A belated introduction to my Substack
How an imprudent Facebook post led to a new blog calling for liberal thought and humane behavior in times that are turning illiberal and inhumane.
While I have gained a few unknown subscribers to this new blog (“hello and thank you!”), I would like to make one post here to reach out to my friends, who will get this link on social media.
Many of my Facebook friends enjoyed reading my first blog, which I kept up sporadically from 2011 to 2015. The blog had no particular theme, and I kept it anonymous, as I do with this one. It was a way for me to practice my writing and share some of my experiences with friends — from the adventures of naïvely moving abroad without a plan, to working in the foreign media, to all the things I learned about myself and my country and other cultures along the way. Lighthearted stuff, tinged with serious introspection.
From 2016, life got a lot less fun for everyone, for reasons we all know. I thought I might have had things to say about studying for my master’s overseas, but I got too involved with my own work to be blogging as well as researching and writing papers.
Since graduation, I’ve lost interest in writing about my adventures and blurting my opinions, as I’ve noticed severe socio-political chasms tearing open around me. I have always considered myself a left-leaning liberal with socialist tendencies, but as liberals have adopted many old-school right-wing talking points and tactics, I became allergic to publicly commenting on issues of the day. Watching a natural health guru or a left-wing academic on YouTube are the types of things that have gotten me accused by more than one liberal of being brainwashed by “Russian algorithms,” while others have suggested I was falling into Alt-Right traps. Me, right wing? The guy watching the Marxist professor talk with a YouTube host who supported Bernie Sanders? In the past, it was the liberals who fought to diffuse the cold war with Russia and took skeptical approaches toward the mainstream media. Now I felt like I was being lectured at by Moral Majority Republicans.
Anyway, I just learned to shut up. I stopped blogging. And I stopped telling people what I was watching on the internet.
Recently I had a lapse in judgment and engaged in a Facebook spat over the touchy subject of vaccine passports. As Marshall McLuhan said, “the medium is the message,” and the medium of Facebook is not conducive to thoughtful, productive discussions. No one comes away from a Facebook flame war saying, “I hadn’t thought of that, perhaps you have a point.”
The shittiest feeling in the world is getting a riposte in your Facebook thread while you’re standing in the grocery checkout, or when you’re on the bus, or you’re about to sit down and eat, or you’re at work. Either you drop everything and say, “Fuck, I have to take care of this NOW,” or you take a breath, patiently wait for a quiet moment later in the day to respond, and then get a reply when you’re back in the grocery store. One moment you’re calmly looking for yogurt, the next you’ve got the debate club vibrating in your pocket ready to cut you down to size.
In my case, I have been separated from these friends for years, and the heartwarming moments of our lives are regrettably slipping further into the depths of my memory. Taking a taxi from Singapore to Malaysia for dinner and coming back on public transit just to get a passport stamp. The coffee chats after Wednesday badminton sessions. Showing off my record collection to a friend who had never touched vinyl. The camping trips. In long periods of absence, Facebook reduces the construct of a friendship to a generic profile pic. Body language and the warmth of the human voice are gone. No eye contact. Just an avatar of someone you haven’t spoken to in years suddenly popping up to shit all over your point of view (which they likely perceived me doing to them).
What could have been a civil exchange of ideas and an agreement to move on to other topics became a lengthy disgorge of forgettable verbiage, mostly on my side, and perhaps resulted in a few more grey hairs on my head.
Regardless, the content of the Facebook thread just made me think harder and deeper about the issues that came up, and it became a better way to think my ideas through. Outside of the medium of Facebook, in quiet contemplation, I was forced to meditate on some of the points that were made, and I ended up formulating a cogent reply in the form of an essay.
Hence, a new blog. My response to that Facebook thread can be found in the first post, titled “Vax Passports: The Medium is the Message.” (Another nod to McLuhan.)
The essay is lengthy and took a while to write. I worried that going too in-depth would look insane. But I realized from reading other long-form essays on Covid-related topics, the long format is best for diffusing complex issues.
I also realized that you can recognize the quality of an argument by the amount of thought that is required to defend it. Pithy arguments are ideal for Facebook, but also tend to be based on emotion rather than logic. They are also best for facilitating right-wing viewpoints. Examples from within my lifetime: “We must defeat Communism to protect our freedom,” or, “We must invade Iraq because of terrorism.”
The people making such statements are confident in their positions because they feel well informed by what they’ve seen on TV. “It’s just common sense,” because that’s what the well-spoken people in the media say. Countering these arguments requires being better informed beyond what the “experts” present in a 3-minute CNN panel. You’re backed into a corner because you don’t happen to remember the exact details from the hour-long talk by Chomsky that you watched last week, or happen to have that New Yorker exposé in your back pocket. For instance, one right-wing argument for the Iraq war was: “Colin Powel laid out all the government intelligence at the UN. Iraq obviously has chemical and biological weapons. If you don’t believe him and the CIA experts, what are your sources?” The simplistic narrative tends to win because it makes sense on an emotional level, but it doesn’t require much critical analysis, and now you’re the one who has to go back and do some research.
When proven right — when Iraq is shown to have no such weapons — there is no capitulation, no apology, no “Well, I guess you were right.” We just have to live with the “new normal” — in this case, setting fire to the Middle East for the next 20 years. Similarly, there was no compensation, let alone apologies, to the socialists who had their careers and lives destroyed in the “war on Communism.”
A similar situation seems to be in its infancy now. We are being force-fed simplistic “common sense” solutions that are creating social discord on one side and elitist behavior on the other. Those requesting nuance and alternative approaches get labeled as “anti-vaxers” or “Covid deniers,” the same way others were once smeared as “terrorist supporters” or “Communist sympathizers.” The modern Covid narrative makes sense emotionally, while ignoring rational, alternative approaches rooted in science, rather than “scientism.”
Well, I’m going to have a lot to write about here.
I open this blog with an article about the societal harm of vaccine passports. I also have half-written pieces I plan to finish soon that approach these issues from a traditionally leftist and humane point of view.
I understand that many people today are offended by dissent that goes against the accepted mainstream Covid narratives, and some of those people might be my friends. You don’t have to read this blog if my positions bother you. You’re still my friend. Next time we see each other, we’ll just avoid the topic, or set a time limit on it.
But if you are interested in anything I have to contribute to the debate, you can subscribe to the blog. I won’t be posting any links on Facebook from here forward.
And in case you’re wondering, I’m vaccinated. Not that it should matter, but such are the times.
Peace and love.
M.