Responsibility

I am wounded deeply and yet I stand,
Aside the sea, facing waves that crash, winds
That lash with hate and fear and ignorance.
Despite the pain my thoughts instead close in
On truths, once self-evident, now mere goals
That to meet we many must strive as one.
As I heal I know a scar will remain,
My robes stained with the blood of those who yearned
To think speak join grieve love serve move breathe free.
And still I rise, to let my torch shine bright,
To illuminate that scar, to drive out
The darkness we commit against others.
My soul to thrive must act, as liberty
And equality die from apathy.

The Evil of American Fascism

America has normalized, accepted, and embraced fascism at the highest levels of our national government. It is our moral obligation, no matter who we are, to oppose such evil.

"Fascism" and "evil" are strong words. They are not to be thrown around lightly. Since the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee in 2015, our media and civil society have chattered, far too quietly, whether our now President-elect qualifies as a "fascist." A historian of fascism, Robert Paxton, claimed in a Slate interview that it's "enormously tempting" to use the term to criticize one's opponents. Doing so without historical awareness and sophistication risks diminishing the evil that Italian fascism, German Nazism, Japanese militarism, and other regimes committed against their peoples. In this reluctance, Paxton is wise. Fascism is more complicated than simple right-wing authoritarianism. And using the term in a debate tends to end conversation rather than promote it.

Wibby-Wig

A Review of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2004)

"Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world." - Adam Ewing, Cloud Atlas, 508.

Sociologists like my partner like to deploy the Thomas theorem as shorthand for the idea that "what you believe is what you get." In other words, what we interpret to be reality is, in fact, reality, insofar as we act on our beliefs and therefore shape reality in the process. The phrase "self-fulfilling prophecy" comes close to the point, if missing some of the meaning. I guess you could adapt the WYSIWYG acronym appropriately, to result in WYBIWYG. Or how about the cuter "wibby-wig"?

Cloud Atlas is such a massive tome of ideas that it needs a shorthand adjective, and "wibby-wig" is it for me. To avoid such extreme reductionism, a simple legend of themes (a tapestry metaphor came to mind, but let me stick with maps) is helpful in the effort to decode David Mitchell's complex atlas: themes like belief, but also the human condition, narrative, truth versus Truth, the unity of time and space, the number six, comets, clouds (of course), and--as Mitchell divulged in an interview, "predacity." What I take away most from Cloud Atlas, though, was a wibby-wig view of life that, not to my surprise, reflects my own perspective. What we believe shapes who we are and what we do. This is the case to a large, if certainly not total, extent, because what we believe is not always a choice we make ourselves. Rather, society and its many elements--our parents, peers, children, friends, co-workers, politicians, media overlords, et cetera--often make them for and with us.