The Twitter Ban: Handshakes and Email

On Mimetic Violence and the Necessity of Restraint

The events that have unfolded in the United States during the first nine days of 2021 have been troubling and sad, to say the least. 

I’ve spent more time in the past 72 hours listening to commentary than I normally allow myself in the course of an entire month. I felt that I had to, though, because this has been the playing-out-in-the-real-world of everything I’ve been writing about for the past two years. I take no pleasure in that. 

I have noticed a deafening silence on one particular issue (which we’ll get to momentarily). The “experts” are looking past it. Or perhaps they have simply overlooked it because it has to do with human nature—something we seem to be in the process of trying to obliterate. 

Perhaps this thing that I am referring to is too close for us to see properly. It’s more than close: it’s inside of us. And in a society filled with people who have little capacity for self-reflection—who seek technological or political solutions to every human problem—it’s no surprise t…