primeideal

Fuzzing some identifying details because it's not super relevant, but. Politically I tend to be, by US standards, pretty left of center, and when I want to follow current events I usually turn to the Washington Post or maybe Politico, which skew fairly lefty. However, when I'm interested in long-term trends, in recent years I've found myself more moderate, or at least out of touch with some progressive trends. (Part of the reason I do this blog is because I'm not good at real-time, news-cycle, outrage culture, which a lot of social networks rely on, and I want to have a place to push back.) So I sometimes browse blogs/journals that skew conservative/heterodox (not particularly aligned with the Republican party, because that's a dumpster fire).

Anyway, a few days ago in one of these journals I find an article about "culture is bizarre because it's cool and hip to rebel against the man, but then those cool kids become the man, so that's awkward." Okay, interesting, I'll give it a read. Click through. Notice the author's name is someone who used to write for newspaper X in city Y, which is my hometown paper, and both the paper and the city skew to the left--this person was kind of the token conservative for a while. Okay, take what they say with a grain of salt.

The article: When I was a young person in the 80's, in City Y, I met some well-educated, socially conscious young people who had very strong opinions about Central American foreign policy.

Me: haha that sounds like my aunt and uncle, they are hippies. (And like, I love them and they love me, but it can be a little frustrating trying to explain where my neuroses and complexes come from when my parents' take on all their far-left, holier-than-thou activism is just "this is normal, you know, we all have different ways of changing the world.")

The article: anyway here are some paragraphs from other critiques of US culture, blah blah blah

Me: yes fine, blah blah

The article (right towards the end): Anyway, so a few months ago I was arguing in newspaper X, and one of those old hippies who's now an oldster academic, Mr. Z, made a stupid hippy response.

Me: ...wait, this is literally my uncle. My uncle got in a fight with this columnist and is now being dunked on in the conservative journals??!

I...don't know how I feel about this?? A little proud, a little "so it's not just me who thinks he's too much sometimes," and a little "on most issues I would probably agree with him much more than I do with this person, but...2020 was weird, man."