Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan posted a video to his Twitter feed, where he compared Jews to termites. (He said: “I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-termite,” when talking about Jews who dislike him and say so.) There are a lot of people now calling for a denunciation of Mr. Farrakhan – and I’m not among them.
This rush to denunciation of others is dumb. It doesn’t (or shouldn’t?) really hurt the target of the denunciation – it only makes the people crying about others’ behavior feel better. It’s nothing more than a dopamine rush, a virtue signal, a way of saying “see how wonderful I am since I am putting down someone else’s behavior!”
It’d be far better to shrug and acknowledge the offense, and then… you know, stop paying attention to that person, if that’s a common pattern for them. (In Farakkhan’s case, it is; why do people pay any attention to him at all? he even tells his listeners in the video clip that ignoring him would hurt him more than whining about him.)
That way, they get to eat themselves alive with their hatred… or earn redemption on their own time. Everyone else gets to move along and find better voices to listen to, without burdening themselves with anger that can serve nothing and no-one.