David Dubrow

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Bits and Pieces 3/29/2018

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Easter’s coming up, so you know what that means: another great opportunity to buy lots of chocolate in various shapes, sizes, and flavors.

Just kidding. I know it’s really about coloring eggs and going to brunch.

While we’re on the subject of Easter, here’s an opinion piece written in The Fenwick Review, which comes out of the College of the Holy Cross:

Professor [Tat-Siong Benny] Liew’s contribution to [They Were All Together in One Place?: Toward Minority Biblical Criticism], a chapter entitled  “Queering Closets and Perverting Desires: Cross-Examining John’s Engendering and Transgendering Word across Different Worlds,” demonstrates the centrality of sex and gender to his way of thinking about the New Testament.  In the chapter, Professor Liew explains that he believes Christ could be considered a “drag king” or cross-dresser. “If one follows the trajectory of the Wisdom/Word or Sophia/Jesus (con)figuration, what we have in John’s Jesus is not only a “king of Israel” (1:49; 12:13– 15) or “king of the Ioudaioi” (18:33, 39; 19:3, 14– 15, 19– 22), but also a drag king (6:15; 18:37; 19:12),” he claims.5 He later argues that “[Christ] ends up appearing as a drag-kingly bride in his passion.”6 

Liew goes on to further describe Jesus Christ as a drag queen. In some circles, this is what passes for theological scholarship. This is serious academic study.

This is crap. This is why many of us are not going to push our children into a college system that produces this kind of bilge. Liew would never imply that Islam’s Mohammed was a cross-dressing person of indeterminate gender; Liew wouldn’t dare. Nor, I suspect, would Liew do the same with Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob in my faith: Judaism. So-called academics like this Liew character are cowards and reprobates, and the longer they stay within the college system, the more debased the entire enterprise of higher learning becomes. You’ve got to get the idea out of your head that this is normal. That this is what academia is meant to explore. It isn’t. This is deliberately inflammatory crap tarted up as serious study by people with axes to grind and/or significant emotional problems. It’s not ethical to ignore it in the name of tolerance. If you think college is the right choice for your child, it’s your duty to push back against this.

Unless you’re trying to raise a child whose major is Queer Dance Theory. Be honest: is that what you really want for your kid?

—

Rather than repeat everything I’ve said about Facebook in the wake of everyone being mad at Facebook, I’ll just point you to these two pieces I wrote here and here. Social media is a bit like a handgun: a tool, neutral until it’s picked up and used. Until we can all learn to use it in a way that doesn’t let it use us, I think we’re all justified in treating it like a gun. A gun manufactured and maintained by people with undeniably sinister intent.

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We need to talk a little more about using children as human shields in the political process, which I touched on here. The latest and most disgustingly egregious example of this is the recent March for Our Lives rally, in which the children who attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School gave partisan political speeches on behalf of left-wing politicians under the false flag of saving lives. If we’re going to address these issues seriously, let’s keep some basic, undeniable truths in mind:

  • Experiencing a terrible event does not magically confer wisdom, no matter how terrible the event may have been. Experiencing terrible grief also does not confer moral authority on any issue. As mature adults we must sympathize, lend an ear, and offer comfort. Helping to shoulder a fellow human being’s burden is a good thing. Altering public policy on the basis of individual trauma, no matter how keenly felt, is not a good thing, particularly when those policy changes are based on emotion rather than reason.
  • The vast, vast, vast majority of children do not have anything incisive or original to say about public policy, including policy relating to firearms issues. They lack the experience, wisdom, and knowledge to promote a solution worth considering.
  • As children, we all have expressed stupid, foolish, unwise, and poorly-considered ideas. However, most of us haven’t been bankrolled by wealthy political activists from Hollywood, professionally managed by politicians, and trotted out as sages (prophets) dispensing wisdom.
  • Activists who use children as spokespeople do so because those children are considered unassailable: to disagree with a wounded child is to turn a blind eye to that child’s traumas. How dare you criticize a young, innocent child, no matter what that child says or does? This is a disgusting and deliberate attempt to use these children as human shields in America’s ongoing political struggles. It was racist to disagree with the previous president; now it’s monstrous to disagree with David Hogg.
  • The adults behind these children are entirely without shame, ethics, or moral character. This includes these children’s parents. They are not good people. They’re not people you’d want to associate with.
  • Thee children have been given free rein to say anything they like, no matter how inflammatory or sickening, because they’re “trying to participate in American democracy.” The conclusion we’re supposed to reach is that there’s something wrong with you if you push back against the notion that you’re a bloodthirsty wannabe child killer because of your membership in the NRA. If you do anything other than sit back, nod sagely, and accept your demonization, you’re a bad person. A snowflake.

