A game of Joshua Boger

Wednesday 10/14/26

Bad people make excuses for bad people.

Stupid people make excuses for stupid people.

So what do you think bad and stupid people do?

Go through life named Joshua Boger?

Ah, I see the class is doing jokes. Yes, sometimes. Our current world is like a twisted game. Bad is good, the indefensible is to be defended, etc. I see this constantly now. People say things so wrong. Do things that are so wrong. If someone comes along--let's say this is within some online space--and says what you'd think is the only sane response, that person will be attacked.

I'll give you an example. The Cornell seven. We've talked about that in these pages. People on the Grateful Dead Reddit page use this idea of gang rape for meme-making. Let's consider these people. We aren't talking, comparatively, the dregs of society. Someone who is into the Grateful Dead is far likelier to have a college degree--or degrees--than not. They could be someone who once called themselves a hippie. That is, someone who espouses peace, love, what have you. In theory. They're almost certain to be a liberal. If they're a Republican, they'll be older, but I can't imagine there are any twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty-something Grateful Dead fans who vote for Donald Trump.

I keep seeing variations on the same meme in this Reddit group. People have an image of some character from a recent animated film on the left, with a bright, sunny background, captioned, "Cornell 77," in reference to the famous (and massively overrated show the Dead played there in May of that year, but we'll leave that aside for now), and then on the right there'll be another image with the same character, only now the back ground is all dark and foreboding, and the caption will read, "Cornell 7," because, you know, gang rape ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

The comments in following say words to the effect of, wow, that's a truly funny meme, what great stuff, with everyone making light. Gang rape means nothing to these people. They're totally unbothered by it. They don't care. Didn't happen to them. We all have mothers, do we not? Many of us have sisters and/or daughters. But people only care about themselves. They've de-humanized themselves to the point that they have no human feeling. They're no longer human. Which is why they don't see "fellow humans," and people are something else to them, like, for instance, content fodder.

Morality, as such, is but a gesturing device, a technique; the aim of that device/technique is attention, and whatever else it may confer upon that person; what, in other words, it can get them, do for them. Remember that phrase I used yesterday: pass over the top. Same idea. The words and their meaning aren't being filtered through the brain; they're passing over the top of the brain as they're said or written.

It's Pavlovian. That person knows what to say--without it registering cognitively--to get the treat. Words--including the words people use--and their meanings don't imprint on their brains; they pass over the top. They're sounds and symbols that produce effects, generate desired responses, are met with rewards.

People aren't abiding by personal standards because they're without any. There isn't some moral code they have within themselves. They are only ever moved to care if something impacts them. A thing is only "wrong" insofar as it makes a problem for them. Including if it stems from them being the problem and getting caught/facing consequences.

I can almost guarantee that Brock Turner thinks those two guys who stopped him mid-rape at Stanford are assholes. Just like Joshua Boger thought I was an asshole for stating it was wrong for David Sedaris to hold and express the view (actually, set down this view in a book for posterity, which his agent and his editor also had no issue with) that the disabled annoy him, and rather than seeking employment which could result in him having to interact with them at, say, a store, should stay home instead, journaling about their plight as a disabled person. Boger, in effect, defended that behavior; then, he had no compunction financially rewarding the doer of that behavior (as we see in bringing Sedaris back to Symphony Hall this year).

These are facts and truths. There is no denying that nor disproving them.

If you were to post a comment saying anything critical of about the gang rape meme, of treating such a thing as a joke--and a moronic one at that--or so much as asking, "You think that's funny?" or "You think that's appropriate?" you will get downvoted into oblivion.

You, and you alone, will be seen as the bad person. The villain. For suggesting it isn't funny to make gang rape jokes. What else would you like to do this with? A mentally impaired person losing his life because he went into a tiger enclosure? You probably saw posts of Tony the Tiger memes saying, "He tasted great!!!" And if you cared to look at the comments, you would have maybe seen a lone comment saying saying how wrong it is to post such a thing, to behave in such a manner, with many comments then attacking that person for not thinking being evil is wonderful.

It's all there to be seen. I'm not doing conjecture.

This is how the world now works. If someone speaks to what is the lone sane thing, or has the lone non-evil response, that person will be regarded as the monster. They'll be in the smallest of minorities.

Why?

I'll say it again:

Bad people make excuses for bad people.

Stupid people make excuses for stupid people.

So what do you think bad and stupid people do?

Virtually everyone now is bad and stupid. People defend behavior that is similar to their own and is consistent with their mental and moral make-up. In essence, they're defending themselves, both preemptively and post-hoc. There's no bottom here. There's no, "That's too far."

We've talked about usage of the r-word on here lately. Note any instance online in which a person calls out the usage of that word. Watch what happens. They are attacked. Thinking using that word is wrong, just like thinking Grateful Dead-based gang rape jokes are wrong, ought to be the only non-insane thought one can have. Because if that's not wrong, what is?

I'll tell you: goodness is now wrong. Sanity is now wrong. Morals are wrong. Having a conscience is wrong. Kindness is wrong. Not being in that overpopulated group of the lowest of the low--which presently functions as the median--is wrong.

Display any of these things, and you become the wolf that is hunted in the woods. You, alone, hunted by the group. Only here, the group reflects the attitudes of the village.

I began by mentioning Harvard's Joshua Boger again. And we will be circling back to the board for Boston's Celebrity Series. We'll go right into the privileged Brookline lives of some of them.

They actually brought David Sedaris back again this past spring to Symphony Hall. That's amazing, isn't it? Those people on that board knew from the year before what David Sedaris said about the disabled: that they shouldn't be working because they annoy him, and instead ought to remain at home writing in journals about being disabled.

I mean...what level of evil is that? Is that not the definition incarnate of the word "indefensible"?

Every last one of those people I sent that email to about this last year on that Celebrity Series board received and read that email. Do you think I'd say that if I didn't know?

And despite that, and despite knowing how David Sedaris views the disabled and how he believes they should live--by removing themselves from the world so that he doesn't have to see, hear, or interact with them--they essentially said they feel that way, too. Certainly that this is an okay way to be. It's not hateful. It's not wrong.

Apparently, it's great. It's something to aspire to. They think highly of David Sedaris, who thinks these things. They venerate him. I have the Celebrity Series's own write-up right here in front of me about how wonderful David Sedaris is. Obviously the board is cool with that description in their brochure materials.

You go, brother, and fuck those disabled people, right? Ha! Fuck 'em!!!!! Stay home, freak! Awww, did mommy forget to buy you a new journal? Ha ha!!!

Now, if this became a news story, they all would be forced to resign, careers would end, apologies would be issued by a PR firm--probably multiple PR firms--but because nothing happened--at least not yet--they just ran that evil back, so to speak.

That's some pretty hubristic evil, isn't it?

Look at Boger from before, fulminating like a person made crazy by their thralldom to evil. Or vice versa. That wanton heartlessness, that unbridled arrogance. Screaming at me, as though I'm the bad guy for thinking it's wrong to say/write/publish that the disabled don't deserve to have jobs and should remain home being sad about being disabled and journaling on that theme.

In our world, the person who says "Um, that's actually not so great," when that is the only reaction a sane, non-evil person could have, becomes the bad person.

Like I said, a sick, twisted game, that would be unbelievable if we didn't have the constant proof that this is now how the world is.