The College of William & Mary held a “conversation among faculty and students” Monday night to talk about Thanksgiving. The college website said the forum was to discuss strategies for the upcoming family visits, in case mom and dad “have political views that make you feel vulnerable and distressed.”
The topics included “strategies for discussing privilege” as well as information on “organizations and resources to pass on to family.” After all, nothing says Thanksgiving like a pamphlet on trigger warnings with your pumpkin pie.
God forbid these delicate young ears should be subjected to a mealtime monologue from crazy Uncle Ralph.
This is the one-millionth example of what Chris Stirewalt, a former West Virginia reporter who now offers political commentary for Fox News, calls grievance politics. “It would be bad and sad enough if it was just campus crazies, but it is everywhere.”
The cast of Hamilton lectures Vice President-elect Mike Pence. President-elect Donald Trump takes a swipe at the play as “highly overrated.” A Trump supporter interrupts a Chicago performance to proclaim, “We won! You lost! Get over it! F*** you!”
Social media have created new avenues for anyone and everyone to create a never-ending stream of opinions. Stirewalt suggests that’s not necessarily a good thing.
“What social media is teaching people is that their opinions matter. By and large they do not,” Stirewalt writes. “Your brain is a Victoria Falls-sized outpouring of thoughts and insights. Most of it is of no value, even to you.”
Stirewalt calls this constant flow “the political outrage perpetual motion machine.” It is a tireless generator of grievances that trigger responses, demands for apologies and then more responses. There is no resolution, only a spinning of the cycle of a specific grievance until it begins to peter out and is replaced by another and another and another.
Stirewalt is not suggesting that we don’t have opinions, but rather that we stifle the desire to share all of them with everybody. “This is something we once adorably referred to as ‘civilization.’”
Or, as Abraham Lincoln advised, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”*
Happy Thanksgiving.
*(Editor’s note: This quote, or a version of it, is attributed to several different people, including Lincoln.)