Acknowledge these truths and we can talk. Have a great Easter.

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2017 in Review: Top Five Posts

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I like having an online place to hang my hat, to write about the things I want to write about, to show my readers what I’m up to. Some posts are more popular than others, and it’s always a surprise to look at the statistics: my favorite articles rarely get the traffic I think they should, and the more throwaway pieces often see more hits than the serious ones. Go figure. In ascending order of hits, these are the five most popular posts of 2017.

  • 5: My Triumphant Return to Facebook: Despite that the title was a lie, it’s still a good piece that reiterates why I left Facebook and why the decision is still a good one. Author David Angsten has called Facebook (and I’m paraphrasing here; he said it better himself, as he always does) “the cocktail party with all your friends right outside your door”, and he’s right. There’s always the temptation to dip in. Anyway, everyone likes to go meta and talk about the nature of social media, hence this post’s popularity.
  • 4: Book Review: The Space Vampires: This was a real surprise. To commemorate film director Tobe Hooper’s passing, I watched his movie Lifeforce again and re-read the book it had been based on, Colin Wilson’s The Space Vampires. As it was an older book and worth discussing, I reviewed it for the site and it got plenty of hits. A fun, pulpy read, positing some very bizarre theories on human energy.
  • 3: Book Review: Red Room #1: This post’s popularity was also a surprise. Who knew people wanted to know what I thought about this new magazine? Even though the interview gets kind of social justice-y, it’s a great magazine of crime and horror stories, something you should be reading if you’re not already. Looking forward to issue #2!
  • 2: The Problem Isn’t Hollywood. The Problem Is You.: In this post I made the unwelcome connection between your buying decisions and your buying choices. As long as you keep spending your money on empty, unimaginative franchise pieces, Hollywood will continue to produce empty, unimaginative franchise pieces. And don’t get me started on indie content creators singing the praises of these bloated wastes of attention: it’s like knowingly eating rat poison and wondering why you feel so sick.
  • 1: Twitter Is the Worst Thing Ever Devised: Like I said, everyone likes to read about social media almost as much as they like to be on it, hence this post’s popularity. I raked the value of Twitter over the rhetorical coals and explained how awful it is even while using it. I think the reason why people like the social media posts so much is because we all know that social media is bad for us, like smoking cigarettes or skin-popping heroin, but we do it anyway. (What?) Everyone’s always trying to quit something, but people serious about it actually quit. They don’t try to.

Last year’s top five included more political material, but a social media analysis article ranked up there too, proving my point about its interest to the general public. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the site’s most popular article of all time: Red Flags and Ginger Nuts of Horror. I love linking to the piece because it always gets a rise out of Jim Mcleod, the drama queen it describes, and illustrates that the things I write about, like ethics, morals, and culture, have real-world consequences. The ill-educated, half-witted Philistines don’t all work in publishing; some have arrogated themselves the role of gatekeepers of media, and it’s important to show the world how worthless they are.

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Endless War

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America’s widening ideological/cultural/political division, what we often call the Culture War, is not going to heal in your lifetime.  It won’t heal in your children’s lifetime, either. Or your grandchildren’s. Simply whining about the divide, whether you’re a politician or a concerned citizen, won’t fix what’s wrong. More communication won’t fix it, either; social media has enabled us to talk to each other for years, and the divide yet widens. In fact, it would be better if we didn’t talk to each other so much, because we’ve used these platforms to spread disunity and tribalism rather than togetherness. The Brotherhood of Man is sundered, not least because we can’t even agree on what a man is, biologically speaking.

