Why I follow smart people

I jotted down two notes earlier this week about things I heard that made me think. They come from two journalists who I've followed for a while, both of whom have reasoned and careful takes on events in their home countries.

The first came from New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, who posted a video on Monday discussing Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought, about whom Politico ran a depressing article just this morning. Bouie says Vought believes that "if you can get rid of the 'woke elites,' you can return the country to way it should, a place of patriarchal order." He goes on to observe that Vought and people sharing his world-view simply have no theory of mind for their opponents. They think tolerance and liberalism are an illegitimate, top-down imposition of ideology from the "woke elites" instead of the bottom-up, grassroots world view that has developed over the last century. That's because they themselves think only in hierarchies and in either-or terms and have no entry into more nuanced thinking.

I've said similar things. Part of what drives people to a hierarchical world-view is a fear of the unknown and a fear of losing power. Ultimately, though, top-down thinking is unsustainable. Narrowness begets narrowness. Just think about how the OAFPOTUS draws from a smaller and smaller pool of potential henchmen because he destroys everyone who works with him. One of the most enjoyable novels I've read on this topic is Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which I would recommend every parent read to their children (as Rushdie intended).

The second "makes you go 'hmmm'" moment I had came from another short video, from Times of Israel political correspondent Haviv Rettig Gur. He says (again, paraphrasing): Everyone from the Mehdi Hasans to the activists are upset the war is over. Because the argument wasn't that the Israelis were going overboard, it's that they were trying to annihilate the Palestinians as a people. And the cease-fire plan—what Israelis have been demanding from their government and from Hamas—is that the hostages get returned. Israel agreeing to the cease-fire removes genocide from the table, and shows that this was all just propaganda. "Genocide is an argument to intention, not to how many have died." It's weird watching people be so traumatized by the war being over. Hamas is the only one breaking the deal, by not releasing all the bodies. Greta Thunburg posted a photo of Evyatar David, and when she found out he was an Israeli hostage, she just deleted it. "It wasn't about hostages, and it wasn't about torture, and it wasn't about starvation," he says. "Because if it's the wrong person facing torture and starvation, then she has nothing to say."

The Gazan people and the Israeli people were literally dancing in the streets when the ceasefire was announced. Where were the "pro-Palestinian" demonstrators elsewhere? Not to mention, with so many people protesting Israel's behavior, where are the crowds protesting Sudan's? Or China's against the Uyghurs?