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Maybe I should call it "Against Histrionic Journalism". To explore your thread of thought a bit, and a bit of my own tangent... Thinkpieces with actionable ad

Maybe I should call it "Against Histrionic Journalism". To explore your thread of thought a bit, and a bit of my own tangent... Thinkpieces with actionable advice, advocacy of personal economic virtue, or related personal anecdotes, by their nature of advocating for pragmatically solving your own problems, have very conservative-appearing optics in today's political landscape. As such, they are extremely taboo within the same social circle as that of the article above, and taboo at large in many circles. I wish that such pieces were more popular, because I feel that they could reduce the cynicism of our zeitgeist, which is a leading problem in online media. The optics are too poor, though. And I suppose they don't make for a lot of click-driven ad revenue. In my reading of the news, in the long run, I want to be able to develop a feeling for how the world is comparatively changing over time, and to plan and make decisions based off of this. Even in the absense of articles that prescriptively tell you things that are good to do, fact-based, comparison-driven reporting of change in the world should not be laden with histrionic shouting. When we only read this histrionic shouting, perception becomes reality. Cynicism becomes emotional mailaise, and makes the world less dignified. If the book "Enlightenment Now" has even a speck of truth in it, the momentum of the world is a tremendous lot more positive than the zeitgeist feels it to be. The challenge is to change the zeitgeist.

YinglingLight 8y ago
Is such histrionic journalism a byproduct of the current cultural infatuation of "victimization"? Living in a Golden Era doesn't fit the narrative.
- CompelTechnic 8y ago
  I think that we aren't exactly in a Golden Era, mostly due to a strong perception of middle class economic stagnation. This is regardless of the fact that material conditions around the world are improving very quickly. I think the victimization infatuation is just one of the symptoms of economic anxiety. The "Elephant Curve" (ref. enlightenment now, or googlable) has more explanatory power for middle class economic stagnation than anything else. If you are rich, things are great. If you are first world middle class, the amount of economic stagnation you've seen over the last decade or so probably provides a lot of anxiety. If you are living in a third world country, things are booming. This boom is fueled by geographic arbitrage of wages that in turn leads to the economic stagnation of the first world middle class. These middle class folks are paying a not-too-terrible price to pay in order to raise billions of people from extreme poverty. In net, it's an extremely good thing. But for the middle class at large, a lot of self-percieved human happiness is determined by the hedonic treadmill. If things aren't showing constantly material improvement, the feel like they are gettting worse, because humans are insatiable without progress. At an individual level, mindfulness and stoicism can help you get off the hedonic treadmill. At a societal level, the zeitgeist will become very anxious when this stagnation occurs, and if you let this zeitgeist infect you, you risk becoming cynical, depressed, and developing a victim mentality.

YinglingLight 8y ago

Is such histrionic journalism a byproduct of the current cultural infatuation of "victimization"? Living in a Golden Era doesn't fit the narrative.

CompelTechnic 8y ago
I think that we aren't exactly in a Golden Era, mostly due to a strong perception of middle class economic stagnation. This is regardless of the fact that material conditions around the world are improving very quickly. I think the victimization infatuation is just one of the symptoms of economic anxiety. The "Elephant Curve" (ref. enlightenment now, or googlable) has more explanatory power for middle class economic stagnation than anything else. If you are rich, things are great. If you are first world middle class, the amount of economic stagnation you've seen over the last decade or so probably provides a lot of anxiety. If you are living in a third world country, things are booming. This boom is fueled by geographic arbitrage of wages that in turn leads to the economic stagnation of the first world middle class. These middle class folks are paying a not-too-terrible price to pay in order to raise billions of people from extreme poverty. In net, it's an extremely good thing. But for the middle class at large, a lot of self-percieved human happiness is determined by the hedonic treadmill. If things aren't showing constantly material improvement, the feel like they are gettting worse, because humans are insatiable without progress. At an individual level, mindfulness and stoicism can help you get off the hedonic treadmill. At a societal level, the zeitgeist will become very anxious when this stagnation occurs, and if you let this zeitgeist infect you, you risk becoming cynical, depressed, and developing a victim mentality.