The success of anti-democratic authoritarianism depends on our exhaustion.
As I’ve mentioned several times before, optimism and hope are not at all the same things. As the late Rabbi Sacks reminded us: “Optimism is the belief that things are going to get better. Hope is the belief that we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope is an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it does need courage to hope.”
I am delighted to see this in print. Charlie is once again on point. And the side which will prevail will be the one which is able to marshal the energy to keep on struggling - energy born of faith and hope.
The crackpots and grifters are relying on bizarre conspiracy theories (e.g. the Q-Anon series, the Big Lie) to generate energy and hope. I would think that the complete vacuousness of these sources will make them unstable foundations. On the other hand, hope born of conviction and a willingness to sacrifice are very powerful tools, as they have proven over and over throughout history.
I think that we are rapidly approaching a breaking point. There is a pregnancy in the air - I have sensed it myself and heard this in the past 1-2 weeks from friends as diverse as a professor of history who has anarchist sympathies to a devout Evangelical who served in the Army, ANG & Army Reserve for years and made multiple deployments to Iraq & Afghanistan to two nurses that are on the frontlines of the health crisis caused by the pandemic.
We are on the cusp of something new, and now is the time to dig deep and come through. We can do it - we have been through a lot in the past two and a half centuries, and coming together to follow our better angels at the last minute is one of our signature moves. It just take the faith, courage, and integrity of a Washington, a Lincoln, or a Martin Luther King, Jr.
But this is where we have to make a choice.
The success of anti-democratic authoritarianism depends on our exhaustion.
As I’ve mentioned several times before, optimism and hope are not at all the same things. As the late Rabbi Sacks reminded us: “Optimism is the belief that things are going to get better. Hope is the belief that we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope is an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it does need courage to hope.”
I am delighted to see this in print. Charlie is once again on point. And the side which will prevail will be the one which is able to marshal the energy to keep on struggling - energy born of faith and hope.
The crackpots and grifters are relying on bizarre conspiracy theories (e.g. the Q-Anon series, the Big Lie) to generate energy and hope. I would think that the complete vacuousness of these sources will make them unstable foundations. On the other hand, hope born of conviction and a willingness to sacrifice are very powerful tools, as they have proven over and over throughout history.
I think that we are rapidly approaching a breaking point. There is a pregnancy in the air - I have sensed it myself and heard this in the past 1-2 weeks from friends as diverse as a professor of history who has anarchist sympathies to a devout Evangelical who served in the Army, ANG & Army Reserve for years and made multiple deployments to Iraq & Afghanistan to two nurses that are on the frontlines of the health crisis caused by the pandemic.
We are on the cusp of something new, and now is the time to dig deep and come through. We can do it - we have been through a lot in the past two and a half centuries, and coming together to follow our better angels at the last minute is one of our signature moves. It just take the faith, courage, and integrity of a Washington, a Lincoln, or a Martin Luther King, Jr.