Bastille Day celebrates the 1789 storming of the famous French political prison where the inmates could never appeal their sentences imposed by royal decree. The event is mostly symbolic since there were only seven people in the facility and none of any real significance. But the point is there: such institutions are unjust and must not be tolerated by a free people.
The blowback against an officious and privileged royal hegemon was a burning passion among the oppressed for a grand emancipatory event. The storming of the Bastille was it.
Maybe we need a Twitter Day: Oct. 27, 2022. This was the day that justice came to the most important institution of citizen journalism in the world. I’ve watched for years as the egregious management there deplatformed scientists, journalists, economists, doctors, poets, and so many others merely for disagreeing with regime priorities.
Twitter became a tool of the state. For my part, I have no idea how or why I happened to survive the great purges. And yet authoritarians know that they are better off with arbitrary rather than consistent enforcement according to rules. This way, people must always stay on guard and self-censor. It’s much more effective that way.
In any case, it was a glorious hour when the news came: new owner Elon Musk had the CEO, CFO, and chief censor marched out the front door. Wow. What a mighty moment, the kind of dreamy scenario about which everyone in business dreams. It finally happened.
After three dreadfully dark years, it seems like this could mark the beginning of the thing for which I’ve waited patiently for so long: the great blowback. It doesn’t mean that the good times are here yet. In economics generally, there is only grim news of rising debt, depleted savings, falling real income, falling investment, and overall lack of confidence.
But in other areas, there are signs of joy, by which I mean signs of justice. Above all else, Elon Musk has shown the door to the tyrants of Twitter. Who can watch this and not feel enormous glee?
In late April 2020, I wrote a wistful article predicting that there would be someday a massive blowback against the tyranny visited upon this great country. Permit me to revisit my predictions.
“This whole period has been an unconscionable trauma for billions of people, wrecking lives far beyond what even the worst virus could achieve,” I wrote. “I’m detecting enormous, unfathomable levels of public fury barely beneath the surface. It won’t stay beneath the surface for long. Our lives in the coming years will be defined by forms of blowback in the wake of both the disease and the egregious policy response, as a much needed corrective. The thing is that you can’t take away everyone’s rights, put a whole people under house arrest, and abolish the rule of law without generating a response to that in the future.”
1. Blowback Against Media
“Watching this disgusting parade of media-driven ignorance, genuine experts or even people passingly curious about data, have become demoralized. Surely many people have already stopped listening to the news completely because it is nothing but a distraction from the reality on the ground .... I seriously doubt that the credibility of the mainstream media will survive this.”2. Blowback Against Politicians
“You do recall, don’t you, that the governors and mayors who imposed the lockdowns never asked their citizens about their views about instantly getting rid of all rights and freedoms. They didn’t consult legislatures. They didn’t consult a range of expert opinion or pay attention to any serious demographic data that showed how utterly preposterous it was to force non-vulnerable populations into house arrest while trapping vulnerable populations in nursing homes that became COVID-soaked killing fields .... Politicians acted rashly for fear of their political futures. They will find that they made the wrong choice.”3. Blowback Against Environmentalism
“Wash your hands, they kept telling us. But we turn on the faucet and hardly anything comes out. They ruined them some years ago with flow stoppers. The water isn’t hot because the hot-water heaters don’t work as well due to regulations. Keep your clothing and dishes clean but our washing machines and dishwashers hardly work. And let us not forget that our toilets are also non-functional.”4. Blowback Against Social Distance
“Staying away from direct contact with sick people is a good idea; we’ve known since the ancient world. Vulnerable populations need to be especially careful, such as elderly people have always known. But government took this sensible idea and went crazy with it, separating everyone from everyone else, all in the name of “flattening the curve” to preserve hospital capacity. But then this principle became a general one, to the point that people were encouraged to believe silly things like that standing too close to anyone will magically cause COVID-19 to appear.”I expected a widespread social closening movement to develop here pretty quickly. “You will see the bars and dance floors packed, and probably a new baby boom will emerge in a post-COVID-19 world. And the handshake will again become what it began as, a sign of mutual trust.”
5. Blowback Against Regulation
“In the midst of panic, we discovered that many rules that govern our lives don’t make sense. The regulations on disease testing clogged the system and gave us an epistemic crisis that kicked off this insanity in the first place. Fortunately many politicians did the right thing and repealed many of them.”6. Blowback Against Digital Everything
“We keep hearing how this trauma is going to cause everyone to communicate more with video. I don’t believe it. Everyone is experiencing tremendous burnout of these sterile digital environments. … At first we thought this was merely a period of adjustment. Now we know that we just don’t like all this nonsense. It’s no way to live. There is nothing like real people in a real room.”7. Blowback Against Anti-Work
“I suppose many workers weren’t entirely unhappy when the boss said work from home. But millions of people have now discovered that this comes at a cost. There is loneliness. The dog. The kids. The spouse. The depressing failure to dress up like a civilized human being. Everyone I know misses the office. They want to be back, be on a schedule, see friends again, experience the joy of collaboration, share jokes, munch on the office donuts.”Musk said it best: you can work from home but you can’t work for Twitter. The growing number of firings in Big Tech are satisfying to watch unfold. May their next job be delivering groceries.
8. Blowback Against Experts
“The media from the beginning trumpeted some experts over others. We went credential crazy. How many letters you have after your name determines your credibility (unless you have the wrong opinion). But soon we discovered some interesting realities. The experts that everyone wanted to cite were wrong or so loose with their predictions that their predictions were useless in practice.”9. Blowback Against Academia
“Just like that, we went from enormously expensive campuses and a huge administrative apparatus to a series of Zoom calls between professor and students, leaving many to wonder what the rest is really worth. Surely many colleges and universities will not survive this. The other problem concerns the marketability of degrees in a world in which whole industries can be shut down in an instant. The college degree was supposed to give us security; the lockdowns took it all away. Also there is the problem of the curriculum itself. Of what value are these soft degrees in social justice in a world in which you are struggling to pay next month’s rent regardless?”10. Blowback Against Unhealthy Lifestyles
“There has been no small effort to suppress the demographics of COVID-19 fatalities but the word is still getting out .... Maybe you already feel it and are using your quarantine time to reduce and get fit or at least stop advancing too quickly toward your final demise. There are things we can do, people! This would be an enormous change in American culture, to say the least.”Again, check: this is happening as people have discovered that true health doesn’t come from pills and shots but a healthy lifestyle. It requires eating well and consciously, getting outdoors, and staying away from mind-altering substances, including those which make you stupid enough to believe what the media and government say.
The reason Musk’s Twitter takeover delights us so much is that it gives us all hope that we can begin to find our way back to reason, clarity, and freedom again. We don’t have to live this way. We can fight our way back to enlightenment again.
