The premise here is fine. Kids are undeveloped, so go easy on them. But a 23 year old is not a kid. This is the same logic that makes us coddle undergraduates in safe spaces with trigger warnings. What's the next age of majority going to be? 28? 31?
It's worth noting also that the author of the article in the Atlantic is himself 22, and a Stanford student. (You'd never know it from the quality of the writing! Well done, kid.) It's not like this was an Atlantic staff writer putting some random kid on blast, it was a peer.
I think it does add credibility these days to use the speaker’s name so the reader knows it’s not a composite quote or a paraphrase. God love the wanker for confirming the reporting for us. Also he’s a “section leader” so I think he’s a public figure of sorts at Stanford, at least to the impressionable students in the class.
I’m old enough to remember when this happened: after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan a student journalist at the University of Pennsylvania used his column to regret that John Hinckley,didn’t have better aim. That earned him a visit from the Secret Service and the cancellation of his column.
Secret Service Grills Penn Columnist; Feared His Column Threatened Reagan
PHILADELPHIA--Secret Service agents investigated what they considered a possible threat against the life of President Reagan in a column that appeared in the Daily Pennsylvanian. the University of Pennsylvania's student-run newspaper.
The Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office decided that the columnist. Dominic F. Manno, "is not dangerous at this time." Kevin M Tucker, the special agent in charge of the investigation, said yesterday.
Manno's column appeared on April 1. two days after John W. Hinckley allegedly attempted to assassinate Reagan. "Too bad he missed. That's the result of sending an amateur to do a professional job. I hope he dies," Manno wrote.
Hinckley "just seems to be someone who could get upset and angry enough about the political system to use a bullet to cancel out the ballot. A lot of people feel that way about the system. Including me," Manno wrote.
Your writing is brilliant, incisive, and hilarious. I find myself reading passages aloud to my wife, my son, my nephew, whoever might be here. And oftentimes I am just reading it alound with no one here but myself because the writing is just so damn good.
The other reason I'm on your side with this is that name-dropping a person on the internet inevitably exposed them to tangible threats from DOXers, trolls, and even physical harm. This exposure is at a scale not seen before social media.
Plus the fact that it's online means that it will never be forgotten, and people won't be able to change. I'm commenting less about this kid and more about this idea in general.
I’ve been coming at this from a slightly different angle. I’m working up a theory I call the Great Flattening where all of our various social gates, values and mores were compressed into a flat disc giving everything equivalent value—ie 0. This was caused by the Internet and the big takeaway is that the opinions of a 12 year old and a 60 year old have the same relative value in the public square. (Similar analysis can be applied to politics, music, art, philosophy—it’s all smushed into a flat pile where every instance or example is valued equally)
It’s not that young people are stupider (1960’s Hippies were pretty stupid as were 1990’s grungers) it’s closer to leaky bowel syndrome—there’s no filter keeping the shit from the blood.
This nicely illustrates a rarely-mentioned upside to having principles, which is that if you stick to them when it is rhetorically inconvenient you can invoke them when it isn't. Like maybe back in 2015 when she first came on the scene you thought young Ms. Thunberg was right that climate change was a serious problem, but you resisted the urge to reference the story in the Gospel of Luke when a precocious 12-year-old Jesus ditched his parents to hang out for three days in the temple talking scripture with the rabbis. Even though that would have been a totally sweet allusion! But since you didn't go full "and the children shall lead us" back when it might've earned you some points, in cases like this you can take the mulligan and say "eh, kids are kids. Who cares what they say?"
1. The “everybody was foolish when they were young” glosses over the fact that there’s a gulf a mile wide between the kinds of stupidity on display
Also some of us didn’t do any of those things so no everybody was not.
2. Dumb or not, at 18 you have the responsibilities of an adult not just the rights of one.
Any grace extended to a 19-year-old and keeping their name out of the paper while exposing the stupidity and evil of their ideas should also be extended to a random 30 year old.
The real adults in the room - Stanford administrators - should be held accountable for doing nothing to stop violent bullies like El Boudali from spouting hate on campus *with no consequences*. That emboldens the thugs and sends a message that hate is OK as long as it's against Jews ("Zionists").
In the absence of any leadership from the top, naming & shaming is the only recourse, and that includes against 23 year olds. Other would-be Jew haters at Stanford will now think twice before they follow El Boudali's lead.
The premise here is fine. Kids are undeveloped, so go easy on them. But a 23 year old is not a kid. This is the same logic that makes us coddle undergraduates in safe spaces with trigger warnings. What's the next age of majority going to be? 28? 31?
Before I condemn an insane antisemite, I need to know just one thing: Was he wearing a MAGA hat?
It's worth noting also that the author of the article in the Atlantic is himself 22, and a Stanford student. (You'd never know it from the quality of the writing! Well done, kid.) It's not like this was an Atlantic staff writer putting some random kid on blast, it was a peer.
I think it does add credibility these days to use the speaker’s name so the reader knows it’s not a composite quote or a paraphrase. God love the wanker for confirming the reporting for us. Also he’s a “section leader” so I think he’s a public figure of sorts at Stanford, at least to the impressionable students in the class.
I’m old enough to remember when this happened: after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan a student journalist at the University of Pennsylvania used his column to regret that John Hinckley,didn’t have better aim. That earned him a visit from the Secret Service and the cancellation of his column.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1981/4/11/secret-service-grills-penn-columnist-feared/
Secret Service Grills Penn Columnist; Feared His Column Threatened Reagan
PHILADELPHIA--Secret Service agents investigated what they considered a possible threat against the life of President Reagan in a column that appeared in the Daily Pennsylvanian. the University of Pennsylvania's student-run newspaper.
The Secret Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office decided that the columnist. Dominic F. Manno, "is not dangerous at this time." Kevin M Tucker, the special agent in charge of the investigation, said yesterday.
Manno's column appeared on April 1. two days after John W. Hinckley allegedly attempted to assassinate Reagan. "Too bad he missed. That's the result of sending an amateur to do a professional job. I hope he dies," Manno wrote.
Hinckley "just seems to be someone who could get upset and angry enough about the political system to use a bullet to cancel out the ballot. A lot of people feel that way about the system. Including me," Manno wrote.
Your writing is brilliant, incisive, and hilarious. I find myself reading passages aloud to my wife, my son, my nephew, whoever might be here. And oftentimes I am just reading it alound with no one here but myself because the writing is just so damn good.
The other reason I'm on your side with this is that name-dropping a person on the internet inevitably exposed them to tangible threats from DOXers, trolls, and even physical harm. This exposure is at a scale not seen before social media.
Plus the fact that it's online means that it will never be forgotten, and people won't be able to change. I'm commenting less about this kid and more about this idea in general.
I’ve been coming at this from a slightly different angle. I’m working up a theory I call the Great Flattening where all of our various social gates, values and mores were compressed into a flat disc giving everything equivalent value—ie 0. This was caused by the Internet and the big takeaway is that the opinions of a 12 year old and a 60 year old have the same relative value in the public square. (Similar analysis can be applied to politics, music, art, philosophy—it’s all smushed into a flat pile where every instance or example is valued equally)
It’s not that young people are stupider (1960’s Hippies were pretty stupid as were 1990’s grungers) it’s closer to leaky bowel syndrome—there’s no filter keeping the shit from the blood.
he's 23 - young enough to be a dipshit but old enough to have values and suffer consequences both reputationally and legally
How dare you impugn the culinary delight of Hot Pockets and Soda?!
This nicely illustrates a rarely-mentioned upside to having principles, which is that if you stick to them when it is rhetorically inconvenient you can invoke them when it isn't. Like maybe back in 2015 when she first came on the scene you thought young Ms. Thunberg was right that climate change was a serious problem, but you resisted the urge to reference the story in the Gospel of Luke when a precocious 12-year-old Jesus ditched his parents to hang out for three days in the temple talking scripture with the rabbis. Even though that would have been a totally sweet allusion! But since you didn't go full "and the children shall lead us" back when it might've earned you some points, in cases like this you can take the mulligan and say "eh, kids are kids. Who cares what they say?"
Principles!
And you wonder why I cancelled my NYT Subscription. Any wonders
1. The “everybody was foolish when they were young” glosses over the fact that there’s a gulf a mile wide between the kinds of stupidity on display
Also some of us didn’t do any of those things so no everybody was not.
2. Dumb or not, at 18 you have the responsibilities of an adult not just the rights of one.
Any grace extended to a 19-year-old and keeping their name out of the paper while exposing the stupidity and evil of their ideas should also be extended to a random 30 year old.
Yeah but that six-year-old said he went to heaven and rode Jesus’s unicorn
The real adults in the room - Stanford administrators - should be held accountable for doing nothing to stop violent bullies like El Boudali from spouting hate on campus *with no consequences*. That emboldens the thugs and sends a message that hate is OK as long as it's against Jews ("Zionists").
In the absence of any leadership from the top, naming & shaming is the only recourse, and that includes against 23 year olds. Other would-be Jew haters at Stanford will now think twice before they follow El Boudali's lead.
“Young people are morons”…compared to who?