Weekend Links: Summer of the Monkey(pox)
Not going to lie, piglets, the dystopia is dystopianing hard these days. There is a lot of bad news out there between oligarchs trying to buy even more media spaces to governments trying to force people to birth children while also refusing to feed them.
But even if the last month has been an absolute trash fire, it’s perversely a good reminder how closely the agendas and ideologies of racists, nationalists, christian extremists, misogynists, antisemites and fascists truly are. Not all [insert identity marker here], blah blah blah, but please remember to be hyperaware of those who are eager to make this “not all [blank]” claim in the the wake of travesties, and interrogate their claims. Whether it’s supreme court justices opining that women carrying unwanted pregnancies fill a market gap for the “domestic supply” of babies - a leader for one of the most dystopian phrases I have ever heard - or anyone who peddles the so-called replacement theory without acknowledging the racism at its core, the “law and order” apologists who harbour and nurture domestic terrorism, the “religious freedom” types whose rhetoric is only a fig leaf for theocracy, or cryptobros who throw terms like “globalists” around without understanding the antisemitic coding buried within their community’s claims…
…yeah sure, “not all [whatever]…but an AWFUL LOT of [whatever]. I’m getting really tired of people wilfully downplaying the worst members of their own ingroups without at all interrogating whether or not they might actually hold the same ideas, just more “tastefully” packaged.
Not the good kind.
This topic might have to be its own rant at some point. In the meantime however, my point is that all of these ideologies are not the same thing, nor is it that all people who veer into one of these ideologies (even at tamer levels) automatically ends up believing the others. But rather that the on ramp that any one of these beliefs can take the follower to some of the darkest parts of humanity.
For example: this week’s winner of saying the quiet part out loud… I sincerely doubt the governor would describe himself as racist or misogynist. And I’m sure he’s likely a perfectly “nice person” in his private life. But…Jesus. His quote kinda gives a number of default views or assumptions, does it not? In trying to defend his state against a negative perception - a threat if you will - he reveals ingroups and segmentation of society that he clearly ranks in his head. All of us have these, but not nearly enough people honestly examine them and whose team they might inadvertently be siding with.
The latest in a shamefully long line of proof that the end result of pretty much every conspiracy theory is violence is the Buffalo shooting. It is also once again a footnote in my imaginary thesis about how understanding internet cultures is vital to understanding the current age.
I’m with science journalist Ed Yong on this whole “monkeypox” thing. (Also I think we might just need to realise Mother Nature is trying to slough us off and maybe we’ve had a good run as a species.)
This is worrying and potentially linked to Covid, a chilling reminder that we are going to be studying its effects on us for the rest of our lives. The economic implications are front and centre at the moment, but the long term health effects which we don’t and won’t fully know for years to come are going to lurk in our society and chromosomes for a long time. But even if it’s not linked, what on earth is it?!
The vibe shift, as it was foretold!
