jcsbimp01

Getting Meta (but not Meta) on "Let People Enjoy Things"

which, hereafter in this post, I abbreviate as LPET

I've been, I think, on all sides of LPET, including frequently needing to be told to LPET, but also telling others to LPET, and of course enjoying the "thing" that someone could not just let me enjoy without a disparaging comment.

But it also includes sometimes disagreeing with LPET or, like here, wanting to scrutinize the philosophy behind it. I understand the need not to be a buzzkill, and the good friendship in tolerating, or even encouraging, a joy one does not share, rather than criticize it.

I also understand, or fancy that I do, two principles or topics that contrast with an LPET-positive online practice:

1. Criticizing is not necessarily "not letting people enjoy things." In fact, some people's "thing" is expressing something they perceive as wrong or misguided about a fad or fashion; others simply like the practice of delivering devastating bon mots, which often target what someone is doing or the way they are doing it. This kind of criticism-for-entertainment makes LPET a two-way street or even a paradox.

2. LPET might ignore, or perhaps conveniently forget about, those sources of enjoyment that seem to cultivate deliberate ignorance, above and beyond being some sort of mindless activity. These are the kinds of activities that, if a reasoning person thought about them "too much," reveal themselves as either absurd or tacky. They actually seem to be commodities of a deliberate design to decrease the cultural IQ; i.e., to "dumb down the masses." What can we say of fads, fashions, and trends whose designers openly acknowledge that they prey on ignorance or lack of taste? Should people say nothing about this fact? Is it not cultural responsibility to wake our fellow human beings out of that kind of entertainment-induced stupor?

Indeed, both of these principles point to a paradox. And LPET seems an oversimplification: There are all sorts of "things":

* Sports (the first example I saw of someone saying LPET)

* Disco

* Wordle

* Rock and Roll

* Recreational sex

* The works of Ayn Rand

Leave all of these "things" and the people who enjoy them alone, as a rule, at your peril.

The paradox could even go further. Like the John Pavlovitz open table and its one self-referential rule that intolerance and hateful attitudes are not admitted - the table is NOT open to them - one can find many strange exceptions when one peers deeply enough down the rabbit hole: a danger when one's good idea is starting to become an ideology, with its own brand of ideologues. Witness, in this example, what happened when someone (whom I love and admire) announced on a post by Mr. Pavlovitz that they wondered whether or not a shirt that said "Empathetic as F@#%" was insensitive to the point of being offensive, even to fans of Mr. Pavlovitz and his Open Table. As is all too often the case in social media discourse, this discussion got too ugly, too quickly ... and it could be argued that in defending his shirt and his right not to be criticized or even questioned about the wisdom of merchandising it, Mr. Pavlovitz turned his back on some of the very "open table" principles he preaches and has spread so ably and admirably.

Messy, messy, messy. Perhaps the LPET credo, if anyone has taken it as a credo, falters only in failing to acknowledge just how messy our social media interactions, and our likes and dislikes, both become and need to be.

Freedom is a curious commodity - and some would have you not think too deeply about how curious. But that's their thing. Let them enjoy it.