I tweeted that I couldn't stand Indian cuisine and started an international food fight We have a world in which someone like me can become a story and send thousands of people into heated arguments over nothing. We're now Planet Seinfeld.

Tom Nichols | Opinion columnist

I don’t like Indian food. And now the whole world knows it.

Or, a significant portion of the world, anyway. A few days ago, a Twitter user named Jon Becker asked Twitter’s legions to post their most controversial food takes. There was the usual hatred for mayonnaise, a takedown of lettuce, and even some swipes at peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

These are not that controversial. I decided to go for the gold and point out that I cannot stand the cuisine of over a billion people. And just to be annoying, I added that no one else could possibly like it either.

“I think Indian food is terrible,” I said, “and we pretend it isn’t.”

The reactions at first were good-natured and funny. “Do you not have tastebuds?” "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi asked me. One of my Twitter acquaintances called me the Donald Trump of food — a dagger in the heart for a widely-known Never Trumper like me. My friend (and former student), prominent attorney and author Neal Katyal, simply posted Twitter’s iconic riposte: “Unfollow.”

Accused of perpetrating oppression

Other well-meaning but misguided people listed dozens of dishes made in the many regions of India and suggested that if I tried them all I would see the light. I doubt it: I have been dragged along to numerous Indian restaurants in the United States, and I even went, on my own, to one of the top Indian restaurants in London on the recommendation of a friend and asked the waiter to guide me. I didn’t like any of it.

Others, however, saw a darker motive behind my inclusion of the expression “we pretend it isn’t.” I was accused, in various states of unhinged fury, of playing into stereotypes about Indians and furthering a history of oppression. One woman raised Churchill and colonialism and the treatment of Indians in the British Empire.

This was all lunacy, of course, and I assumed that after everyone had engaged in their performative outrage, the world would move on.

Wheeeee. | Food fight on social media after US writer says Indian cuisine is terrible https://t.co/3owRe9yDdz via @timesofindia — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 25, 2019

I was so very wrong.

Within a day or two, I was a story in The Times of India and other Indian papers, the BBC, The Washington Post and even Russia’s RT, which was the only outlet that seemed to cover the whole thing with any sense of humor. RT noted that I also have been dragged for hating Led Zeppelin — I do, a lot — and that I seem to like Russian food, which is also true.

I now live in a strange world where the fairest coverage I got was from a press outlet that I think is a hostile arm of the Russian government.

Food should not be a character test

Nothing is less funny than having to explain a joke, but of course I don’t think a billion people are lying about loving Indian food. In the same way I think millions of Led Zeppelin fans are wrong and no one should listen to them, and that "The Catcher in the Rye" is a stupid book that no one should have to read anymore, I was being my usual curmudgeonly self and saying that no one should like what I don’t like. (I was, of course, raised as an only child.)

I was serious only in trying to tweak the pretentious foodies among Americans whom I often suspect of suffering through meals they don’t like for the sake of saying they are engaging in “authentic” cuisine. I have often teased friends who have dragged me to an Indian restaurant, as I watch them sweat and choke and drink pitchers of water.

“You cannot possibly be enjoying this,” I say.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” they respond.

I am told that spicy food releases endorphins and dopamine. Personally, I think of food as pleasure, not as a test of character, and at dinner I am not trying to trigger my brain into releasing natural painkillers.

Planet Seinfeld arguing over nothing

But I digress. There’s a more important point here about the way in which we are now much too connected as a global society. Social media is structured to reward bad-faith takes and to treat everything that passes before our eyes as a deadly serious business worthy of extensive debate.

Combine this with unlimited bandwidth and the daily, ceaseless search for content, and you have a world in which someone like me can become a story and send thousands of other human beings into heated arguments over nothing. We are now Planet Seinfeld.

Keep your shoes on: Bare feet, kimchi and a peacock on a plane? Really? Air travelers need to do better.

I once thought that a connected, globalized world would be a force for peace. I still think so. Remember that in George Orwell’s 1984, the leaders of the three totalitarian states were insistent that their citizens never meet or speak to a foreigner, because it would undermine a perpetual state of war.

This kind of hyper-connection among global citizens, however, is deeply unhealthy and more than a little crazy. We are not discovering new things about each other as much as we’re just taking inventories about what to hate about each other, mostly so that we can feel good about ourselves.

This is a new kind of world society – where it’s always a contentious Thanksgiving and we’re always at the table looking to find the thing we can argue with each other about and ruin dinner. Like stuffing, which I also hate.

We used to care about more important things. Alas.

Pass the potatoes. Or the naan bread. But leave the Led Zeppelin off forever, please. And at the risk of offending a whole other continent, this week, hold the stuffing.

Tom Nichols is a national security expert, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and author of "The Death of Expertise." Follow him on Twitter: @RadioFreeTom