Addicted to Drama?

Matt Yglesias, author of the Slow Boring blog/newsletter, put a remarkable paragraph at the end of his January 10 missive, "My predictions for 2023."

"At the end of the day, people need to do something with their time, and if political affairs don’t keep them entertained some other kind of shit will inevitably be stirred up. When the content mines don’t have any rich veins of virality to tap, people have to keep digging harder and harder in search of engagement. So if I’m right and things slow down, try hard to stay sane out there as people try to bait you into paying attention."

This followed Yglesias's prediction that 2023 would be mostly boring, especially from a political perspective, his usual subject matter. Putting aside what one thinks of the prediction for boring, Yglesias is saying that even if relative stability holds (as opposed to what we have been through in 2020-22), people will manufacture drama because, well, that is what people do. "[P}eople have to keep digging harder and harder in search of engagement," captures something we see in lots of educational communities. When the situation is otherwise good, some people seem compelling as if by unseen forces to dig for something, even dirt.

This is consistent with what we see, both in school communities and among governing boards; when things are otherwise good, some seem driven to find drama.