I have to agree with you here. Though I have viewed only a tiny fraction of Kirk's so-called debates, what I have seen isn't very impressive. One of the things that really struck me about them was Kirk's apparent lack of engagement with his opponents. I saw one video in which he not only refused to look the other man in the eye as he spoke, but had the casual audacity to scribble his autograph on a MAGA hat for some fan of his while replying — as if the whole exchange amounted to no more than a bit of gossip between two old women as they pinch produce at the market. Even conservative apologists like Dinesh D'souza and Ben Shapiro take their jobs more seriously that Charlie Kirk did. His rise to fame can only be explained by comparing the USA to a toilette bowel.
I think your next essay should be about why so many people will refuse to speak ill of the recently dead even if they would have roasted them with glee a week before. Why does being dead confer dignity on even he most ridiculous human specimens?
It's a good question, and it would apply to the awkwardness of funerals too. Who are eulogies for if the departed are truly departed? The pose is that we speak to the dead even though we're really speaking to the living, and we know it's absurd but we do it anyway. We suspend our disbelief. It's a worthy subject, and I'll give it some thought.
Mind you, the case of MAGA's exploitation of Kirk's death isn't so interesting since it's straightforward opportunism. It's a pretext to impose authoritarianism.
I have to agree with you here. Though I have viewed only a tiny fraction of Kirk's so-called debates, what I have seen isn't very impressive. One of the things that really struck me about them was Kirk's apparent lack of engagement with his opponents. I saw one video in which he not only refused to look the other man in the eye as he spoke, but had the casual audacity to scribble his autograph on a MAGA hat for some fan of his while replying — as if the whole exchange amounted to no more than a bit of gossip between two old women as they pinch produce at the market. Even conservative apologists like Dinesh D'souza and Ben Shapiro take their jobs more seriously that Charlie Kirk did. His rise to fame can only be explained by comparing the USA to a toilette bowel.
ReplyDeleteI think your next essay should be about why so many people will refuse to speak ill of the recently dead even if they would have roasted them with glee a week before. Why does being dead confer dignity on even he most ridiculous human specimens?
It's a good question, and it would apply to the awkwardness of funerals too. Who are eulogies for if the departed are truly departed? The pose is that we speak to the dead even though we're really speaking to the living, and we know it's absurd but we do it anyway. We suspend our disbelief. It's a worthy subject, and I'll give it some thought.
DeleteMind you, the case of MAGA's exploitation of Kirk's death isn't so interesting since it's straightforward opportunism. It's a pretext to impose authoritarianism.