This division didn’t happen ex nihilo.

The way that the Culture War has been fought makes ending the conflict impossible. Nobody has the authority to call a truce, and none of the combatants would agree to one in any case. National tragedies like mass shootings, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters no longer result in temporary armistices; instead, we’ve decided to “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” That is, we’ve politicized every single aspect of human life, from God to TV to weather to bridge collapses.

By politicizing everything, you criminalize every difference of opinion. You reduce every issue, no matter how complex, into a Manichean proposition of good vs. evil. Brendan Eich learned that to his cost. Masterpiece Cake Shop learned that to their cost. And I learned it also, when Jim Mcleod, proprietor of the horror site Ginger Nuts of Horror, kicked me off the writing staff and called me, a Jewish man, a Nazi for expressing, in my own space, opinions that millions and millions of other people share. If your difference of opinion has been elevated to the status of criminal hate speech, how can you possibly find common ground with people who disagree?

The entertainment class has decided to escalate the Culture War further by expressing, loudly and frequently, its utter contempt and loathing for the other side. That the other side also buys movie tickets and watches television shows is immaterial: what matters is signaling one’s virtue by slandering one’s ideological adversaries. Nobody makes a Hollywood actor call someone a Nazi at gunpoint: these people choose their ideology and they choose the ways in which they express it. You don’t have to go on Twitter and call your customers KKK members because of who they voted for. So is it any wonder that many of us are secretly cheering every disgusting revelation of appalling behavior from Hollywood’s casting couches rather than expressing dismay? Hollywood has set itself up as the political enemy of half the country, not to mention its moral superior. It hates us rubes in flyover country. Why shouldn’t we hate Hollywood back? Why should we forbear the smallest slight, in light of how divided we are? Remember your Shakespeare.

Social media fuels the Culture War with every angry Tweet, every thoughtless Facebook status. We’ve got too much communication going on, not too little. Daily doses of loathing poisons the psyche; it strains the nerves, keeping us on edge. Anger’s easy to kindle, but difficult to maintain; it provides a dopamine-like hit that’s too addictive to quit, but terribly exhausting to endure. This is undeniably detrimental not just to our common culture, but to civilization as a whole. Lacking the Brotherhood of Man, we can no longer come together to repel the Visigoths at the gate, be they Muslim extremists, domestic anarchists, or even the decay of the rule of law. There’s no longer an us or a we. There’s you, there’s me, and there’s fuck you for disagreeing, you Nazi; go die in a fire. The sickening public responses to recent mass shootings and hurricanes and terror attacks have taught us this.

The solution isn’t to lay down your arms and hope the other side does the same. Not when your livelihood’s at stake because you think that gender is a biological constant rather than a social construct. Not when your reputation’s at stake because you believe that the proper response to an armed attack is overwhelming force instead of continued conversation. Not when your life’s at stake because you want to take responsibility for your own personal safety instead of unilaterally disarming. After a victory, we’d all like to lean on our shovels and say, “Well, that’s done.” Well, it’s not done, it’s not over, and you have to keep fighting.

From the ease with which terms like “Nazi” and “racist” are thrown around, with companies signaling their virtuous tolerance in letting deviants into women’s private areas, to the horrific revelations about how the Hollywood sausage is made, we’re seeing with crystal clarity exactly what happens when you let anything slide. That time is over.

If the people in Hollywood hate you so much, don’t enrich them by watching their movies and TV shows. If the inmates at the local college dismissively refer to your hard work and sacrifice as “white privilege,” don’t send your kids there to be indoctrinated in Social Justice claptrap. And if the ideologically-driven news media trots out lie after lie in service to a narrative at odds with your deeply-held ethics, don’t give them your clicks and attention. You can do quite a lot simply by opting out. You can do that at least, can’t you?

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Twitter Is the Worst Thing Ever Devised

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Actually, social media is the worst thing ever devised. Twitter’s just the ugliest side of it. The seething, malignant id of the internet.

