I am in a bit of a mood today, so here’s my version of a “hot take”… I think we are existing in a state of anomie. Particularly with the way we communicate on the internet and via social media.
It is increasingly challenging for people to take a measure of themselves, much less others. We all see scales tilted yet rarely question whether the fulcra upon which they pivot are impartial or indifferent. What is it that becomes measured when it is more important to not be wrong than it is to be right?
Engagement has become a task of adding weight to shift those scales towards alignment with our perspectives. What weight? It seems that any is permissible: vindictiveness, disingenuousness, demeaning pejorative, petty sarcasm, unfiltered rage, wrath and malcontent. Just so long as it appears to move the scales.
We’ll keep telling ourselves that the ends justify the means while ignoring that causality is never so linear. When cause is affected, it effects many outcomes.
