The Top 5: From swatting to the end of the Resistance
Welcome to the latest edition of the Top 5 articles we’ve read this week. Each week, we read dozens of articles in the hope we find essays and reporting that speak to big ideas, trends, future looks, and incredible human stories. We hope you enjoy these articles, and do always let us know if you have a suggestion or a recommendation!
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The Top 5 articles for your week:
“Goodbye, ‘Resistance.’ The Era of Hyperpolitics Is Over.” (NYT)
Because Ross Barkan notices that this inauguration was different.
…this era: hyperpolitics. It denotes the period between the mid-2010s and the early 2020s, when politics engorged much of the public discourse. This was the moment of all-encompassing, high-stakes political stances, in which people looked out to see good always fighting evil — the far right taking up its tiki torches or antifa roving the streets — and culture turned into a perpetual tinderbox. It was, at times, a performance art, and notably mimetic. Its MAGA caps and pussy hats belonged to the same lineage of letting absolute strangers know exactly what your values are.
“The School Shootings Were Fake. The Terror Was Real” (Wired)
Because Dhruv Mehrotra’s reports how a 17-year-old hacker named Alan Filion (online name: Torswat) terrorized more than 45 schools and colleges over two years by calling in fake school shootings. The investigation is long and contains some vulgarity, but is worth your time.
The chaos, the fear, the dread and immense disruption triggered by that one haunting voice on the phone wasn’t targeted at Spokane alone. The call was one of dozens that a person who went by the online handle Torswats would make to law enforcement, targeting schools across Washington state over a little more than 24 hours.
“The Agony of Texting With Men” (The Atlantic)
Because Matthew Schnipper points out a particular driver of male loneliness: that texting is a burden.
The stereotype that men struggle to communicate is an old one. But modern friendship’s reliance on texting illuminates how grim the problem is. Many of the places where in-person relationships previously formed—offices, bars, churches—are no longer mandatory stops. Now “texting is our social experience,” Nick Brody, a communication-studies professor at the University of Puget Sound, told me. The medium, he said, can disadvantage men, who typically socialize in a “side by side” manner—playing or watching sports, for instance.
“Why So Many Working Class Americans Feel Left Out” (Substack)
Because Daniel Cox and Sam Pressler highlight a damning new statistic about those without college degrees in America.
…nearly a quarter of Americans without degrees report having no close friends, compared to 10 percent of Americans who completed college. It’s worth holding on this point for a second: the magnitude is jaw-dropping, but the meaning behind it is tragic. That’s no friends to pick them up when they’ve fallen on hard times, no friends with whom to share stories and heartfelt conversations, and no friends to accompany them through the inevitable ups and downs of life. A modest wage increase does little to reassure Americans feeling lonely and disconnected that everything is working as it should.
“Prosperity Versus Liberation” (Aeon)
Because Elle Hardy suggests “Pentecostalism’s prosperity gospel” has won the heart of Latin America over “Catholic liberation theology.”
The priests of liberation ‘opted for the poor, but the poor themselves opted for Pentecostalism,’ says Chesnut. But as the Spirit-led faith and its prosperity doctrine continues its unrelenting march through Latin America, it may just be that the very orthodox Catholic hierarchy in Europe that instigated the intellectual civil war in its own ranks is paying the greatest price.