I believe that we live in a culture of effectively mandatory passive aggression, an ingrained level of absolutely pathological conflict avoidance. Today John Ganz launched a bunch of insults at me, like a half-dozen, that had the admirable quality of being direct. So I wrote a note about him in kind. Now, I'm the subject of a lot of tedious moralizing about my response… but of course, of the passive aggressive, indirect, private, conflict-avoidant variety. It is so exhausting.

I never give out any criticism privately that I don't give out publicly. That's my rule. I don't insult in the DMs, I do it on my main feed. You may find it unpleasant, and it's certainly bad for my career, but I think it's much, much healthier than this culture of limitless backbiting and endless avoidant sniping. Nothing I've said publicly is remotely meaner or less fair than things people in this business say privately every single day. I just say them publicly because I think passive aggression is among the least attractive qualities in human behavior. And I think a lot of you should reflect on whether it's really better to have this culture of obligatory private shit talking, this relentless gossiping and subtweeting, instead of simply accepting that conflict is a natural and necessary part of human interaction and that obligatory passive aggression and conflict avoidance is deeply toxic. Thank you.