Life is good!
We’re alive! Still!
There are birds singing in blossoming trees, kids are flocking to playgrounds and going to school again, the sun is finally starting to come out here in the Northern Hemisphere, and we’re on the verge of a very free and glorious summer as vaccinations continue and COVID exits stage left.
But if you pay much attention to the news—whether the NYT, CNN, Fox—or live in a social media echo chamber dominated by Trump or the cult of wokeness, you’d never know it. For these people the sky is forever falling, everything is terrible, and we should all be feeling very angry or guilty or miserable, apparently until the end of time.
Honest question: had enough yet?
I hope so, because I’m here to spread the good news—no not Jesus (although his actual message was/is pretty good IMO), but the fact that:
Everything is going to be OK!
IF we can just let it be.
Like, we live in a time when even the poorest among us possess tremendous access to amazing technology, where anyone could get famous overnight for ridiculously stupid reasons—like that guy drinking cranberry juice riding a skateboard.
Most of us sleep in beds that are warmer and more comfortable than the queens and kings and aristocrats of yore, and enjoy a richer more varied diet than any prior generation of human ever to exist.
And we can literally choose just about any fantastic or realistic story we want told to us and watch it play out on massive home televisions—or read about it, or listen to it—basically anywhere. We have live sports 24/7, athletes reaching the apexes of physical prowess, strategy, and skill. We can interact with any kind of person or community across the globe—instantly!
Like guys, this is fucking AMAZING! Have you heard of Steven Pinker?
Of course, there are still big problems in the world, and things are far from perfect. We need real solutions for things like climate change and child poverty, wealth inequality, the oppression of the Uighurs, the war in Myanmar…
But how often do we even hear about those issues? The big ones? The ones that will change millions of lives for better or worse?
Almost never.
No, instead we argue about micro-aggressions and where a fucking baseball game should be played. We offer hot takes on how everyone in some identity group is a terrible person because of some moronic anecdotal observation and the behavior of extreme outliers. We talk about whiteness as if it means something real rather than what it is: a veiled way to say racist things about white people. Like, right now there’s a large contingent of Americans arguing that the government wanting to give them a vaccine against a disease that kept us all indoors for more than a year is some horrific example of oppression or else a vast conspiracy.
We have become a deeply deranged, dumb, and unserious society—absolutely hell-bent on making ourselves miserable for reasons I can’t fathom.
As Bill Maher put recently: we’re a silly people.
Take the whole “anti-racist” wokeness movement that’s dominating our discourse now, especially in corporate trainings, K-12 schools, and higher ed. In the name of “anti-racism”, we’ve started segregating people based on race again. We’ve gone from Brown back to Plessy.
Seems to me that’s a pretty bad idea.
To be perfectly clear, I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist or that we shouldn’t do something about it where it does, but we’re currently teaching people to see racism where it expressly does not exist—indeed, almost everywhere. We’re being told that the mere fact of having white skin makes one racist and there’s nothing—NOTHING—that can be done about it.
Consider the concept of micro-aggressions. Coleman Hughes has a great podcast up where he talks with Aella Girl about being called “articulate.” People of color—especially Black people—are now being taught to see “articulate” or “well-spoken” as a sleight if said to them by a white person (Hughes makes fun of this btw). Why? Couldn’t I simply mean that someone who happens to be black, is in fact eloquent, meaning the same thing as if I said it about someone who’s white?
And being articulate is good! Right? That’s a fucking compliment! It’s good to be able to speak with depth of thought and clarity and purpose. You see the problem here? The implication, like so much of what is taught in anti-racism, is that black people are not articulate. It’s the same implication that’s delivered when people suggest we should get rid of standardized testing because it’s “racist”—basically, suggesting that black children are incapable of learning the same things as white children and asian children.
Do you believe that? I don’t. And it seems to me that to imply Black people or other people of color can’t be articulate or do well on tests is itself an awful and racist assumption.
But we’re now so paranoid about race that we’re teaching people to be offended about almost everything, to take a microscope to every word and phrase, to see offense even where no offense is intended—and only then because the actors happen to be of different races or sexes or genders. Moreover, we’re teaching people that they should operate in the world from a position of powerlessness and grievance and suspicion.
That’s bad.
