Enter... THE DISCOURSE

Yeah, I want to say that it's a place of enormous privilege that allows me to withdraw and become Uatu, and I'm glad of every reminder of that privilege.

Reading the other thread, my feeling about the appearance that the “rules”/prevailing opinions shift is maybe just the nature of Twitter? Someone posts an opinion, their followers by definition have an interest in their opinions and more often than not agree with their views, if it gets enough traction people outside of their orbit see the post and react to it perhaps more negatively, their followers get involved, and if it gets big enough maybe there’s a backlash to the backlash. If you’re following it from the beginning I’m sure it’s disorienting. My experience is more that 90% of these hot topics of the day, especially about morality and individual behavior, are extremely predictable in how the arguments play out, often no one side is completely wrongheaded but none of the posts that get lots of engagement treat the opposing side with any kind of charity.

But sometimes there’s just a libertarian dipshit posting something that indicates contempt for humanity at large and they should probably be told to shut the fuck up every day of their life.

always be blocking libertarians is my motto

belated -- it both is and isn't driven by the people I follow online, just because of how things work. it is, in the sense that people like things and they are shown to me, and if someone likes a post presumably they agree with it. and if that person is someone I know, then obviously I am invested in not wanting them upset with me, and most likely I respect them and trust them and if they say something is harmful then I don't want to barge ahead harming people. with COVID it is particularly fraught since it is literally life and death

the two things that to me:

- first is a thing that I'm not sure has a name. the "fair game" policy, perhaps? for instance, people will insult Donald Trump for being fat, other people will point out that when you say something like that, it reveals what you truly think about fat people, and it hurts them; and then they'll respond "but he deserves it because he's a horrible person and I don't care what you think." the takeaway from this is that everyone is operating with a baseline level of vicious judgment, and the only way one can be exempt from it is not doing anything wrong -- but that the underlying judgment is still there.

- the elevation of non-moral things to moral status. almost every day I see something like, for instance, "people with food aversions deserve to be bullied." I just don't see why someone preferring to eat plain pasta is a moral failing (and this is from someone who definitely does not), but if you express that opinion then you too get bullied. even the normalization of "bullying" is just so incredibly depressing to me

Everyone is constantly judging everything, which is just a function of being a human being with sense organs and a brain. It's what you choose to do with those judgments (and, particularly, what you choose to externalize) that ultimately matters.

T. S. Eliot: 'criticism is as inevitable as breathing'.

even the normalization of "bullying" is just so incredibly depressing to me

it makes me sad to think this, but it seems to be true: bullying is normal human behavior and it has been all my life. I see where schools have been trying very hard lately to de-normalize bullying, but any success they are having is fragile and tenuous at best, because bullying seems to be wired into our brains as an easily available method of acquiring social ascendance, and overcoming the reflex to bully requires the active vigilance and intervention of our brain's moral function, which is at a perennial disadvantage in that struggle.

every day I see something like, for instance, "people with food aversions deserve to be bullied." I just don't see why someone preferring to eat plain pasta is a moral failing (and this is from someone who definitely does not)

This is the point of confusion, I think? You see that it’s not a moral failing (or even question) in the first place - so why do you give the jerk posting that more than a quarter of a thought?

Twitter has a strain of posting where some people appear to just be posting their intrusive thoughts (“bullying lol”) - whether to feed engagement for the serotonin hit or just to make the voice in their head stop for a moment, who knows.

I think bullying is far less accepted or normalized than in most of American history. This is the nightly news problem of seeing murders every night at 9PM - despite violent crime dropping year over year, people think we’re living in The Warriors.

Bullying is delivered to your pocket supercomputer but that doesn’t mean it’s more prevalent in the real world of workplaces and schools. I know that behavior I saw in school in the ‘80s and ‘90s on a regular basis would bring down the anger of the gods today.

otm

Millions of people thought Denis Leary’s “I’m an asshole” song was the peak of comedy and they all have Twitter accounts.

