![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraI see that Matt Taibbi is getting the Pervy Harvey treatment, and this makes me nuts.
I own – or owned – a copy of The Exile. The Exile is a satire. The Exile Is hilarious. Taibbi ended up somehow in Russia during the 1980s, and if Russia is a deeply misogynous place now, it was more so during the 80s when many excesses went unchecked.
All this puts me in mind of a conversation I had a few years back with Max. We were talking about humor.
I noted that if social justice warriors continued to police discourse in their zealous, overly puritanical manner, humor would cease to exist.
"But wouldn't it be worth it,” said Max, “if that got rid of sexism, racism, and the patriarchy?"
To which I could only scream, "NO!"
I guess it's off to the reeducation camp for moi.
Note to Twitter vigilantes: Dean Jonathan Swift never ate an Irish baby in his life.
###
Of course, I realize this is all part of a much larger pendulum shift toward fundamentalism. In another 10 years, Twitter vigilantes will be shrieking for modest clothing and curfews. I’m not exactly sure how that discourse will develop – or how sex robots are going to factor into it – but I’m absolutely certain it will develop. The extreme left and the extreme right are much closer that participants in either allow themselves to be aware of. Possibly a pro-life movement will emerge from veganism. A kind of PETA for embryos. Why not? An anti-abortion stance is the logical extension of vegan principles.
And then another big shift happens, and the pendulum shifts once again toward whatever the opposite of fundamentalism is. (Is there even a word for the opposite of fundamentalism?)
How long will that take, I wonder? Fifty years? A hundred?
In the meantime, I’m getting sick of social media vigilantism. Even in service to a good cause.
I own – or owned – a copy of The Exile. The Exile is a satire. The Exile Is hilarious. Taibbi ended up somehow in Russia during the 1980s, and if Russia is a deeply misogynous place now, it was more so during the 80s when many excesses went unchecked.
All this puts me in mind of a conversation I had a few years back with Max. We were talking about humor.
I noted that if social justice warriors continued to police discourse in their zealous, overly puritanical manner, humor would cease to exist.
"But wouldn't it be worth it,” said Max, “if that got rid of sexism, racism, and the patriarchy?"
To which I could only scream, "NO!"
I guess it's off to the reeducation camp for moi.
Note to Twitter vigilantes: Dean Jonathan Swift never ate an Irish baby in his life.
###
Of course, I realize this is all part of a much larger pendulum shift toward fundamentalism. In another 10 years, Twitter vigilantes will be shrieking for modest clothing and curfews. I’m not exactly sure how that discourse will develop – or how sex robots are going to factor into it – but I’m absolutely certain it will develop. The extreme left and the extreme right are much closer that participants in either allow themselves to be aware of. Possibly a pro-life movement will emerge from veganism. A kind of PETA for embryos. Why not? An anti-abortion stance is the logical extension of vegan principles.
And then another big shift happens, and the pendulum shifts once again toward whatever the opposite of fundamentalism is. (Is there even a word for the opposite of fundamentalism?)
How long will that take, I wonder? Fifty years? A hundred?
In the meantime, I’m getting sick of social media vigilantism. Even in service to a good cause.
