She sure is... a print opinion columnist.
"At first I thought that my progressive friends on social media were annoying twits and found that the intellectual dark web offered something better. Then I realized that the people in the intellectual dark web were also annoying twits.
Eventually I achieved Enlightenment and realized that everyone is an annoying twit."
A heartwarming tale.
...But argh, she still seems like she's criticizes people exactly when I find them sympathetic, and recoils from people exactly when I'm inclined to cut them slack, and then she bonds with people exactly when I find them off-putting and not worth my time.
Well put. I had that reaction as well, but wouldn't have been able to identify it as clearly.
She sure is... a print opinion columnist.
As I said, the framing of it as a relationship story (and the ways in which she made herself a character is the story and emphasized her on fallibility) improved it. As a pure think-piece, I would have skimmed over it fairly quickly. As it was, I found myself thinking about the dynamics of trying to work out emotional issues in one's intellectual life.
As an aside, I got to the piece from this interview which is interesting in that she is so clearly wrestling with having pulled back from some of her attachment to the "intellectual dark web" but still feeling the pull to defend it as well. For example this answer has, what, three different back-and-forth movements in one paragraph:
Yes, because the term identity politics gets thrown around, I think, recklessly. I mean, Peterson ... and again, like I said in the piece, it's easy to end up defending him. And I really don't even care about him very much, but he has a long history of criticizing the identity politics of the right, as well as the left. He's kind of allergic to dogmatism, no matter how you slice it. And I don't think he does himself any favors in terms of refining his message.
6: I found the interviewer in that Slate piece incredibly annoying.
Have you ever been so bad at relationships that your ex sought out YouTube commenters as a way to escape conversation with you?
Dogmatisms are sliced one docent at a time.
Giving rise in university towns to the colloquial "distiller's docent".
God, discussion on the entire internet outside of this website is garbage. I have a bunch of friends from college who agree on 99% of everything, but you can't discuss the remaining 1% because they all take it as a PERSONAL ATTACK and HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT. I had somebody I knew for years block me over the stupidest fucking thing.
I am obstinately fine with performative wokeness. It can be annoying, and a shield for bad people, but that's not much different from politics as it's always been. Certainly far better than Biden-style "ALL MY LIFE I HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS" performance.
I certainly feel a kinship with anyone who finds the dour public moralists on social media deeply annoying. But there are some pretty dubious characters in the neck of the internet Daum was drawn to. You run into Bell Curve enthusiasts very quickly in those parts.
I'd lost track of Daum. I was sort of a fan based on her first book of essays years ago.
Part of what is going on is that on line communities develop a way of viewing the world and a frame of acceptable debate within that view of the world and then allow you to contribute to that debate. this really does appeal to the lonely and depressed so it isn't surprising that it would appeal to someone going through a divorce.
There was that personal essay of a guy a year or two back who started leftist, was being radicalized into Islamophobia and racism via YouTube, but then caught himself about halfway and realized it was batshit. I think Sam Harris was one of his gateways, but I can't find the link.
ah, the luxuriousness of sitting in a position in life that allows one to blithely disclaim that *anything* is political, really, i mean ... i just want to *explore* these amazingly complex ideas! woman is professionally self-deluded, its her pitch and she's not going to be budged from it.
Jesus, okay, Meghan Daum and Meagan Day are two different people (and both are different from Megan McArdle and Megan who posts here). As you were.
16: Self-treating for depression is probably underappreciated as a driver of obnoxious online behavior. I've heard more than one recovering internet rageoholic admit that working themselves up into apoplectic fits on internet forums or social media was their way of coping because being consumed with rage was preferable to being depressed.
her pitch and she's not going to be budged from it.
The sticky kind of pitch.
22: I was going to say something both about that, and about the deflection of libido you get when you're taking SSRIs and other similar pills. That's sort of an unsettling public health/public discourse quandary. I don't know what to say about it though.
Gosh, next time I whine to myself that my own 2015 breakup remains too messy and is dragging out way too long, I can at least console myself with how much worse things could be.
22 / 24.last: Interesting. That matches my intuitions, and I would be curious if there's anything more than anecdotal evidence to assess that.
Weird that this is by Meghan Daum. I remember reading something by her in... the New Yorker? in like 1998 where the entire content of the article was her discovering a strange phenomenon, that someone had became aware of her on the INTERNET and was sort of charmingly obsessed with anonymous and unglamorous magazine writer Meghan Daum. So she's always been at the forefront of weird relationships between writers and internet.
I suppose my reaction to Daum's first book might have been colored by the fact that the title essay ended with her noting how she never imagined that at age 30 she'd be living in Nebraska, and I was in that same boat myself at the time.
She's right about a lot of things but goddamn it, I can't stand her.
I love this.
Because, yeah, she's right about a lot of things, but she's also insufferably smug and self-regarding in her rightness about things.
But now I'm worrying about whether I'm applying an internalized-patriarchy double standard in my annoyance at this author, when male authors are routinely just cut so much slack, and nobody blames them for a bit of self-promotion and self-aggrandizement...
insufferably smug and self-regarding in her rightness about things
That's the IDW brand right there.
