Tug of War

For John, BLUF:  .Tensions are rising and the rhetoric is rising.  Time to calm down a bit.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Fraying

From According to Hoyt, by Author Sarah A Hoyt, 28 October 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

Have you ever been in a tug of war? One with a fraying rope?  Probably not.

I suspect most tugs of war in the US would be supervised contexts, either at school or in other circumstances.

But I’ve had tugs of war with rotting rope.  It looks fine, and suddenly it parts.  And both sides fall.  Hard.  Sometimes there are injuries.

I wonder how many people out there are oblivious to the fact that we’re in a cold civil war.

I’d known it for over a decade, back when I was reading at Classical Values and saw the situation framed in that way.

But it became clearest to me over Sad Puppies.

Look, I’m not an infant.  or a child.  I knew the establishment in science fiction was hard left.  I knew it well enough to keep my mouth shut till I couldn’t anymore.

I even knew there was a style of science fiction being pushed hard.  “Literary.”  And I know what Literary means these days.

Well, it means what it does every age, right?  The prestige writing, the type the contemporary critics value is that which displays the marks of an excellent education and hews to that which professors of literature (or the gentry, mutatis, mutandis) say books/plays/poetry should do.

As Winston said, "Jaw, Jaw, Jaw is better than war, war, war.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff