Sensibility vs ideology

Or why some heterodoxies went MAGA and others did not

When I think about what it was about the long 2010s I found so unpleasant at the time, and what it is about its legacy (it’s still the 2010s in Canada, kind of) that puts me off, I keep returning to the same thought, which is that it isn’t anything about policy. Some of the policy requests of that era made sense to me, others did not, but that’s not it. It’s about sensibility.

By “sensibility” I mean a certain tone. Sometimes hectoring, sometimes educational, sometimes smug. I don’t just mean call-outs or pile-ons. I mean the way everything was talked about. The flattened register. It wasn’t just that there was a revival of 1990s PC, but with a new set of unacceptable terminology. It was that there was a whole manner of speech that was meant to signal sensitivity. Hand-wringing and throat-clearing to signal that you knew that if you spoke from a position of privilege, you had to be a bit on-edge.

Humorlessness. Humorlessness was central to the new sensibility. Kat and I were onto something when we took on Nanette, Hannah Gadsby’s 2018 anti-comedy comedy special. It’s not funny, it’s serious. Or: Given the hellscape (gestures) how could you speak in such a light-and-carefree manner? This is the vibe on Bluesky still, although in Bluesky’s defense, it isn’t funny when ICE is abducting and tormenting 5-year-olds, and that is the platform’s sole focus (apart from sports; pauses in horrible-news coverage are permitted if a ball is going from team to team in a zig-zag).

I was listening to the Canada-themed Blocked and Reported episode with Katie Herzog interviewing Jon Kay. (Obviously I was listening to this!) Katie was asking Jon about whether there was any indication of which former heterodox sorts (they were specifically talking about the so-called “intellectual dark web” or was it “international” I will never remember) would go MAGA or illiberal or otherwise lose their minds. Jon was saying there wasn’t, or that maybe there was but it had to do with who was or wasn’t touching grass.

I started to think it might be something else entirely: some were put off by 2010s sanctimony, by the sensibility of the 2010s, while others were earnestly freaking out that white men were now society’s true oppressed. Some found it hard to take that one was expected to say “pregnant people” when let’s be real, there are like three pregnant individuals out of three gazillion who don’t call themselves/present as women. Others were prepared to vote for Trump over such expressions.

If what put you off were the sensibilities more than the policies, then you probably didn’t do a sharp-right turn. Indeed, if you prefer the policies of the 2010s, or of Democrats, maybe with whichever exceptions but on the whole, if it’s a no-brainer for you which way you’re going, then chances are you did not switch your political leanings just because 2010s progressivism came bundled with the most off-putting sensibility of maybe any movement of all time. Again not the worst politics (hardly!!!) but sensibility? Kind of! Imagine being that devoted to seriousness and sanctimony, that opposed to laughter and a light touch.

There is some relationship between sensibilities and ideology. As in, there is an illiberalism in thou shalt not joke around. But the answer, the alternative, is not thou shalt use slurs at every opportunity. Anti-woke ‘comedy’ is the unfunny mirror image of the thing it opposes.

But maybe my issue here is that I am ultimately a sensibility guy more than an ideology guy. This comes up with my straight-women book as well, which is more impressionistic and descriptive and cultural (and, I have been told, funny) than quantitative or more to the point didactic. I make no claims of swooping in to solve a pressing social issue. I think straight women are at a symbolic crossroads but, on the whole, doing just fine. I object more to the sensibilities of how straight womanhood’s discussed than to anything material in the culture. I’m not advocating for more or fewer marriages, higher or lower birthrates, or for anyone to be straighter or less straight than they currently are.