8: OMG I wanted to kiss the interviewer on the mouth. It was the perfect approach for someone high on their own bullshit.
It's really amazing how she gets through that article and interview without ever once discussing a single real issue. Every thing in both articles is about her feelings about the IDW and its critics and about whether she thinks "identity politics" is either great or terrible en masse. There are no discussions of logical or moral choices at anything more rigorous than the 10,000 foot view. I kept waiting for a single debatable point that was not a generality or a platitude to come out of her pen.
"Hmm. I think "identity politics" is kinda bad sometimes.
I think "free speech" is kinda good mostly.
This person who advocates for one of these things is a person I like more than this other person who advocates for some somewhat different things."
It's everything that's wrong with the modern press.
I have an ask the mineshaft about a delicate interpersonal situation. I know it's the 34th comment but this thread seems pretty quiet and I don't really feel like front paging this.
I met a man through an OkCupid ad that, you'll just have to take my word for it, really doesn't set up romantic expectations, and have had two interactions with him, neither highly datelike, the second substantially less so than the first. I like him and think he seems like a kind, thoughtful person but after the first interaction I suspected, and after the second I was starting to believe, that we didn't have quite enough interpersonal chemistry to pull off friendship, I am very slightly irritated by some ways he communicates, and I have demands on my time enough that I don't really feel relaxed about giving people a ton of energy unless I'm already close to them or feeling very optimistic.
I hoped after the second interaction that he felt the same way -- I thought I didn't get a text afterwards but when I looked at my phone the next night I realized I had gotten a thanks that was fun text the previous day. And further, I had another text, from earlier that afternoon, saying he had had an upsetting encounter with the police (he's black) and could he talk to me about it. So I responded that I was just seeing his text, asking him if he was ok and yes, I was available then. He then didn't text back till I was asleep, saying he was basically ok and he was "weighing his options". I texted with some of my availability over the next few days for a call, and we settled on Friday afternoon. Meanwhile he told me the story over text (I don't feel like repeating the whole thing, it's his business, and it doesn't seem necessary. He is physically ok) and I responded, that's so fucked up, I'm so sorry it happened to you, etc., and also asked him whether he was looking for emotional support or other sorts of material support or advice about how to proceed.
(Part of why I asked that is that while he has no way of knowing this, I know a ton of policing activists and might be a good person to connect him to a lawyer, if he wanted to talk to one. I thought he might be thinking of something like that since he said he was "weighing his options".)
Then he told me he wanted to "be open with me. That's what I want. To be open with you."
Now I am feeling painfully conflicted. I don't really have a clear idea of what other supports this person has. It feels shitty to say, hey, I said I'd be available to talk to you about this horrible thing that happened but actually I don't think I want to be friends, but if he is explicitly telling me this is a bid for intimacy with me, maybe it is a mistake to let him tell me this painful story in any greater detail, or talk about his feelings about it, so that what? I can withdraw not that long after? (Why did you ever tell him you were available for this, Tia? Well, because when I first got a text it was shortly after it had happened, I wasn't sure what had happened, I was concerned about him, and had no idea what concrete/material support he might need. It seemed important to be available to someone who just said he had a shitty encounter with racist dudes with guns but as time passes it seems less urgent, and more like him just sharing in a way I already think I'm not going to be there for consistently.)
Ugh. What should I do?
Treat him as you would a battle opponent of lesser importance, e.g., a club-wielding peasant. Don't stop to honor his memory or drink from his skull. THERE IS NO NEED. Let him stay in his impaling without further thought from you. Move further down the path, so that you may impale others.
the best solution is for you to put sugar in the gas tanks of a whole bunch of cop cars, enough that it makes the news, then tell him you did this to avenge him, and say that now you can't talk to him because the heat is following you. He's supported, you're both a good friend and someone never there.
If you aren't very good at vandalism or have enough of a record that you'd have to do hard time if caught, you'll have to try the much harder way of communicating directly with him. I'm no good for advice on that kind of thing.
If nobody else chimes in before the end of a half hour, you have to do either 35 or 36.
You'll need to go to the store. Get at least a pound per car.
Corn syrup works. Those bottles of Karo do real nice.
So you're scheduled to talk tomorrow about an emotionally intense thing with someone that you know nothing's going anywhere with? That's super tough.
You could take his "open and honest" thing at face value and tell him (maybe ahead of time?) that you feel conflicted. That before he told you about the incident, you were planning on winding things down, and now you have two simultaneous feelings: to wind down the friendship/whatever it is, and to support him on the police incident. Then just leave it at that - you've described your position, you'll have the conversation on Friday, it'll be awkward as hell but you're good at having emotionally connected conversations in ostensibly awkward situations, and that will be that.
If I bought up all the corn syrup in NYC so that none could be had for the next three months, my aunt couldn't make this truly foul pecan pie she burns every Thanksgiving. Two birds!
you're good at having emotionally connected conversations in ostensibly awkward situations
Less so on the phone, especially not on cell phones, with the delay. But I think you're right. I should probably describe my conflict ahead of time. He can then decide whether he wants someone to talk to regardless, or whether it doesn't feel good to talk to me.
