The bearded tublord sits there, fingers poised over the iPhone keyboard. He's ready for battle. The screen glows in the dark room, casting shadows on his face. This is his arena now.
No punches thrown here, just words. Sharp ones, meant to draw blood. He's picked his side. Everyone else is the enemy.
It didn't used to be this way. People argued, especially online, but even the most extremely online occasionally logged off. Now it’s all-out war, 24/7/365. Choose your weapon: X, Facebook, whatever. Pick your tribe and let the venom fly.
They've got cute names for it. Your pals are your "frens." The other guys? They're "enemas." Real clever stuff. Makes it all seem like a game.
But it's not a game. Not really. It's tearing us apart, this new tribal warfare. Family dinners turn into shouting matches. Old friends stop talking. All over what? Some memes and slogans they saw online?
The in-the-know posters have a name for it: "the friend-enemy distinction." Carl Schmitt cooked that up back in the 1920s. In The Concept of the Political, he concisely explained that politics writ large (or small) boils down to Us vs. Them. Guess he'd feel right at home on X.
Schmitt had it all figured out. Said the whole point of politics is deciding who's your friend and who's your enemy. Not just people you disagree with. Real enemies. The kind you'd be willing to fight and die to beat.
It's a simple formula. Your side tells the truth. The other side spews lies and propaganda. Black and white. No room for shades of gray.
Schmitt said it didn't matter what you were fighting over. Could be religion, money, race—whatever. As long as people were willing to go to war over it, that's all it took to make it political. He said you couldn't really have a country unless everyone agreed on who the enemies were. Thought liberal democracies were too soft, letting in people who didn't belong.
Schmitt figured you needed a strong leader to sort it all out. Someone to decide who's in and who's out. Who's a friend and who's an enemy. Sound familiar? Look at any groupchat on X—at least when they’re not soliciting pictures of your junk or sharing pictures of femboys. Everyone's an expert on who doesn't belong.
Pick your team. Take it personal. Make it personal. That's how it works in 2024. Maybe how it's always worked, if you buy what Schmitt was selling.
But it's all empty. Pathetic. Life's supposed to be about more than parroting slogans to fit in with your tribe. Even if we are "social animals" like the man the Arabs called "the First Teacher" said.
Schmitt thought this was the only way to give life meaning. Said without enemies to fight, we'd all just be shallow consumers. No higher purpose. Nothing worth dying for.
But is that really all there is? Kill or be killed? Us vs. Them, or else it’s living in the pod and buying the bugs from Amazon? Seems like a pretty grim way to look at the world.
Real strength comes from inside. From standing on your own two feet, not leaning on some online mob of people liking your posts for support. From thinking for yourself, not swallowing whatever the algorithm or influencers try to feed you.
The internet was supposed to bring us together. Open our eyes to new ideas. Instead it's got us huddled in our own little echo chambers, fingers in our ears, screaming at anyone who dares to disagree.
It's like we forgot how to talk to each other. How to listen. How to see the human being behind the screen name.
The guy at the keyboard doesn't see it that way. He's a warrior, fighting the good fight. Sticking it to the bad guys. Saving the world, one angry tweet at a time. But step back and look at the big picture. What's he really accomplishing? Making the world a better place? Or just edging and gooning all the livelong days as he adds more fuel to this great conflagration?
Schmitt thought this kind of conflict was inevitable. Natural. Even good for us. Said it gave life meaning. But look where it's got us. Divided. Angry. Unable to agree on basic facts.
It's easy to get caught up in it all. The constant stream of outrage. The thrill of landing a sick burn on some stranger online. The rush of likes and retweets when your small language model brain guesses the right serving of word salad to rile up your tribe.
But what are you left with? Imaginary internet points and a head full of anger. Meanwhile, the real world keeps on turning, oblivious to all the online drama.
Maybe it's time we all took a step back. Logged off for a while. Touched a few football fields worth of artificial grass. Remembered how to talk to people face to face. How to disagree without making it personal. How to see the humanity in those who think differently.
It won't be easy. The tribes run deep now. The battle lines are drawn. But it's worth a shot. Because this online civil war we're waging? Nobody can win because everybody who participates is a loser.
The tublord at the keyboard doesn't see it yet. He's too caught up in the fight. But someday, maybe, he'll look up from the screen and realize there's a whole world out there. One that's a lot more complicated—and a lot more interesting—than any online flame war.
Who knows? We might find we have more in common than we thought. And wouldn't that be something? A world where we don't need enemies to give our lives meaning. Where we can disagree without wanting to destroy each other.
Schmitt—a smarter man than "ya boi" here—might not approve. But then again, he's been sleeping the big sleep for decades. He’s not the one who has to live in this world we're creating. That's us. All of us. Frens and enemas alike.