Timeline of events: Roy Moore--an Alabaman Republican candidate for a US Senate seat--is accused of sexual harassment and assault by several women. Roy Moore refuses to back out of the race. Roy Moore does an interview with Sean Hannity. Many people feel Hannity glossed over the allegations. Several advertisers, including Keurig, pull their advertising from Hannity's show in protest of his apparent lack of outrage. Some Hannity fans destroy their Keurig coffee makers.
Really?
Yes, really. And here's an example:
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| https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/929777702537543681 |
As the Keurigs shatter on the ground, it seems their pieces reveal a lot about the state of public discourse these days.
First, I'm struck by the language of "offend a liberal" in the above tweet. This is language that is hardly limited to this instance. Google "offend a liberal" and you can find countless memes and images with the same mentality (interestingly you get many of the same conservative memes even when you Google "offend a conservative"). Some progressives likely have the same approach as well, albeit with different language. Whether we label others as "libtards," "libiots," "Teabaggers," or "Re-thug-licans," the effect is the same. And of course, both sides love to throw around the "snowflake" label.
You can completely forget about higher ideals like listening to the other side. We've even moved past trying to persuade the other side. All that matters is winning and upsetting one's opponent. If we can annoy and "offend," that's all we need to do.
I'm also struck (but not surprised) by the oversimplified view of others demonstrated. Seriously, what "liberals" are you hanging out with who would be offended by you destroying your overpriced coffee machine?! I know the friends I have who hold to more progressive/liberal political views wouldn't be "offended." Most of them would just laugh at you. You probably made their day by showing how easily you get "offended" by an advertiser. But, we live in such isolated echochambers that we don't know what people on the other side of the fence are really like anymore. All we're left with are caricatures, stereotypes, and strawmen.
Lastly, it shows how ridiculous we sometimes can be in our "protests" when living in a materialistic culture. We burn jerseys of NFL players we disagree with. We destroy coffee makers of companies who upset us. We refuse to eat fast food chicken because of the owners' position on homosexuality. It's all ridiculous. Ghandi is probably rolling around in his grave wondering why he went on a hunger strike if all he could've done is threw some British furniture out a window. The reality is such "protests" don't actually cost anything. You know those individuals will just turn around a buy another jersey, coffee maker, or chicken sandwich (maybe even from the same place). Where there's no sacrifice, there's not really much substance to that protest.
The sad truth is our public dialogue is utterly empty. It's not even fair to call it a "dialogue" anymore. If you put several angry men together in a room to shout and throw things at each other, is that really a "conversation" just because words exist? Because that's a more apt description of what's happening.
We're not even really concerned with winning arguments any more. We just want to win, period. Dominate the opposition at all costs. But this is a dangerous position. If winning is the ultimate value, then we will be willing to sacrifice our ethics, morals, and our very souls to do so. But once we've sacrificed everything we care about upon the altar of the god of power and triumph, what will we have left? Nothing except a bunch of broken plastic bits, caffeine withdrawals, and a video testifying to how idiotic we look.
