Liminal Space

Standing in a runner's corral before being let loose into The New Normal.

As the culture becomes ever more steeped in the Internet, I’m sure eventually there will come a term for the state of being not quite fully logged off social media, not wishing to engage or view the TL in any way, yet sufficiently paying attention at the periphery in order to catch the broader strokes of the discourse. The in-between of logged off and lurking. That’s where I’ve been the last few weeks.

From what I saw before retreating to this space, and from what I’ve gleaned piecing things together from this vantage point, it’s an especially tedious time to be extremely online, especially if one has any desire to improve things or avoid being pulled down into despair.

A glimpse of the future is straining to come into focus, and as always, there’s a contest to be the one to call it most accurately. We all intuit that dark times lie ahead, beyond whatever time frame exists with covid. What greets us there is surely some form of advanced capitalism, a beefed-up surveillance state abetted by a few private sector behemoths, what some are presaging as neo-feudalism.

Staving off this dystopia already looks lost, and mitigating its horrors a joke, thanks to a pandemic and a political system hellbent on representing fewer and fewer no matter the side, yet conscripting nearly everyone into despoiling culture war. Factions of the online left took a brief break at the outset of quarantine to talk a good game about solidarity, yet shortly thereafter picked up right where they left off: in-fighting, recriminations over the primary, cancelling, the frantic game of pulling down anyone with more shine or attention than you. I can’t blame some for being driven further online by quarantine, though at what point do people ever get exhausted with these dynamics?

By no means am I not susceptible to counterproductive ways to blow off steam; I simply find them particularly nauseating at this moment. And I feel like I need to do more to protect my well-being. I’m quarantining alone, and the job I’m doing most is phonebanking, which entails a ratio of interaction that skews a bit toward hostility over engagement. 40 hours a week of that wears on me enough that I don’t want to add the stresses of social media on top of the psychological burden of being psychically by myself. I do what I can to keep up, knowing I’ll return to the fray sooner or later, but for now I’m husbanding my mental and emotional resources as best I can.

Like nearly everyone, I’m spiritually and mentally run down by quar. I want to move freely, see my friends, gather among strangers, possibly view a sport. I still have good days, though, and many are suffering constantly, so I try to keep it in perspective. Curosity about the exact shape this dismal future takes is a morbid one, perhaps, but what is there to do but prepare, so I understand the interest even if I don’t want to participate in the take economy at this time. Tempting as it is to fall into doomer mentality and nihilism, I’m allowing myself a more survivalist bent until conditions become less nebulous. I’m fortunate that I can wait that out in the most comfortable setting I can make for myself.

Here are some things I’ve been distracting myself with:

Books:

“Manufacturing Consent” — Given that media criticism during the primary often boiled down to namechecking this term, I figured it was time to make sure I had read it myself. Boning up on the history of the subservience of the press to the state during Vietnam and American imperial interventions in Central America in the ‘80s was instructive, though I found the concept of the media having worthy and unworthy victims - depending on the power it is serving, be it governmental or corporate - to be something I relate to in my experience. Certainly this applied in the primary. Think of the way the media soft-pedaled the Nazi flag at Bernie’s rally, because he was not someone they were interested in depicting sympathetically. What’s going on now with the media and Tara Reade is such a shameful campaign that exposes the seams of social conditioning, just the abrupt shifts of standards and narratives to suit specific interests. Now the liberal corporate media is trying to thread the needle of showing sufficient credence to Tara Reade while always in the context that nothing will happen as a result of this. Or that rival political interests are scoring points off both the story and the ensuing media criticism, a blatant deflectionary tactic that only serves to move the conversation away from potential accountability.

“Aftermath” — Alec Klein, former journalism professor and head of the Innocence Project at Northwestern, sent me an advance copy of his upcoming memoir. He lays out a compelling case of how the university and other journalism professionals gave into the pressure of a PR scandal amid a moral panic, abandoning any integrity of process that had come before to essentially railroad him, how it shattered both psyche and life, and yet he kept on pursuing the project of helping free people wrongfully or excessively convicted (by law, not the press). Being pushed out of a profession is really a traumatizing experience because it exposes how specialized labor is across industries. An incredibly accomplished person in one field can’t even get an entry level position in another with some overlapping skills.

Music:

Liked the new Fiona Apple, am thankful to have missed most of the discourse around it.

Movies:

They Live — Think I might have Roddy Piper’s hair style by the end of quar. Hulu made me sign up for a free trial of Starz to view a movie in their catalog, one of those annoying things you have to remember to cancel in a week before they start billing you. Next time I went into the archives, they required me to sign up for their $60 streaming TV service, lol fuck that

Games:

Final Fantasy VII Remake — About halfway through. I didn’t have a Playstation in high school so I missed out when it was a minor cultural phenomenon in the late ’90s. Never could commit to the timesuck in the intervening years. FF7 arrived just at that point in adolescence when I didn’t quite have as much free time anymore. The Final Fantasy games for the SNES are among my all-time faves. I knew FF7 was culturally important but I guess I never realized how much of an anti-capitalism allegory it is. I might have made the plunge earlier!

Doom Eternal — Very soothing during quarantine to blast your way through literal hell. I know Animal Crossing is **having a moment** but sorry I’m different.