Post woke rules of engagement

How to keep things 5% toxic

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I want a tiny bit of poison in the discourse.

At some point in the last 3 years, the Internet decided it had reached peak wokeness. Cancel culture is canceled. We want different rules of engagement. This newsletter is my wishlist for what those rules are.

First, a few datapoints on wokeness not having the same bite as it did a few years ago.

• Google, Facebook, and a host of other large companies cut their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. The reaction has been a collective meh.

• Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, Kanye West, Billie Eilish, Cardi B, and a hundred other celebrities at the top of their industries have been cancelled. Getting canceled seems to be better for business than not.

• Stanford’s student council leadership won their election on the slogan "Stanford Hates Fun."

The tide has turned so hard that Martin Shkreli, who is notorious for buying drug licenses and upping the price 5,455%, is now woke:

My wishlist

The question I have is: what’s going to replace wokeness? What new values will America’s collective HR department adopt? I have no idea, but my sincere wish is that we can keep things about 5% toxic. Life is way more fun and less tiresome that way.

My view on woke culture is like my view on Prohibition. Getting drunk every day at lunch was overdoing it, but so was outlawing alcohol. Similarly, I don't want to cancel all bad behavior. I need space for a little emotional poison here and there to keep things interesting.

Here’s my wishlist on what that looks like:

1. Get better offensive language. By “better” I mean more offensive, not less. Here’s an example. I used to use the term “gay” to call other kids soft in 4th grade. Then I made gay friends and queer culture became cool. These days, calling someone gay says more about me than it does about the person I’m trying to diminish. This has not changed the fact that I want to make fun of dudes for being soft. I need another term, and it needs to hurt. Please someone give me one.
   

2. Embrace hypocrisy. We all have conflicting beliefs and actions. I think Twitter is an addictive hellhole and I’ll spend hours on it. I think people who measure every aspect of their health are adult children with too much time and yet that’s what I do. I pull similar shenanigans on religious, political, and moral matters. We all do. I think constantly calling each other out on it is boring and ineffective. 

   
   I think we should own our own hypocrisies. I think we should accept that everyone else is a hypocrite too and find more novel things to judge them on. Barack Obama spent his presidency trying to reform healthcare while smoking Marlboros on the daily. There's more interesting things to judge him on than this.
   

3. Embrace questions as a way to judge the hell out of someone. If I litter on the street and a friend says “hey don’t do that,” I will likely agree and change the subject. There’s a 20% chance I think about it again. If I litter on the street and a friend asks: “Is that what you do? Litter on the street?” I question my entire identity. Not littering is no longer about appeasing the person, but figuring out who I am as a man.

   
   Questions are like spells in that way. They get past defenses and get people to think. In my personal life, I want to replace overt criticism with questions, even if they’re petty as hell.
   

4. Stop worrying about being “right.” Worrying about being “right” all the time saps energy. It stops us from being present and takes us out of the game. Few things undermine happiness and a todo list more than constantly worrying. This is similar to wanting to be seen as a “good guy,” which creates avoidant behavior and undermines romantic relationships (which I talk about here).

   
   On the flipside, I’m ready to move on from snarky jokes and dunking on people-who-are-wrong-on-the-Internet. This makes the Internet a negative and fearful place, and has a big toll on our collective mental health. It also creates an Internet economy with a few shameless posters and a lot of fearful lurkers.
   

5. Cool it on demands for public apologies. Demanding people apologize in public has taken on a “bend the knee” energy. It feels like a request for submission more than a request for healing. And the public treats it like an act of submission. One of Donald Trump’s most astute insights in my opinion is that nobody ever congratulates you for apologizing.
   
   I think more and more, people who make important decisions are counseled that apologizing doesn’t serve their image. As a result, they’ve stopped doing it. I think we should be matter of fact about this. If a public figure has been a dickhead, we should we accept their dickhead status and stop pretending we’re expecting some kind of healing statement from them.

Got any more wishes? Let me know in the comments.