@markstoneman If I knew you better I’d offer a good-‘n-sarcastic “You must not be paying attention,” but I can’t offer to buy you a beer and my online sarcasm skills are terrible 🤓
David Dark is quite quirky, and in my limited experience with him, he is happy to leave a lot unsaid and either implied or open to interpretation by his readers. Personally, I think even JD Vance’s public faith would be enough for this post, but with Hegseth’s particularly Crusade-friendly version of Christianity combined with Vance’s previous “I’ll say a prayer for victory,” not to mention the wide and explicitly Christian support for both of these men — I’d say the whole shebang has been pretty successfully marketed as “Christianity.” It certainly has not been consciously or thoughtfully separated from it by those involved, especially if we consider the view from the other end of the missile strike, and especially from the civilians that are always, always on the other end.
Relatedly: I don’t want to drag anyone else into this conversation, so I won’t name or tag her, but I recall reading comment chat a while back where someone talked about posts we share vs posts we exclaim, or something to that effect. In a similar vein, I think a lot of things may not quite reach the level of j’accuse! but are still worth sharing as warnings, let the reader decide where and whether they land.
(In a much more thoughtful way, I think Masha Gessen was spot-on here during her Arendt Prize debacle.)
@markstoneman I’m taking this farther afield from your comment and so talking to myself at this point, but I’ll also add this thought-question: How often do we choose not to share something because we are afraid of how it will be taken? And does that automatically minimize the collective overlapping space we would normally inhabit, while we each highlight the more rigid lines we’ve found entirely agreeable or safe?
The epistemology of online communication and whatnot … 🤓
@tinyroofnail Thanks. I just wasn’t seeing the there there on the strength of the few words in the screenshot, though I understand the “who” matters. I thought maybe there was something I was missing, but I guess the point is they didn’t need to say the quiet part out loud while sharing their glee. I’m with you on social web sharing being an insider conversation sometimes, but I don’t always recognize when that’s happening. Thanks for giving my confusion the benefit of the doubt.
@markstoneman Honestly, the fact of these officials texting flex, flag, fire, and prayer emojis to each other about missile strikes is so incredibly horrifying and depressing. I have not had words
@tinyroofnail Thanks for bringing up Masha Gessen. I hadn’t seen this speech before and it’s got their characteristic clarity and directness. They’re always helpful with loosening knots in my thinking.
@zbarocas So glad to hear it. I’m only familiar with a few New Yorker essays. I first came across Gessen in the Putin Files for PBS Frontline. Fascinating interview