And there’s no doubt the proximate cause of all of this is social media: the reality that so many people spend so much of their time on their phones virtue signaling, judging each other, and generally being negative, mean, and reactionary, especially toward people who are different or have different beliefs. It’s a space where people argue with each other in bad faith, where good ideas can’t be elaborated on properly, bad ideas go viral, everyone claims to be an expert, and no one admits to being wrong about anything or changes their mind. Ever.
Feeling shitty? Chances are it’s because you spend too time on IG or Tik-Tok watching people who are prettier, richer, or better dancers than you get famous while you sit on a couch staring at your screen, robbed of all power and agency in your life because these same people tell you that you have none.
Wrong!
You are powerful! You have agency! You’re in control!
No matter what condition in which you find yourself, there is a way forward—and the truth is that if we just stop and look around, many of us live objectively wonderful, comfortable lives. That’s why it’s so odd that most of what we see on social media is that the world is a terrible place and the government is coming to get us and everyone’s racist and there’s a vast conspiracy by some faceless group of rich people who are planning a totalitarian future from which there is no escape…
Ugh.
Here’s a corrective: go out into the real world and talk to real people—face to face. You know, like they did in the old days. Whatever that means. Because in real life, you can’t say things like sex for men is about domination and violence and oppression, or that women are evil harpies who endlessly take advantage of stupid men, or that we’re currently living in a Jim Crow-like era of racism.
Or, I guess you can, but no one will take you seriously—if they’re smart, actually, they’ll laugh in your face if you say stupid shit like that. Because it’s obviously not true. What earns you likes and retweets on social media is most often rude and inappropriate to say in polite society—and I’ll admit, even I need to remember that sometimes.
I guess the point is: if you have the luxury of going to a restaurant occasionally and having drinks and a nice dinner, why in the fucking world are you simultaneously tweeting the end is nigh? Do people understand just how incredibly incongruent that is?
“The government’s trying to control our minds with this new vaccine and soon we’ll all be the slaves or robots like in the Matrix.”
“Crazy man. So like, what are you up to this weekend?”
“Oh well we’re remodeling the kitchen, which will take all Saturday, but I’ve got a tee time with some buddies Sunday morning, and then the kids are coming over for dinner later that night for Sandy’s Jambalaya.”
WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK. IS. THAT. ABOUT?
Like, I’m sorry, but if you spend all week doom posting on IG about ACAB and White Privilege and #MeToo and then go wine tasting with friends all day Saturday and have a lunch date Sunday with a cute guy you met off Hinge, maybe life isn’t so bad after all, right?
OK, so here are some basic things we should all start doing ASAP:
1. Take a break from social media—and to what extent you do use it, don’t say stuff you don’t really believe.
Lately I’ve seen a lot of really smart people who are right on a lot of issues come out on social media as vaccine skeptics.
But you know what? I’ll bet when push comes to shove most of them have taken it, because they’re not the idiots they’re playing on Twitter in order to get likes and retweets.
Which begs the question: why subject yourself to a medium where so many people are so often being disingenuous? The answer is you shouldn’t, and in most cases, you don’t have to.
Like, unless you’re running for office, trying to sell a book (and even then I can’t guarantee anything), promoting a blog/podcast (guilty), etc., social media doesn’t really have that much utility. It will almost certainly not make you a better person, lover, father, mother, son, daughter, husband, friend, employee, etc.—and for fuck’s sake we know it will not give you a better handle on the truth.
Fact is, you just don’t need to be on Facebook. Or IG. Or Tik-Tok. Or Twitter. Or SnapChat.
If you want to talk to your friends, text them. Or here’s a novel idea: call them.
And if you’re bored, pick up a damn book! Or actually watch a show or movie instead of having one one while scrolling through social media.
Understand too, that the more you’re on there, the more likely you are to experience depression and anxiety—especially social anxiety. I mean, I’m actually really scared for Gen Z because they’re so used to looking at a screen, many of them can’t talk to people IRL.
You don’t have social anxiety motherfucker—you’re addicted to your damn phone!
Also, get off my lawn.
OK, old man rant over, but the point is: the less time you spend on social media, the better.
2. Employ Hanlon and Occam’s Razors: never attribute to malice that which is explained by stupidity, AND the simplest explanation is usually correct.
Take the recent police killing of Duante Wright—no doubt a tragedy, and an example of policing gone wrong.
