It Is Obscene: A True Reflection in Three Parts

> Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie... is a Nigerian writer whose works range from novels to short stories to nonfiction. She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [which] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature", particularly in her second home, the United States. [1]

From the article (last paragraph) that I think sums it up nicely:

> I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and re-read their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness. We are no longer human beings. We are now angels jostling to out-angel one another. God help us. It is obscene.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimamanda_Ngozi_Adichie

When dealing with voracious liars that gaslight and try to muddy the water through verbosity and the cloak of victimhood it's really useful to have these kinds of small but immutable points. Same thing with people stuck in cults, a small discongruous fact that draws a line in the sand makes all the difference for cutting out people acting in bad faith.

I had a co-founder develop a cocaine and eventually meth addiction (and eventually spent time in jail) and the massive amount of content he spewed was undone by a few simple and undeniable facts like these.

People, _who shockingly to me_ were able to ignore the linear facts and timelines of events that showed causation.. were moved by a small inconsistency that lodged in their minds.

I don't know what the implications of this are but I personally find it both powerful and disheartening.

> I trust that there are other people who will pick up machetes to protect us from the harm transphobes like Adichie & Rowling seek to perpetuate.

https://twitter.com/azemezi/status/1346268453221658624

I mean, I think I'm not generally that pro-censorship, but I'd expect it to be pretty uncontroversial that that crosses the line.

I’m a trans woman. Two things can be true here:

1. Adichie is transphobic.

2. Whatever the harms of her transphobia, the other person referenced in this post behaved egregiously outside of professional and personal norms in attacking Adichie, and this behavior is not appropriate in any circumstance.

Too often I think people complain about how they are treated on social media, or about “ideological orthodoxy,” as a proxy for defending opinions that they understand to be offensive. But it’s perfectly reasonable to think both that Adichie’s opinions on trans people are offensive, and that the offense does not justify the aggression she received here.

>This person has asked followers to pick up machetes and attack me.

Some people have gotten very rich creating a world in which unpopular people can now expect to be threatened with machetes.

Which... I think should be a "well duh" sort of thing, but of course in our outrage-fueled chase-engagement-at-all-costs social media environment, that means that we have to twist things to assume the OP was actually saying "trans women are not women" (when she didn't say that and denies she was implying that). But I don't know; I'd never heard of her before this post, so maybe she has a history of saying shitty things and this is just the latest.[1] Or maybe it's what it looks like on its face, a few jealous, opportunistic people trying to smear her.

(I think it's telling that one of these people called out to their "followers" to attack OP with machetes. You've lost the moral high ground once you do that, if you hadn't already. I don't care how pissed you are, direct calls to violence toward another person, because of some words, automatically invalidates your viewpoint in my book.)

All this stuff just makes me sad and tired. And I know I'm privileged that I (being a straight, cis, white man) generally don't have to worry about any of this in my daily life. But I wish people could just listen to each other, and not immediately assume ill intent, or especially manufacture ill intent in order to bring someone down and elevate themselves. It's all just so counter-productive, and pushes people away who could otherwise be allies. Not saying that there aren't people out there who dog-whistle and say bad things just ambiguously enough for plausible deniability. But it feels like the default is to assume that of everyone who says anything, and that's gross.

> I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and re-read their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own.

And all this just reminds me that I still need to get around to downloading my FB and Twitter history before deleting it all. (I'd really like to close my FB account, but outside of the pandemic use it heavily for event invitations. I might close my Twitter account, though.)

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/21/chimamanda-ngo...

[1] Edit: ugh, seems like she's not great, at the very least: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/11/15/chimamanda-ngozi-adich...

> In certain young people today like these two from my writing workshop, I notice what I find increasingly troubling: a cold-blooded grasping, a hunger to take and take and take, but never give; a massive sense of entitlement; an inability to show gratitude; an ease with dishonesty and pretension and selfishness that is couched in the language of self-care; an expectation always to be helped and rewarded no matter whether deserving or not; language that is slick and sleek but with little emotional intelligence; an astonishing level of self-absorption; an unrealistic expectation of puritanism from others; an over-inflated sense of ability, or of talent where there is any at all; an inability to apologize, truly and fully, without justifications; a passionate performance of virtue that is well executed in the public space of Twitter but not in the intimate space of friendship.

> I find it obscene.

> There are many social-media-savvy people who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion, who can fluidly pontificate on Twitter about kindness but are unable to actually show kindness. People whose social media lives are case studies in emotional aridity. People for whom friendship, and its expectations of loyalty and compassion and support, no longer matter. People who claim to love literature – the messy stories of our humanity – but are also monomaniacally obsessed with whatever is the prevailing ideological orthodoxy. People who demand that you denounce your friends for flimsy reasons in order to remain a member of the chosen puritan class.

We have all met those people.

It reminds me of something that PG said: fanboys become your worst haters. That is, it's a small step from intense love to intense hate.

He also said somewhere that there is a higher incidence of bad actors/sociopaths among founders of non-profits than for-profits among the teams he's met.

The way I think about it is: ideology is dual use. The two uses are collective good and individual gain. Those are often hopelessly entangled, because a good way to get ahead is by presenting oneself as selflessly working toward the common good. Cue Ayn Rand...

What that means here is we can criticize both Chimananda and her critic as "playing the game". It's possible to see their actions as selfish or selfless or most likely both at once.

The lesson I draw from Chimananda's story, though, is that people who are out to fight dragons (i.e. defeat the forces of evil in society) are liable to turn you into their next dragon. The revolution eats its own. It happened to Basecamp, too.

That is one reason why startups that want to thrive should not hire activists for whom being woke is central to their identity. They will outwoke you, too, no matter how woke you thought you were.

I’m sorry this happened to her but it’s also an object lesson in what that discourse ultimately leads to. It’s not acceptance.

If you want to use graduate student/CIA-recruitment language, reduce individuals down to their demographic components, and rely on stereotypes to build a hierarchy of piety, this is what you can expect. There is a lot of incentive to play the game, for a brief time you can be king of the hill, and have NPR, the BBC, Vox and Twitter fawning over you, and maybe get a good book deal out of it. However, whenever the slightest crack appears in your facade, which it inevitably will, there will be dozens of people rushing in to knock you down and take your place. That's what you chose.

You don't have to play the game. You can establish yourself as a critical, independent thinker and become "uncancelable", because your ideas will stand on their own merit. It is not the easiest path.