By amazing coincidence, the ever excellent Simon Sebag Montefiore posted this today...
XTwitter is like spending time in the teeming square of a raucous, gaudy, cosmopolitan city where in a corner-cafe, one meets wits, scholars and decent people who talk books, art and history and tell stories; there’s a park full of people who report from their own streets, walk their dogs and share worthy moments of other lives.
There’s a garden full of people who teach you things you don’t know, who listen to things they don’t know and bring you news of wars and revolutions in faraway places they have seen you and haven’t; often they are in different even opposing worlds and disagree with you but you share empathy and humanism ; some become friends for life.
There’s a fairground full of strange mirrors, vertiginous rides and trapdoors where hucksters, killers, vampires and poisoners trade lies, poisons & daggers; & in dank alleys, their cohorts of masked, poisonous, ignorant bigots and fanatics attack in gangs, hyenas hunt, vultures swoop, snakes slither and one suddenly finds oneself almost alone in a dark place.
The skill is to stay in the café, the park or the gardens, even the fairground, but in the open, in the light…
Those who pay attention may have noticed I posted an article two days ago and took it down an hour later because it didn’t feel right. My career as a writer historian is sharing interesting important facts & ideas but in a history book you have years to consider sources; here you sometimes don’t take long enough.
I am happy to take down something if I think it excessive or questionable or just incorrect and to admit if I have got something wrong. Such moments are hardly surprising in the midst of a war of information in the Middle East and in Russia/Ukraine, two areas I write about…
Most people on here often get things wrong but very few ever admit to doing so and even fewer correct themselves. That goes as much for ghoulish trolls and respected pundits as it does for giant news media - even when as happens repeatedly in both wars, their stories are totally disproven within hours or days. The world especially this square would be better if everyone would do so more often… especially if you wish to criticise others…
In the process, I had to block a pack of haters, racists, bigots. But thank you to so many who sent support.
Oh and enjoy the square; especially the café - but keep out of those backalleys….
www.nature.com
