On Friday, I went to the Taos Pueblo, a 1,000-year-old village in New Mexico where about 1,000 Native Americans still live. Or at least stay there when they’re not at their second homes on the reservation, which have running water, electricity, and doors.
That’s right: The vast majority of the adobe houses don’t have doors or windows. I thought it was weird that no Puebloan ever seized this opportunity to disrupt the housing space (“What if I told you that our architectural firm has a way for you to invite guests inside without lowering a ladder from the roof?”) But then our tour guide explained that of course Puebloans knew about doors. They chose the roof-entry system so they could yank their ladders up when invading tribes came. Then they could fight them off from their roofs. She told us these invaders would steal food, blankets, women, and children. I was unable to think about anything other than how long I had to wait after she said to ask where to buy the best frybread.
Every time I hear about the past, I cannot believe how brutal it was. And how this fact does not inhibit the people who run my son’s twee private school from starting every mass email with the phrase “It’s been a tough year….” Which translates into “It’s been a tough year because we had to watch upsetting Instagram reels about people we don’t know in countries we’ve never visited. We, however, took a class trip to Costa Rica.”
One thing that wasn’t as tough in the past as it is now: Respecting others1. So when a guy started taking a photo of our tour guide in front of an adobe, she politely told him that shooting pictures of tribal members without their permission wasn’t okay. I do not know how this guy drove all the way to a Native American historical site without knowing the one thing we all know about Native Americans. I expected him to ask her why there weren’t many Native Americans around anymore.
She told him that, if he really wanted, he could pay her for her image. I was going to offer pro bono services from my agent at WME since I knew how negotiations between Native Americans and white people have gone in the past.
In 2011, I interviewed Zach Galifianakis at Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles. A diner across from us raised his phone to waist level and slyly shot a photo of him. Zach angrily pointed his camera back at him and pretended to take a retaliatory photo. Zach is one of the nicest, most approachable people I’ve met. That’s because he has a code about how to treat people. Part of that code is that your interactions are direct and respectful. You know: Consent.
When I was hired at Time magazine when I was 26, I pitched a lot of stories the adult editors at Time should not have let me write. But they would never let me do what I had assumed was a major part of real journalism: Going undercover. I was required to tell every person I interviewed that I was a reporter. Even the douchebags trying to get into the club that let me be the doorman.
Two weeks ago, Samuel Alito attended a $500 fundraiser for the Supreme Court Historical Society, a great organization that helped me report that many Supreme Court justices pack their own lunches for work. It was a black-tie event that wasn’t open to journalists. Lauren Windsor, who calls herself a liberal activist journalist, bought a ticket, walked up to Justices Roberts and Alito and secretly recorded them on her phone while peppering them with insane questions that only a right-wing Christian nutjob would ask.
I wouldn’t even divulge my favorite movie directors to someone who didn’t pay at least $1,000 a ticket. But Alito gave answers he’s given publicly before about his concerns about the rights of religious people. I’m far more concerned about the rights of people from Lauren Windsor.
Alito was already having a tough month, since the New York Times reported that his wife flew a far-right flag at his house on the Jersey Shore after his wife was spit on and called the c-word. I did not feel bad for the Alitos then. Because I know that spitting and being called the c-word is something all real estate agents on the Jersey Show warn potential buyers about.
But I felt badly for him this time.
No one talks about honor anymore. Sure, they do in the mafia, Hatfields-and-McCoys, Drake-Kendrick-beef, honor culture way. But personal honor is gone.
Disagreement now justifies dehumanization. If you disagree with a politician, you yell outside their homes. If someone has a different opinion, you can heckle their show. If you get in a personal disagreement, you put them on trial by shooting a video of their reactions.
It has become normalized to make text conversations public. It happened to my friend who edited Bon Appetit, when a freelance writer was furious that he didn’t accept her story pitch. It happened to my old trainer Harley Pasternak when he tried to get his friend Kanye West to check into a psychiatric hospital. It happened to Jonah Hill when his ex-girlfriend wanted to warn others what a controlling boyfriend he was. There are maybe six people in the world who need to have that information, and I’m guessing Michael Cera already knows.
These are dishonorable acts. Ones that for most of human history would have ruined your reputation and excluded you from society. If in 1989, someone had published a book of the letters I sent my high school girlfriend from college, I would have gotten laid by a lot more women. But it still would have been wrong.
These violations can only occur when we all care more about what strangers think of us than our physical communities. Technology is making us all vulnerable to what was once suffered only by celebrities.
If we don’t re-establish a code of honor, we’re all about to be revealed as dishonorable.
What does your pet need right now?
At least when you weren’t stealing their women and children
💯 once again, nailed it.
Hi Joel. Greetings from Metuchen.
I might be liberal on the way to progressive, but I have a certain affection for the concept of honor. However, there are some parts of other cultures that we tend to forget about and I hope we do not appropriate. I just learned about the ritual sacrifices of the Mayans on a recent vacation—-along with their books and other advances that were destroyed by the Spanish colonists. “The good old days,” I thought, “Just because they’re old or indigenous doesn’t automatically superior.”
Also, if the Alitos are going to hang down the shore, they gotta expect a Jersey salute now and then.