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Wednesday open thread: A cry for decency


Hello, Barflies.

I know we all gave Drew Barrymore a lot of stick for her producing her afternoon chat show while the writers' and actors' strike was going on. But this makes up for it.
Oh yes. This is "cringe". This is eye-rolling material. You know the drill.

Sincerity is suspect, earnestness is to be mocked, and any expression of pain at the state of the nation and world is a sign of weakness. 

But, as I always say, social media is not real life. The keyboard commandos who tear down any expression of anything other than cynicism and anger are not the majority of people. They have found in their bubble the fellow-travelers who validate their stances, because in the real world they're shunned for being unpleasant to be around.

I'm going to be 55 in two months. My jaundiced days are way behind me. This is not to say that I don't maintain a healthy skepticism; but skepticism is not cynicism. As Barack Obama said, cynicism is cheap. It takes no effort. It allows you to feel superior to the simps around you. You know what's the deal, and you feel warmed by that feeling as you eat your frozen meal alone, night after night.

Hope, love, caring: those are much harder. Because you have to engage with the world. You have to open yourself up to disappointment and heartbreak. You have to risk. You risk nothing being a cynic. Cynicism is a carapace. Hope, love, and caring leave you exposed, because you can only experience those emotions if you remove your armor.

So yes, we can expect the responses to this. "Hollywood Elite Cries For A Mommy." When in extremis, many in that state cry out for their mothers, alive or dead. This world is collectively in extremis, and crying out for mother figures is psychologically sound. It shouldn't be mocked. It shouldn't be "hurr durred". But I return to this again and again: Social media has coarsened us to an extent that expressing genuine human feeling is a call for mockery. "Toughen up, you snowflake." The only acceptable emotion to express is anger. What a world has social media created?

This country needs a Mamala. I'd like to think that most people in the country would appreciate a Mamala. But how sad that so many react so vituperatively to such a notion. Mired in their own fury, they sink further and further, and seek to take the rest of us down with them. We can't save them. Let them sink on their own. We have to heal the world for the rest who remain.

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