To whoever finds this, assuming people still try to find things:
I am writing from what feels like the very edge of the age of empathy. Not because empathy is gone completely, but because it no longer feels welcome in public discourse. The old language of care has been twisted in the modern world and it’s been locked and even inverted. To feel for another now is seen as weakness. You are seen to be being used by the person for whom you may be caring. The word ‘woke’, once used to spark awareness, has been turned into an insult. When the term simply means caring about someone other than yourself. The act of giving any kind of dam has become a punchline.
The trolls gained control not because they were smart or strong, but because without shame they pursued their openly selfish goals. These people were not fighting to gain power in order to better rule or lead, rather they fought to tear down and to ruin. I saw them, standing all in a line, those parasites who seem to be able to twist the truth faster than they made cruelty a form of entertainment. They made suspicion a virtue. They made empathy dangerous, radical.
At first, we all thought it was about money. But money is just one of the tools of power. I’ve watched them tear down relationships and profit from them. I’ve seen them invest in the ripping away of income from the regular person and do so while grinning. The real prize is power. Control. Spectacle. And then, as their grip tightened, a darker currency took hold: cruelty. The taking of pleasure in harm. The abusive reshaping of truth.
The horrible fog rolled in, not all at once, but in layers of lies. Each new lie demanded less outrage than the one before. Until lying itself became normal.
I write this dispatch not because I want to warn you. I want to bear witness. If you are reading this, and you still feel, then perhaps there is hope. Not hope in systems and definitely not hope in saviours. Hope in people who remember what it is like to care. Hope in people that have the simple understanding that at any point in time they may find themselves to be a person in need of care whether through accident or design. Hope in people who know that the fog has names. And that these names can be spoken aloud, when the time comes.
In empathy, still resisting the cold indifference.
– A Watcher from the Edge
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