A Catastrophic Erosion of Social Norms
An incomplete list of powerful writing on the last week of crisis in Israel
Israeli Sunset Photo by Cristina Gottardi (Unsplash)
My finger has been hovering indecisively over the keyboard like a wasp with amnesia, unsure of what to think, write or do today. I don’t read the news anymore in the concentrated form I used to consume it, back in the days when I had subscriptions to various newspapers and weekly magazines, in the good old days when you could read the Economist and not have World Economic Forum propaganda rammed down your throat and I haven’t watched televised news for decades. I subscribe to the view that I will pick up whatever happens that has some relevance to my world soon enough and if it isn’t relevant then I will have lost nothing in not having my synapses artificially frazzled with fear-inducing headlines and bloodthirsty voyeuristic revelling in human tragedy. It has worked well so far for me and kept my mind calmer and my sleep better than it would otherwise have been. The practice also keeps me from having to have an opinion on the horror du jour and I quite like the experience of having no idea what people are talking about and trying to figure out the story from the commentary, the topic usually being assumed to be well-understood by everyone in the room or at the table.
When the news of the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians was unleashed on the 7th October, the Shabat massacre forced its way past all my defences and has flooded my consciousness in a way that almost no event of the past decades has done. I have to wonder what is so different about this event that it should so violently occupy my space and thinking and take up residence inside me quite so viscerally? Why this attack after a lifetime of confrontation with conflict stories between Israel and its neighbours and unrest in the Middle East?
I think the answer lies in the way in which the Hamas atrocity has consumed the broad range of Substack authors and publicists whose writing and thinking I admire and which has severely rattled an entire community from social commentators, economic analysts, investment experts, geopolitical strategists, philosophers, education specialists, marketing panjandrums, Christian theologists, energy professionals and friends who just like to write and share their perspectives. Everybody has been shaken by this event and everyone appears to need to process their reactions through the prism of their expertise and experience. I feel that need too, but am going to process it differently, as I don’t have any claim to a personal connection or any special knowledge that might qualify me for a enlightening perspective. I feel in my bones that this week marked a watershed and I need to mark it.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Pitchfork Papers to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.