Isnt it obvious that Twitter should be abandoned by any serious leftist except for posting links, photos, etc? It was relatively easy for Steven Salaita to be victimized because tweets by definition are superficial. Leaving aside the question of their susceptibility to oversimplification, there is something inherently counterproductive to them in terms of the debate that is necessary for us on the left when it comes to important questions of policy. For example, I follow Chase Madar and Vijay Prashad on Twitter. I have enormous respect for Chase and Vijay but differ sharply with them on Syria as I do with most on the left to be sure--after all, thats what makes life interesting. But on the few occasions that I have chosen to reply to their tweets on these questions, I could not help but think what an idiot I was for bothering. 140 characters? Really? I tried to deal with my differences with other leftists on Syria in a blog post that was 6,000 words long. How in the world am I supposed to make my case in 140 characters? Isnt it time that serious leftists weaned themselves off of Twitter? Yes, we are all breathlessly awaiting to hear what you ate at an airport in Paris or about your chagrin over discovering some gray hair but not so much on geopolitics or Marxist theory, at least on Twitter.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 15:07:52 +0000
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