Having entirely missed the original thing that happened, this feels like a prophet covered in sackcloth and ashes ranting at the sky. There's a deep emotional appeal here to engage in...
Having entirely missed the original thing that happened, this feels like a prophet covered in sackcloth and ashes ranting at the sky. There's a deep emotional appeal here to engage in self-flagellation and hate everyone involved, but from outside the groups involved this really seems designed to be yet another swing on the same emotional ride rather than actually an attempt to get anyone off the ride.
(Also, customizing the "skip signing up" button to say "I'm a coward" isn't improving my opinion of the guy.)
It's not unreasonable to have at least some disdain for everyone involved. I think it was Innuendo Studios that pointed out in an anti-racism video how both the left and the right are happy to...
It's not unreasonable to have at least some disdain for everyone involved. I think it was Innuendo Studios that pointed out in an anti-racism video how both the left and the right are happy to exploit a (group of) persons to further a political agenda without actually standing with them. Jason's saga there is quite tragic once you factor just how ugly everything got in proportion to the lies.
But Sam Kriss is best known by me as someone whose career reasonably ended during #MeToo, and they're still bitter about it. And it comes through in the tone of the post.
Every time I see someone online get crucified in this way, I find myself concluding our society never bothered to properly evaluate some sort of feral bloodlust inherent in the human condition. I...
Every time I see someone online get crucified in this way, I find myself concluding our society never bothered to properly evaluate some sort of feral bloodlust inherent in the human condition.
I went to school in the mid 2000s - mid 2010s. My school district had strict no-tolerance policies on bullying, harassment, with the general understanding at the time was that these policies were somewhat ineffective, and just as apt to hurt victims as well as perpetrators, but ultimately were worth it for some greater good. I remember seeing statistics in health class about how people who experienced bullying and harassment had worse life outcomes, and an aggressive push to snuff out some 'bullying instinct.'
In contrast, for the course of my entire life, I have seen, has been a continuing string of mildly public figures get crucified online, whether they're even actually culpable for some perceived slight. What I see in this, is a consistent stream of vitriol that seems to consistently crave carnage. The vitriol leaks from the unjust society we live in, and seems to run into different streams based on ideology.
My assessment is that our society hasn't answered enough fundamental questions that make people angry. And, every once in a while, someone violates enough of the norms in a public way to lead to some large swath of an online populace to pick them apart, piece by piece.
Let me posit some rhetorical questions:
Did those attacking Jason Arday have some right to do so?
Was his position in society ill-gotten enough to warrant such cruelty?
Did Arday deserve to be crucified for simply lying and self aggrandizing?
Is having a 'valid target' for harassment fair?
This is a controversial take, but I think our society has refused to answer these questions. Instead, we have settled on a system where the 'public' can crucify certain offenders, because it's what our society wants. I don't think our society wants to admit that, but I feel that I could answer each of those questions as such:
"Yes, because it is the right of those in society to crucify those who violate the rules, if only to feed an instinct of Carnage."
Continuing:
Does the media and academia have a duty to evaluate work to prevent liars and con artists from proliferating?
Do good-faith commentators have some duty to rebuff those who criticize off of racism, even if the target has violated our own values?
Was a rational, honest commentator raising criticism from their position in life any different than one who cited race or DEI in their criticism?
Will things change because of this?
"No, Society ultimately needs the sacrifice of random human suffering to prevent discourse and change, as that would effect the powers that be."
In my opinion, Jason Arday was someone who chose to lie about who he was, and ultimately chose to kill himself rather than live with the Truth. By lying consistency, Arday chose a path that shirked the Truth. But his Truth, an ugly crawling mess of a Truth, was that he was not a profound person, just a regular academic who lied far more than he needed to. Furthermore, He, in a post-colonial society where racism still explicitly existed, had lived a life that made enemy of this evil, while burning every shred of credibility he had, damning him to suffer without the support of institutions that could have protected him. Ultimately, he was unable to live with the reality he had created, and he chose to leave it.
Arday was obviously a talented person, who could have arguably lived an ordinary life. Instead, he lied his way into the halls of an esteemed institution, buoyed by the sheer sloppiness of an esteemed institution that had long calcified past actual standards. The impact of his choices, regardless of his intent, was feeding a machine that desired people like him erased, and effectively bleached him from the record as well. He was ultimately, just another selfish man who put his own desires over the fundamentals of his reality. He leaves behind two young children who will bare the consequences of his actions. Perhaps a traitor, perhaps a coward, perhaps but an ordinary fool, but a corpse now, regardless.
