Speaking on Aug. 29 — at a fundraiser, of course — U.S. President Barack Obama applied to a platitude the varnish of smartphone sociology, producing this intellectual sunburst: "The truth of the matter is, is that the world has always been messy. In part, we're just noticing now because of social media and our capacity to see in intimate detail the hardships that people are going through." So, if 14th-century Europeans had had Facebook and Twitter, they would have noticed how really disagreeable the Hundred Years' War was.
Obama did have a piece of a point: Graphic journalism, now augmented by billions of people with cameras in their pockets, can give an inflammatory immediacy to events. His intention was to dispel the impression that the world has become not just unusually "messy" but especially dangerous.
Unfortunately this impression derives not from social media static but from stark facts, including this one: A nation with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles is dismembering another nation. And the nuclear power is governed by an unconstrained despot fueled by a dangerous brew of disappointment, resentment and contempt.