A precious Tyson Glitch appears. Decades ago, when asked for comment on an opponent’s strategy, Mike Tyson famously said “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” There’s the man you think you are, and the beliefs you think you hold, and then there’s the man left standing when our messy, chaotic world shocks you from your bullshit with a bolt of reality. Tyson’s off-the-cuff remark resonates to this day, with meaning that extends well beyond what one becomes in the boxing ring, up to and including, I guess, what one becomes while simply watching someone get hit in the face. Sunday night, Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. Then Will Smith, Jada’s husband, got up from his seat, slapped Rock in the face, and sat back down. America watched in confused horror (and delight?) as Rock recovered with a dazed joke, and Smith shouted back. Finally, Rock weakly offered a few more comments, and the show carried on as if nothing had happened. All of it — every second of the conflict, up to and including the breezy skip past its conclusion — was bizarre. It was so bizarre, in fact, I’m still not convinced it wasn’t a hoax. But you can’t hoax a public reaction, and the public’s immediate reaction was also bizarre. Commenters rushed to the internet to share their opinion. But with no clear culture war angle guiding tribes to socially-acceptable positions, the result was an incoherent mix of awkward comparisons and rare, cross-tribal honesty. It was a kind of brief narrative crash, and for a minute everyone was naked. This was very weird, and very funny. It was also very telling.

Two days later, our relentlessly polarizing culture war has firmed up Official Positions, with early pitches for “assault is sometimes good” on the increasingly-tedious based right, and “this is really all Clint Eastwood’s fault” on the reliably-insane woke left. From the establishment, preachy, anodyne pieces on violence and therapy and Will Smith’s psychology are all now forthcoming. By the end of the week, even the memory of our brief, tribal liberation will mostly be lost. But in those early moments? Jokes and recaps. A colorful explosion of lunatic takes. A rare and precious little bit of truth.

Setting aside the most ridiculous positions and comparisons — clunky racial reaches from every direction, “Will Smith’s son wears dresses, by the way,” and what does Ja Rule think? — there was notable, seismic political division on the slap, and not only between expected extremes. On the internet right, young men could not decide if comedians were sacred, with arguments reminiscent of the glorious World War Chappelle, or if squeamish “violence is bad” takes were effeminate fear reactions to “honor culture,” an intolerable position to internet “chads” who’ve never thrown a punch. But even the niche, “trad” right was divided. Was Will Smith a good man for defending his wife’s name, or was Rock the victim of an emotional cuck who chose to hit a much smaller nerd in a performative act of violence rather than the man who slept with his wife, which Smith allowed? On the woke left, the New York Times’ Nikole Hanna-Jones of all people indicated mean words were not grounds to hit a person, torching years of leftist orthodoxy on the issue, then found herself besieged by angry fans who argued making fun of black women with alopecia was equivalent to real violence — obviously — and hitting Rock was therefore justified, as Smith was merely defending his wife’s life. Roman Polanski was invoked. The Bush-era invasion of Iraq was invoked. Judd Apatow thoughtfully suggested the slap could actually have killed Rock, which is less an interesting political point, I guess, than something I personally find incredibly funny.