A Culture-War Manifesto

 Online “lists” - 10 things you ought to know about … – are generally just so much clickbait cack.  

But here’s one you’ll want to read:  25 Things Everyone Used to Understand.  Sample: 

[2] Who and what you are is only partly self-determined. And it’s not the larger part.

[3] How you are characterized, spoken about, and identified by others is not generally up to you.

[15] Offense, insult, and hurt feelings are not particularly important, other than to oneself and to one’s intimates. This does not mean that you should go out of your way to offend others but rather that if you are offended, you shouldn’t be surprised if those outside your friends-and-family circle aren’t inclined to make a federal case out of it.

[16] You don’t accost random strangers on the street and unload your personal meshugas on them, because it’s not their business and they don’t give a damn. Nothing about these reasons fails to apply when you replace ‘street’ with ‘internet’.

[17] Scores of millions of people, most of whom neither know nor live near one another, cannot constitute a “community.”

Good stuff, huh?

ND