This is not the essay I wanted to present to you
A very modern frustration. I just canned the beginning of an essay I really wanted to write. My hope was that it would open a good conversation with you, my good readers.
It began with a disclosure of my prior assumptions. It continued with an open acknowledgement of the counter-arguments likely to be mentioned by commenters.
I acknowledged those counter arguments, and took pains to demonstrate (with the level of specificity, clarity, and self-reflection you get from my writing, which is high) that I am not engaging in the cognitive “mistakes” or “unexamined assumptions” that contrarian commenters often accuse writers of doing.
That is, I opened it with honesty, with good faith, and I showed my work. I gave a connected bread-crumb trail. I made it obvious. I did this to clear the ground so that I could have a productive conversation with the big majority of good faith commenters and subscribers that I am blessed to enjoy.
I did it to put provocateurs and dishonest interlocutors on notice.
And then I canned it. Why?
Because it won’t work. 2023 people (largely Millennials, but not exclusively) are incapable of reading comprehension. Or they are unwilling to do it. For too many, they need to project a fantasy version of an opponent onto a writer. No matter what. Too many actually do not understand what conversation and exchange is. They believe it is a narcissistic zero-sum game.
If that means they have to pretend to have a lower IQ than they actually have, if that means they have to act in a consciously dishonest way (pretending I didn’t pre-address their concerns, or flatly ignoring a direct question about whether they read the introduction), they will do so.
I will not be a palimpsest for the infantile emotional “needs” of 12 year olds in 35 year old bodies. I won’t tolerate it. I can’t tolerate it without seeing blood red and reacting with harsh anger.
Perhaps you can (this is not an invitation to “help” me see why my anger is unproductive. One whiff of that and I block and unsubscribe the person who writes it). But I cannot, and I’m not willing to even try. It’s beneath me.
This leaves me with only unsatisfactory options:
Write the essay and turn off comments. This is unacceptable because part of my goal is conversation about the issue.
Not writing the essay.
I choose number 2. With resentment and frustration.
The modern relationship between writers and readers is fucked up beyond belief. We all believe (yes, you, too. Yes, me, too, before I remember to wind my neck in) that engaging with a writer online is a debate.
That it is a combat. That we’re all “debate bros.”
This never existed before the invention of two-way communication on the Internet. At worst, past writers had to deal with stupid or irrelevant complaints in the form of a few printed letters to the editor.
Today? Readers think they have the moral, financial, or other right to drag the topic into their personal corner. They evince indignation when the writer says “No, you may not.” They think that because they subscribe to you, that they are “part of the management team” with the same perquisites that I, the owner of this establishment, have.
They are not so entitled. Some conversations are impossible today.
Lest you think I’m castigating you personally, or my readership generally, I am not. I meant what I said above. I am blessed to have subscribers (and paying ones, at that!) who are, in the overwhelming main, thoughtful, interesting people.
But there are enough of the other kind that some essays and the conversations I hope to have about them are not structurally possible.