The piece definitely had some interesting threads to pull and and points to bring up, but I don’t think the wandering form or the scattershot of topics really fit the succinctness that title suggested. Returning endlessly to the word smarm, and attempting to encapsulate the thesis in it distracted from the larger points and came off as forced. My main takeaway was that the strategy of crying for civility as a defense against pointed and necessary criticism is an insidious, seductive and invasive current and can be just as dishonest, hollow and hypocritical as empty criticism.
Setting up the snark vs. smarm dichotomy seemed like a he-said-she-said catalyst for the perpetual motion machine of “didn’t read it, but I will sure as hell disagree with what I think the title is saying” comment sections. The article itself, though, raised some interesting points about how politeness can destructively mask the cleansing power of well-reasoned anger.