What we have with those two things, is a society that refuses to ignore its will towards carnage, and a man who lived a life that made him an easy sacrifice to machinery of carnage. Are we to say that this was unnatural? Do we desire actual change? Or shall we continue to exist, as a society that culls at random and rabid intervals, if only in service of some ideological urge of the moment???
I am left with unfinished words of Mark Twain.
“Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: **a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; **who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!..."
As for me: I am left with only the hope I am a madwoman who has conflated too many things improperly, and I am blind to some facet of justice or kindness lost to my own damned eyes.
Having entirely missed the original thing that happened, this feels like a prophet covered in sackcloth and ashes ranting at the sky. There's a deep emotional appeal here to engage in self-flagellation and hate everyone involved, but from outside the groups involved this really seems designed to be yet another swing on the same emotional ride rather than actually an attempt to get anyone off the ride.
(Also, customizing the "skip signing up" button to say "I'm a coward" isn't improving my opinion of the guy.)
It's not unreasonable to have at least some disdain for everyone involved. I think it was Innuendo Studios that pointed out in an anti-racism video how both the left and the right are happy to exploit a (group of) persons to further a political agenda without actually standing with them. Jason's saga there is quite tragic once you factor just how ugly everything got in proportion to the lies.
But Sam Kriss is best known by me as someone whose career reasonably ended during #MeToo, and they're still bitter about it. And it comes through in the tone of the post.
Every time I see someone online get crucified in this way, I find myself concluding our society never bothered to properly evaluate some sort of feral bloodlust inherent in the human condition.
I went to school in the mid 2000s - mid 2010s. My school district had strict no-tolerance policies on bullying, harassment, with the general understanding at the time was that these policies were somewhat ineffective, and just as apt to hurt victims as well as perpetrators, but ultimately were worth it for some greater good. I remember seeing statistics in health class about how people who experienced bullying and harassment had worse life outcomes, and an aggressive push to snuff out some 'bullying instinct.'
In contrast, for the course of my entire life, I have seen, has been a continuing string of mildly public figures get crucified online, whether they're even actually culpable for some perceived slight. What I see in this, is a consistent stream of vitriol that seems to consistently crave carnage. The vitriol leaks from the unjust society we live in, and seems to run into different streams based on ideology.
My assessment is that our society hasn't answered enough fundamental questions that make people angry. And, every once in a while, someone violates enough of the norms in a public way to lead to some large swath of an online populace to pick them apart, piece by piece.
Let me posit some rhetorical questions:
This is a controversial take, but I think our society has refused to answer these questions. Instead, we have settled on a system where the 'public' can crucify certain offenders, because it's what our society wants. I don't think our society wants to admit that, but I feel that I could answer each of those questions as such:
"Yes, because it is the right of those in society to crucify those who violate the rules, if only to feed an instinct of Carnage."
Continuing:
"No, Society ultimately needs the sacrifice of random human suffering to prevent discourse and change, as that would effect the powers that be."
In my opinion, Jason Arday was someone who chose to lie about who he was, and ultimately chose to kill himself rather than live with the Truth. By lying consistency, Arday chose a path that shirked the Truth. But his Truth, an ugly crawling mess of a Truth, was that he was not a profound person, just a regular academic who lied far more than he needed to. Furthermore, He, in a post-colonial society where racism still explicitly existed, had lived a life that made enemy of this evil, while burning every shred of credibility he had, damning him to suffer without the support of institutions that could have protected him. Ultimately, he was unable to live with the reality he had created, and he chose to leave it.
Arday was obviously a talented person, who could have arguably lived an ordinary life. Instead, he lied his way into the halls of an esteemed institution, buoyed by the sheer sloppiness of an esteemed institution that had long calcified past actual standards. The impact of his choices, regardless of his intent, was feeding a machine that desired people like him erased, and effectively bleached him from the record as well. He was ultimately, just another selfish man who put his own desires over the fundamentals of his reality. He leaves behind two young children who will bare the consequences of his actions. Perhaps a traitor, perhaps a coward, perhaps but an ordinary fool, but a corpse now, regardless.
What we have with those two things, is a society that refuses to ignore its will towards carnage, and a man who lived a life that made him an easy sacrifice to machinery of carnage. Are we to say that this was unnatural? Do we desire actual change? Or shall we continue to exist, as a society that culls at random and rabid intervals, if only in service of some ideological urge of the moment???
I am left with unfinished words of Mark Twain.
As for me: I am left with only the hope I am a madwoman who has conflated too many things improperly, and I am blind to some facet of justice or kindness lost to my own damned eyes.