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| Not exactly the Katechismus, but also not directly at odds with it either. |
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| And me without my guitar... |
I can’t vote. My promotion of the team I’d prefer to win (Biden — it should go without saying, but these days it seems to be the obvious that needs saying most) would be tepid at best and unhelpful at worst. Commentary on The Game — which the bulk of American citizens understand to be, to differing degrees, gamed — seems moot.
But what the hell. FWIW, then, here are my thoughts. Polls seem to indicate a Biden landslide. I have my doubts — anecdotally speaking, enthusiasm for Biden is alarmingly soft. The Other Guy, however . . . well, you know how that goes. If the election results are close, it will be a very, very ugly scene. If Biden wins by a landslide, it will be less ugly — but still very ugly.
We have a populace steeping in a compost tea of conspiracies. We have one guy who is adept at stirring that tea, and another whose message is getting little-to-no public traction.
One guy has been following The Authoritarian Playbook since Day 1. We know the next steps.
If you want to know where I’m taking my cues:
And I went ahead and gambled the stamp on a year’s worth of Andrew Sullivan.
The second temptation is to slide into nostalgia. Again — not helpful. There’s already no shortage of it on this blog. And I’m not sure I have the energy for producing more. That may change.
Questions, concerns, suggestions — leave a comment, woncha?
The “Used Bookstore” In My Home — this week’s photo:
- RIP Chadwick Boseman — remarkable actor, beautiful man.
- RIP David Graeber — Against Economics at NYBR.
- The single most thought-provoking piece I’ve read this week: “To go on retelling The Great Gatsby is to think about worldly happiness: how to get it, how to hold on to it, who controls it, whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be. And what could be more American than happiness?” Jackson Arn wonders whether F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic is capable of generating a new, sustainable American patriotism — over at The Point.
- “Who is our society’s most potent moral figure? Once it was Jesus Christ. Now it is Adolf Hitler.” — having raised this spectre in exactly this way Alec Ryrie takes a crack at exploring the consequences at LARB.
- Finally: bear attacks are on the rise — here’s how to properly use bear-spray.
6 comments:
You want a comment? What are you, a communist? ;)
Dan-o at this point I'm even taking comments from the Peanut Gallery! :D
Speaking of nostalgia, I wonder if kids these days even hear that line anymore?
I have been this week, not for the first time, pondering whether my 17 years of blogging have brought me a net happiness or a net misery. On the whole, I like having a record of my reading list, and my thoughts on my reading list. But I also wonder whether it's worth all the time and energy I put into it. Especially now that I've reached middle age and wonder about how else I could have been directing that time and energy over the years.
The other disadvantage of blogging is all the anxiety that comes with social media--this ties into your previous post. The constant checking of a post to see how many views or comments it's gotten, and the feeling of disappointment when no one interacts with it.
Speaking of which it's been clear for years now that no one is reading the blog (except for the occasional comment from you). Back in 2006, during peak blogging, I used to get a lot more of my friends dropping by and reading the blog, but all that interaction has moved on to other platforms. Maybe that's for the best.
But as for blogging about the election specifically, I am completely over that.
I feel like we've reached such a level of polarization that there's nothing left to be said anymore. We've reached a point where both sides have dug in their heels, and it's fruitless to think you're going to change anyone's minds.
Perhaps it's like the 1850s America. At a certain point in the slavery debate, there was a point where it became useless to publish another anti-slavery pamphlet. People were under no illusion that if you could just make the right argument, you could convince the slave-holders to change their ways.
I'm not saying the situation today is equivalent to slavery. I'm just saying that at certain points in history, dialogue breaks down, and people stop listening.
I've been eyeing, warily, The Lincoln Project. My inner kid-who-gave-his-life-to-Jesus can't help seeing their videos as impulsively evil behavior, while my inner cynical politico sees them as evidence that the people keen (understatement) on 45 serving two terms are way beyond persuading.
As for the Dems, I believe there are still talking points that need to be heard. Particularly: Biden? WTF???
Getting back to The Lincoln Project, if they really wanted to serve their country they would come up with a third party right-wing candidate who could credibly split the vote, the way Nader so helpfully did on their behalf back in 2000.
Also: stats -- sigh. Yeah, they don't augur a promising future for this platform, do they? On the plus side, it's not a very challenging platform for Google to manage, since its basic engineering was pretty much air-tight when they bought it. As long as enough people keep using it, there are other stats for Google to harvest.
As for your blog, I'm always happy to comment when there's new material non-TESOL related. :)
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