Pecan pie is always horrible, but I've never had any horrible enough to have birds added.
I was hoping you'd chime in when I composed the question, heebs.
Or a chicken, some pot, and a pie that doesn't look like it's filled with chunky snot and taste like diabetes
34 "be open with me. That's what I want. To be open with you."
This is giving me a weird vibe.
You're clearly not interested in a relationship or even a friendship with this person so I don't see why you need to speak with him about feeling conflicted, that just opens you up in a direction towards more intimacy. But it is important to be kind. I say let him know that you know these police activists who could help him and whatever it is he wants to do, wish him well, and move on.
Have you considered that he might find solace in Free Speech Youtube, and also in knowing that this sub-thread is no longer completely off-topic?
51: This is how I see it. When someone wants to make more of a claim on your attention than you want to give them, it's up to you to set boundaries. They won't do it for you, and they will be resistant when you do it. (This doesn't make them a bad person; it's not their job to set your boundaries.)
I'm not too far into the linked piece in the OP, but it looks like self-congratulatory bullshit so far:
I didn't agree with my Free Speech YouTube friends on every point; far from it. Still, I was invigorated, even electrified, by their willingness to ask (if not ever totally answer) questions that had lately been deemed too messy somehow to deal with in mainstream public discourse: Are we using "multiculturalism" as a cover for tolerating human rights abuses in other countries? Are there biological differences in male and female brains that help explain the gender wage gap? Can we use evolutionary psychology to help explain why women, in the aggregate, are less likely to pursue careers like engineering and computer coding?
Everything about this is bullshit. These questions are absolutely a part of mainstream discourse, and so are the dumb answers that are promoted on the "intellectual dark web."
(I haven't yet gotten to the part that Nick liked. I'll try to finish it.)
Walt's 13 captures the actual point the author would be making, if she had a point. I want to read Walt's over-long essay on this subject. F's 33 is completely correct.
This is the attitude that saturates the essay:
I would have taken equal if not more delight in criticizing the political right if there was anything remotely interesting or surprising about doing so.
Ideas are important solely for their entertainment value. We have three branches of government controlled by troglodytes? That's old news. Boring. Everybody knows that. What's interesting is that people were mean to some college professors at Evergreen State.
Daum proudly links her Palin essay, which was dumb as shit, but at least it's short.
This is David Brooks-level stuff for its insistence on speaking in airy generalities and thus entirely missing the point.
We have three branches of government controlled by troglodytes? That's old news.
Meh. Just because Trump and his friends suck doesn't mean that other people can't also suck. Theirs plenty of suckitude to go around for everyone!
People who confuse their with there especially suck.
58: Sure! It's all a matter of context. When you're talking narrowly about specific cases, you can find assholes everywhere, and it might be interesting to do so. When your subject is the problem with the world today, you need to address that topic.
You know what? Hillary really was too cozy with Goldman Sachs, and her e-mail practices were flawed. But if, as a public commentator, that's what you find interesting to think about in October 2016, you've lost the thread.
If you want to hear how this turned out:
What I actually said was something of a synthesis of advice here. I understand that I'm responsible for setting my boundaries. The point of telling him that I was still available to talk to him was not to reveal something about my internal state; the point was to not withdraw something I had offered especially when I wasn't sure what kind of supports this person has -- some people are really alone and the fact that he reached out to someone he does not know well to talk about this is could possibly indicate something like that (but there are other possibilities, too).
I did tell them that I was still available, but that it felt important, for transparency's sake, to let him know that I had been feeling like we didn't have the strongest connection and had been on the brink of withdrawing into work, so that he could make informed decisions about whether he wanted to have an emotional conversation with me, and also that if he was interested I had contacts for him, and he responded in a gracious and mildly face-saving way, unsurprisingly didn't really want to talk, but did want my contacts, so I emailed someone who is emailing some people, and he expressed gratitude for that. The end. (I feel kind of dumb for not telling him earlier that I was probably within three degrees of separation from all the people who could help him in the city; I just got heavily socialized into this "always get permission to do anything but listen" paradigm, and felt a little blocked when he said he just wanted to be open. But he didn't know I had specific contacts. Anyway, at least the wheels are turning now.)
Didn't read the whole thing, but the wheels will turn until the sugar crystalizes.
But then how would corn syrup work? Someone in this thread is providing inaccurate information.
lw
I for one am glad to have a proud Fast and Furious fan among us.
61: that sounds pretty close to ideal! I am glad to know the update.
he responded in a gracious and mildly face-saving way, unsurprisingly didn't really want to talk, but did want my contacts, so I emailed someone who is emailing some people, and he expressed gratitude for that. The end.
Congratulations. Your description of the situation sounded like it had the potential to get quite messy, and I'm glad to hear that you were able to resolve it in a way which was fairly clean (and in which you were able to provide assistance -- even if he was originally hoping for something else).
Crystalizes shmystalizes. You got crystals in your gas, that shits just going to jam up the fuel strainer and only a small percentage will get to the engine. That's why you go with the Karo, it dissolves better.
Once you go Karo,
You've fucked up the Camaro.
It might work with soda
if it's a Toyota.