2007 wasn't just the year the internet went to shit, it was the year everything went to shit. It's really something else, you take a look at a movie from that era, and maybe a little bit after that, and a lot of the time they're fun. Like, it was still okay to have pretty girls in movies, and it was still okay to notice that they were pretty. Everyone wasn't sitting on pins and needles and so people could make jokes and have fun. A lot of the people who are poster children for the insufferable postmodernist left today we're actually really funny people back then. And go figure, most of the people who used to be funny have disavowed everything that they ever did that made them good.
We used to live in a primarily guilt-based society, where everyone was sort of expected to have their own moral compass, and to follow that moral compass. For many reasons, including the corruption of the internet and pop culture and also the new economic realities brought about by the great financial crisis worldwide, we live in a primarily anxiety based society, where everyone is terrified that they're going to set off someone else's moral compass and in this economic game of musical chairs have their chair taken away.
In a guilt-based society, you can make a joke about something like racism, even if you're not racist, because you are the one judging yourself and so you know what your intention was and you would correct yourself if you felt that you were doing wrong. In an anxiety based society, you can't speak of evil because you are not the one judging yourself, everyone else is judging you so that they can kick you off the carousel.
We used to live in a primarily guilt-based society, where everyone was sort of expected to have their own moral compass, and to follow that moral compass. For many reasons, including the corruption of the internet and pop culture and also the new economic realities brought about by the great financial crisis worldwide, we live in a primarily anxiety based society, where everyone is terrified that they're going to set off someone else's moral compass and in this economic game of musical chairs have their chair taken away.
In a guilt-based society, you can make a joke about something like racism, even if you're not racist, because you are the one judging yourself and so you know what your intention was and you would correct yourself if you felt that you were doing wrong. In an anxiety based society, you can't speak of evil because you are not the one judging yourself, everyone else is judging you so that they can kick you off the carousel.