Wised up that
there is no hope.
[M]uch more widespread among the readers who shared their thoughts [was ...] in most cases [...] not tied to any personal experience but an impression of the society or world at large. Put simply, a lot of readers told me that 2014 was the year they began to or finally did lose hope.
I mentioned yesterday that since my friends and professional acquaintances are disproportionately Democrats maybe the party's November drubbing played a role. That clearly had some effect. But there was something much more general.
Again and again, people shared a sense that things they thought were fixed or getting better were actually not getting better. And many readers shared a pessimism that they would not ever get better.
If people haven't learned by now they never will. And they haven't, have they? Never underestimate the bestial fear, ignorance & stupidity of the species, either.
With pessimism about race relations or the economy, you might expect a sense of discontent married to a push toward activism. But the tone of many emails was a sense not only of pessimism but readers who felt they had been naive in their earlier optimism.
Case in point: Optimism. There is neither orthography nor punctuation to express adequately my disgust w/ & disdain for cheerful ninnies, but I'll give it a shot: WHAT IS WRONG W/ ALL OF YOU, AND WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG TO WISE UP TO THE GRIM REALITY OF THE LONG RUN??
3 comments:
hah. some of us recognize that there is still the offertunity to create things that make other people's
lives better. I mean, look at the pleasure you get from music thatr was made by people who are now part of the post-living community....
MBouffant, if there's anyone I'd expect to comment first about my post on Al Martinez, it would be you. Thanks. he was a great guy.
Heh. I was one of the responders - I regularly email with Josh. And it appears I was part of the mainstream, 'cause here's what I wrote:
It's two questions. For me personally, no, it was pretty good. After my devastating 2+ year unemployment, going completely broke, clinical depression and all that stuff in 2010-2012 I spent the whole year still gainfully employed, and in a VERY hot industry space (Enterprise Network Security). My health was good, my family and friends all did fine - in general I'd say 2014 was a pretty good year.
But that was overshadowed in many ways events in the US and around the world. It really seems like this was the year that we had to confront so much social and economic injustice, inequality, gun violence, police as occupiers, government surveillance, torture with impunity, bank fraud with impunity, insanely horrific bloodletting and oppression across three continents - it's as if it was the year when we had to stop kidding ourselves about the nature of our people, our government, our system, our institutions, our species. It's like looking around at the end of childhood and saying "good god, what now?"
The weird thing is then transitioning into some kind of optimism for 2015. With what we've been forced to learn - and admit to ourselves - about our world, it's hard to offer a coherent case that 2015 will be better.
mikey
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