by

It seems that while human violence is on the ebb, the world’s arsenal is maturing for a very different kind of war:

In a way, this is to be expected. Material concerns have no future. Poverty, in time, shall no longer be in business. And if ideology is less and less in vogue, there must be other things — other means of self-expression — to club each other over the head with. But while the weapons have always been around, their location tends to shift according to the needs of civilization. Today one prods the world for signs of power yet comes up short. One looks for strength and is turned away. Such values are no longer a point of negotiation, for strength is undemocratic- is deemed tyrannical– and has, therefore, been replaced with victimhood and frailty as a new ideal.

Yet the club is no less heavy; is not, to be sure, to be put away merely on account of personal weakness. After all, the drive is still to hurt, to outdo- to overpower. To this end, there’s been a long list of hurts written somewhere in the ether: a catalogue of ills, attachments, and offenses — called “triggers” — that people can freely choose from and indulge as part of their natural identity. Their numbers are numberless, and by extension can pretty much be anything. There’s racism, rape, homophobia, there’s sexist thoughts, ‘fatphobia’, the wrong feelings, or the right ones expressed at the wrong time. In fact, the more of life is seen, the longer this list becomes, for any desire to take offense — and it IS a desire — will forever search for new stimuli, new ways to engage a rapidly narrowing world. Of course, none of it is new at all: it merely comes in greater quanta to satisfy this ever-growing threshold for pain. The lust, here, is to take on as many hurts as possible, to really FEEL them until the world is little more than the sum total of one’s own eye.

Indeed, you could even argue that this is all a hermit kingdom with its own rules, its own army, and its own peculiar sense of decorum. The rule is simple, really: do not offend. Or rather, learn to read the cues to KNOW what offense entails. As for enforcement- there is anger, of course. There are guilt-trips and mobs to help turn others in acolytes. There are emotional fits meant to keep the ‘debate’ (whatever it may be) from crossing the parapet. At times, these kingdoms are too distal, too fucked up, emotionally or otherwise, to truly let others in. At other times, however, a confederation of the offended will come together to- essentially- find ways of never moving past the safety of these walls. Sure, a few might turn into genuine relationships- I do not doubt this. But they will be friendships that, instead of building upon one another’s best, tend to wallow in the worst, until- … Continue reading →