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Feb 1, 2022Liked by Clayton Craddock

Personally, I have long endeavored to maintain some kind of safe distance from the endless behavioral phenomena which have been unleashed by the internet and its interactive capabilities. You might call my approach to these so-called 'culture wars' a determined opposite of this 'Streisand Effect': the instant I become aware of anyone's being raised to the level of a personality cult, I become that much more committed to not giving a rat's ass what they have to say.

But for whatever reason, the internet has taken Andy Warhol's 'fifteen minutes of fame' impulse and transformed it into an astonishingly childish addiction to seeking whatever fleeting doses of self-imagined celebrity one can enable by doing no more than spouting reckless opinions or reciting ideological mantras.

Seeing the ridiculous and embarrassing 21C world through this light, I could not tell you the first thing about this Rogan character, other than the fact that a lot of people seem to hang on his every word for some reason, reason enough for me not to be interested in hearing any of them. I have little notion of what this 'podcast' thingy is or what might distinguish it from plain old talk radio, a venue where people in need of attention vie for the opportunity to hog the mike and use it to talk out their asses on matters which concern them little and require their input even less. And until a few days ago, if you had mentioned this 'spotify' to me I probably would have thought you were talking about some kind of laundry product.

Personality cults are inherently dangerous, not because those seeking or enjoying such a status are particularly hazardous, but because people herding up and following trends for no more reason than that they trending is the most dangerous of all traits of mass human behavior. Where is the dignity, the autonomy, the self-respect, in following trends because they are trending?

I submit that the 21C world is a world of reckless and lazy addicts, looking for the next thing or person or ideogram to be addicted to. I don't give all this 'content' trying to substantiate the behavior of addicts as genuine ideas any credit at all. Whatever it was that this internet gimmick was supposed to liberate us from, it has done precious little to liberate us from ourselves.

And besides, wouldn't one have to conclude that naming one's rock band after a 19th-century Lakota warrior and rebel leader who preferred the tactics of luring the enemy into ambush by taunting and mocking him over open-field combat, 'cultural appropriation?'

Whatever. I have to go now and shoot up my daily fix of Jordan Peterson, or something....

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