- first is a thing that I'm not sure has a name. the "fair game" policy, perhaps? for instance, people will insult Donald Trump for being fat, other people will point out that when you say something like that, it reveals what you truly think about fat people, and it hurts them; and then they'll respond "but he deserves it because he's a horrible person and I don't care what you think." the takeaway from this is that everyone is operating with a baseline level of vicious judgment, and the only way one can be exempt from it is not doing anything wrong -- but that the underlying judgment is still there.

i don't think you're wrong about the viciousness of some people. i do think you're wrong to extrapolate from a "they" that is only actually "some assholes" to a takeaway that "everyone" is like that. you're making two assumptions there. first, that "everyone" thinks that way but presumably doesn't say it out loud. that's definitely not true. secondly, you're making the assumption that whenever "they" respond "but he deserves it because he's a horrible person and i don't care what you think" that their response was actually a rational thought and real indicator of their motivations, rather then, say, an overly defensive deflection.

beyond that, even if "he's a horrible person and i don't care what you think" represents a commonly held opinion, that means...nothing? i don't have the patience to read through the last few days, but surely someone's brought up evolution? the recent "stolen election"? huge chunks of the country believe in this stuff, and they are making moral judgments against every day for not being on their side. for that, fuck them!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but also, i'm my own person, thank god, because that means i don't have dumb opinions like a lot of the country

xp -- yeah, I don't think any of this is exclusive to online, that's why "it's just social media don't pay attention to it" also doesn't comfort me at all because it's not like all that disappears

You have random people on a daily basis get up in your grill on the street and yell that you're opinions are shit? That would be problematic.

I mean she does live in NY

One thing that hasn't been touched on is that there are also different levels and types of discourse happening at the same time, obviously. Social media (especially Twiiter) discourse, and much mainstream political discourse, seems important to keep track of, but not get too involved in, at least for me. Why? It is a cesspool, and the returns are fast-diminishing.

I often feel alienated af as a result, but I'm fine with that being my position within "the discourse."

I'm much more into my dumb memes about Deleuze and Kant and obscure poet shit than vilifying someone for going to a grocery store too many times in one week, and the ensuing twitter arguments about it. Tbh, I highly suggest unfollowing any non-friend IG or Twitter accounts that don't make you laugh on a regular basis.

Yeah, this year I disengaged somewhat from social media and just use it mostly to order beer from my favorite local breweries.

The Discourse is a great podcast from leftist weightlifter academic Brandon Sutton/Prettybadlefty and friends

https://m.soundcloud.com/expandthediscourse

This is the proper response to The Discourse IMO

feel free to ignore any hilaria baldwin take that does not boil down to “this is extremely funny”

— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) December 28, 2020

I'm done with discourse... Bring me da entree

— dr. dad, PhD (@whale_defense) September 1, 2020

Charles Schulz predicted The Discourse pic.twitter.com/ruzGE4NXVG

— Adam Koford (@apelad) December 30, 2020

Was just coming here to post that.

how do you find the time to keep up with Twitter on top of work/friends & family/cultural consumption? I feel like I'm always playing catch-up to topics and perspectives in the ~discourse~ and by the time I'm caught up everything worth saying has been said and the world has moved on. Is it simply a case of being Very Online and streamlining the subjects you're interested in?

With great difficulty these days, but that’s not a bad thing. I have some nice mutuals who will usually dm me anything I’ve missed.

aw hun that isn't nice, that's *abusive*. ditch their ass. yeet them into the sun. nope nope nope

I don’t try to keep up. I look at Twitter or Instagram when I’m killing dead time, every day there’s some reference to a hot topic that’s completely inscrutable to me and it rarely seems interesting enough to suss out.

I've been advised a few different times now that if I want to pursue freelance writing gigs etc then I need to be active on Twitter and build a personal brand (ugh) but it just feels like I would be shouting into the void, and that void is also a hellscape of negative energy?

The chief hallmark of Discourse™️ is feeling compelled to weigh in, even though you know you don’t have to and kind of don’t even want to. That said, goddammit bean dad

— sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) January 3, 2021

What does it matter if everyone has an opinion on everything if they aren't constantly expressing those opinions to everyone else, is what I'm asking

https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7c44c8ea-fe2e-48dc-97ea-0a5fcd47cc16_1823x365.png

how do you find the time to keep up with Twitter on top of work/friends & family/cultural consumption? I feel like I'm always playing catch-up to topics and perspectives in the ~discourse~ and by the time I'm caught up everything worth saying has been said and the world has moved on. Is it simply a case of being Very Online and streamlining the subjects you're interested in?