I’ve talked about Facebook many times in this space, and my having quit it has made a marked improvement in both my mood and productivity. However, to do a true cleanse, a social media high colonic, the next step would be to quit Twitter.

Like everything, Twitter is what you make of it. My Twitter is an unmitigated horror, because it involves the two non-family things that I spend the most amount of mental real estate on: politics/current events and writing. So my abhorrence of Twitter is my own fault: I choose what to see and what not to see. It’s the mirror of my worst self.

Writer Twitter is a cesspit of indie/self-published book advertisements, writing tips given free of charge by people who can’t write, memes/cartoons about writing Retweeted by people who love the hashtag #writerslife, left-wing political hot takes, and J.K. Rowling quotes. For some, it’s Heaven. For others, it’s a thing to be endured on one’s way to social media-fueled publishing stardom. For the rest of us, we unhappy few, it’s Hell. If you’re lucky you’ll meet some nice people to talk shop with, particularly if/when you get off Twitter and go to a less communication-hostile medium. Genre fiction Twitter, such as horror Twitter or sci-fi Twitter, isn’t much different except that it has more Stephen King quotes.

Political Twitter is far, far worse. Imagine an unflushed convenience store toilet five miles past an all-you-can-eat fried chicken restaurant. The hot takes are the worst: snarky quote-lets designed to make both reader and writer feel superior to the issue being commented upon. At 140 characters, that’s pretty much what Twitter’s made for. That and online slap-fights where nobody’s mind is changed, no relevant information is transferred, and everybody walks away having owned one’s opponent. If you’re popular enough you’ll get an audience of like-minded people who appreciate the time and effort you took to Tweet that sick burn off Donald Trump with the proper hashtag. That your time was utterly wasted is of no moment: you stood up for your side and put the other guy/gal in his/her/xer place.

You want to know what’s worse than both of these flavors of Twitter? When they mix. The combination of politics and genre fiction is one short step above the approving Retweets of jihadist beheading videos. Every minute of every day you’ll see no-talent hacks nobody’s ever heard of Tweeting hot takes like, “If you believe in X, unfollow me right now,” as if they’re the universe’s gift to ethics. Your political stance doesn’t make you more ethical than anyone else: it’s what you do that makes you ethical. Hard to hear in the era of internet slacktivism, but someone had to break it to you. Very, very few people can write both fiction and political commentary with any degree of insight, original thinking, or competence. Despite their popularity, neither Rowling nor King, both political activists, are worth reading outside of their respective fictional spheres. Stay in your lanes, guys. You don’t have it. You never did.

When I see someone with many thousands of followers and tens of thousands of Tweets, I see someone who’s underemployed. Political pundits can’t help it: they have to Tweet or they’ll die. The world has to know what they think about everything in 140 characters or fewer. Writers have to approvingly Retweet Stephen King’s latest broadside against Donald Trump; the King of Horror might notice them and lift them up out of undeserved obscurity. And what’s the point of being virtuous if nobody sees it?

Got me, man. I’m off to check my mentions.

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My Triumphant Return to Facebook

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It’s never happening. Please forgive the clickbait title.

I quit Facebook a year ago, and my reasons why haven’t changed: it’s a terrible waste of time; it encourages jealousy, pettiness, and negativity; what you post there is used by Facebook to manipulate you; and Facebook’s editorial stance is entirely at odds with my values. While I do miss occasional family updates, friends’ pictures, and the pride of showing my friends what my wife and son are doing, the cons significantly outweigh the pros.

Yes, I have my website link to Facebook when I have a new blog post, but that’s me using Facebook rather than it using me. I still maintain that nobody gets rich off of Facebook ads, but even if they did, there’s no way on God’s green Earth that I’ll give my money to Facebook.

I moderate my use of Twitter with an electronic timer. My daily Twitter allotment is 20 minutes a day, though I haven’t gone past 12 minutes since I began timing myself. Sitting there, scrolling through the feed, is exactly like looking at Facebook, just with shorter posts and more hostility. Between the endless book advertisements from the same rapacious hack authors and the blistering political hot takes retweeted from a thousand bleating opinion sites, it’s digital noise. No, scratch that: it’s digital cacophony.

