Monday, September 27, 2021

Outrage Meter Retired

Rick Wilson is absolutely right, but aren't I supposed to be afraid for the republic's future because someone on Twitter tweeted this? My advice would be: Never argue with a fool. The outcome is seldom what you expect it to be, and it just raises the recognition of the fool beyond deserving. Kinda like this: Yes, there really are such people in the world. The biggest problem they are creating right now is crowding ICU's across the country and driving nurses and healthcare workers to quit the profession in droves. THAT is a serious problem. This clown-show blather about an "audit" (it wasn't) in Arizona that proved anything (it didn't, except that the election is long over) is NOT a serious problem. The problem arises from the people who think the chief Bozo must be taken seriously, because reasons. Which reasons all come down to clickbait, mostly.

I mean, come on, even the major news outlets have moved on.  Chattering heads on Sunday morning return to it because it's "politics" and it beats talking about how Biden cleared up that "crisis on the border" so fast it didn't really appear on the radar this Sunday, and how Afghanistan which was supposed to be Biden's downfall is already so far beneath the horizon in the rear view mirror nobody's even looking back for it anymore.

Trump is an eternal source of commentary for when all else fails.  He is the ground upon which the variations can be endlessly spun out.  At least for the people who like the sound of their own "singing."

The rest of us have lives.  As Lawrence Tribe quotes: “We are living through a revolt against the future. The future will prevail.” — Anand Giridharadas  Which, honestly, is about as profound as Gramsci: "La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi piú svariati." ("The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.")  When I first saw that I thought it was stunningly profound; only later did I realize it was stunningly mundane.  When is the present not definable as a "crisis" in which the old is dying while the new cannot be born?  When can the present not be identified with "a great variety of morbid  symptoms"?  I first read that in the late '70's and thought he'd nailed the era perfectly.  Of course, it could have applied to the late '60's (but I hadn't read it then), or to the 80's (Reagan), the '90's (the tech bubble), 2001; 2016 (obvious); and why not right now?

It's the profound observation that keeps on being observable; and consequently, not all that profound.  I mean, it comes down to this:  is the glass half empty?  Or half full?

Feh.  I'm turning into an old man, but like Tireisias I feel like I have foresuffered all.  "Crisis" is a way of making your age seem important; just like being angry makes you think people must pay attention to you, and that will make you important.  The crisis is a spiritual one, not a political one or a social one or even an economic one.  It's spiritual.  It is the complete lack of self-worth that annoys so many people, especially after a year of true crisis with Covid.  Here, take a little Rudolf Bultmann for over 60 years ago:

Thus modern man is in danger of forgetting two things:  first, that his plans and undertakings should be guided not by his own desires for happiness and security, usefulness and profit, but rather by obedient response to the challenge of goodness, truth and love, by obedience to the commandment of God which man forgets in his selfishness and presumption; and, secondly, that it is an illusion to suppose that real security can be gained by men [sic] organizing their own personal and community life. p. 39.

There are encounters and destinies which man cannot master.  He cannot secure endurance for his works.  His life is fleeting and its end is death.  History goes on and pulls down all the towers of Babel again and again.  There is no real, definitive security, and it is precisely this illusion to which men are prone to succumb in their yearning for security. pp. 39-40.

It is the word of God which calls man away from his selfishness and from the illusory security which he has built up for himself.  It calls him to God, who is beyond the world and beyond scientific thinking.  At the same time, it calls man to his true self.  For the self of man, his inner life, his personal existence is also beyond the visible world and beyond rational thinking.  The Word of God addresses man in his personal existence and thereby it gives him freedom from the world and from the sorrow and anxiety which overwhelm him when he forgets the beyond.....To believe in the Word of God means to abandon all merely human security and thus to overcome the despair which arises from the attempt to find security, an attempt which is always in vain. p. 40.

Do think if we ignore Trump he will go away?  No.  I don't want to ignore him; I want to treat him as he deserves to be treated:  not as a threat, but as a problem we can solve with congressional investigations and new laws and criminal investigations and even prosecutions, if they are warranted.  Treat him as we treat any problem. We even handled covid, when we were told a vaccine might be decades away, we got three in less than a year.  Then we had other problems, and we still do.  We deal with those, too.

And remember we have already defeated him.  He lost his re-election, decisively.  He lost 60 court cases challenging that loss, all decisively.  Not one institution of government stepped forward to support his insane claims, and the members of Congress who did, did so in large part secure in the knowledge they would never be responsible for what they asked for, coming to pass.  What isn't over is Trump shouting; but we can ignore that.  Ignore his actions, his lawlessness?  No.  But ignore his complete disregard for the world except as it pleases him and makes him the center of attention, treat him as the internet troll escaped into RL that he is?  Yes.  Starve him of the attention.  Cut him off from serious consideration.  Leave him to the investigators and the prosecutors.  It's all the attention he deserves now.

But wringing our hands over how much worse it's going to be in some dystopian future that's bound to come?  Feh!  Begone!  Think on the words of Bultmann, and consider where such fears of the future come from, and what solutions will apply that don't involve politics, law, money, or hand-wringing.  Think on Thoreau, and consider whether you are hacking at the branches of the tree of evil, or are you chopping at its roots. Think on the problems that can be addressed by more conventional means, and those that are more fundamental still, and need “unconventional” solutions.

And more of this, please:
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