But if we look at the facts of the case, it’s likely not the racial injustice it’s being portrayed as. First off, the officer yelled “taser”, fires, then “yells an obscenity and says, ‘I just shot him’ to two other officers, according to the video.”
Sounds like it was a mistake—a terrible mistake, no doubt, but nonetheless a mistake. Not a racist act. Not an intent to kill a black man. Just a really bad, unfortunate mistake.
And if we zoom out, what are police officers supposed to do? Can they enforce the law, or not? If we think they can, then in the case of Wright, they had to try to stop him. He had expired tags, a warrant out for arrest, and then he RESISTED arrest and tried to flee.
Should the police just let him go? That seems to be what many people are implicitly suggesting, but if that’s the policy, we may as well not have police at all. Like, if the only time a police officer can enforce the law is if the culprit politely follows orders and complies, but if he resists and fights the cops and flees they have to let him go, then what the fuck is the point of even having police?
And if you think we shouldn’t have police in order to deter crime and arrest criminals, many of whom are violent people who should be behind bars, then you’ve lost your fucking mind.
We don’t need to defund or abolish the police—we need better training for police, and we also need to respect the fact that in a nation where there are 10 million arrests per year, not every single one is going to come off perfect.
Again, the simplest explanation here is that the officer made a mistake—a deadly mistake—and they should lose their job (already resigned) and be tried for manslaughter (which is happening). But this is almost certainly a case of stupidity as Hanlon reminds us, not malice.
And to racialize this is absolutely criminal. If police officers can’t police African Americans in this country, that will have horrific consequences. Mainly for Black people.
Quick point here (listen to Sam Harris’ podcast I linked to just above, because he says the same thing in greater detail): people need to stop resisting arrest. In a country where we have more than 300 million firearms in circulation and where every cop therefore has to be armed, as soon as you start fighting with cops or resisting arrest, the confrontation has now become a life and death struggle. So if a police officer is trying to arrest you, comply, and then if they’re wrong, sue the shit out of them in court.
Anyway, to zoom even further out, people need to apply these concepts to their everyday life, because in most cases the world isn’t out to get you. In most cases, people aren’t being mean or not doing what you want them to do because of racism or bigotry—it’s usually because they’re doing what they think is right or smart or good for them, or maybe have an honest disagreement with you. Or maybe they’re having a bad day. Or maybe they’re an asshole.
But people have to stop catastrophizing stuff anytime something happens that we don’t like. I mean, shit y’all, sometimes life is hard. Things don’t go your way. Bad shit happens. Them’s the breaks.
Like, didn’t your dad tell you? Life isn’t fair.
But it can still be pretty damn good.
3. Get out and talk to real people and do real stuff—have a lived experience, not a live experience.
Go for a hike. Or a walk. Without headphones.
Listen to the birds singing. Feel the wind on your skin. Look at the clouds in the sky.
Enjoy a delicious meal with friends. Have passionate sex with your lover. Go fishing with your dad. Buy your mom flowers. Give a homeless guy a few bucks. Dip your feet into the river. Eat freshly picked berries.
And take a moment to be grateful for life and what we’ve been given, whether you believe in any sort of religion/deity or not.
In other words, do real stuff—and if you can, do it without looking at your goddamn phone every two minutes.
Trust me, you’ll feel better.
I could probably make more suggestions, but I think I’ll leave it there. Not feeling my inner Jordan Peterson today.
As always, thanks for reading, and remember to share and follow me on Twitter—I know, ironic given this post, but hey, I’m trying to spread the word!
"because in most cases the world isn’t out to get you."
This! Guess what folks... You are not a target unless you make yourself one.
I appreciate the sentiment of this piece, identify problems, but also pose constructive solutions. I do want to take issue with something you said re:resisting arrest. If we had a system where black and poor people weren't harassed by the police a policy of always complying and never resisting arrest is sensible. If we had a system where filing complaints against police did something (with the exception of those with political power) then I would agree. We don't have that system. Fixing that, would allow communities to use the process to fix things rather than resisting arrest. While I hate the term white privilege, your belief that the system will work for you if you were ever the subject of excessive violence by the police is clearly influenced by your experience of how the system treats you. This is one of the fundamental differences I see in how poor people experience the system vs rich, or Black vs white. I'm a huge Sam Harris fan and that episode you linked to was his most oblivious in his entire catalog. It incensed me. My anger doesn't make me right, but hopefully that conveys some context.