Why Write?
I haven’t written much, lately. I did a blog on the intractability of my bladder cancer, which will require serious surgery soon, and I’ve toyed with a couple of book ideas, which are a dime a dozen. Mostly, I’ve been working with other writers on their books.
Part of my lack of productivity comes from where we are now as a nation. In today’s Washington Post, the absurd reigns. Trump Attacks Public Schools yells a headline above the fold. A man who can barely string a coherent sentence together thinks teaching youngsters about slavery and racism is wrong. It demeans the country, he says. Absurd? Yep. An Attorney General who has defiled the basic principles of American jurisprudence criticizes his Justice Department for politicizing the law. More absurdity. Just below the fold, smaller headlines tell us Feds Sought ‘Heat Ray’ for D.C. Rally. Really??? A heat ray? The powers that be wanted to use on its own citizenry a weapon deemed unfit for war.
Forest fires, hurricanes, floods, a pandemic, an upcoming election that is sure to try the sanity of voters, anti-science asses wielding weapons and encouraged to do so by the country’s leader. A president without a moral compass. In less than two years, the nation almost everyone looked up to has become a pariah state. One could write a pre-apocalyptic novel, I suppose, but when the absurd transcends reality on a daily basis, what is left to chronicle?
How does one write about overwhelming idiocy and an encouraged blindness to the truth? Most of the world has concluded that our country is going through a national Saint Vitus dance. Something we ate, perhaps, or have come to believe. We have elected a moronic criminal whose sole object has been to enrich himself, his family, and his mafia. We gape at the inanities he mouths, daily hoping that he’s reached a bottom, but he hasn’t. Yesterday’s follies overshadow today’s stupidities. Why write about that? It’s almost like criticizing the village idiot. It serves no purpose. The village idiot is who he is and will not change.
It struck me that another reason for my written silence is that I do not want to be doomsayer, even as I am persuaded we are fast heading toward catastrophe. I think we are seeing the end of the American empire, and I am saddened at how quickly our might has eroded. The American experience, once filled with strength and power, has failed. Democracy, as practiced in the US, has proven itself time and again simply does not work. It is the victim of greed, complacency, racism, and frightening ignorance paired with the hard-held view that all opinions matter (they do not).
Today, under the flag of equality, we are left with the notion that the beliefs of the clueless and ignorant are as viable as those of the wise. They are not, but we’re encouraged to think they are. That’s a recipe for tragedy.
Part of my lack of productivity comes from where we are now as a nation. In today’s Washington Post, the absurd reigns. Trump Attacks Public Schools yells a headline above the fold. A man who can barely string a coherent sentence together thinks teaching youngsters about slavery and racism is wrong. It demeans the country, he says. Absurd? Yep. An Attorney General who has defiled the basic principles of American jurisprudence criticizes his Justice Department for politicizing the law. More absurdity. Just below the fold, smaller headlines tell us Feds Sought ‘Heat Ray’ for D.C. Rally. Really??? A heat ray? The powers that be wanted to use on its own citizenry a weapon deemed unfit for war.
Forest fires, hurricanes, floods, a pandemic, an upcoming election that is sure to try the sanity of voters, anti-science asses wielding weapons and encouraged to do so by the country’s leader. A president without a moral compass. In less than two years, the nation almost everyone looked up to has become a pariah state. One could write a pre-apocalyptic novel, I suppose, but when the absurd transcends reality on a daily basis, what is left to chronicle?
How does one write about overwhelming idiocy and an encouraged blindness to the truth? Most of the world has concluded that our country is going through a national Saint Vitus dance. Something we ate, perhaps, or have come to believe. We have elected a moronic criminal whose sole object has been to enrich himself, his family, and his mafia. We gape at the inanities he mouths, daily hoping that he’s reached a bottom, but he hasn’t. Yesterday’s follies overshadow today’s stupidities. Why write about that? It’s almost like criticizing the village idiot. It serves no purpose. The village idiot is who he is and will not change.
It struck me that another reason for my written silence is that I do not want to be doomsayer, even as I am persuaded we are fast heading toward catastrophe. I think we are seeing the end of the American empire, and I am saddened at how quickly our might has eroded. The American experience, once filled with strength and power, has failed. Democracy, as practiced in the US, has proven itself time and again simply does not work. It is the victim of greed, complacency, racism, and frightening ignorance paired with the hard-held view that all opinions matter (they do not).
Today, under the flag of equality, we are left with the notion that the beliefs of the clueless and ignorant are as viable as those of the wise. They are not, but we’re encouraged to think they are. That’s a recipe for tragedy.
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