It seems like only yesterday—because it was— that I was riffing on the tendency of the lamestream media (and everyone else) to generalize on the follies of our times not on the average but the extreme, to wit, an article in the Washington Post decrying the alleged abysmal performance of the Arlington County, Va. English language learners program on the basis of the sad situation of one student. Well, the Post was easily and immediately one-upped by its uptown rival, the New York Times, with a article, “Caleb Cain was a college dropout looking for direction. He turned to YouTube.’, proving that watching YouTube turns you into a fascist.
Both the left and the right seem to be turning their guns on the social media, the left I think because many overinvested in the Mueller Report as the cure for all their ills, all their ills being Donald Trump, and that didn’t happen. The right has a similar problem, losing the “culture wars” over and over again and generally not being able to convince today’s bicoastal hotshots that Christianity is cool, and as a result is trying to convince itself that somehow breaking up the internet giants will solve this for them, or at least make trouble for people they don’t like. Neither Facebook nor YouTube has distinguished itself, being alternately evasive, heavy-handed, or both, but censorship is never my idea of a solution.1
Afterwords
Ross Douthat wrong-foots me by writing a generally insightful column jumping off both the Caleb Colin story and a second sad case (fortunately with a happy ending), one in the Washingtonian magazine, of political correctness gone wild that almost wrecked a young boy’s life, to point out that the social media are, in their way, merely mirroring, rather than generating, the ills of our times. Actually, you should read it.
1. Being a lefty myself, of sorts, I particularly dislike the way the Left cherishes its “rage” while despising “hate speech”. What’s the difference between “rage” and “hate”?
