Plague Journal, Life Goes On
Jesus is not coming back!
Is that statement ironic, troubling, laugh-out-loud funny, or simply nonsensical? It depends entirely upon the reader. What do you bring to those words arranged in syntax? What mental image forms, involuntarily? Do you experience a strong emotional response: relief, dread… The meaning is involuntary after all, the effect of upbringing, of the social circle of which you’ve been a member.
Today is Saturday, the terminus of another week, and the first day of May. I captured this picture, the moon partially shrouded by clouds. A stiff chill wind is gusting. The ground is speckled with a flurry of petals from apple trees. Life goes on. That is good.
Yesterday, I embraced an item on my “to do” list, cleaning our shower in the downstairs bathroom. What would otherwise be an unpleasant task, was transformed on account of a podcast by Stephen West, Philosophize This. I selected a 30 minute lecture on the work of Hannah Arendt, I worked at my task almost entirely by reflex, my mind engaged by the deft story telling about a female intellectual. Arendt worked to understand what possessed the German people to “throw in” with Hitler, igniting a world war. Upwards of six million individuals, Jewish Europeans, were transported to the extermination camps. Arendt’s work is transparently relevant to our situation today. Authoritarian regimes are ascendant around the world. Authoritarian regimes always require a scapegoat, that is designated “outsiders” to blame for their failed promises, their ineptitude. That hasn’t changed.
If you’d like to listen to the podcast on Hannah Arendt, CLICK HERE.
Some quotes by Hannah Arendt:
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
― The Life of the Mind
“Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.”
―
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”
― The Origins of Totalitarianism
2 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Life Goes On”
In the work of many philosophers and scientific researchers, including Hannah Arendt, it is extremely clear that falling under the sway of an authoritarian is rather simple and has been a direction chosen by populations for as long as government has existed. The question that comes back to my mind over and over is not about whether this trend will continue, but why. What is it about the human mind that willingly buys into fiction and converts it into a subjection version of truth? Why do we drift towards allowing others to dictate our lives? Would we prefer not to think or to make decisions? Is this the tribal imperative that we watch play out so often in our culture? I wish I had an answer.
In the abstract this is an interesting question. Yet, no mere abstraction for Arendt and others who survived the immolation that resulted from Hitlers rise and fall in Europe. Arendt’s work has implication for liberal democratic societies that are also capitalist. Capitalism does not provide a context for approach to self fulfillment. Capitalism requires everyone to accede to the competitive scrum. Inevitably this results in a few winners, and the rest are impoverished losers. Meanwhile we are deprived of the fulfillment that comes from thinking proactively and critically with our fellow citizens about how to improve our condition in the life that we share together. To be political is to be involved in the decision making of the polis. The Greeks knew this. For them this was the most important of activities for a male citizen. Individuals choosing not to be engaged in politics were designated “idiots.” Capitalism erodes this important aspect of human life, the political. We are left existentially empty, and the majority impoverished, as wealth begets more wealth.
Along comes a demogogue, a practiced con man, with hubris and machismo pitching a “might-makes-right” political philosophy wrapped in patriotism. This is our story.
We need a persuasive alternative to capitalism.