Mad Online; Or, The Enemy of My Enemy
In The Fragile Absolute Slavoj Zizek wrote of the Balkans that they’re “always somewhere else, a little bit more towards the southeast. . . .” Pundits seem part of a parallel phantasmagoria, pointing in the opposite direction: always northwest, closer to a summer sun than us; always ahead. Nobody seems to claim to be a pundit; nobody is a pundit to themselves. Noah Berlatsky’s essay collection Chattering Class War is about these idiot ghosts. His goal is “to tell various pundits that they suck and are wrong.” To me, a pundit is any commentator more visible and less competent than me; to...…In The Fragile Absolute Slavoj Zizek wrote of the Balkans that they’re “always somewhere else, a little bit more towards the southeast. . . .” Pundits seem part of a parallel phantasmagoria, pointing in the opposite direction: always northwest, closer to a summer sun than us; always ahead. Nobody seems to claim to be a pundit; nobody is a pundit to themselves. Noah Berlatsky’s essay collection Chattering Class War is about these idiot ghosts. His goal is “to tell various pundits that they suck and are wrong.” To me, a pundit is any commentator more visible and less competent than me; to...WW…