Oh, I still kibbitz with my Twitter buddies and enjoy seeing what they’re saying and doing. But more time spent on Twitter means less time working, reading, or being with family. We used to say that TV rots your brain. Social media rots your brain now. And it doesn’t make you feel good afterward.

I communicate with about 3 or 4 people on Google Plus, so it’s worth keeping. It has actually become my favorite social media platform. I’m in, I talk to friends, I read content, I’m out.

When I consider that few of the people I admire and want to emulate post a lot on social media, I realize that it’s a bad place to use what minutes I have on this planet to achieve my goals, whatever they may be.

My friend David Angsten, a terrific, thoughtful writer, titled his blog Be Here Now. Isn’t being here now the way to go? And doesn’t social media deny that by making us spectators in our own lives? David’s right: be here now.

It’s where I’m trying to stay. I hope you’ll join me.

We still have telephones and email addresses. We can talk and write letters and visit each other and maintain friendships the way we used to.

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I Quit Facebook.

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I quit Facebook. I did it about a week ago, but now I’m bothering to tell everyone.

My reasons for this are manifold, and any one of them is a good enough reason to leave the platform, but I’ll state them here for those interested. This has nothing to do with any individual or contretemps or drama I may or may not have been involved in. I’m not leaving in a huff or anything remotely like that. The only reason why you’re able to read this on Facebook right now is because I’ve shared it from my blog to my Facebook page. I’ll continue to do that, as you nice people who do use Facebook shouldn’t be deprived of my wit and wisdom. Ahem.GoodbyeFacebook

Informed readers know that the Facebook contractors who curate Facebook’s “Trending Topics” section have done so with an eye toward minimizing conservative news. Not because people on the right side of the ideological spectrum don’t do or say anything newsworthy, but because the leftists in charge of curating the Trending Topics loathe conservatives and seek to destroy them at every opportunity, like almost everyone in media. With that in mind, why should I spend my time, my bandwidth, my attention on a service administrated by people who hate me and anyone who shares my outlook? Why should I participate in their social experiments, post my family pictures for them to look at (and potentially use in prurient fashion; I put nothing past these vermin)?

Everyone likes to complain about politically-dominated organizations like Hollywood, social media companies, and news outlets, but few actually do anything about it. This is my way of doing something about it: I’m opting out. I’m under no illusions that this little gesture will elicit even the slightest change, but I’m hoping that some of you will think about these issues and join me. If you’re a conservative, Facebook doesn’t want you and actively wishes you ill. Is this a place where you should spend your time?

Yes, I know I’m sneaking a toe in the door by having my blog link my individual posts to Facebook, but as a writer I’ve been told that I need to have a social media presence. So I’m using Facebook in this minimal fashion without letting it use me.

The other reason why I left Facebook is because it promotes bitchiness, backbiting, and passive-aggressive snark, none of which are the least bit healthy for even the strongest psyche. It’s possible, even likely, that all social media is conducive to this kind of negativity, but Facebook’s the big dog, so they get the most attention. What people Like, what they don’t Like, what they talk about online, what they ignore: paying attention to that, to the facade of minutiae masquerading as day-to-day life, drains energy from positive pursuits. It’s also a massive time-sink, and you’d be amazed at how much time you find in the day to do good things when you’re not spectating other people’s facades.

I already miss the many cyber-friends I’ve met on Facebook. I very much enjoyed looking at your family photos, reading your posts, laughing at your memes, watching your cat videos, and mindlessly Liking (some of) your book links. And I know how tenuous, how ephemeral these electronic friendships are; for many of you, this will be the last time we communicate. That’s a shame, but to quote the great Northeastern philosopher DB, “It is what it is.”

Before long I’ll set up an account on some photo-sharing service and send the link to those friends and family members who would want to see pictures of my wife and son. I’m very proud of both, as you know, and incredibly lucky to have them. The rest of my updates, both personal and professional, will be posted here at http://davedauthor.com/blog.

You can, of course, always contact me via email. I use Gmail, and my handle is davedauthor.

I hope to hear from you.

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