Another day, another Jezebel blowup.
In contrast to the inane argument someone made earlier (“Have you ever not worn sunscreen?”) Karina makes a compelling point. I wonder how many of The Outraged would a) defend the New Yorker cover and call it paternalistic/condescending to assume that people wouldn’t “get it” while b) holding the Jezebel writers to some sort of higher standards.
I may actually be one of those people, although I haven’t been able to muster much more than an eye-roll over this. I think there is a distinction between a and b, but not one that I can immediately articulate.
I feel the same way; this incident is barely worth an eye-roll considering that Moe is not some unassailable public figure. What if Miley Cyrus ran a Disney Channel commercial saying, “Don’t wear condoms?” Sounds bananas, but assuming all the barriers to it went away, there would be significant harm to the public health. Moe, not so much.
But holding writers to standards? I make no apologies for that, though I’m starting to get confused about what my standards actually are. You know, I’m a public blogger too! “I know it when I see it” is starting to become an irresponsible justification for picking out other people’s various writings and labelling them as irresponsible.
Oh, the irony.
Here’s how I would articulate my value system, though; God (or, your blackness void of night athiest scientific universe concept) put us here to act on our best behavior. Life functions better when people put their best effort into their decisions. This whole meme of “Really, I just don’t care about anything” is probably counterproductive.
And, we’re all not some teenagers listening to Eminem anymore. This is writing for adults, by adults. We are taking you seriously.
(And, unless you are writing a parody blog, keep in mind that written sarcasm does not carry with it the facial gestures and vocal inflections that make it effective in speech. In which case, “Don’t wear condoms!” looks like you are actually telling us we shouldn’t.)
