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Feb. 17th, 2023 02:34 pmFinding it hard to tear myself away from Twitter these days. It often feels like a self imposed traffic jam, just one road rage incident away from complete psycho-breakdown.
On the other hand, if the world is exploding, this is a real front-row seat. It becomes hard to look away, almost a dereliction of duty.
The temptation to lash out and scream at MAGAts or Tankie Vatniks, to call them out for lapses in logic, false analogies, false equivalencies, false reporting, false historiography, and out-and-out LIES can be overwhelming. But it never does any good. No one's likely to change their minds in this fashion, and followers will often swarm. Responses - retaliations really - often don't come until much later, when the initial indignation's cooled off, igniting it all over again and dragging the whole thing out long past the initial period of caring.
I suppose it comes from an inability to let certain statements go unchallenged. Especially if the response is immediately obvious and thus far unmentioned. A lot of the time, I scroll comments hoping that somebody somewhere has made it so I won't have to.
My Twitter's basically divided up into three subject categories:
1) Heavy Metal
2) Doctor Who
3) Politics.
The Metalheads are the nicest. Overwhelmingly positive, unfailingly mutually affirming, rarely (not never but rarely) judgmental, Metal Twitter has almost none of the hazards of the other two. Metalheads are a lot like puppies really: infinitely pleased by the simplest things. A Megadeth video, a picture of Lemmy, a quote from Ronnie, and everything's awesome. EVERYTHING ROCKS! EVERYTHING KICKS ASS! YOU ROCK! No, YOU ROCK! WE ROCK! High fives all around.
Doctor Who fans can be pretty insufferable. That franchise has been around for so long, it means too many different things to too many people. Too often, their visions are incompatible. Like Catholics and Protestants, or Sunnis and Shias. I'm as guilty as anyone: I've watched all my life, taken it to heart, and take it much too seriously. I do resent when the producers take it in directions I don't think it should go, and do get grouchy when encountering folks who have the opposite take, no less deeply held.
There seems a generation gap here, deeper even that in political arguments (invisible in Metal circles). Old farts like me at least seem content keeping it subjective: "I liked this one, I hated this one, I think this and I think that". The youngsters are much more prone to psychoanalysis: "If you didn't like this, it can only be because of this nefarious motivation!" "Ho can anyone think this? It must be because. . . " Young fans above all want to prove you wrong. For them, the personal is political, aesthetic considerations are debates that can be settled objectively with evidence. The evidence of course tends to be very flimsy, based on false parallels, false analogies, irrelevancies, and personal taste disguised as analysis.
It's all very tiresome, and one of the compensations I suppose of middle- age is an all around lack of patience for it. Awareness of the wider world can't help but put all that in perspective - with genocides going on as we speak, rising authoritarianism, resurgent fascism, widespread scientific illiteracy, increasingly draconian censorship and ever imminent climate catastrophe, it seems petty indeed to argue with some kid about Doctor Who.
Which brings us to politics. Whole books have been written about the political temper of our time, and the state of the discourse. There's way more to take on than I've got time or space for here, but it can really be disheartening to see first hand the extent of the disconnect. People really seem to inhabit different realities. It's enough to make me question my own reality. How do I really know what I think I know?
I don't know. I have to start with the act of faith that what I see is actually happening. That the world around me isn't some Matrix simulation. For now though, I'm going to go with the assumption that it isn't, that the world around me does actually exist, and I can perceive bits of it, however imperfectly and incompletely if I try. That means carefully evaluating the information I take in, and not filtering it according to what I would like to see and hear.
This is a complicated, life-long, necessarily flawed process. Nevertheless, having at least attempted the process, I believe I've earned some measure of confidence in my sense of reality, and reserve the right speak the truth as I see it.
Cheers,
On the other hand, if the world is exploding, this is a real front-row seat. It becomes hard to look away, almost a dereliction of duty.
The temptation to lash out and scream at MAGAts or Tankie Vatniks, to call them out for lapses in logic, false analogies, false equivalencies, false reporting, false historiography, and out-and-out LIES can be overwhelming. But it never does any good. No one's likely to change their minds in this fashion, and followers will often swarm. Responses - retaliations really - often don't come until much later, when the initial indignation's cooled off, igniting it all over again and dragging the whole thing out long past the initial period of caring.
I suppose it comes from an inability to let certain statements go unchallenged. Especially if the response is immediately obvious and thus far unmentioned. A lot of the time, I scroll comments hoping that somebody somewhere has made it so I won't have to.
My Twitter's basically divided up into three subject categories:
1) Heavy Metal
2) Doctor Who
3) Politics.
The Metalheads are the nicest. Overwhelmingly positive, unfailingly mutually affirming, rarely (not never but rarely) judgmental, Metal Twitter has almost none of the hazards of the other two. Metalheads are a lot like puppies really: infinitely pleased by the simplest things. A Megadeth video, a picture of Lemmy, a quote from Ronnie, and everything's awesome. EVERYTHING ROCKS! EVERYTHING KICKS ASS! YOU ROCK! No, YOU ROCK! WE ROCK! High fives all around.
Doctor Who fans can be pretty insufferable. That franchise has been around for so long, it means too many different things to too many people. Too often, their visions are incompatible. Like Catholics and Protestants, or Sunnis and Shias. I'm as guilty as anyone: I've watched all my life, taken it to heart, and take it much too seriously. I do resent when the producers take it in directions I don't think it should go, and do get grouchy when encountering folks who have the opposite take, no less deeply held.
There seems a generation gap here, deeper even that in political arguments (invisible in Metal circles). Old farts like me at least seem content keeping it subjective: "I liked this one, I hated this one, I think this and I think that". The youngsters are much more prone to psychoanalysis: "If you didn't like this, it can only be because of this nefarious motivation!" "Ho can anyone think this? It must be because. . . " Young fans above all want to prove you wrong. For them, the personal is political, aesthetic considerations are debates that can be settled objectively with evidence. The evidence of course tends to be very flimsy, based on false parallels, false analogies, irrelevancies, and personal taste disguised as analysis.
It's all very tiresome, and one of the compensations I suppose of middle- age is an all around lack of patience for it. Awareness of the wider world can't help but put all that in perspective - with genocides going on as we speak, rising authoritarianism, resurgent fascism, widespread scientific illiteracy, increasingly draconian censorship and ever imminent climate catastrophe, it seems petty indeed to argue with some kid about Doctor Who.
Which brings us to politics. Whole books have been written about the political temper of our time, and the state of the discourse. There's way more to take on than I've got time or space for here, but it can really be disheartening to see first hand the extent of the disconnect. People really seem to inhabit different realities. It's enough to make me question my own reality. How do I really know what I think I know?
I don't know. I have to start with the act of faith that what I see is actually happening. That the world around me isn't some Matrix simulation. For now though, I'm going to go with the assumption that it isn't, that the world around me does actually exist, and I can perceive bits of it, however imperfectly and incompletely if I try. That means carefully evaluating the information I take in, and not filtering it according to what I would like to see and hear.
This is a complicated, life-long, necessarily flawed process. Nevertheless, having at least attempted the process, I believe I've earned some measure of confidence in my sense of reality, and reserve the right speak the truth as I see it.
Cheers,
