Powerful by @anneapplebaum - and I'd throw in another literary reference alongside hers to "The Scarlet Letter" 1/x
https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1432687582526287874
@anneapplebaum In her novella "Autres Temps," Edith Wharton tells the story of Mrs. Lidcote, who is exiled from New York's high society in disgrace because she divorced her husband sometime in the 1880s. 2/x gutenberg.org/files/24132/24… 
@anneapplebaum Then history repeats itself. Sometime in the mid-1910s (the novella was published in 1916), Mrs. Lidcote's daughter Leila divorces her husband. Mrs Lidcote rushes home from European banishment to stand with her daughter against the impending social catastrophe ... 3/x
@anneapplebaum ... only to discover: nobody cares. On shipboard, Mrs Lidcote overhears a group of wealthy younger New Yorkers talking about who's who in society. Her daughter's name is mentioned, and - 4/x
@anneapplebaum Times have changed! A woman is no longer a pariah for leaving a husband she does not love. Leila is all right. She can remarry another society husband and mingle freely. Emancipation at last. Only ... 5/x
@anneapplebaum ... not for Mrs Lidcote herself. Nobody any longer remembers *why* Mrs Lidcote is so scandalous, only *that* she is scandalous. The fact that what she did in 1880-something would be perfectly acceptable in 1910-something does not matter. Pariah then, pariah now. 6/x
@anneapplebaum I often think of Wharton's story when I hear cases like those described by @anneapplebaum
The social pendulum will swing, as it always does. The young people of the 2030s will likely regard their elders who came of age in the early 2010s as absurdly censorious 7/x
The social pendulum will swing, as it always does. The young people of the 2030s will likely regard their elders who came of age in the early 2010s as absurdly censorious 7/x
@anneapplebaum just as in Wharton's story of the more permissive 1910s vs the more stringent 1880s.
But to the people crushed by social disapproval in one era, the easier standards of the next won't matter. Nobody ever remembers the details, only the outcome. 8/x
But to the people crushed by social disapproval in one era, the easier standards of the next won't matter. Nobody ever remembers the details, only the outcome. 8/x
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