It seems more than possible that internet-driven polarization will push us further apart, that the enmity and contempt for diversity of opinion and experience so vividly and sickeningly displayed on January 6 will again erupt in open violence.
"Maybe fear of disease will create fear of freedom."
"Or maybe the coronavirus will inspire a new sense of global solidarity... Maybe the reality of illness and death will teach people to be suspicious of hucksters, liars, and purveyors of disinformation."
"Liberal democracies always demanded things from citizens: participation, argument, effort, struggle."
Maybe we're up to it, maybe not. It'll be a fight, and as William James asked and answered in Is Life Worth Living, "If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight..."
And as he also observed, in the concluding postscript of Varieties of Religious Experience, "No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance."
Maybe democracy still has a chance. Greta and Amanda seem to think so. And even old Noam Chomsky, sort of. "And the reason is because of popular activism. It’s because of groups like Sunrise Movement, young people who occupy congressional offices. Out of that came something pretty dramatic, some form of Green New Deal, which is absolutely essential for survival — we’re not going to survive any other way — moved from an object of ridicule way off in the margin, right to the legislative agenda. Nowhere near enough, but a long step forward. Well, that’s the way changes take place."
Changes come to those who are willing to live on a chance, and especially to the young who like a real fight.
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