Monitoring the Situation

When there’s modern military conflict, men are, as the self-deprecating but unusually sincere internet meme now goes, “monitoring the situation.”

In one sense, this is radically new. In the age of social media, open-source satellites, and group chats, technology can now provide real-time updates on everything from the movements of aerial military fuel tankers to clips from hostile countries’ state TV networks

Hence, in 2022, when Russian tanks were getting bogged down on their way to what almost everyone at the time predicted was going to be a swift dismantling of the Ukrainian state, Elon Musk posted a meme that sums up the whole thing:

We modern Western civilian men feel, I think, a sort of shame about how utterly actionless modern life is for those who are not flying F-35s, or otherwise involving ourselves in the physical protection of anything.

That’s why my wife jokes, not without justification, that when my male friends and I get together, it takes us fewer than 10 minutes to start talking about wars.  

(RE: Eller Romarriket.)

Nicholas Clairmont The Free Press 03.03.26

https://www.thefp.com/p/the-ancient-male-art-of-monitoring