Ground Zero Shaken

Tim Walberg’s inhumanity bomb has caused a shock wave beyond expectations.

This essay belongs to my new format “The Skirmish,” short and swift comments via texts and podcasts (in addition to my longer texts) that will be accessible to paid subscribers.

In the context of dropping a nuclear bomb, the term “Ground Zero” refers to the point on our planet’s surface directly under the explosion. Now imagine a society – for instance, that of the USA – and think of it as having a surface of conventions, made up of what its members usually accept as, if not necessarily right, then, at least, sayable and doable. A surface is superficial, by definition. Don’t expect it to display traces of intellectual rigor or ethical effort (those things and the people busy with them also exist, but you will have to dig to find them).

The shape of the surface of convention is molded by conformism and opportunism, elementary forces of social cohesion that keep humans together, at the cost of regular mass moral failure. On good days. On bad ones, the cost rises to sheer collective evil, such as pervasive participation in and support for genocidal mass murder and ethnic cleansing (the most egregious example at this moment is, of course, Israeli society).