Twitter -or at least a portion thereof- is an honour culture
Hey, I guess this is a pop culture blog now
At a suburban barbecue Hollywood soiree, a man slaps a child comedian who is not his own.
It is a single act, but the slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it.
Told through the eyes of eight those present at the barbecue soiree, this acclaimed bestseller is an unflinching interrogation of the life of the modern family hottake. Poignant and provocative, THE SLAP makes us question the nature of commitment and happiness, compromise and truth. Whose side are you on?
The Australian book The Slap is an uncanny match for the Hollywood situation. The characters are boring, selfish, image-obsessed narcissists. At least one of the characters present to witness the slap isn’t above having sex with a minor. Christos Tisolkas wrote about both events and clearly hates both sets of characters. And, as we will discuss, the slap does split some of us down the middle, and not necessarily into the usual categories. If you want a good laugh, go check out the GoodReads reviews for The Slap, a bunch of readers whinging that the characters are mean and unlikeable as if that wasn’t the whole point.
But back on topic, and onto some polling.
About three-quarters of surveyed Americans who had an opinion, Democratic, Republican and independent, thought Will Smith was in the wrong:
Meanwhile, on Twitter, or at least a kind of indy, dirtbaggy left Twitter:
It’s basically 50/50. Revenge for verbal insults with physical violence is much closer to normalized on Twitter than it is IRL, at least in this part of Twitter.
Surprisingly honor culture on this part of Twitter is not accompanied by a reluctance to insult. No one seems more eager to insult than Twitter users, pretty much everywhere on Twitter.
A flick through the cross tabs of the YouGov poll says that race, age, gender etc. composition on Twitter alone likely don’t explain it, though they may explain up to half the difference.
Okay that’s the interesting empirical part of the blog post is done, but I suppose since you’re here anyway I should give my own take on it.
I don’t particularly care about Will Smith or Chris Rock, but I don’t like this turn on Twitter. Honor cultures are bad. Violence shouldn’t be an uncontrolled outpouring of rage in response to an insult or norm violation. On a more general point, and beyond the topic of physical violence, it seems to me like a lot of people have forgotten that as a rule you’re not meant to behave aggressively toward other people absent special circumstances.
Hysterical claims that “violence is never the answer” are also stupid. Violence is often the only answer to the powerful. Violence is often necessary in self-defense. It’s particularly ironic to see the same people arguing this oblivious to ongoing violence- for example against the homeless- where that violence is legally sanctioned. Just as an example- the clearing out of homeless people that happens before the Oscars. Violence for these moralizers only counts when it is unauthorized, interpersonal violence.
My own view is that violence should be an urgent defense against a threat or a carefully calculated and premeditated choice after other options have been exhausted. Other forms of cruelty should also be discouraged, but when the time does come to be verbally cruel to someone you should be very cruel. The rule, which I try to stick to unsuccessfully, is that you shouldn’t say something explicitly and directly cruel to someone unless you would be okay with those words ruining their life. Teasing is okay and absolutely ripping into the rare individual who really needs (generally politicians, CEOs, and high ranking propagandists) is okay, but mid-level cruelty is rarely, if ever, a good idea.
Twitter -or at least a portion thereof- is an honour culture
> but when the time does come to be verbally cruel to someone you should be very cruel.
I'm having trouble picturing justified life-ruining verbal cruelty. Cruelty itself, (callous disregard, or pleasure in another's suffering) seems to me to be an evil thing, one that debases the practitioner, regardless how much they might think someone deserves it.
> Honor cultures are bad
This sounds like a very strong stance on the Sinosphere. Even then it is standing strong and (bearly) functioning, at least in Japan and Taiwan. Hong Kong has entered a state of Fear now, and China has no honor. How is the problems of honor culture comparable to the Fear culture of the third world (Least Developed Countries)? What about the counter-intuition of western Justice/Guilt cultures (see: "Social Justice Warriors", "White Guilt")?
> you shouldn’t say something explicitly and directly cruel to someone unless you would be okay with those words ruining their life ... mid-level cruelty is rarely, if ever, a good idea
This does sound like the impact bell curve from In Pain Sight, that moderate ambition requires the most concealment. https://swellandcut.com/2018/09/26/in-plain-sight/