"Let not mind thwart spleen"

Alan Jacobs no longer tweets but he did check Twitter today. He found tweets denouncing something one of his friends had written. From "a word of exhortation" (which includes a really good book recommendation):

.... Some of the commenters were stupid people, of course, but a number of them weren't. However, they were trying to be. That is, they couldn't possibly have been dumb enough, or sufficiently incompetent at reading, to believe that the post's author had said the things they were claiming he said. But making those ridiculous and insupportable claims gave them the opportunity to score political points. Or, at least, they believed, and rightly, that people who shared their politics would think points had been scored.

I left Twitter and picked up a book — P.D. James's Death in Holy Orders, which I had read (and loved) when it first appeared but which has receded far enough in the rear-view mirror of memory that I can now enjoy it a second time. And what struck me about the book, as I immersed myself in it, was simply this: that it was written by a very intelligent person who valued intelligence, not least in her readers. Imagine that, I thought; believing that intelligence matters, that the exercise of it is good, that it is good for us all if we pursue it together.

I think I have been away from Twitter long enough now to see what it has become: a venue for people who don't just preen themselves on their righteous anger, but who also work diligently to suppress their intelligence so that that that righteous anger may be put before the world in a condition of laboratory purity. Let not mind thwart spleen — that is the unofficial motto, now, of Twitter.

Let me exhort you, people: close Twitter and read a book. ....

a word of exhortation - Text Patterns - The New Atlantis