Stanley Crouch told me when I was starting out that it’s pretty impressive if a person has very serious, very developed views that they’ve arrived at on their own on, say, two or three subjects. Because most people don’t have that on even one subject.

Part of what I think is making it so difficult to have civil discussions in the Twitter era is that we’re all now expected to have serious opinions on *everything*. This is why so many are so happy to sign up for prix-fixe orthodoxies; it’s much easier than thinking à la carte.

A random person in the twitter era as well as any person of note is expected to speak authoritatively on, for example:
-economic theory
-immigration policy
-climate
-race
-LGBTQ matters
-socialism
-policing
-Israel/Palestine
-[where I live] the veil
-art
-Netflix series
-music