Those who have an idea how a movement in the arts begins and
develops know that it goes through several stages during which time each of the
participating artists takes it a step further ahead till it reaches its ultimate
form. It is then given a name such as Expressionism or Cubism or Modern, for
example.
While this sort of development is associated with painting
more than any other endeavor, it applies to the other forms as well, though in
a less spectacular way. Sculpture goes through a similar evolution too, as does
writing where for example; Classicism, Romanticism and Elizabethan make the
list.
What is not yet taken seriously is the movement that has
been developing in journalistic punditry over say, the past three decades. I do
not have a name for what is developing; and there might not be one for several
more decades. But what I can say with certainty is that a distinct movement is
shaping, and Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal may become one of its leaders.
The reason why I bring this up is that Stephens took the
movement a huge step further ahead while writing his most recent column. It has
the title: “The Evil in Boston” and was published in the Journal on April 23,
2013. More than any time before, he comes out and serves notice that he has no
use for a debate that will unfold in the style of the “give and take.” He will
simply put his ideas down, and the reader will have to accept them as
definitive and absolute. Otherwise, it's too bad for the reader, and that's
that.
He begins by saying he saw human carnage; he understands it
and has no words for it. He then gives a hint as to how he will frame this
discussion. He does so starting with the proposition: “Before we move on from
Boston.” He goes on to acknowledge six other topics he could have discussed
before moving on to something else but neglects to discuss any of them.
Instead, he demands that we: “remind ourselves what the [Boston] duo was up to
on the afternoon of April 15, 2013.”
He does that by describing in detail the bombings that the
Boston duo committed. He also probes their minds as they took the time, made
the effort to build the bombs, took them to the place where they were to be
detonated, placed them in their strategic positions “...then the explosions.
And the panic. And the cascade of blood on the street.” He also reports on the
description given by the hospital doctor who triaged the wounded victims that
came in. This part reminded Stephens of his own experience when he saw the aftermath
of a similar act a little more than ten years ago.
He then does something that reminds you, the reader, of the
old saying: “War brutalizes some people and ennobles other people.” It is
obvious that Bret Stephens was brutalized by his experience because what he
does next is write the following: “That's why so much of the commentary about
Boston seems so curiously off point.” In other words, he says that no
commentary made previously could begin to compare with the commentary he just
made. And no commentary after that is worth making.
To justify this last point, he mocks (1) the commentators
who mentioned the role of the Twitter in the manhunt, (2) the commentators who
spoke of the courage exhibited by the residents of Boston, (3) the commentators
who delved into the alienation of young men. To end his presentation, he
concedes that these points may be important “but … before you go into
constructive mode, reflect on what has been destroyed … by whom?”
And this is where you see how false and empty is the movement that the
new writing style represents. First, Bret Stephens mocks the commentators who
spoke of the alienated young that committed the violent acts. He then urges the
same commentators to reflect on those who committed the violent acts. He does it
like someone totally oblivious of the fact that the alienated young committed
the violence because the alienation played a role in motivating them.
It is evident that Stephens has difficulty accepting that people
everywhere are made of the same genetic material. Were he to grasp this notion,
he would have understood the argument that a violent act committed by one is as
bad as a violent act committed by another one. Thus, he would have reasoned
that someone seeing his mother or little sister blown up by a smart bomb
dropped from a jet plane or a helicopter can be ennobled or brutalized the same
as someone seeing a homemade bomb explode in the middle of a crowd.
When alienated in addition to that, either one of the two can go on to
commit bad acts because violence begets violence – and that's a vicious cycle
we can do without. To avoid it, we need to deescalate the conflict by reducing
the differences between the antagonists whenever they appear on the scene.
To do this, we look at the two sides of the story by allowing the debate
to go on unimpeded rather than kill the full message or kill half of it as
suggested by Bret Stephens.