Back in the 1960s, when the Vietnam War was raging, a familiar scenario played out in small towns.
asserted
scenario → rag → towns
During election years, you’d see a “Nixon’s the One!” sign planted right next door to a “McGovern for President” banner.
asserted
Nixon → see → banner
Neighbors would be mowing the grass around their respective slogans, stop to wipe their brows, and wave across the property line.
asserted
Neighbors → mow → line
After chores, they’d share a beer or iced tea on the porch.
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they → share → porch
They disagreed fiercely, but they hadn’t lost their collective minds.
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they → disagree → minds
Today, in the run-up to November’s midterm elections, that neighborhood camaraderie has left the building.
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camaraderie → leave → building
As the press prep breathlessly for the “Midterms of Rage,” a dissenting political sign becomes a declaration of war.
asserted
sign → prep → war
Rage-baiting in the public arena
The rot has seeped deeply into the halls of governance.
asserted
rot → seep → governance
In New York, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration spent nine weeks weaponizing a searchable municipal database as a kind of digital panopticon.
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administration → spend → panopticon
By publishing a map-integrated “hit-list” identifying wealthy property owners under the guise of a pied-à-terre tax, the city handed a tactical plan to radicalized activists — maybe even potential Luigi Mangione copycats — eager to turn class resentment into a street-level brawl.
asserted
city → publish → brawl
A state judge finally stepped in this week to halt the madness, but the game’s well afoot.
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game → step → madness
The state is now actively manufacturing a toxic, tribal vendetta.
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state → manufacture → vendetta
Conventional wisdom blames algorithms, partisan networks, and a failing education system.
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wisdom → blame → algorithms
The harder truth is that we can no longer discuss politics anywhere without screaming, red-faced walkaways.
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we → discuss → walkaways
Because language wires our brains, it essentially dictates what we’re capable of perceiving.
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we → wire → what
Yet today we’re attempting to navigate a hyper-complex psychological warzone with a vocabulary of basically one word: anger.
asserted
we → attempt → word
We have words for how hot the fire is, but we’ve lost the ability to name the type of fire.
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we → have → fire
Tellingly, ancient Greek thinkers didn’t see anger as a single river, and they mapped its tributaries with forensic precision.
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they → see → precision
They had thumos (θυμός), the sudden flash of road rage that flares and dies like smoke.
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that → have → smoke
They had orge (ὀργή), the slow-burning, entrenched resentment born from a perceived injustice — an anger that sits and ripens.
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that → have → injustice
Most importantly, they feared menis (μῆνις), a cosmic, generational wrath aimed at total annihilation of the enemy.
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they → fear → enemy
This is the exact word Homer chose to lead off the Iliad to describe Achilles’ world-destroying frenzy.
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Homer → choose → frenzy
In case there’s any doubt, Mamdani’s digital hit-list is pure, unadulterated menis.
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list → ’ → case
Today, we’re trying to navigate a political minefield with emotional nuance numbed into a monolithic category of anger.
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we → try → anger
We treat a momentary online irritation with the same weight as a systemic injustice.
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We → treat → injustice
And our click-driven media ecosystem hungrily exploits this linguistic bankruptcy for financial gain.
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ecosystem → drive → gain
Partisan platforms stimulate a flash of thumos for every fleeting online offense, instantly morphing it into a false sense of orge — convincing their audience that a momentary annoyance is worthy of a righteous moral crusade against an invading force.
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annoyance → stimulate → force
Suddenly, a nuanced policy debate is a tribal warzone: ICE’s actions are branded “worse than the Holocaust,” and a quietly provocative debater such as Charlie Kirk becomes a subhuman who deserves to get shot in the neck.
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who → brand → neck
We saddle every minor transgression with the historic weight of menis.
asserted
We → saddle → menis
Anthropologists often note that Eskimos have dozens of distinct words for snow — separating slush from walkable hardpack, drifts from the dreaded “ice that kills.”
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that → note → ice
Name the exact texture of the freeze, and you can avoid death in the cold reaches.
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you → name → reaches
We find ourselves in a similar tundra today, trying to survive a hostile political climate with a broken linguistic tool kit.
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We → find → kit
Until we rebuild a nuanced language of conflict and learn to separate brief flashes of irritation from generational, soul-consuming vendettas, we will remain trapped in a cycle of perpetual outrage — and entirely unequipped to get through these “interesting” times in one piece.
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we → rebuild → piece
Lou Mulkern is a former New York City trade journalist and PR director who resides in Thailand, where he teaches English part-time.
asserted
he → reside → English
The Aporia
