Spot on. Tara Palmeri of Politico is getting blasted for saying something obviously true.
Saagar and Krystal nail it with their commentary.
"Normal" is unethical in a country that ostensibly values vigorous use of the First Amendment.
John McWhorter now has a Substack column and I have signed up to support his work. He recently expressed dismay that a particular group of people pretend that they don't understand this distinction: it is one thing to use a rude word as an epithet to hurt someone and an entirely different thing to refer to that word (in this case, the "N" word) by saying it or writing it in order to discuss that word. Woke mobs are doing everything in their power (including attempted cancellation) to characterize non-harmful uses of the "N" as "harmful to people in exactly the same way it hurts people to hurl the "N" word as an epithet.
McWhorter's position (with which I agree) is that this is all theater and power plays. No one is hurt when we discuss the "N" word and all of us know that. In fact, we should be able to freely discuss the use of that word by using the word. This Woke trip wire should be dismantled. What truly hurts us all is to pretend that use and reference are the same. Here's an excerpt from McWhorter's essay, "The N-word as slur vs. the N-word as a sequence of sounds: What makes the New York Times so comfortable making black people look dim?"
The idea that it is inherent to black American culture to fly to pieces at hearing the N-word used in reference is implausible at best, and slanderous at worst. But the second and more important is that insisting on this taboo makes it look like black people are numb to the difference between usage and reference, vague on the notion of meta, given to overgeneralization rather than to making distinctions.I would like to be the fly on the wall in the private living spaces of all of those people who claim that they are hurt even when someone uses the "N" word merely to refer to it or discuss it (e.g., to discuss the extent to which it is harmful). I smell the strong stench of hypocrisy wafting from the Woke mob. How long before it is a terrible thing to even write "the 'N' word" or "N*****" when merely attempting to discuss the word?
To wit, the get McNeil fired for using the N-word to refer to it makes black people look dumb. And not just to the Twitter trollers who will be nasty enough to actually write it down. Non-black people are thinking it nationwide and keeping it to themselves. Frankly, the illogic in this approach to the N-word is so obvious to anyone who does make distinctions that the only question is why people would not look on and guiltily wonder whether the idea that black people are less intellectually gifted is true.
Here's a reminder that there are two Americas. The backstory of GameStop.
I include "the unfettered free market" in my collection of simple "solutions: that do not work. For example, we can clearly see the "free market" would dramatically not work on COVID vaccinations. We would end up with many more dead people and only people of financial means getting vaccinated this year. There are countless other examples. Economist David Bollier explains why the free market is not a panacea in "My Advice to an Aspiring Economist: Don’t Be an Economist."
Working with Nader and the consumer movement in the late 1970s and 1980s, I learned through countless policy battles (safety design of cars, pesticides in food, workplace toxins, drug safety, etc.) that the narratives of free-market economics work much better as abstract theories and political cover-stories than as realistic accounts of everyday market life. Put more bluntly, by focusing so obsessively on market transactions, economic analysis tends to ignore social, ecological, and intergenerational realities. It tends to marginalize and dismiss them as “externalities.” The misguided presumption is that free markets are self-regulating and don’t really need governance (“market interventions”) – until, of course, the next oil spill, deadly drug, or speculative financial bubble intrudes to show otherwise.As various “externalities” from climate change to market abuses disrupt social stability and indeed, confidence in markets themselves, future economists will need to address a gaping hole in standard economic theory: How shall the anti-social, ecologically destructive tendencies of ‘free markets’ be reliably constrained or prevented in the first place? Given the political sabotage and systemic failures of government regulation over the past fifty years, this is a profound question.
Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic is a constant source of modern wisdom from 2,000 years ago. The book offers one Stoic quote and commentary for each day of the year. Today's wisdom:
“Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside their reasoned choice.”
— Epictetus, Discourses , 1.18.21
Holiday's commentary:
Have you ever watched a seasoned pro handle the media? No question is too tough, no tone too pointed or insulting. They parry every blow with humor, poise, and patience. Even when stung or provoked, they choose not to flinch or react. They’re able to do this not only because of training and experience, but because they understand that reacting emotionally will only make the situation worse. The media is waiting for them to slip up or get upset, so to successfully navigate press events they have internalized the importance of keeping themselves under calm control. It’s unlikely you’ll face a horde of probing reporters bombarding you with insensitive questions today. But it might be helpful—whatever stresses or frustrations or overload that do come your way—to picture that image and use it as your model for dealing with them. Our reasoned choice—-our prohairesis, as the Stoics called it—-is a kind of invincibility that we can cultivate. We can shrug off hostile attacks and breeze through pressure or problems.
My own reaction:
More than a few of these Stoic quotes remind us: "Don't take the bait!" We have the ability to let most of the aggravations in our lives past over us and through us. That's true whether it be a a rude motorist, an incompetent worker or an unappreciative person you are actively helping. Truly, just don't take the bait! It's so tempting, but if you take the bait, you will then be handing an aggravating other person precious unreplenishable moments of your life. Why would you ever piss away something so valuable? That's akin to allowing a pickpocket to take your valuables.
This is also a core idea of Buddhism, well illustrated by this fable about two monks and the rude woman. Here is how Harriet Lerner tells the story:
Two traveling monks reached a town where there was a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. The rains had made deep puddles and she couldn’t step across without spoiling her silken robes. She stood there, looking very cross and impatient. She was scolding her attendants. They had nowhere to place the packages they held for her, so they couldn’t help her across the puddle.
The younger monk noticed the woman, said nothing, and walked by. The older monk quickly picked her up and put her on his back, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other side. She didn’t thank the older monk, she just shoved him out of the way and departed.
As they continued on their way, the young monk was brooding and preoccupied. After several hours, unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. “That woman back there was very selfish and rude, but you picked her up on your back and carried her! Then she didn’t even thank you!
“I set the woman down hours ago,” the older monk replied. “Why are you still carrying her?”
I'm not perfect at this technique, but when I'm doing a better job at it, I'm more at peace and I'm better able to tend to things that truly matter to me. I will keep practicing this Stoic/Buddhist technique because it is so freeing. The alternative is to risk that your next of kin might put this on your tombstone: "Spent too much of his scant time on Earth getting perturbed at other people."