Source: The Contrarian
by Kim Lane Scheppele
“We hear it on playgrounds everywhere. ‘You did it,’ yells one child. ‘No, YOU did it,’ shouts the other. The teacher who intervenes in these blame games generally doesn’t have the time to get to the bottom of the fight. Maybe both kids were wrong. Or only one. The immediate problem is that the kids are fighting so the teacher concentrates on that. The substance cancels itself out like double negatives. Aspirational autocrats these days know how to play that game. They have learned to reproduce these playground taunts by accusing their opponents of what they themselves are doing.” (01/15/25)