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Yes, Ezra, Everything Is Politicized. Welcome to the Party, Pal!

When I read Ezra Klein's blog post on #GamerGate decrying "the politicization of everything," my first instinct was to mock it. After all, the left has done a very good job of creating a world in which everything—every controversy, every odd word, every silly little thing—becomes a life and death struggle between the right and the left, between evil and good.

This response was uncharitable.* Instead, allow me to welcome Ezra into the fold of folks who are increasingly worried about the politicized life and the damage it is doing to the polity. It's not terribly surprising that #GamerGate phenomenon has caused him to take notice of the problem. As I have argued previously, #GamerGate has made the left, broadly speaking, extremely uncomfortable because it's the first time in living memory that the tactics they have championed—the campaigns to silence and ostracize and deprive livelihood—have been effectively turned against them.** Our overly politicized society is nothing new, of course. After all, we live in a world in which the left wants to use the power of the government to force a renaming of the Washington Redskins. It's a world in which the left embarks on a national conversation about a catcalling video that quickly devolves into a rejiggering of the pyramid of grievances over whether or not society is more racist or more sexist. Indeed, ours is a world in which the left believes it is not only appropriate but also just to deprive a person of their livelihood for donating money to a political cause or making an inappropriate joke.

We live in a world in which the editor of a major progressive news outlet feels comfortable vocally supporting a law he acknowledges will lead to the unjust imprisonment of innocent men in order to combat the vastly overblown "epidemic" of sexual assault on college campuses because, hey, we need to change the "culture."

So if Klein is ready to denounce all that—and he seems to understand, kinda sorta, how we got here, so maybe he is—then welcome to the fight! This time I know our side will win.

But what is "our side," really? Somehow I doubt that a broad left-right coalition of people interested in depoliticizing everyday life will simply spring into existence. After all, as has often been remarked, the right thinks the left is wrong, but the left thinks the right is evil. And you don't compromise with evil, now do you? Furthermore, the financial and psychological incentives simply aren't there. It's easy to say "Hey, we should all live and let live," but it's hard to actually do so in a world in which clicks are driven by outrage, in which the government is the preferred solution to all of our problems, in which grievance-mongering is the coin of the realm and the ultimate trump card in any argument.

So I'll continue to rail against the politicized life. And I'm happy to welcome into the fold whoever cares to join me, though I believe their number will, in all likelihood, be quite small. All I ask from my friends on the left is to keep in mind how uncomfortable #GamerGate makes you the next time you hear someone calling for a boycott or a banning or a firing.

*And unvirtuous. I should have had a bit more forbearance before knee-jerkingly disagreeing with a partisan opponent.

**I say "effectively" because there's always some fringe group trying to get a network to pull a program because of a gay kiss or some such. These fringe groups have no power.