Author: anonymous

I am struck again and again these days by an immensely damaging aspect of modern life: the people who write our culture – the journalists, academics, artists, entertainers, and writers – derive their apprehension of reality only from other journalists, academics, artists, entertainers, and writers. They look out at the world and what they see are the tweets, posts, essays, movies, and podcasts produced by other people who absorb the world only through tweets, posts, essays, movies, and podcasts. It’s a perfect circle, and they constantly are feeding back to one another. The problem deepens and deepens in a vicious cycle. 

Take the ubiquitous, offhanded comment that “the world is changing,” in reference to contemporary progressive social movements. Why do they think the world is changing? Because the tiny worlds of journalism and Hollywood and academia have changed, albeit in superficial ways. But the vast majority of the public not only have not changed, they are not aware that anyone believes these changes are occurring. Name a progressive social movement and it’s a near certainty that the vast majority of people have never heard of it. 

The bitter part is that the internet should give people the tools to avoid this problem, but instead is the tool that enables it. And I’m not sure the average journalist cares in the slightest. Most of the writers of, say, New York magazine seem completely indifferent to the lives of anyone but the urban, educated, culturally-savvy, and upwardly mobile. It’s a huge problem and I see no plausible future where it gets any better.