Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

. . . the fact that the stuff people think up to do to each other . . . 

— Lucy Ellmann / Ducks, Newburyport 

Hitler looked ahead to the next Reichstag elections with equally fierce determination in his effort to destroy democracy through democratic process. 

— Timothy W. Ryback / Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power

I don’t want to forgive anyone anymore.
When I find ugliness, I don’t want to excuse it. I want to look it in the eye and talk about it.

— Maru Ayase / The Forest Brims Over

. . . the fact that “existential” is another one that nobody understands anymore, the fact that they all seem to think it just means you exist, the fact that they use it to mean something’s sustainable or something, nothing to do with Sartre and feeling alienated and drinking a lot of wine at Café Flore, ecology, but what do I know, the fact that I don’t know anything about French philosophy for a start, the fact that that stuff goes right over my head, in one ear and out the other, shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, the fact that people used to bring live animals on ocean voyages, and slaughter them along the way for food, the fact that maybe they still do, the fact that the poor animal must think he’s going on a trip somewhere, “Not so fast, Goldberg!”, the fact that Gillian had her own existential crisis the other night, crying into her pillow, the fact that when I asked her what was up, she said she was worried about the meaning of life, the meaning of life, the fact that I just didn’t know what to say, the fact that you can’t tell a little kid that it’s quite possible life has no meaning, the fact that what kid wants to hear that, the fact that it might push her too far and turn her into a Moonie or something, the fact that everybody means something different anyway when they talk about “the meaning of life,” the fact that for some it’s goodness or something, and other people think ice cream and popcorn and soap operas give their lives meaning . . . 

— Lucy Ellmann / Ducks, Newburyport 

The impulse is often to stress what divides rather than what unites, what Sigmund Freud called ‘the narcissism of small differences.’ This is  most obviously so with Basque and Catalan nationalists, but it applies more widely in Spain today. The country risks becoming a kingdom of taifas, Felipe González often warned, referring to the mosaic of small warlord states that emerged in Muslim Spain following the collapse of the Ummayad caliphate in 1009. This fissiparous tendency ignores the many things that all Spaniards have in common, as women or men, parents and children, workers, professionals, consumers, ecologists, cyclists, football fans and basketball players, eaters of tortillas, tomatoes, squid, fish or steaks. And the focus on the local and regional has come at the cost of Spain’s national and international interests.

— Michael Reid / Spain

Cynicism turned out to be one of totalitarianism’s most fatal characteristics and may yet become one of its most enduring legacies. The men who administered Hitler’s and Stalin’s policies did not necessarily believe in racism or socialism, Jewish conspiracies or class enemies, any more than many of the GOP believed that Donald Trump won the 2020 election or the Russian high command thought that the Jewish-Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was a Nazi. But they did-and do all believe in one thing: human omnipotence and, perhaps most especially, although Arendt does not make the connection, male omnipotence. Their moral cynicism, their belief that everything is permitted, rests on the solid conviction that everything is possible, she concluded (OT 507). And it was. 

— Lyndsey Stonebridge / We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience

Though, which would be better? To have a hard life but know your children will have a happier, more stable, more prosperous life than you have? Or to have a good life, with physical comforts, material wealth, state-provided healthcare, a fulfilling career, but to live it expecting that things will get worse for your children, and your children’s children, and to know that your generation had the power to change things but didn’t?

— Rebecca Priestly / End Times

What I’m Listening To:

Julie, wish I could tell you what you want
Well, there’s something on your plate
You wished it was more than you could take
We have so many mistakes to make
What do you want from them?
To have the same dream three times a week
Fevers too big for you to keep
We have so many mistakes to make
Mistakes to make with you

— Horsegirl / “Julie”