Fear paralyses and forecloses. Fear isolates. Fear is bleak lonliness.When commentators talk about “denialism” in Trump’s presidency, they tend to mean denial that climate change is real and human-caused. But Trumpian denialism can stand for something much broader: a refusal to see the facts that tie people together so powerfully and inconveniently. These things include the history of American inequality, the perennial presence in our natural life of migration and undocumented labor, the decline today of relative American power. You could distill it by saying that denialism is the ethos that refuses to see how the world is deeply plural at every scale, how it draws people inexorably into uncertainty and potential conflict, how it puts us at odds.
The denial comes not because the denialist cannot see this, but because he does see it, not because he doesn’t believe others are there, but because he feels their presence so acutely, fears they will make claims on him, fears they will get power over him and take what he has. ...
What a bleak prospect. Fear is an empty road to nowhere. We have no choice but to discover courage and to go forward together.We are as a culture moving on to a future with more people and more voices and more possibilities. Some people are being left behind, not because the future is intolerant of them but because they are intolerant of this future.
I so agree with you about denialism. I have really felt fear lately and also a disheartening feeling that there's not much I or anyone can do but vote and be proactive and not stay ignorant or apathetic. But I see so many people doing just that.
ReplyDeleteI read somewhere that it's trump's strategy to wear his opponents down by everyday craziness and outlandish behavior that is not vigorously reputed. I get weary from it but mostly I get so weary and disheartened by the fact that he has so many supporters. I live in the South and I'm visiting friends still in the South and I see and hear this everyday... cult approval, racism and extreme religious views. I feel surrounded by small narrowed minded evil people. Just having a bad day, I guess.
Oh what is going to become of America with this sickness that has invaded it!