Paul Cantrell
Adam Serwer’s essay “The Cruelty Is the Point” changed the way I inhabit the world. I already had the pieces. I already understood them, sort of. Yet when I read his writing, something clicked for me. I see the world differently after reading it.
It’s a piece that is worth rereading now, all the way to its powerful final paragraph:
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Paul Cantrell
I can’t remember how long it’s been since I read a piece like that in The Atlantic.
What I can remember is a parade of facile pieces that present deliberate obtuseness as evidence in favor of morally abhorrent conclusions.
I do want publications that challenge my assumptions — but only if that challenege results in me saying “Oh, I see something new!” and not “Ugh, how annoying!” as if they came from a Reply Guy with a copy editor.
I used to be a paid Atlantic subscriber. Used to.
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Paul Cantrell
@mybarkingdogs Thanks, updated OP
mybarkingdogs
@inthehands BTW, here's archive.is for anyone running into the paywall: https://archive.is/bZyGQ
Donald Ball
@inthehands @mybarkingdogs I subscribed on the strength of that piece, to support Adam and his cohort of diverse, challenging essayists.
I cancelled when they printed Tumulty’s Nancy Reagan AIDS revisionist piece. Their editorial staff is making choices, that’s for sure.
Paul Cantrell
@panamared27401 @mybarkingdogs
I mean, the point of the opening paragraphs is that it long predates the present political era
Panama Red
@inthehands Great article, although this was already true of Republicans long before Trump descended his golden escalator like a half a ton of manure being lowered by a freight elevator. @mybarkingdogs
Paul Cantrell
@marick @donaldball @mybarkingdogs
Yes, agreed.
Brian Marick
@donaldball @inthehands @mybarkingdogs It hurt, canceling my subscription, because Ed Yong’s work on Covid was stellar.
Paul Cantrell
@kims
Oof, a gut punch indeed.
Kim Scheinberg
@inthehands
It's this bit that haunts me all these years later:
"As Lili Loofbourow wrote of the Kavanaugh incident in Slate, adolescent male cruelty toward women is a bonding mechanism, a vehicle for intimacy through contempt. The white men in the lynching photos are smiling not merely because of what they have done, but because they have done it together."
"intimacy through contempt" was a gut punch because it described the basis of too many of my friendships
It rewrote my address book
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