― boxedjoy, Saturday, January 2, 2021 9:06 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://cdn.jwz.org/images/scaled/768/2020/enz8zt4w4aeaded.jpg

Adjacent thing I’ve been thinking abt is how twitter provides this plugged in proximity to a hit of raw uncut Discourse that, grass being greener, I’d like to leave behind and everyone says I don’t need to pay attention to. Yet it reminds me of the bit from devil wears Prada, where the people disconnected from it don’t seem to realize how much of their opinion (on something of a delay) has been shaped by this conversation. I’ll make a point to some friends that they’re all skeptical of, based on something I read online, only for them to make the same point or one that incorporates it a few days later, but unconsciously, as if they don’t even realize the bounds of possibility have been re-determined for them over this small window of a conversation’s evolution

I think we're basically saying the same thing. It's not that the broadsiders were so much more enlightened, just that there were fewer voices vying for attention and fewer perspectives dizzying up the conventional wisdom. The increased panoply of voices has the upside of adding to the breadth and diversity of perspective but also the major downside of depleting the depth and nuance of perspective.

― You will notice a small sink where your sofa once was. (Old Lunch), Tuesday, December 22, 2020 12:04 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

there might be a diversity of perspectives out there in reality, but in effect people have become less tolerant of voices different from their own and have buckled down in their own echo chambers.

people are way more likely to engage with an opinion by trying to like "sort" it into some category. "this sounds like what xyz is saying, you are on their side now." we don't have a discourse as much as a great process of sorting, filing, amplifying and cancelling.

i don't know if there is an alternative, though. like, it's fair to want to weed out crackpots from your twitter feed; no person can hold *every* idea in their head at once. the curation function we have though seems a little idk too blunt sometimes and easily gamed by bad actors.

there might be a diversity of perspectives out there in reality, but in effect people have become less tolerant of voices different from their own and have buckled down in their own echo chambers.

― treeship., Monday, January 4, 2021 11:47 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is one of those received wisdom things I see ppl say all the time but I’m not actually sure it’s true

My personal challenge for today is to avoid learning what Bean Dad is about.

I don't think it's true because it assumes that people behaved differently before the advent of social media

jmm you know what they say: if you look around the table and cant spot the bean dad....

This is one of those received wisdom things I see ppl say all the time but I’m not actually sure it’s true

There's some truth to it, but not in the way the people saying it think. For example, the idea of people becoming "less tolerant of voices different from their own" - what does that actually mean? In literal, real-life terms, the people saying it often mean, "I want you to listen to my racist, right-wing beliefs and not call me a stupid racist asshole. You should approach with an open mind." But why should I do that? I'm 49 years old. I've been listening to racist, right-wing bullshit from stupid assholes for at least 35 years now. How much more am I expected to listen to in the name of "intellectual freedom" and "discourse"?

I think this is a legit both-sides phenomenon but a) one side is right, and b) people have been doing this since forever but it's forgotten because history smooths out the details and rough edges, making current interactions seem novel and new rather than a continuing extension of the way people behave

just a hunch lately that perceived constriction / entrenchment of viewpoints is related to increased material inequality

Yet it reminds me of the bit from devil wears Prada, where the people disconnected from it don’t seem to realize how much of their opinion (on something of a delay) has been shaped by this conversation.

The hill I will die on: the whole progression of the movie is Anne Hathaway slowly coming to understand that Meryl Streep is full of shit in this speech, that Streep is in fact so locked in to her tiny enclosed world and the constraints it imposes on her that she has no choice but to absurdly exaggerate its broader importance, or go mad. (Relevance to "The Discourse" left as an exercise for the reader.)

otm

does the movie show that the devil does indeed wear prada though

the devil shares praxis

Hmm I think that’s true of the general narrative of that character but isn’t really true of how the fashion industry operates