parents consent?!) When people say 'now, now, we've been through bad times before' they're less likely to face these issues constructively. Because they're not appreciating what we're up against.
You can see the trouble with your prescription. If the church drafts such a speech, it is prevented from delivering it because it will offend leftists and emotionally-minded members.
So the question I have, was the church wrong for entering into previous "thick discourses?" Were they less pious and more distracted to discuss slavery abolition?
Were the German protestants more pious to be quiet and conflicted (like we are now) in the 1930s? They didn't offend the fascists in their midsts - shall we congratulate them on their comity and restraint?
"...the real divide in America is no longer left/right, but between those who will accept a technocratic biosecurity surveillance regime and those who will resist it."
This is becoming more apparent to me as time goes on, but it's still frustratingly entangled with many other issues and cultural categorizations. It's frustrating to me that many of the other people with whom I find agreement on this issue are not on the same wavelength as I am on many other issues (political, cultural, religious). I'm probably a sort of suspicious "progressive" in many ways that would make me anathema to some of these people I want to claim as common allies. I don't have a problem with them -- I recognize that the "biosecurity surveillance regime" should shift many other points of disagreement onto the side burner -- but I also know that many of them wouldn't understand this, and wouldn't want to be associated with me.
Conversely, many of the people who match up with me in other cultural ways (say, my college and grad school friends, with a couple exceptions) are increasingly alien to me on this set of issues, and regard me as having completely lost my mind. So I've lost status, respect, and friendship from one group of people, without really gaining it with much of anyone else. (Present company excepted, of course!)
A hard and lonely road.