Lean away from Elon

LISTEN. I can relate to Margaret Renkl's vertiginous heart-in-throat trepidation on election eve, and like her I am not an optimist. But I am still a Jamesian and a meliorist, ever hopeful that things will come out better in the longer run if we can somehow manage to forestall despair and ruin in the short run. No guarantees. But it's not easy being a meliorist these days, or a humanist who thinks the totality of our experience is "self-containing and leans on nothing." Who're we gonna lean on, then, and who's gonna catch us when we start to fall?  

People often think I’m an optimist because I believe that human beings are mostly good, because I know that reasons for hope are everywhere if you look for them.

The good people of Kansas voted to preserve abortion rights, for instance, and polls indicate that they would be far from alone if other red-state voters were given the chance to choose. The chaos agent formerly known as Kanye West has discovered the cost of antisemitism in the wide world, even if it mostly goes unchallenged in his squalid corner of the political sphere. The chaos agent known as Elon Musk may be on track to kill the hellsite known as Twitter. Best of all, a new report suggests that we haven’t yet lost the chance to prevent this verdant and teeming planet from becoming completely uninhabitable.

Even so, I am not an optimist. I spend much of my life with my heart in my throat, and at this moment I am terrified. What has happened to my country that 20 percent of Americans believe political violence is justified? That an entire political party increasingly relies on lying and cheating to win elections? That Vladimir Putin, of all people, has become a Republican hero?

...If only American voters will stand up for democracy and vote to restore the equilibrium of our fragile body politic.

Right. If only. I just know that I'm with WJ and Potus 44. Despair is not an option. We've got to do better, and (as Henry said) it is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

I also know I've about had enough of Elon Musk and the other agents of gratuitous chaos. Constructive disgust is an option. I've set up my Mastodon [nyt]. He can get his $7.99 somewhere else. 

I will, however, let IFTTT continue to auto-tweet my blogposts, and I'll redirect my other tweets to the tooting new elephant in the room. My new Mastodon address: @osopher@c.im. 

Follow me, if you want.  You don't need to. You don't need to follow anybody. But it's still a free country. Right?